In the dark You forget about silence You forget about the deep-silence that happens when all human made things go quiet, and there is no sound, engine made. And when the power went out, as I was working I could hear it draining, all the equipment, shutting down, whining -- to silent. Quiet night, starbright. And you forget about reading in the low light of something lit by fire, as it was so far back in time. Read in, close, to see what is being said. And when what is being told is the nothing...

Contemplating the tree of my dreams... And this is the ninth in a series, of ten, from https://tim.girvin.com/Entries/index.php. There's one tree that figures repeatedly in my imagination. It's the tree in front of my house on Decatur Island, which is located north of Seattle by about 75 miles. In Seattle, I live in a small condominium that is an old schoolhouse, built in the beginning of the last century. It's called the West Queen Elementary School and it was refurbished for living, decades...

Second in the series: Part One Isn't it so, that there's a symbol that continuously finds itself representing, to you? The Grand Mosque, Casablanca, Morocco For me, aside from the Raven, it's the knot. And like the one nestled below my neck, above, I've created them, had them made, and worn them for a long time. And I've come in contact with the knot, all over the world. Of course, in Mongolia, Tibet and Bhutan, the knot figures as an important element in spiritual connection. During my...

You just never know. Meditations on exploration and the beauty of being lost, and finding again. As much as you think -- "it will go this way" -- it just might not. And that way that it does go, it seems, just might be the way that it is meant to be. There are paths, that we think we are on, but then again, we might be on another path altogether, that takes a while for us to see, in the midst -- and the mist -- of our travels, where we are going. In finding myself exploring at the edge of...

...was of this magician and healer, likely Tuareg, and surely from the Sahara. I took this picture, then tried to get closer to another healer | storyteller type, and the camera was knocked down to the brickwork in an ancient courtyard or jemaa -- in the jostling crowd -- and she never woke up again. And I surely tried many techniques, trying to wake her up.  While there's no pronouncement against taking pictures, some people simply don't like it. And they'll tell you so. Or, they'll glare,...

Happy Thanksgiving! Sometime back, in October, there was a group of wild turkeys, that came to visit me. And while they are normally very reticent about being close to people, these were friendly. I called to them, they came, and stayed for some bread. They gathered just up from my house, next to an installation I call Manjushri. This is a shrine -- it's an old stump of a snag that actually collapsed on my house. After the tree fell on my house, I was thankful that it (my house) was still...

Marrakech -- The realm of Islam, in beauty: In the love of God, it is permitted to celebrate this presence, but not in idolatrous sculpture-making or craven images. Therefore, the wonderment, you can find in beauty -- patterning -- in the making of places and experiences that shows a love of God, and of beautiful things, represented in references like these -- la geometria divina: tsg | the later evening, the medina quarter, marrakech, morocco "There is a saying or hadith, “God is beautiful...

A Love of Wild Trees Contemplating the tree of the world... And this is the seventh in a series, from https://tim.girvin.com/Entries/index.php. Looking skyward, stars hang in the balance, branched -- bound in light, spanning -- circling the mooned night. I saw this and imagined that: light -- starbound in the branches of trees. There is beauty to be found in the mystery of the trees. And there are many that have written me back, reflecting on the character of their experience -- with, and in,...

Sometimes, the work of the weekend is complex enough, with writing, drawing and research -- prepping and creating projects -- that there's no time for anything else. But, being on the island this weekend, I'd found that a remarkably balanced cairn -- one that lasted literally for years, amidst the rain, storms and wild winds had fallen. This cairn was the Wanderer cairn -- but in celebration of that; and as an opening memorial to my youngest brother, Matt Girvin. That morning that my father...

Friends have responded with imagery and stories. And ideas. Paul Stamets with the CBS News Photo: Dusty Yao CBS News (Discovery and Sunday Morning News) came out and spent the day with me filming. We took them into the mountains and found the rare Agarikon: Fomitopsis officinalis. Dusty took this photo of them filming me in the Old Growth forest. there is a Fomitopsis officinalis in the background, and I see a distinct face on the tree to the left. Seems appropriate for Halloween ! Dawn Clark,...