Sunlight Through Wings

Midday Sun

THE HUB OF THE HEAVENS

(I can almost hear 'Also Sprach Zarathustra')

The Secret Language Of The Earth (Pt. 11)

MY THIRD YEAR MINING THE SIDEWALKS OF LOS ANGELES

This Week's Dragonflies

AND DRAGONFLY SHADOWS

Two Of Me, Together In A Dark Lonely Dream

  

Early this morning I had a dream in which I was two characters;  a father and a (grown-up)son.  We were ready to go to sleep in our respective beds in a shared bedroom.  There were no lights in the room and it was very dark.  I, as the son, walked across the room toward my bed, picking up my robe on the way, but I was momentarily completely blind and failed to put the robe on by feel only.  It was the first time I can recall when I could not see in a dream.  I wonder if this is how people who are born blind dream?

 
Then vision was restored and first I saw the scene from a third point of view, then from the father's perspective.  Both of me were lying in bed in cozy darkness, but then the son talked about losing his beloved, and in a rough, despairing manner declared that he might as well drop dead, as he turned on his side to face away from the father -- he said this in Korean, using a form of the word 뒤지다 ('dwijida'), a vulgar term for 'to die'.  Then the father consoled him, speaking in English, saying that it would get better in time;  that although the hurt would never be forgotten, the pain would gradually lessen.

I lay half-awake in bed for some time, replaying the dream over and over in my mind, to make certain I would remember it later (actually, there were three more 'dreamlets' but gradually those faded from memory and only this one remained).  And while doing so I remembered the daimon photos I'd taken in recent weeks but had not yet used.  What made me think of them, I'm not certain, but it could be the loneliness the son, abandoned by his love, was experiencing; whenever I look at the daemones the prevailing mood I perceive from them is a kind of comforting, quiet calm and a lonely dignity.

Sunflower II

The first vertical panorama.

Related post:  Sunflower

The Secret Language Of The Earth (Pt. 10)

The Titan's Crown

Related posts:  Glory;  Mystery;  Sunflower

Seen Yesterday Morning

As I have noted before, sometimes the morning commute can be amusing.

Random Floating Object #2

I stepped out to go on my usual walk, and saw this odd-looking thing blowing over the parking lot.  Maybe a plastic bag with the handle part hanging down?  But I think it looks more mysterious than a lot of published photos of supposedly genuine UFOs.

JUST HAPPENING BY, AT EXACTLY THE RIGHT MOMENT

THE KING OF SPADES

Latest Crane Project Update

Been on a bit of a roll lately :)

 A distinct warm cast on this one.  By design.

Bonus pic.

Another Panorama

KINDA SORTA INSPIRATIONAL

A river of cloud, like a river of water, flows around whatever is in the way and continues on to wherever it's going.

Here's a good place for me to get all reverential and maudlin-spiritual, and say that I'd like to be like a river too -- but for 2 reasons I won't:  #1. I hate kitschy clichés;  #2. I have no idea where I'm supposed to be going -- I'm not even sure I've got anywhere to go at all.

The Sun And The Full Moon Are The Same Apparent Size

Related Posts:  Night Sun I, II, III, and IV

Today's Iridescence Photo

A Rainbow Eye seen on the way home from work today, on the 101 Freeway.  The aim was off because I was shooting out the side window while driving at 70 mph.  Yes, another photo I risked life and limb for.

Titan Rising

Hyperion, also called Helios, the original deity of the Sun before the Olympian takeover, gets short shrift, in my opinion.  So here is my tribute to the Titanic Sun god.

Related Posts:  Helios I;  Helios II;  Another Almost-Story

Today's Dragonfly Photo

The Next Paper Crane Project Update

I wonder how many this makes?  I'm gonna have to give 'em a count one of these days.

Night Sun IV

Related Posts:  Night Sun;  Night Sun II;  Night Sun III

Dead Bird

Today I drove to Santa Monica beach.  While walking along the bluff trail, I came across a dead bird.

"Cyclopean Duckling"

One of the more unusual Cloud Creatures I've come across.

The Latest Paper Crane Project Update

From now on I will upload a separate shot of each new 'tile' in addition to the overall mosaic.  The birds are so pretty, they deserve to preen and show off a little.

Independence Day

THE ONE AND ONLY REAL-LIFE RANT YOU'LL FIND ON THIS BLOG

FOREIGN-AMERICAN

Most people tend to refer to this day as 'The Fourth of July', but I prefer 'Independence Day'.  That name just has more panache, in my humble opinion;  would the title of the SF movie starring Will Smith have had the authority, the zip and the bang, if it had been the merely functional 'Fourth of July'?  I don't think so.

I have this beautiful stars-and-stripes necktie that I bought years ago.  I have since worn it on every Independence Day (as well as on the last work day before, so I could show it off at the office).  I think I forgot just once.

Today was no exception.  I was out and about today, received compliments on my necktie from a number of people, and I admit I felt happy and proud as only a naturalized American can.  What's that stereotype about former smokers?  That they are more holier-than-thou than people who never smoked in the first place?  I think some of us voluntary Americans are a little like that, like other converts^.  Although it's been many years since I took the oath of loyalty, I can still be a little rah-rah sometimes.  Like when I went to visit South Korea a few years back, I liked the fact that people noticed a certain foreigner vibe about me even though I looked just like them and spoke Korean, since that confirmed my American difference (I also went to Japan, but looking like the natives was a moot point there since every time I opened my mouth English words would come out;  and whenever I tried out what little Japanese I knew I ended up having to repeat it in English anyway^).

Then on the way home I stopped by the supermarket to buy some drinks and nosh.  As I was fetching a shopping cart I noticed this old man staring at me, and not in an admiring way.  I ignored him and went about my business, and as the automatic doors opened and I began to enter, from behind me I heard a loud "This is MY America!" (or something similar -- it was pretty noisy in the parking lot, although there was no mistaking the anger in his voice) and a car door slamming shut.

So he was one of Those People.  Who automatically assume that any Asian person they see is a fresh-off-the-boat migrant fleeing some sweltering, overcrowded third-world sweatshop, probably in the U.S. illegally, eager to steal honest jobs from real Americans like him while refusing to learn American ways or learn to speak anything but broken English.  Who see Asians as Permanent Foreigners, forever strange and exotic, probably dangerous in subtle, unforeseen ways.

Rather ironic, I thought, in view of the fact that he was black -- meaning he is most likely descended from people who were unwillingly dragged away to America in chains and probably died cursing the country, a man who had no choice at all in his nationality;  while being American by birth rather than by choice has no bearing on one's patriotism/nationalism/jingoism, surely it counts for something that I am the one who came willingly (well, it was really my mother's idea as I was a child then, but I was all for it^) and eventually became an American citizen because I considered the ramifications of the decision and made my choice.

......

O. K., that's enough of that.  When I started this blog I promised myself that it would be free of exactly this kind of content, that it would contain nothing that even remotely resembles a rant or argument.  There are other blogs for that, ones that are all about lamenting, preaching and speechifying, and this blog was not going to be one of those.

Maybe it was the shock of facing xenophobic/racist hostility so openly after having lived for so long without consciously encountering it in multiethnic Los Angeles;  I wrote the foregoing words almost against my own will.  They needed to be said though, and now I do feel as if a burden has been lifted.

I hope I won't ever feel this way again.

Sometimes I Wish

that I were a hard-headed pragmatist, concerned only with 'matters of consequence' -- as Saint-Exupéry had his pilot put it in The Little Prince -- able to comprehend important, real-world things like people and appointments and dividends, and plan ahead for every major necessity without being distracted by the little oddnesses and vaguenesses along the way..,

instead of the impractical airhead that I am.

Flying Dream

I just dreamt that I flew in from New York (drum roll--).

And boy, is my head tired (cymbal crash!)