(April, 2012) Across from Claremont Hotel - early Sunday morning

Sun about to rise over the ridge.
(My phone camera does not do justice.)
Sitting on a bench.
Happy to be alive and healthy this early morning.

Eucalyptus Grove

There's a eucalyptus grove on the UC Berkeley campus. I take students there on a march across the campus. Best to visit that Eucalyptus grove in the late afternoon. While we dialogue on truth and justice and the environment, the sun slowly sets down. The day's natural cycle now apparent - light streaming through the trees.  

How can students "know" the earth if they are always encased in technology's air conditioned classrooms with florescent lights.
   
Studying our environment only in a classroom is an abstraction. Existential honesty requires walking out of the classroom! Again, let us walk outside like the ancients and the aborigines. Feeling earth below, the sky above, and body breathing-moving. Feeling life all around and within.
  
A place is not “just a place” - it is a constant, a ground, a marker in spacetime – around which time dances as events and stories.
   
I knew this grove when it was twice as large. I saw half of it taken to develop a new life sciences building. It was quiet place back in the 1970's – while now in 2010's the sound of air conditioning units competes with song birds. Returning again and again to this eucalyptus grove defines memories and change.   

Berkeley Farmers' Market (Published May 30th 2012)

Walked into the Tuesday Berkeley Farmers' Market. The day was wonderful. The atmosphere peaceful and healthy. Talked with farmers and musicians. So real. So good. 

Flowers and Stones

Beyond Compartments

Slow Walking

While Walking Around

New American OccuPie 1

Clyde Leland's brilliant musical social political commentary inspired by the original Occupy Movement. Clyde's "New American OccupPie 1" transcends the Occupy Movement, deserving a place within mainstream social-political-entertainment culture. This is music and song for sparking dialogue among friends and critics.

Confessions of an autodidact

I'm an autodidact - someone who is self taught. Yes, I have university degrees; but, always I loved learning what I'm attracted to at any one moment. And I love all knowledge. There's no school that will give me a degree in universal knowledge. Most of the music, poetry, philosophy, science, art, technology, business, and more -- have all been learned by rambling reading, asking questions of others, and self-paced practice. I jump from book to article to Wikipedia as the mind seeks to fill in details on a subject. What I am passionate about, I learn with no effort. What's most fun is to follow chains of association between topics, issues, and fields of study. All is really one and interconnected. Children learn best when they play. If you're not having fun you're not learning.

Spring in early February

Between generous Winter rain and global warming - it's early Spring.

Cappuccino Foam Art by Sean Coutts

One early mid-September morning, I stopped at Peet's Coffee & Tea, next to the Clairmont Hotel in Berkeley. On the counter, I saw a true cappuccino foam work of art by Sean Coutts. This photo taken on my BlackBerry phone.

Tree Moon Window

Tree, moon, and branches.
A window to the
moon among the leaves.

taken with phone camera. 6:30am. sept 6th.

Berkeley Bowl

There I was, after a long period of work,
just having fun walking around
Berkeley Bowl. Seeing so many people
buying vegetables and fruit.
Such a miracle!

Tuesday morning at Peet's

Light of consciousness,
an angelic web
holding all with love.

I found my Self
at dawn's light
while awakening.
Soon as I felt it
all the way
down to my feet;
it slipped away

Self is nothing
Not-self is everything
Find the Nothing
Find the Self.
That's all.

Victory Garden

Walking by a vacant lot (in front of Evans Hall) on a late rainy afternoon at the UC Berkeley campus; surprised and pleased to find a student initiated victory garden - to grow food for the campus community. Yes, we can change the world one plot of earth at time.

Lecture hall

105 Stanley Hall - a wonderful, new, fresh lecture hall on campus. During the past eight years, I used large lecture halls for teaching "Introduction to Computers"; now it's meditation.

More Obama pumpkins

Two more mobile pictures of Obama pumpkins. I'm amazed by all the art this campaign has produced!

Obama pumpkin carving

An Obama Halloween pumpkin in Berkeley.
The outline of the pumpkin itself does not show in
mobile phone photo.

I've got to wonder

I've got to wonder...
With everything changing so
fast - it's a challenge to
have hope.

If you can't count
on the dollar, the banks,
the schools, the presidents,
your future old age retirement,
the air you breathe, your job ---

What do you turn to?
Become like
Socrates.
Ask lots of questions.

Naked Ladies

A sighting of "naked ladies" upon my morning walk.

Whenever I see these naked lady flowers, it means
that Fall is coming; that it's almost time to be
teaching my university classes on meditation,
nonviolence, technology and human values, and
computers.