Water People

Who said this? He is a water person which I found out a while ago and which further endears him to me.

“When I lived in Hawaii, I’d take a drive from Waikiki to where my grandmother lived—up along the coast heading east, and it takes you past Hanauma Bay. When my mother was pregnant with me she’d take a walk along the beach. . . . You park your car. If the waves are good you sit and watch and ponder it for a while. You grab your car keys in the towel. And you jump in the ocean. And you have to wait until there is a break in the waves. . . . And you put on a fin—and you only have one fin—and if you catch the right wave you cut left because left is west. . . . Then you cut down into the tube there. You might see the crest rolling and you might see the sun glittering. You might see a sea turtle in profile, sideways, like a hieroglyph in the water. . . . And you spend an hour out there. And if you’ve had a good day you’ve caught six or seven good waves and six or seven not so good waves. And you go back to your car. With a soda or a can of juice. And you sit. And you can watch the sun go down …"

i've been wanting to put up some of the pics i took while out in San Francisco but the politics of the election season thwarted that effort. So today i'm going to ignore politics and write of other things and sprinkle in pics from the trip.

Plato's piece on the Myth of Er recounts the tale of a man called Er who is killed in battle. When he is placed out for burial alongside his comrades who have also perished it is noticed that his body does not decompose like the others. While on the funeral pyre he awakens to tell of an unearthly place he has visited. He claims that seven days pass in this meadow that has four openings. Two to the sky going in either direction and two into the earth also going in either direction. Judges decide who goes up or down but Er is commanded to only watch the proceedings and take back to mankind what he has observed.

People were coming and going. Those from the sky back to earth were clean and bright but from earth to the meadow they were stained and dusty. All seemed glad to return to the meadow and recounted their different journeys and tales of suffering and joy.

City Lights my favorite book store.

For every wrong done to any man sinners had paid the penalty ten times over and having spent one thousand years below ground they were brought out to begin a new round of earthly life. Lachesis, one of the Fates, declared that each man chooses the life he lives and only he who chooses accepts the blame for that life. This became a rallying-cry among the champions of freedom of will during the early Christian era.

Plato's tale tells us we are responsible for the good and evil in our lives. The underlying doctrine of humanity, according to Plato, is that there is an element of necessity or chance but also an element of free choice that makes us live the lives we live. Many of us don't want to accept responsibility or even acknowledge the good and the bad that our nation spreads or the good and bad that we each spread. It behooves us to become more informed about what we do around the world,at home, and to each other.

If granted a day where no one knew who he was that was what President Obama would do. There are a lot of us who read this blog that will understand his attachment to the water. How could we go wrong with another four years with a water person?

Went to Yosemite too...great picnic spot here