I've been setting stones in balance for decades. I like the idea of setting stones as, just that, finding balance. You set them, they align, the gravity pulling them, the string reaches to the center of the earth. And sometimes, they stay in alignment. And sometimes they fall -- and you have to rebuild them, if that's what you'd like to do. Or you can leave it be, and contemplate what's been done, and what's changed. Things are built, find their balance, then fall. It's the way things go....

Jack Lenor Larsen at his apartment55 Park, NYC There are influencers in life -- people that connect with you, and connect you with others, that are profound change agents in your experience. I can recount a number of them -- people that generously did things for me, with me, that changed me forever. I walk back through four and more decades, in my mind, and think: who changed my life?Surely I'd count my parents as key inspirators. In no sequence, then...try this yourself. I remind my self of...

In wandering, and working, I've contemplated the siting of things. How did that get there -- that building, that tree, that object? What thinking, what contemplation, in play? It might be casual, it might be intentioned, it might be the velocity of mind and ingenuity. And I've wondered about the sudden sighting of things, in a site. Like prepping for a meeting in Dallas and having a giant cricket jump out of my bag. I thought it was good luck. But my interpretation -- of the sighting in that...

The Eagle, the Raven, the story... I suppose in a way that everything I write here is a story. One story becomes another. I used to preach to people about the nature of the journal and the journey, that is -- everything string of experiences is about a journey, the journal then becomes a kind of receptacle; it's the reliquary of experience. It's a collage. But now that I'm writing both to the weblog at Girvin.com, as well as the journal here, it's harder to work on the paper journal(s). And I...

A meditation. All light, coming back to me, coming back to you. I've heard that the offering of light to one, becomes the offering of light to another; it reflects, refracts. Light comes to me; I refract that, in the prism of my being, and it becomes another; it's found by an other. In doing good things, things of light and beauty, these go one way, come back to others, come back in differing forms to me. Looking at the Moon, in contemplation, I'm thinking about that. The reflections. And I'm...

The Eagle, the Raven, the story... I suppose in a way that everything I write here is a story. One story becomes another. I used to preach to people about the nature of the journal and the journey, that is -- everything string of experiences is about a journey, the journal then becomes a kind of receptacle; it's the reliquary of experience. It's a collage. But now that I'm writing both to the weblog at Girvin.com, as well as the journal here, it's harder to work on the paper journal(s). And I...

1853 C. BRONT Villette xxiii, She stood, not dressed, but draped in pale... ---- I came back from NYC on Thursday. As usual, the flight was delayed, and I returned to my house sometime in the late evening, 11:15. I worked for a bit, getting myself set up for the next day, an early rising. I opened up the windows to air out the studio of the old school house on Queen Anne, where I live. And went to bed. At about 3.00 am, I rose to work again. A wind moved through the hilltop trees and you could...

David, thanks for your considerations, your reach -- and, to some of your co-respondents, I'm grateful to be included in your search. To the challenges that you face, I relate. I've seen these, sensed these travails in others. And each has borne the character of the challenge -- the chasm -- with either a leap, or a stride -- a running sprint. And it's what we have, these moments, so it's profound to be called to the action of knowing, abruptly, that it ends for all of us. So get out there and...

Garrett, I've been thinking of you. And your knowledge, the keris blade collection in Hawaii. I've thought about the potential of being down there sometime -- connecting with you and your wife, to learn more. And my explorations of the keris has been slow, as well you put it, and long. I've treated it as a progressive examination -- and finding anything, finding one thing that is a new discovery -- it's a wondrous thing. I believe that there have been a series of encounters, that have been...

I'm writing about your loss, Dan. A long time ago, when I was in college, and studying chinese painting, there was a teacher, a mentor -- and surely, spiritual advisor: Wing Leong, a student of the master, Chiang Yee. And he taught about the idea that when you paint, it's not about the realism, it's about the spirit of the rendering -- it's finding the ch'i, vital force, that enlivens the rendering. Chiang Yee talked about the ancient principles of painting. From Hsien Ho, a 6th century...