Female Phainopepla In Sabino Canyon — Image by kenne
―
Golden Columbine Wildflower In The Santa Catalina Mountains — Image by kenne
“We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own.
For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.”
Tumacácori National Historical Park — Images by kenne (Click On Any Image To See Slide Show.)
– Alan Watts
Oak Tree Gall — Image by kenne
— Alan W. Watts
Nature’s Wood Art Found On Mt. Lemmon — Photo-Artistry by kenne
— Alan Watts
Cactus Blossom — Photo-Artistry by kenne
— Alan Watts
A Texas Bar, Byran, Texas, 2001 — Photo-Artistry by kenne
— Alan Watts
Self-portrait (Photo-Artistry)
I’m now in my 16th year of retirement. Still, like a lot of retired people, I stay very busy, working as a volunteer naturalist in Sabino Canyon, where we teach children about nature, leading nature walks and hikes on the many trails in Sabino Canyon. When I’m not volunteering, I spend my time doing creative things, usually after morning conditioning activities.
Over the years, I have created an extensive iTunes library of music and recorded poetry and psychology. This morning while walking in the neighborhood, I had my iTunes library on shuffle, and two of my non-music recordings of authors came on; Charles Bukowski, “Something for the Touts, the Nuns, the Grocery Clerks and You” and Alan Watts lecture titled “Insides and Outsides.” It was spiritual.
Alan Watts — Insides and Outsides (audio)
Charles Bukowski Video
We have everything, and we have nothing
Some do it well enough for a while and then give way
Fame gets them or disgust or age or lack of proper diet or ink across the eyes or children in college
Or new cars or broken backs while skiing in Switzerland
Or new politics or new wives
Or just natural change and decay —
The man you knew yesterday hooking for ten rounds or drinking for three days and three nights by the Sawtooth mountains now
just something under a sheet or a cross, or a stone, or under an easy delusion
Or packing a bible or a golf bag or a briefcase
How they go, how they go!
All the ones you thought would never go
Days like this, like your day today
Maybe the rain on the window trying to get through to you
What do you see today?
What is it? Where are you?
The best days are sometimes the first, sometimes the middle, and even sometimes the last.
The vacant lots are not bad
Churches in Europe on postcards are not bad?
People in wax museums frozen into their best sterility are not bad?
Horrible, but not bad?
The cannons, think of the cannon
And toast for breakfast and coffee hot enough to know your tongue is still there
Three geraniums outside a window, trying to be red and trying to be pink and trying to be geraniums
No wonder sometimes the women cry
No wonder the mules don’t wanna go up the hill.
One more good day, a little bit of it
Enough and not enough
Arcs and pilgrims, oranges, gutters, ferns, antibodies, boxes of
tissue paper
In the most decent sometimes sun
There is the softsmoke feeling from urns
And the canned sound of old battleplanes
And if you go inside and run your finger along the window ledge, you’ll find dirt, maybe even earth
And if you look out the window, there will be the day
And as you get older you’ll keep looking, keep looking
Sucking your tongue in a little
Ah, ah, no, no, maybe
We have everything, and we have nothing.
— Charles Bukowski
Balanced Rock, Catalina Highway, Santa Catalina Mountains — Image by kenne
— Alan Watts
Thistle and Bee — Photo-Artistry by kenne
— Alan W. Watts
Mushrooms on Mt. Lemmon — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Where do I begin and end in space?
I have relations to the sun and air,
which are just as vital
parts of my existence as my heart.
— Alan W. Watts
Bee On Mexican Bird of Paradise — Photo-Artistry
— Alan W. Watts
Green Mountain Vista, Santa Catalina Mountains — Image by kenne
— kenne
Santa Catalina Mountains Panorama Views from the Box Camp Trail (June 9, 2017) — Image by kenne
“Morning Walk” — Image by kenne
— Alan Watts
Becoming is Superior to Being 