We sleep outside under the stars here

by our fire, like cowboys in the old western movies.

and there i was

slipping on the slipperiest of the slippery slopes, and i said to myself, "hmmmm, these slopes sure are slippery."

Don't let the stars get in your eyes....don't let the moon break your heart...

hold on to your destinies, lest fate take you for a ride!

“It is not in the stars . . .

. . . to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” - Bill Shakespeare

Yeah yeah yeah, Bill . . . I know!

Sheesh.

Stars, they hardly ever move

nudge them I will.

Did You Ever Notice That Molly Kind of Rhymes With Ali?

Star Quote from Pedro Paramo

"The sky was crowded with fat, swollen stars. The moon had come out for a little while and then vanished. It was one of those sad moons that nobody looks at or even notices. It hung there for a little while, pale and disfigured, and then hid itself behind the mountains." -Juan Rulfo

The Impossible 4 Minute Mile

While I was in Michigan a couple of weeks ago I had a short visit with my friends, Jack and Laurie. Laurie was telling me about an important moment in her youth, hearing her dad tell about the 4 minute mile. It had been said that it couldn't be done. But once the first person accomplished it, then many others also ran 4 minute miles. Once the idea that it couldn't be done was proven false, it was as if people were then free to accomplish the feat. I don't remember how she phrased it, but basically she said the lesson was "just do it." Don't sit around discussing whether a thing is possible or not, just do it. This is coming from a woman who helped found Zeitouna, a group of Arab and Jewish women coming together to create a dialogue and work towards peace.

the floating, i have a pretty good handle on that...

at and times my stinging is not bad, but the synchronicity is off. and so then do i work on the floating and perfect that, then move to stinging with the benefits of the newly buffed up floating? or do i dig into the stinging and get that up to speed, and then go after the synchonization? do i randomly work on floating or stinging as the mood arises? or do i put myself on a strict floating and stinging regimen? tough questions, but this is what star wranglin' is all about.

Floating and stinging...

floating and stinging, that is what it is pretty much all about for me. But i want to be better at it. I want more time to practice.

Stole this while blog-hopping:

To attract good fortune, spend a new coin on an old friend, share an old pleasure with a new friend, and lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon.

--ancient Chinese proverb

maudlin musing

Standing in the mist of a waterfall, smelling the distinctive northwest forest, I flashed back to my youth in Idaho. I have left my heart in too many places. I am strethced too thin. Maybe Sheryll Crowe is right. Just breathe.

Oh no my darling.....

was it something I said?

The time has come

for all good men to rise above principle. -Huey Long

Styles of Decision Making, part 1

Impulse. Dangerous, perhaps to follow. Not recommended for a smooth ride through life. There isn't always time to think things through, though. Squelching impulse at every turn shuts certain windows of opportunity.

So, what I'm saying is, maybe buying a plane ticket because it's cheap isn't the smartest thing in the world, but if I'd waited to think it over, the seats might no longer be there. So what if I feel a little pressed for time in this packing to move to Michigan, I probably would have waited til the last minute anyway.

And, if I'd followed an earlier impulse to buy that camera on sale I would be able to post a few pictures from Vancouver.

Not in our stars

but in ourselves

I Found Out Why 2008 Is Gonna Be Great!

Evidently, it is the exact turning point from the age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. Check this out from John Hogue:

"2 0 0 8: The Reboot of History

Friends,2008 is more than a year. It is a turning point in history. It is the exact apex in time when the balance of ages, suspended, begins to tip away from forces and themes defining the last 2,000 years. History will now incline with ever increasing direction, for better or worse, towards those values and influences that mark a new 2,000-year era.

Hello, 2008. You are the real dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

You are the age where even the smallest individual can change the course of the future. The year indicates the midpoint in the gradual overlap of the Piscean Age subsiding into the Aquarian Age. Epoch shaking change comes now. Not in the year 2012, when it is said the Mayan Calendar of the Ancient Mesoamerican time keepers ends its 63 million year long count. Wait and you will be looking late.

The death and rebirth of ages begins right now. "

damn.

The Only Other Time Ondaatje Mentions Stars in His Memoir, Though There is Much Allusion to Wranglin'

"A hand cupped the heel of a woman who wanted to climb a tree to see the stars more clearly."

Fate or Destiny

in a book I read recently called Everyday Tao, the author wrote that there is a great difference between the two. Fate is what happens, it is what would always happen, it is the succumbing to time and circumstances without question, without engagement, without seeking change. without energy.
Destiny is not this.

Just Out Of Curiousity . . .

. . . would stalking (ie "tracking" or "taming") a celebrity (ie, a "star") count as star -wrangling?

Because I've decided that my new plan in life is to find out where Josh Homme (Lead singer/guitarist of Queens of the Stone Age, aka The Ginger Elvis) lives, ingratiate myself into his life, somehow discredit his wife and the paternity of his child, and then marry him.

that counts as star-wrangling, right?

btw Josh - if you or your lawyers are reading this, i'm just kidding. except that part about marrying you.

oh, and for those in the know . . . Steve stood me up. again.

but see, now I can tell when he's lying. because i hear sounds coming out of his cake-hole.

stardust

See, what did I tell you...and you thought I was crazy. I tell you, you just keep working, you just take it slow, and before too long you won't have to be worried about nothin'. You just be sittin back, sellin' those paintings, and having a good time.

Music to my ears....

Michael Ondaatje Only Occassionally Refers to Stars, Mostly in Passing

"He would put on 'I Kiss Your Little Hand, Madam' and mime great passion for an invisible partner, kissing the mythical hand, pleading to the stars and the jungle around him to console him in an unrequited abstract love."

Alessandro Studies Our Closest Star

“The sun cleared the eastern ridges of the Apennines, having pushed a crescent of itself over the inflamed hills as if to begin it’s white barrage from a firing slit. Alessandro squinted at it, having saved his eyes all his life to see now that its surface was like a pocket in the waves under a high wind, swirling in contradiction and counterpoint within an arc as luminous and clear as crystal. It ascended in perfect containment, its detonations noiseless, its fires compressed, and it floated over the mountains, flooding them with light.”

confucious said one time

If you shoot for the stars and hit the moon, it's ok. A lot of people never even shoot.

Alssandro Still Talking to Nicolo in the Middle of the Night

“You see how insane the world is, Nicolo? No matter that it is unbearably beautiful. How would I have guessed that during my last hours I would sit on a rock in the starlight, in mountain laurel, explaining sexual hygiene to an apprentice in a propeller factory.”

Upon Being Interrupted Again by Nicolo

“I’ve always loved being outside, on the ground. The ground has been my salvation. Sitting here under the stars makes me feel as if I have a place, as if I’m doing right, as if this is where I’m intended to be. So you just shut up, please, and let me continue.”

If you want a horse to move, you have to make him believe it is his idea-Merle Semmler

I wonder if the same is true of stars.....

Alessandro Trying Not to Be Exasperated While Discussing Spirituality With Nicolo

“This walk, for days and nights in the open air, without sleep, under sun, moon, and stars, is mortification of the flesh. Like thundering music, it agitates the spirit until it rises.”

So This Really Is Paradise

Walking to the library this morning, I wished I had a camera. It's all humid, post-rain, tropical blotchy sky with light that makes all the huge green leaves pop out. There were a couple of Ibis pecking around in the shallows of the pond. I love the Spanish Moss hanging from the the hardwoods. Maybe it's always good to be alive, but some mornings are more noticeably so.

Alessandro Hikes Home After the War

“With luck he would have a moon or a sky clear enough to let the starlight through, and with more than luck he would reach the peaks by daylight.”

Allesandro And Niccolo Walk From Rome to Somewhere Else

“As they walked in daylight or under the stars, they felt as if they were scrambling along the top of a wall so high that the towns of Italy, glittering below them in the warm summer air, were places in a children’s book or a fairy tale.”

Alessandro Embarks On a Forbidden Mission to Save His Friend

“They threw themselves onto the snow and began shooting in his direction, but he was hidden by clouds, and when the clouds dissipated, his dark silhouette was almost impossible to find against the black sky, for all it did was cut out the stars.”

Said the Milanese to Alessandro While Waiting in the Trees, With Only 20 Rounds of Ammo Apiece,for the Austrians

“And I don’t like to fight in fog. With the stars there’s something more tolerable about it, and in the cold air up here the stars go crazy. They’re so bright they jump around like fleas, they burn like magnesium. If you get killed on a night like that you go straight up.”

Alesandro Spends Time in a Labor Camp

“Hard labor, deep sleep, simple food, cold water, the lack of possessions, and the presence of the morning stars upon arising gave the quarry soldiers so much strength and energy that they might as well have been the rulers of Europe lost in manic conquest.”

Alessandro, the Deserter, Wants to Camp on the East Side of the Lake While the Sheepherder Wants to Camp on the Western Shore

“In the stars, clouds, and wind, Alessandro hoped to be able to restore what he had lost, for beyond the disintegration and the glare, by the tenets and faith of the West, were clarity, reconstitution, and love.”

A Break in the Fighting

“The beginning of August saw a great meteor shower. At night the River Guard lay on their backs, on the ramparts, and watched the sky disintegrate in trace-like shots of silver and white. The light was silent and the tracks of the stars were as flirtatious as girls in spring. They shined, they smiled, and they disappeared. “

Alessandro and Rafi Spend A Couple of Weeks Mountain Climbing

“The stars were not yet out, the air was warm, and they were slightly drunk on the beer and the altitude.“
-Mark Helprin, A Soldier of the Great War

To reach the unreachable star

An afternoon at the theater, watching a college production of The Man of La Mancha, I had not seen it before, though as a wee thing I loved the Glan Campbell version of The Impossible Dream... this is my quest, to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far... I remember my little sis and i just belting it out in the living room, with the broad sweeping gestures of a true Don Quixote.
As if there are unreachable stars when you are a star wrangler. Of course we did not know then that we were budding star wranglers, that would come later.

This Is What Happens When I Try to Copy Sassmaster

I like how Sassmaster reviews and lists the books she reads each year. I wanted to do that, too, but I couldn't figure out exacatly where to do that. So why not just start a whole new blog on the topic? Like our friend, Sidearm, I advocate living boldly.

As it turns out, however, I don't really like reviewing books. I still like talking about them; I seem to particularly like talking about the experience of reading them.

I was fortunate enough to be visiting exquisite Lakeland artist, molldoll, at the time I started the new blog and she graciously offered a trade of a scanned copy of a mixed media collage piece of hers to use in the header simply for posting a link to her Etsy site. Remember, she doesn't give the stuff away for free anymore

Alessandro, 9, In the Gonola With the Unconscious Trumpeter

“In less than a minute they left the envelope of cloud that covered the mountain and were in the free air. The stars were everywhere, even below, swaying in grand nausea.“

-Mark Helprin, A Soldier of the Great War

Feeling Luney?

Lunar eclipse this eve...will you be watching?

Helprin On Stars Again

"It seemed unbelievable that the sky, twisting and boiling like burning phosphorus, was silent, for its light and motion suggested thunder, explosions, and the sound of the sea. The stars were busy and intent, as if before the moon came up they had to unburden themselves of all they had seen during the daylight hours, when they could not speak. Now they ran riot, and their light made the snowfields breathlessly dim."

She had an unequaled gift...

of squeezing big mistakes into small opportunities.

Mark Helprin Often Refers to Stars

"He stepped outward into space and felt the lovely light caress him with affection. He hadn't known that anything as cold and clear as moonlight could be so full of promise, and as he fell it seemed to him that his hands clawed a trail of white sparks through the air, but these were the stars." -Mark Helprin in A Soldier of the Great War.

Friends and Fires Under the Stars

I was remembering the scene from Chocolat where Johhny Depp and Juliet Binoche were dancing on the boat under the stars. It was so sexy. I thought the movie was ok, but I loved the feeling I got from the group of gypsies communing aroung the campfire.

I think I like life most when outside with friends. I remember watching sunsets with the politicos up on the hill behind my trailer in Moscow, campfires after a day of treeplanting or hiking or canoeing or climbing. I remember relaxing in the backyard of Hermosa after a John Henry day project or just because. I remember chopping vegetables in Nemo with children and dogs checking in and wandering off for their various adventures. I love it all.

Look Out World

The star wranglin' has been a little low-key as of late, but that is all about to change. Known star wranglers will be in the same state very soon as the 1st ever star-wranglin' convention commences on Feb. 6th. Wait, what was that? I think some stars just moved at the very thought of it.