22.7.08
21.7.08
Cafe' Monday
This purple latte stand is in downtown Everett, 10 minutes from me.
We used to have some real outrageous stands around, but little by little they have been replaced with sedate ordinary stands. What a shame.
Where is the 'art' in sedate?
But this one has at least color going for it!
If you'd like to join cafe Monday, post some coffee item on your blog and comment here.
Monday is one of those days you need your coffee!
20.7.08
Flowers are nice to photograph, these were on Whidbey Island...
This lily is actually a wild flower around here, but I found it at a nursery on Whidbey Island.
I finally found one to buy, I'll have to check the name,
they are beautiful, exotic and take over, perfect!
This is a Japanese Anemone I believe
This Grape Vine was over an arbor on Whidbey,
it almost didn't look real.
I opted for a shot through the sun to get a lit up look of the leaves.
Below is my pink/yellow rose,
pretty and fragrant too.
These are 2 tunnels on Whidbey at a nursery.
I always thought it would be nice to make such a tunnel..
If you click, it'll be like you're standing inside the tunnel..
I don't know what this last one is, but isn't it beautiful?
My kids are gathered in Austin this weekend.
I am hoping they'll call so I can talk to everyone there since I 'm not there.
Jerusalem Hills Blog
17.7.08
Crossing Mukilteo Ferry
One of my all time favorite poems is Crossing Brooklyn Ferry by Whitman.
I feel a sense of being with him as he speaks of the crossing, and includes people from the past and future. Of course the bridge replaced the ferry. What a great community was lost in that process. I yearn for the old way of people journeying together daily to make their crossing, seeing familiar faces.
Seems we keep getting further away from socialization in the US as we create more and more technology and abstract ways of meeting.
When I was a child growing up near Pittsburgh, we had people in our house all day everyday, eating Grandma's homemade bread, donuts, pies, cakes, etc, drinking coffee. It was a beautiful life, full of flowers and friendships and people. Grandma always had room for one more, and food , she always said, multiplied to feed another mouth.
It seems now people think the earth has flattened out again, and maybe don't need the physical observances to connect, but I am certain nothing is further from the truth. Just as the earth was never flat, people need a place that is social, and tolerant, encourages self expression, provides room to expand, and is stimulating, in order to develop themselves and contribute their unique expression to culture.
Crossing Mukilteo Ferry is a far cry from Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, I'm sure. It may, however be my closest experience.
Here are a few verses of Whitman's poem, and a link to finish it off..
FLOOD-TIDE below me! I watch you face to face;
Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face to face.
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose;
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose. 5
2
The impalpable sustenance of me from all things, at all hours of the day;
The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme—myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated, yet part of the scheme:
The similitudes of the past, and those of the future;
The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings—on the walk in the street, and the passage over the river;
The current rushing so swiftly, and swimming with me far away; 10
The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them;
The certainty of others—the life, love, sight, hearing of others.
Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore;
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide;
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east; 15
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high;
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, the falling back to the sea of the ebb-tide.
3
It avails not, neither time or place—distance avails not; 20
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence;
I project myself—also I return—I am with you, and know how it is.
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d; 25
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the thick-stem’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.
read the rest here:
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
"Verdant Whidbey Island lies at the extreme north end of Washington's island-strewn Puget Sound, forming the eastern boundary of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. To the east rise the glacier-clad peaks of the North Cascades, to the north and south stretch miles of deep water, islands, and coves. Silhouetted against the southwestern sky, the Olympic Mountains form a dramatic backdrop for the island's rural setting. In the central portion of Whidbey Island is Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve. Its boundaries encompass broad fertile prairies, high seaside bluffs, rolling woodlands, shallow brackish lakes, and a deep protected cove." More at Things to Do at Whidbey Island
I feel a sense of being with him as he speaks of the crossing, and includes people from the past and future. Of course the bridge replaced the ferry. What a great community was lost in that process. I yearn for the old way of people journeying together daily to make their crossing, seeing familiar faces.
Seems we keep getting further away from socialization in the US as we create more and more technology and abstract ways of meeting.
When I was a child growing up near Pittsburgh, we had people in our house all day everyday, eating Grandma's homemade bread, donuts, pies, cakes, etc, drinking coffee. It was a beautiful life, full of flowers and friendships and people. Grandma always had room for one more, and food , she always said, multiplied to feed another mouth.
It seems now people think the earth has flattened out again, and maybe don't need the physical observances to connect, but I am certain nothing is further from the truth. Just as the earth was never flat, people need a place that is social, and tolerant, encourages self expression, provides room to expand, and is stimulating, in order to develop themselves and contribute their unique expression to culture.
Crossing Mukilteo Ferry is a far cry from Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, I'm sure. It may, however be my closest experience.
Here are a few verses of Whitman's poem, and a link to finish it off..
FLOOD-TIDE below me! I watch you face to face;
Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face to face.
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose;
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose. 5
2
The impalpable sustenance of me from all things, at all hours of the day;
The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme—myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated, yet part of the scheme:
The similitudes of the past, and those of the future;
The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings—on the walk in the street, and the passage over the river;
The current rushing so swiftly, and swimming with me far away; 10
The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them;
The certainty of others—the life, love, sight, hearing of others.
Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore;
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide;
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east; 15
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high;
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, the falling back to the sea of the ebb-tide.
3
It avails not, neither time or place—distance avails not; 20
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence;
I project myself—also I return—I am with you, and know how it is.
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d; 25
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the thick-stem’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.
read the rest here:
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Washington State has the largest Ferry System in the US....Washington State Ferries Site
We have Ferries to take us to islands like Lummi, Bainbridge, Port Townsend, Victoria BC, Whidbey (the second largest Island in The US) to Orcas and San Juan Islands, and also to Alaska on the inside passage..
We have Ferries to take us to islands like Lummi, Bainbridge, Port Townsend, Victoria BC, Whidbey (the second largest Island in The US) to Orcas and San Juan Islands, and also to Alaska on the inside passage..
'Ebey's Landing from the Top of The Hill Whale Watching is one activity on Whidbey you might like to entertain..
""Orcas are fascinating to me because they are so family oriented like humans. Their bonds and social structure are so strong and there is a real emotional connection between individuals.
"Most people, if they look a cetacean (marine mammals such as whales, porpoises and dolphins) in the eye, come away from the experience looking at the world differently. It is not like a dog peering at you. It is another creature looking at you and trying to figure you out," said Hawks-Johnson.
Her first such encounter came in 1991 near Australia's Great Barrier Reef with a bottlenose dolphin. "I was on a Zodiac and a dolphin popped its head up just one or two feet away and looked right in my eyes for what seemed like 30 seconds. Then it went down. There was inquisitiveness seeking to find out 'who are you?'" she said.
"Being with the whales day after day and watching them interact is so unbelievably amazing. I can't adequately explain the experience in words. Regardless of our research findings, if we want these 78 animals to survive, all of us in the greater Puget Sound area have to look at what we are doing in our daily life that may be affecting the whales. If not, a conservative estimate is that they will be gone in 33 to 121 years.""
Ebey's Landing on Whidbey Island
Mt Baker in background...
MT Baker Geologic and Eruptive History
Mount Baker is an isolated stratovolcano (3,285 meters; 10,778 feet) an ice-clad volcano in the North Cascades of Washington State about 50 kilometers (31 miles) due east of the city of Bellingham. After Mount Rainier, it is the most heavily glaciated of the Cascade volcanoes.
Photo Gallery including Northern Lights, here
MT Baker Geologic and Eruptive History
Mount Baker is an isolated stratovolcano (3,285 meters; 10,778 feet) an ice-clad volcano in the North Cascades of Washington State about 50 kilometers (31 miles) due east of the city of Bellingham. After Mount Rainier, it is the most heavily glaciated of the Cascade volcanoes.
Photo Gallery including Northern Lights, here
Mt Baker Through Wild Flowers At Ebey's Landing
Snack Bar on Ferry
Seating Aboard The Ferry
More Seating, Rarely Used
1 Of 4 Car Decks
(usually full)
More seating, rarely used
Leaving Mukilteo
The Ferry
A Tug pulls Barges
The Ferry from Clinton Passes by...
"Verdant Whidbey Island lies at the extreme north end of Washington's island-strewn Puget Sound, forming the eastern boundary of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. To the east rise the glacier-clad peaks of the North Cascades, to the north and south stretch miles of deep water, islands, and coves. Silhouetted against the southwestern sky, the Olympic Mountains form a dramatic backdrop for the island's rural setting. In the central portion of Whidbey Island is Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve. Its boundaries encompass broad fertile prairies, high seaside bluffs, rolling woodlands, shallow brackish lakes, and a deep protected cove." More at Things to Do at Whidbey Island
15.7.08
Mukilteo Totem..nearby woods and a beautiful dogwood
We have an eagles nest nearby just above Japanese Gulch, I saw the parents sitting in another tree looking towards the nest the other day. The eaglet is getting ready to try its wings I think. I hope to get a shot of the eagles roosting as they were then, side by side with a real camera.
By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Near the Mukilteo-Everett border is a forested ravine known as Japanese Gulch. It was used after the turn of the century for housing Japanese immigrants and their families who came to Mukilteo to work in the mill.
Mas Odoi grew up in the gulch and has fond memories of the woods, creek and shoreline where he and his friends would play and picnic. The families raised vegetables, fished and stocked trout ponds.
By the 1920s, about 150 people of Japanese descent lived in Mukilteo along with about 220 whites. Both races got along well, Odoi recalls.
He says his father, who arrived in about 1904, worked in the mill as a "tallyman," who kept count of the various grades of lumber as they were processed.
Odoi says that one of the first Japanese children born in Mukilteo was George Tokuda, father of state Rep. Kip Tokuda, a Democrat representing a string of neighborhoods east of downtown Seattle.
When the Great Depression hit and the mill closed, most of the Japanese-American families left Mukilteo, only to return years later as tourists, Odoi says.
His own family moved to the Long Beach Peninsula where his father went to work at an oyster farm.
Beverly "Bevo" Dudder Ellis grew up on the edge of Japanese Gulch in a log home that is still standing. She remembers playing with the Japanese-American children in the gulch and along the shoreline.
"We all learned to row early," she recalls. "There weren't any motors and there wasn't any gas, and even if there was no one could have afforded it."
Ellis' father also worked in the mill and later, when electricity came to town, opened a bakery.
"No one used to lock their door. Everybody knew each other and worked together," she says.
forum on Japanese Gulch 2004
Save Our Gulch
Our Mission:
Preserve Japanese Gulch as a natural and undeveloped area for the benefit of current and future generations of people and wildlife.
We need your help.
Michelle, you'll appreciate this endeavor..
Silhouette of the Totem at Sunset
Japanese Gulch
A walk day before yesterday through the woods, Japanese Gulch, a block away and into Mukilteo down to the beach yielded these 5 photos...taken at dusk with my phone... I had to lighten them to make them visible, so I think some interesting.
Japanese settlers played key role in town's history
By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Near the Mukilteo-Everett border is a forested ravine known as Japanese Gulch. It was used after the turn of the century for housing Japanese immigrants and their families who came to Mukilteo to work in the mill.
Mas Odoi grew up in the gulch and has fond memories of the woods, creek and shoreline where he and his friends would play and picnic. The families raised vegetables, fished and stocked trout ponds.
By the 1920s, about 150 people of Japanese descent lived in Mukilteo along with about 220 whites. Both races got along well, Odoi recalls.
He says his father, who arrived in about 1904, worked in the mill as a "tallyman," who kept count of the various grades of lumber as they were processed.
Odoi says that one of the first Japanese children born in Mukilteo was George Tokuda, father of state Rep. Kip Tokuda, a Democrat representing a string of neighborhoods east of downtown Seattle.
When the Great Depression hit and the mill closed, most of the Japanese-American families left Mukilteo, only to return years later as tourists, Odoi says.
His own family moved to the Long Beach Peninsula where his father went to work at an oyster farm.
Beverly "Bevo" Dudder Ellis grew up on the edge of Japanese Gulch in a log home that is still standing. She remembers playing with the Japanese-American children in the gulch and along the shoreline.
"We all learned to row early," she recalls. "There weren't any motors and there wasn't any gas, and even if there was no one could have afforded it."
Ellis' father also worked in the mill and later, when electricity came to town, opened a bakery.
"No one used to lock their door. Everybody knew each other and worked together," she says.
forum on Japanese Gulch 2004
Save Our Gulch
Our Mission:
Preserve Japanese Gulch as a natural and undeveloped area for the benefit of current and future generations of people and wildlife.
We need your help.
Michelle, you'll appreciate this endeavor..
I don't know what this plant is, but it was vibrant red. I had to lighten al of these because they were taken in the dark.
The Totem
I live in this area near The Gulch
Click star
13.7.08
Cafe' Monday
A local Latte stand.
In our area we have latte stands on almost every street corner...here's a clever amazing one near Arlington NW of me about an hour..if i had one, I think I'd like to have built this one for everyone's enjoyment.
If you have a shot for cafe' monday post a comment here, and a photo on your blog.
11.7.08
Destination Snohomish, 20 minutes
Snohomish and I have history.
For now it is a place where I was once very in love and happy, and lived a life in a large shared home on a farm with Daisy and 3 others.
5 in all.
I had always been interested in communal living, maybe because I was raised in an extended family myself.
Anyway, I was hot to try this new lifestyle which was unusual then in most parts of the country, but common here abouts.
In all we lived in 5 shared housing situations.
I can go into that more later, but for now;
This is where I go to get my massages for my bad neck and headaches.
Also my Doctors office is here, but she just moved..see...change always happens..
Also some memories.
Memories can make you sad as well as happy.
Funny how memories are, make you miss good times, sometimes painfully so, as children grow up and become completely different people from the little ones you were so closely entwined with, who change as they become independent.
Old loves, and friends, family, doctors...life is always in flux, even when it seems it never changes.
Cool interactive map, check this out for historic homes in the area
Impersonal History of Snohomish
Sky watch Friday, A piece of Snohomish Sky!
For more pieces of earthly skies, go to Sky watch Friday in my side bar, check out the skies,and maybe join in too!Wiggers world and Skywatch FridayAlso in my side bar everyday!
Is Washington Geeen or what?
This is the Snohomish River. Mish means , people.
Around here we have Skykomish, and several mish ending rivers and places, I can't remember them all right now.
I'll post more of Snohomish next week, small town where I lived for awhile, NE of Seattle.
Can you believe that blue sky? I can't!
For more pieces of earthly skies, go to Sky watch Friday in my side bar, check out the skies,and maybe join in too!
Is Washington Geeen or what?
This is the Snohomish River. Mish means , people.
Around here we have Skykomish, and several mish ending rivers and places, I can't remember them all right now.
I'll post more of Snohomish next week, small town where I lived for awhile, NE of Seattle.
Can you believe that blue sky? I can't!
Guruji Seattle Sangha Cruise 7/10/08..videos
Destination, Seattle
30 minutes if no traffic..that would be a rare day! Today it took me over 1.5 hours to arrive at the pier. I was afraid I would miss the boat, yet I thought I left in plenty of time.
After all, it was afternoon going South? But peeps were pouring into Seattle at 4 o'clock pm.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Art of Living Foundation Founder tonight in Seattle with Seattle Sangha on a cruise celebrating his appearance in Seattle tomorrow night to the public. Guruji has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his Work worldwide with the Art of Living Foundation. AOL is The largest not for profit organization (non denominational) in the world, and is at the scene in every country when help is needed in the event of a disaster. Also AOL is spreading worldwide as a non denominational support for people to learn how to live better lives. Aol has programs in prisons to help those people who have not been taught a skill to deal with their feelings, and so forth by using a meditation technique called Sudarshan Kriya Yoga...more information can be found at my blog entitled Ashtravaka Gita''.
Guruji is the sweetest man in the whole world. He is a love and a very knowledgeable person, illuminated. He is from the non dual tradition in India known as Advaita vedanta, begun near kerala India maybe as long as 4000 years ago.
I would say that most of our traditions have come from Vedanta in one form or another, even though it may have become watered down through the ages.
Just my point of view.
Tomorrow night we'll do meditation again and have question and answers ( Satsang), something it is easy to see Jesus also participated in during his time to teach, and take what we surrendered to himself.
If interested in AOL, I have posted the link above and it has schedules for classes, and a book store, and Guruji's books are incredible. Celebrating Silence is one of the few books anyone needs on the subject of how to live. And the video's of his Satsang of the Ashtravaka Gita is phenomenal, and well worth the watching, even at the price...
Ok, and not to mention some of the greatest friends I have ever made so quickly, these people are warm and just extraordinary human beings, I have a real bond with so many of these people, I see only at events, but think they do live in my heart for sure.
10.7.08
9.7.08
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