If Jack Frost can make the pumpkins get ripe...he also may influence all the wonderful colors in Autumn. We've passed the equinox back on the 22nd. And I've been looking for colors. But I decided that credit should be due to a magical fairy who might fly about and touch trees with color.
Whoever is doing it, they are early in these parts.
The north side of a kind of maple has these deep red leaves...or maybe I''m wrong about it being a maple.
We went to visit Graveyard Fields on the Blue Ridge Parkway last week.
The map at the entrance shows a loop with the first site to enjoy being some falls, at 0.2 miles downhill from where we start. The stairs lead down to a paved path, which also goes down at a steady pitch. It didn't take us very long to walk down a fifth of a mile, and before reaching the second and third sets of stairs, we heard the water gurgling over rocks. I wouldn't call it a falls, but a cascade, actually.
It was great to get back to the top and finally get to the car, and we wished we had brought water bottles. But we didn't, and thus just rode home along the parkway and managed to keep on talking. Remember we wore masks in the car as well as hiking!
Up on the Blue Ridge Parkway, that is...
TODAY'S QUOTE:
Met with friends for lunch outside at Black Mountain Bistro. We all brought home some of the food we didn't finish. And we caught up on the doings of each other. It was fun, on a coolish fall day with little heater fires in small portable fire pits. Our fifth member of the group took this photo for us. Thanks, Judy!
And here's a shot of the left overs from my salad which I enjoyed the next day at home!
Two of my friends split a desert of coconut cake, but this amount went home as a left over as well...but not to my house!
Here's a cute video song about RBG...pretty good! (Blogger can't find the video as YouTube, but here is the link).
"It was in Paris that Murray studied the work of the Greco-Armenian Sufi mystic G.I. Gurdjieff, who describes a path to enlightenment called "the way of the sly man," one who makes maximum use of "the world, the self, and the self that is observing everything." This concept, according to the Wisecrack video, has become integral to Murray's distinctive way of not just acting, but being.
Here's the whole article in Open Culture the-life-work-philosophy-of-bill-murray... including 3 short video interviews.
But what caught my attention was the paragraph (as quoted above) where his philosophyis described as being like Gurdjieff . Somehow, when I studied Gurdjieff, and the books of his followers, I never laughed like I do watching Bill Murray. Must be why I dropped that way of thinking...though I do like how Mindfulness is kind of an offshoot of it. PAY ATTENTION!
So Happy birthday, last Monday actually, Bill Murray.
And since I'm publishing this on Sat, I'm going to have some Sepia Saturday stuff too.
Isn't that Bill Murray over on the right in the photo below?
He's totally missing the puckered lips of his multitasking date, who not only is ready for the kiss, but is holding both a cigarette and a drink. She must have been a bit disappointed in the eye/cheek/nose kiss. However, she does have another chance, since the guy behind her has his arm around her, and is smiling at the camera...or is that leering?
Well, it was 1954, and somehow the British Army was "On the Rhine," and having a Christmas party. We all know how Christmas parties go. Actually this is the second time this photo has been a Sepia Saturday prompt. I can't find whatever it was, if I actually posted something from this prompt....and I looked at these blogs back to 2013. It must have been on one of my other blogs. And I don't choose to go down that rabbit hole.
Do come over to Sepia Saturday, to see what other people have discovered in their historic photos!
And I hope Bill Murray has many happy returns and that his 70th year is totally awesome.
And if you remember how I snuck into my last Sepia Saturday post, information from an article about plastics...well, here's more. We need to get on top of this!! (So here's the entire article from Treehugger.)
You know all those promises that governments are making to curb single-use plastics and get a handle on plastic waste within the next five to 10 years? Unfortunately, they're not going to do much, even if they do take the shape of formal policies. They may be backed by good intentions, but the level of effort required to "fix" this problem is so extraordinary that current governmental reduction targets are completely off.
This disappointing news comes from a new study published in the journal Science. It is the result of a collaboration between researchers at the University of Toronto, University of Georgia, the Ocean Conservancy, and numerous other international institutions that have come together as the SESYNC (National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center) working group. The group assessed the environmental impact of three plastic management strategies – reduction, waste management, and environmental recovery – at different levels of effort to figure out plastic emissions for 173 countries by the year 2030.
What they found was that, even if current government targets for plastic reduction were met (and that's optimistic), there would be as much as 53 million metric tons of plastic entering the world's oceans annually. That is roughly equivalent to one ship's cargo getting dumped daily in the ocean – obviously far too much.
If annual ocean plastic waste were to be shrunk down to less than 8 million metric tons, which is the number that Dr. Jenna Jambeck discovered back in 2015 when this subject made global headlines (and that was considered unacceptably high at the time), extreme efforts would be required. The SESYNC working group determined that
"plastic production and waste would need to be reduced by 25-40%; all countries would need to properly manage 60–99% of all their waste [including in low-income economies]; and society would need to recover 40% of the remaining plastics that do enter the environment."
To put that final number into perspective, the Ocean Conservancy hosts an annual International Coastal Cleanup that attracts volunteers from over 100 countries every September. To recover 40% of plastics that enter the environment would mean one billion people participating in the cleanup event – a 90,000% increase from 2019. In other words, wonderful-sounding, but unrealistic.
Dr. Chelsea Rochman, assistant professor at the University of Toronto and senior advisor to the Ocean Conservancy, said the study has shown we need to be doing far more and don't have a moment to lose:
"Even if we achieve our most ambitious plastics reduction and recycling targets, the amount of plastic waste entering aquatic ecosystems could double by 2030. If we fail and continue along a ‘business as usual’ path, it could quadruple. The study lays bare that current commitments are not enough to stem the tide of plastic entering our aquatic ecosystems."
Governments do not seem to grasp the level of ambition they need to fight this problem, and should be willing to go to more extreme measures to do so. It's something for individuals to realize as well, and to keep in mind when making shopping decisions that relate to plastic. This is a fight that matters a lot, that needs to be taken more seriously, and that requires action now.
Yesterday we had our final day in this 9 week program, of meeting twice each week for 4 hours.
I am really sad that this phase of my recovery is over. I've gotten to know the other 8 people pretty well, as we each have endeavored to work our muscles more, eat some plant based foods that we had never had before, shared our feelings with folks who were strangers 10 weeks ago, and practiced stress reduction/meditation techniques together for an hour each day.
As always happens with NEW BLOGGER (drat, darn and sassafrass) these photos below are in reverse order!
We will be continuing to have some gatherings intermittently in the weeks ahead, as alumni meetings. But we all know that this is the end of a life changing program. Whether we choose to continue living in this way is now up to each of us. We laugh at some of the things we've given up, or maybe didn't. We were still allowed one glass of alcohol daily, but one of us really wanted to continue to eat avocados, which were not on our diet. Most of us gave them up, at least most of the time.
Now I'm starting another rehabilitation for my lung condition, bronchiectasis. The condition which causes me to cough frequently in order to get the mucous out of my lungs. This rehab will also have exercise and education, which I'm looking forward to. No more lunches though. Diet isn't part of this rehab. So even though it meets 3 times a week, the time will be shorter.
I'm really going to try to continue to live with these practices that I've learned over these 9 weeks. I'm much healthier than when I started!
If you live in Black Mountain you'll see this side of the Town Hall as you turn into their parking lot.
Today's Quote:
Life is so hard, how can we be anything but kind?
SYLVIA BOORSTEIN
We arrived in the dining area to find our whole lunch had been served and was waiting for us. We took off our masks (mine shows partly at the top right)
When we deepen our awareness of the simple truth that we are here through the creativity of the stars, we begin to feel fresh gratitude...what a stupendous mystery!
BRIAN SWIMME
It's fall! It's autumn! Yay the equinox is today!
And in the northern hemisphere of our earth, this is the marker for fall beginning...though last week our cooler weather here in North Carolina, already told us that summer was just about over. It will have a last hurrah in a few weeks, with what we call "Indian Summer."
What I love about it best is that the humidity tanked. Dry air! So very nice to not feel muggy at noon. As I am sharing, there were five of us eating lunch outside with little heaters between the tables last Saturday.
Just a few dozen orange tints are on the leaves outside my living room windows. Give them a month and they'll all have turned. Maples just love to shine in the fall!
It's my favorite season!
Today's quote:
"Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth.
To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring—these are some of the rewards of the simple life."
— John Burroughs, writer and naturalist
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