Crop Cellars | Quincy, WA | October 2019
You drove for two hours without the ping of curiosity that makes these jaunts worthwhile. So you did “seeing” exercises: Sought contrast (light or dark), pursued patterns (repetition or configuration) and cleared your mind of expectations. You relaxed into yin, became receptive. When the tug of engagement at last arrived, it came (as always) out of the blue. A smudge against the sky emerged as a (more…)
Roasted Veggies | East Wenatchee, WA | October 2019
One of cooking’s many delights is the near-magical transformation of the food itself. It could be the closest we come to alchemy and its search for elixirs to enrich and extend human life. For example, roasting caramelizes the sugars in plant fibers to sweeten even the most bitter vegetables (broccoli, for instance). Sweet things taste good, so we eat more of them. And eating more veggies is a rewarding nutritional goal. In photo, the ingredients for salsa — peppers, garlic, onions, tomatoes — have been (more…)
Bug Buffet | Spokane, WA | September 2019
Ravens are clever rascals. They think beyond instinct and routine to see opportunities missed by feathered friends. From high above, they use their ample shadows to scare smaller birds away from scattered seed. They eat discarded fries warmed on hot asphalt before those tossed in cool grass. And last week, one voracious fellow feasted on spiders between slats in a stretch of city fence. He started at (more…)
Passageway | Spokane, WA | September 2019
Certain places today have the feel of timeworn whereabouts — as if they belonged to the distant past. Step into a quiet plaza, under a shaded portico or through a rustic passageway, and you can sometimes sense a shift in the solidity of the real, a difference in what is. It’s in the play of light, the flow of air, the smell of warming stone. What’s here has changed from what’s there. These wrinkles never occur at (more…)
Tree and Sky | Moses Lake, WA | September 2019
That old maple in your backyard might be making clouds, reports Popular Science magazine. Apparently, trees emit vapors that get cooked by cosmic rays (yes, from the void of space) that transform the woodsy emissions into aerosols, which are the seeds of cloud formation. Decades ago, a tree-loving friend reached the same conclusion after (more…)
Petal | East Wenatchee, WA | September 2019
Flora #3 | Back in fifth grade, the first guy at our school to ever own an electric guitar became very popular. For two days I followed him around because, well, only rock stars had electric guitars. But then Katherine, the most beautiful and mature girl in our class, stopped me at the water fountain. She nodded at Guitar Guy, leaned-in close and whispered, “He’s a real jerk. Find a better friend.” Good advice. Years later I realized that Katherine’s comment provoked a dramatic shift in how I (more…)
Branch and Stem | East Wenatchee, WA | September 2019
Flora #2 | I don’t know how we connect, but we do. Maybe we’re all suspended in an emulsion — God, Tao, Mystery, Spirit or Love — that promotes contact. Maybe each of us is an expression of the force that spins galaxies and turns seeds into string beans. Or maybe it’s an electromagnetic link — brainwaves enmeshed, electrical fields entwined, auras reaching for auras. What I know is that (more…)
Succulent | Conway, AR | September 2019
Flora #1 | A young woman at a nearby table talked on her phone as if I couldn’t hear her. “Oh my God, there’s this old guy, like, he’s right here, right in front of me, taking pictures of a stupid houseplant. Can you, like, imagine? It’s just sad.” I get that a lot. People are mostly amused, but sometimes uncomfortable, with me photographing chipped toenail polish, an outhouse door, or leaves inside a bank or restaurant. It seems, well, unseemly to focus on that which we intentionally, collectively ignore. French fries spilled on a (more…)
Peaks | Washington Pass, WA | September 2019
Last week I joined two bus loads of German tourists to watch in reverence as sunbeams played across the face of the Liberty Bell Group. (That’s Liberty Bell Mountain on the right, Early Winters Spires on the left.) It’s not easy to muffle 120 chittering travelers — no phones, no gossip, no tour guide lecture — but this geologic marvel did just that. We stood silently enough to hear (more…)
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