2010 Happy New Year

2010

Happy New Year!

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Preemptive Strike Against Iran

Tanya Photo, 2008

Preemptive Strike Against Iran?

It seems to me that some sort of preemptive strike against Iran is presently being seriously contemplated.

The American build-up of fairly mobile troops in Afghanistan—nearer to the country of Iran and more easily deployable to that country in case of a military emergency in the area—seems to me to be the most visible part of the possible future strike.

It is a pity that the leadership of Iran continues to more or less ignore the international community's attempt to deny it atomic weapons—as it continues to harass Israel with threats to destroy it completely by first attacking Tel Aviv with missiles—if I understand the rhetoric of the Iranian leadership as reported by the news media.

These dire threats by the leadership of Iran, mere saber-rattling as they may be, set the people of Israel—and the rest of the world's teeth on edge, since an atomic war against Israel would most likely ignite world war three—which, as has been said for years—no one would or could win.

In a very rare show of unified political purpose, Russia and China have joined the USA and other European and Asian nations in asking Iran for restraint.

If the leadership of Iran continues down their present path—I believe the international community will act against them with a preemptive strike.

I do not believe the present leadership of Iran will act in the direction of peace—but will continue in what seems to me to be their present suicidal direction.

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No Oil. No War

Tomasito photo, 2009

Peak oil?

I have to admit I laughed when I read in the newspaper that one of our generals complained that if there was no more oil--"We couldn't wage war."

I guess that is the up-side of the end of oil!

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Peak Oil

Highway to Nowhere. (Tomasito photo 2009)

I feel it is a safe prediction to say that the above photo of a bit of defunct highway is just a forerunner of many such images in the near future.

The sea of oil burned daily in commuting and running errands cannot continue forever.

Be as prepared as we can be for the Big Change coming.

Best wishes.


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Right to Work

Downtown LA. (Thomas photo 2009)

The Right to Work

We live in a country which celebrates several "rights" and "freedoms"--and that is good.

There is another item which I would also like to add to our list of "inalienable" rights: the right to work.

President Roosevelt was in favor of this idea long ago--but it is a notion that has not found a champion in many years.

It seems to me that a good government in the "world of today" would recognize that if a person has no paid work--that person cannot survive.

This is the simplest and most obvious economic fact.

And since there is no other entity to provide this stabilizing cash flow--our political system should make sure that everyone who wants to work could have a job which would pay well enough to live with some comfort.

In my opinion, the Right to Work is more basic to a composed, healthy and honest society than the right to medical care which is being argued today with such heat.

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Job Security

Cogs in the Big Machine. (Thomas photo 2009)

It seems to me that job security is as important as medical care.

I would like to see it argued with as much enthusiasm as is the current debate on medical care.

I think it should be possible for the government to offer paid work available for all Americans-- some simple, non technological and easy to learn work--with a wage high enough to allow for a comfortable, secure life.

This would take care of the homeless people and much of the stress and crime we experience now.

All solutions are temporary, of course, but the problems are too--and the problem of "no work" is one problem which has been around too long.

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Grand Evening

Evening on Grand Avenue, Escondido, CA (Tanya photo, 2009)

We were down on Grand Avenue last week to take in the opening of the Art Riot exhibition at the Municipal Gallery.

Though there are many empty storefronts on old Grand Avenue, the area is clean and neat as you can see--the weather now (mid-September) is perfect and the strolling is very fine.

The photo was taken about ten blocks from our hilltop apartment.

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Cousin Joe Departs

Mount Lassen. (Tanya photo 2008)

Cousin Joe Calvin Clayton Junior made his departure from his body recently.

If I remember the family history right--cousin Joe Calvin Junior, as we called him, was just about my age which is always a thought provoking coincidence--I think.

Our paths hadn't crossed in years, but I remember him vividly as a ten-year old kid living in easy walking distance of the tidal flats of mythical San Diego which, both flats and town, have vanished so very completely that even in my memory's imagination I can hardly recall them.

But ten-year-old Joe is always easy to remember.

He was loaded with charm-- with bushy blond hair and a pug nose and a sort of suntanned ten-year-old athletic build which I admired--and a very California Beach Kid grown up style--for example he called girl's breasts "Knockers" which I thought was VERY fast!

I was just an Albuquerque, New Mexico boy--years behind California Cousin Joe!

We spent some very good times together during summer vacations in those days!

Grandpa Clayton, Mom's dad, with some other adults, took Cousin Joe and my brother Joe and I with him on a great adventure to Northern California--we planned to spend a week at a real gold mine owned by a friend of Grandpa's somewhere in the northern mountains but that turned out to be a pretty dry and dusty place so we went on to Emerald Bay on Lake Tahoe and camped out there for a week.

Kid bliss!

Early one morning Brother Joe said we three kids could probably hike to the snow, which we had seen on the mountaintops as we arrived, and get back to the campground by lunch--so off we went.

There was a sort of a trail part of the way and when it ran out we continued cross country and uphill for a long time. Me, the least heroic of the three musketeers, started complaining that I was hungry and that we had walked quite enough, but brother Joe insisted that the snow couldn't be much further and cousin Joe agreed that it couldn't be much farther--and on and on we hiked.

We came to a beautiful little lake of delicious cold water and from there we could see the snow on a rocky slope on the far side of the lake and on up the mountain.

To go back after seeing the tantalizing snow patch far above us would simply not do--so we scrambled around the lake and struggled up the sharp rocks of the mountainside. Brother Joe (the young naturalist of the group) found some dark stones which contained garnet crystals, he said, which was a big thrill for him--and he explained to us how rare they were and how lucky we were to actually find them!

And we reached the snow--dirty and much the worst for wear late in the summer as it was--but it WAS real frozen snow in the middle of summer!

But it was long past lunch time--in fact evening was drawing on--and even Brother Joe started thinking that we might be missed back at Grandpa's camp--so we began hurrying back down the mountain.

There was a subtle noise in the bushes above us and we suddenly remembered that there were bears in these mountains--and we began to run--first easily and then as fear prodded us--to run for our lives!

When we came panting and gasping back into camp, Grandpa and the adults of our party were so happy to see us that they didn't scold us much--but just told us to "always tell them first where we were going before we started out".

And besides, a park ranger had told the adults that just the week before, a fisherman HAD been attacked by a bear in the same area where we took our hike.

The next morning, Grandpa had us lead him back to the little alpine lake-- where he tried his luck with the trout--and I think I even remember him catching one or two--at least that's the way I would like the story to end...

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Well remembered, Cousin Joe!

Oh, so well remembered.

You will be missed--but you will live in our happy memories until we too are dust in the fields.

Cousin Tom

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Training Kills Pigs

(Tomasito photo. 2009)

There is something happening near here--Escondido, California,where we live-- which I am almost ashamed to write about, but which needs more light, perhaps.

There is a village--just a wide spot in the road really--maybe eight miles northeast of here called "Valley Center".

Nothing much there as I said--a gas station and maybe a bar and a little market and some farm land.

There are a few orchards and in one of them there is a grisly training exercise being conducted on live animals--pigs according to the newspaper--which I feel very bad about.

There is a huge Marine base also near here and the training has to do with them.

Pigs are being tranquilized and grievously wounded amid chaotic sounds of battle so medical personnel will have the opportunity to literally experience the carnage, the spilled blood and guts caused by war and receive hands-on and real training with real blood being spilled and real bodies being counted--though the bodies and the blood are not human.

Nearby farmers have complained about the noise. That's why the information was in the paper.

The people conducting the training have promised to turn the volume down but the slaughter will continue because "they are breaking no county laws".

War is a terrible thing--"no picnic" as they say--and military training is necessary--and the pigs will be slaughtered and eaten anyway, so why not get some more mileage out of their inevitable death?

I don't know, friends, but it doesn't seem right to me.

Life is so... well, what word should I use? Life is all there is. No life, no nothing.

Pigs are NOT humans, but cruelty is cruelty and meanness is meanness and the more we are trained to be thoughtless about the consequences of casual killing the worse for us.

These marines will return to civilian life some day not so far in the future and the line between pigs in an orchard in California and the enemy and us ordinary people might be just a little bit more blurred for them.

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Empire's End

(Tomasito photo 2008)

Empire's End

"There was nothing left––no churches, no heretics, no books, no pictures, no city. There was only the sun beating down on the mud bricks and broken walls, and all the religion, trade, warfare, art, money, government and civilization had turned to dust."

(Paul Theroux: Riding the Iron Rooster)

"The Endless Round"---It has happened before...

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Walt's Wisdom

Death Valley, CA. (Tanya Photo 2008)

Walt's Wisdom

"I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-washed babe, and am not contained between my hat and my boots." (Walt Whitman)

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The Circle of Life

Try this music. It is one of my favorites and a star in the crown of all the artists, musicians and enablers of the Lion King production. The Endless Round indeed.

It's ALIVE

It's ALIVE!

“The world does not consist of inanimate materials and living things; everything is living and everything can therefore be of help or cause harm”

Ritual of the Wind
Jamake Highwater


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The Word

Escondido River. (Tomasito photo, 2009)

Remember: "Mother Nature always has the last word."


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US Army

Illustrator Flagg's Most Famous Poster

There is a recruiter's office in easy walking distance of our apartment and the other day I stopped to chat a bit with the recruiter--a very polite and soft-spoken California man who has been in the army many years--almost retirement age, he said.

He gave me the above recruiting poster--after all these years, still a potent ad!

This recruiter's office is in a small "mallito"-- we call it-- with a grocery store and a beauty salon and a fast-food place and like that.

You may wonder what in the world an enlistment poster is doing in a blog called "ahimsaland"--but everything is part of "ahimsa"--and there is, more than ever, a need for good soldiers.

And besides, in this depressed economy, who else is hiring kids just out of high school?

There will always be a need, I suppose, for police and warriors--there are messy, hard and dangerous duties to perform even in peaceful times--and it is still true that there is a time for all things. Everything in this world comes and goes--peace as well as war.

So I thought it would be appropriate even here in this peaceful ahimsaland blog on the eve of the Fourth of July, to honor the voluntary military caste of The United States of America.

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Motto

My Redding Workspace 2009 (tomasito photo)

Sheldon Jackson College (Sitka, Alaska) motto:

"Do the best you can with what you have and do it now."


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War Environment

Cain's children; Saturday June 20, 2009

In the Genesis story, Adam's son, Abel, was murdered young; his brother, Cain, his killer, lived to father children.

Mythically, we are the children of Cain and, "like father, like son", killers born.

Though we also, like gods, may change our inheritance.

(This notion is brought forward in John Steinbeck's story, East of Eden.)

War Environment

"War is an environment that will psychologically debilitate 98% of all who participate in it for any length of time and the 2% who are not driven insane by war appear to have already been insane, aggressive psychopaths before coming to the battle field."

On Killing by Lt. Col. Dave Crossman


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Onion Flower

Onion Flower, Decorating a Salad Tray in the Deli Dept. Vallarta Market, Escondido, CA. (Tomasito photo, 2009)

When ordinary people are inspired to make even their daily tasks more beautiful--I believe it makes life a little better for all of us.

Muchas gracias gente que trabajan con spiritu bueno!

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All Sorts

Magic Hands

"...it takes all sorts of creatures to make a world."

Badger (The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham)


Tomasito, 2009


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Better Back

Me Patiently Waiting. (Tanya Photo)

Hello, all you faithful Ahimsaland People!

I am VERY glad to report that my back is MUCH better!

I am now STANDING at the computer which Tanya arranged on an enhanced table so I don't need to sit--since sitting still hurts--and I have learned a LOT about BACK pain!

There is nothing like serious pain to really grab your attention!

Would you like to get a recommendation for a good program for back pain relief?

I thought so.

The book is Banish Back Pain the Pilates Way (By Anna Selby) and it is excellent.

Real good back pain is a terrific motivator!

Man, I'm BREATHING DEEPLY, I'm working on my "Girdle of Strength" muscles, I'm relaxing out of any stress and all like that! (LOVE that yogic CORPSE POSE!)

Another thing I've noticed is that a good, easy bowel movement is better than a feast! (A cup of hot prune juice does it for me!)

And NO DOCTORS!

Ahimsaland Forever!

Tomasito 2009


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Bad Back

Dear readers:

Shortly after posting my last blog on this site I was felled by very painful spasms in my back and have not been able to walk or even stand--so my work on the blogs I maintain came to a complete halt.

Even crawling around our apartment was almost impossible and without Tanya's help I would have been in serious trouble.

I am presently on my feet standing at the computer pecking the keyboard with my forefingers.

I miss communicating with you and hope to return to my usual schedule very soon.

Other than the back problem I feel just fine and am making good progress with the back (Tanya supplied me with four good books on restoring back strength and I am using the good ideas from them.)

Up and about soon!

Tomasito

Thanks for checking the site.

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Santa Fe

Tile Mural, Santa Fe Depot, San Diego, CA. (Tomasito photo)

Gentle Reminder: Santa Fe is more than a railroad--more than the old capital town of New Mexico--it is the Spanish for Holy Faith.

Something to do with faith--not faith of our fathers, nor of our grandfathers--but of people from Spain and Mexico a long, long time ago.

These towns--these railroads--were built and named by people of faith.

Even today--though the Age of Faith is long gone--people of faith still maintain them.

Because deep down, faith goes beyond organized religiosity of all stripes--to the very heart of humanity--that is, of you and me.

Brothers and Sisters, in these dark days: Keep the Faith.

Tomasito

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Urban Garden

City Garden. (Tomasito photo)

We have been in the City of San Diego twice in the last two weeks.

The climate there is so mellow that people love it--millions of people love it--and hundreds more every day--thousands more every year!

Even with this rapid development of the city--the frantic haste of the freeways and the temporary nature of most of the buildings--some lingering thought has been given to the original natural beauty of the place--and unexpected pretty touches like the above tiny fenced area in front of a warehouse become gardens to delight the eye and lift the spirit.

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Wilderness Garden

(Click on the photo for detail.)

Tanya in the Wilderness Garden

About a half-hour drive to the Northeast of Escondido is another good San Diego County Park: Wilderness Garden.

It is close to the two huge casinos on Indian Reservation land but light-years from that kind of Las Vegasy glitter in its essence.

State Highway 76 passes by high above the deep valley which contains the park so the silence of the wilderness is almost unbroken. We could have been walking in the California of the rancho days a hundred years ago.

We visited on a week-day on Tanya's day off from her new job. It is a very good place to relax and feel at peace. There are the usual good county park picnic tables and rest room facilities and since it was a week-day we were almost the only humans there to enjoy it.

Oh yes--if you get a chance to go there be sure to wear long pants! I know to wear them in the desert--I was born in the New Mexico desert after all--but I was careless, wore shorts, and the horseflies made a picnic on my bare legs which are still itchy!

Well, that's nature too.

Tomasito, 2009


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Turning Back

San Diego, California Used Car Lot. (Tomasito photo, 2009)
(Click on photo for detail)

Turning Back

We planet eaters are rather proud of the way we have whipped nature--we are conquerors and and are in the habit of looking to the future for more and for better.

However the world we have plundered so mercilessly to suit our real and imagined needs is wearing out.

The trending is toward disaster for no one in particular but for all of us--and finding our way back to the world of the natural will perhaps not be easy because we have no map and we are not in the habit of looking back.

Tomasito


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Got a job

Our Apartment Window View. (Tomasito photo)
(Click on photo to enjoy view)

We got a job!

Well, Tanya got a job so I guess I can say we got a job--and in the southern California depression job market this rates at least a relieved cheer! ('Cause if you didn't know--nobody's hiring!)

I'm putting this news on my Ahimsaland blog because I am profoundly grateful to chance, fate, luck, karma, Fortune or the Cosmic Scorekeeper and Tanya--whoever or whatever!

It looks like we'll have our computer, our telephone connection for these blogs and our apartment for a while longer--we will not be homeless--and please San Martin Caballero or whoever is in charge of economics--please help end the landlord's greed and help ALL the homeless.

Work with good pay for everybody, please.

Tomasito, 2009


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mustard seed

Mustard seeds in Tanya's Hand. (Tomasito photo, 2009)

(Click on photo to see seeds relative size to hand more clearly.)

We were out foraging for some wild plants to add to our lunch-time stew today.

The meadow where we usually gather wild mustard leaves has gone to seed now--the leaves are pretty well dried and gone--but the tiny seeds are snug in their pods and each little tan pod seems to have twenty or so minute blackish seeds.

We thought about the familiar quotation about faith as much as a mustard seed again--and how such a tiny bit of faith could move a mountain.

It really doesn't seem to be very much faith for such mighty work does it?

Tomasito, 2009

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Tanya Energy

Tanya, Center of the Maze.
(Tomasito photo, 2009)

"If there is sincerity in the heart,
There will be beauty in the character.
If there is beauty in the character,
There will be harmony in the home.
If there is harmony in the home,
There will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation,
There will be peace in the world."

(Great Learning, Chinese, 3rd century BC)

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Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama. (news photo, 2009)

All of us seem to need teachers.

And some teachers are wiser than others--but I think that all of us-- and the teachers too-- are just human beings after all--with the same problems of biology and psychology--all born into some historic time to live as well (and as happily, as the above teacher suggests!) as we can.

All of us are walking this maze of life and we should "rub each other's shoulders" as Herman Melville said instead of quarreling and fighting.

Some will believe this and some will believe that--but maybe even the wisest of us doesn't know much more than the dumbest dumbquot.

If a teacher is truly wise, she or he will certainly know that!

Tomasito, 2009

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Walk the Maze

The Maze @ Questhaven Retreat, Escondido, CA.
(Tanya photo, 2009)

People, plants and animals emit light and radiation (Corona Discharge, see "Rainbow of Life" by Stanley Krippner, MD.)

Isn't this a very curious fact?

Best wishes to you-all, my fellow mortal maze-walkers!

tomasito, 2009


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Shadow on Stone

Shadow on Stone

Once I was talking to Pop about "life" and I asked him why he went to church and believed the simple way he did.

He said: "What else IS there?"

Tomasito, 2009


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Pop's Differneces

Desert Grave. (Tomasito photo, 2009)

Pop's Differences

Some years ago my father, Andy (Andrew Staffon) Wold, died of a brain aneurysm in his own little paid-for house on Sky High Drive on a hillside overlooking the Ventura River Valley between Ojai and Ventura, California when I was away on one of my far-flung pilgrimages..

“Pop” was in his early eighties and had lived a simple life as a part-time drummer and an appliance salesman.

He and Mom, Lorene Clayton Wold, had raised us kids, Brother Joe, Brother Jack and myself—the middle son—into adulthood in Los Angeles, Albuquerque, New Mexico and Portland, Oregon.

That's about enough of that background stuff.

What I wanted to put on record is something one of Dad's friends at the Lutheran Church in Ventura said to be about Pop (Andy) when I came back
.
“You know,” he said, “Your Dad was very different in a way--I never heard him say a bad thing about another person."

Odd thing. I had never even noticed this.

An even odder thing was—I had never heard him say anything bad about an other person either—and I had lived with and around him all my life.

Well, once he had said that Reagan should have never been elected president because Ronald was the same age exactly as he was “and that was too old to be president.”

But that was the worst thing I could remember him saying about anybody!

He never swore either—and I never heard him argue with Mom—not even once in all those years!

Now, of course, Pop was human—but by golly he WAS different in those mild and old-fashioned ways.

Tomasito, 2009


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In Memory

"In Memory" (Tomasito photo, 2009)

It is a beautiful day to enjoy every moment.

A strong, cool breeze from the Pacific all those miles away.

Bright sunlight and a few scattered, puffy clouds.

Isn't it?!

Tomasito, 2009


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Today

"Today" (Tomasito photo 2009 )
(Please click on this photo to see a real face. TW)

Today

A few years ago I got to talking to a stranger--an old man--about this and that.

He told me of some of his very interesting adventures as a young man so I asked him what day in his life he would like to re-live if he could.

He looked at me brightly and replied: "What's wrong with today?"

Tomasito, 2009


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Cookies, Eggs, Easter

Cookies, Eggs, Easter! Photo by Tanya, 2009

This is the day after Easter but since we were on our week-end holiday yesterday, we thought this would be an appropriate time to send all of you a virtual Easter present of some traditional colored eggs and some tasty home-baked cookies.

We hope you enjoy them!

Tomasito, 2009


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Saint Petka Church Altar

Saint Petka Serbian Orthodox Church Interior.
Tanya photo, 2009. (click on photo for more detail)

Good Friday

Today is "Good Friday" in the calendar of most branches of the western Christian tradition so I thought it would be appropriate to present this photo of one of the Orthodox Christian churches ion this area--Saint Petka in San Carlos--an altogether unexpected ornate building in the old tradition in this very humble and unassuming typical southern California town.

Tomasito, 2009


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Deer Park Monastery Altar

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA, Great Meditation Hall Altar.
(Tanya photo, 2009)

This is the season of rebirth.

We drove out to the Deer Park Buddhist Monastery today to see what new wild plants were blooming and to enjoy the "Sangha", the peace and beauty of this special place.

I wish you could have all been there with us---it was very good.

There is an old resident dog there--quite an old-timer--I showed you a photo a few days ago of the dog with Tanya petting him--and he followed the group of us making a silent "walking meditation" to increase our mindfulness. He got more and more frisky as we walked until, when we were near the top of a big hill, he was racing circles around us and snorting like a young dog!

He was enjoying himself so much we all had to laugh!

Happy Spring, Everybody!

Tomasito, 2009


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Holy Week, USA

Altar Books and Decorations at Pala Mission, Pala, California.
(Tanya Photo, 2009)


Easter.

There has been a long series of beautiful days here in southern California.

Many of the inhabitants here follow various Christian denominations. For them this is the Easter Season--marking the death and resurrection of their---what shall I call Him? Teacher? God, Inspired Prophet? Lord and Savior?---it is impossible to avoid controversy on the subject.

But everyone, and I do mean everyone, welcomes this beautiful season of nature's rebirth.

There was a good cleansing rain last night--incredibly lovely cloud formations all day--clear air and bright, you could almost say "happy" blue sky.

Welcome, Easter! Welcome Season of rebirth!

Tomasito, 2009



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Creative Workshop

Zak Papier Mache-ing a Birthday Pinata.

(Click ON photo to enlarge it.)

Hello.

I seldom use more than one illustration per day, but I wanted show you some of the creative people involved in my workshop.

We are all doing artistic things--like papier mache, drawing, coloring and painting.

One interesting feature of the workshop is that it takes place in a live-in facility in Escondido, California, for elderly folks and people recovering from serious operations and like that.

The older folks in the photos are residents. I see them almost every day.

The children in the photos are neighbor kids who like art and who are able to spend a couple of hours twice a week helping me as "Assistant Volunteers".

We are all learning a lot and enjoying letting the creative juices flow so to speak.

Hannah Draws a House and a Dog

Helen and Bea coloring.

Al showing His Papier Mache Frame-in-progress.



Tomasito, 2009


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Good Soup

BEFORE

AFTER
(Tomasito photos, 2009)

This is the quick reaction to Tanya's latest Vegetable Soup.

She is using some new (for us) ingredients such as wild stinging nettle, mustard and curly dock leaves and another new (for us) vegetable: tomatillo.

This soup is delicious and is definitely of the Quick Vanishing variety!

Tomasito, 2009


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