Bliss

1.  supreme happiness; utter joy or contentment

2.  heaven; paradise

How is it that when I finish something so silly (or simple or mundane) as writing a report, I can feel such intense feelings of bliss, levity, and accomplishment?  That's my day today.   Never mind the work I cast aside that is still glaring at me from the corner of my desk (or desktop as the case may be); right now, at this moment, I am beaming with a sense of accomplishment and this fleeting moment of joy I want to savor like its my last morsel of food for the next few months, like the sunflower in the desert that welcomes the brief and infrequent respite of summer rains and then beams blissfully in the last rays of the sun.

NOW

Electricity will be cut shortly casting us into the thick darkness.

The smell of fresh snow is floating down the mountains on a soft breeze.

Night time is the time of dogs ... frenzied barks break the silence, roaming near and then far.

Heart melts like dripping wax with the failure of personal composure.

The last nerve is on the razor's edge.

The Brain Pie is sliced too thin.

How long?

How long?

Can this go on?

How long?

The Brain Pie

I feel myself so divergent - scattered in a thousand mental and emotional directions these days, like ice crystals on my kitchen window. My motto these days is "the brain pie is getting sliced into smaller and smaller pieces". Enough people have heard the slogan so that now I can just say, "The Brain Pie!" while I indicate with my finger a slicing motion over my forehead, and it's clear what I mean and feel. Not exactly where I would like to be and I know that it's all in my hands. I take full responsibility for my hardcore positioning, my feverish moods, my derelict spirit. Oh that I don't explode before going home.

Tajik Tuy

Wedding dances
Originally uploaded by janski

Dancing at weddings is mandatory ... until you haven't got the strength to stand and you are sweating like a pig ... well, in Tajikistan, maybe I should use a different metaphor. This was such a strange shot with strange colors and it made us laugh so hard that it was worth keeping.

Spirited Riders

Exhilaration doesn't come close to describing the feeling of being on a powerful and charged horse that is ready for battle in the game of "booz kashi" - in the snow. There is something amazing about having your other team member be the animal you ride upon - who is as intent at playing the game and winning as you are. The oneness of mind between rider and stealth carrier is of another dimension.

lifting the heavy

this lil pup, miski (Quechua for 'sweet') has performed the service of joy. mom today said that having the little turbo-charged missile-with-legs is a good thing while going through dad's cancer ... she will 'lift the heavy'

Sedona

vortex-ville. if you believe. it IS.

i am still trying to decipher the journey, now that it's behind me. trying to comprehend the meaning, the essence, the form.

the word transformational comes to mind. that would apply to the last six to eight months, really. apical - that's the last four weeks: sedona, san luis obispo, long beach.

there was, in each instance, a heightened sense of awareness that all elements were at play and were crucial to the unfolding ... place, time, people. it was the organoleptics of life - the crunch, the mouthfeel, the texture, the taste - it was all there. it was ... organoleptogasmic.