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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