jopomojo

The swallows, martins, gulls, and chirping wrens pay little mind to me along the shore where Kaniatarowanenneh bends around the elbow of the island, more like morning, scented with the after-rain, than later when the sun begins to bake the air, and future memories complain that time is always lurking and will take the sunrise and the morning on its way to afternoon and evening getting dark, the lo...

A saffron blackberry sunrise above the ungainly sweet potato shaped lump of land set down to divide the flow of Kaniatarowanenneh on its way to the great sea. There's something different in the air this morning, a turning point, not the finish line but the thought of a new world and this one changing, changing, no turning back, everything the same but new. The river, the birds, the beaver — all se...

1. Keeping Still, Mountain My heart like a mountain in the rain Like yesterday's rainfall I listened to the news As I drove to the sunrise Awakened by a rush of blood My dreams reminded me of love 2. Influence (Wooing) Like a calm lake in the mountains My mind reflects the rising sun Recalls the breakthrough of light As the memory of rain Awakens feelings of joy A lingering dream's sensation This...

Gongoozling along Little Venice's canals, I came upon a heron loitering for its breakfast in the grey overcast dawn. The heron eyed me, then took flight. There was the suggestion of a sunrise behind the broken blinds of the old sky. I carried an umbrella. My beloved lay sleeping back at her father's cousin's house. What are we doing here? I asked myself as the need for coffee began to press. I ret...

How could the wind refuse to blow when the earth and sky make such a perfect playground for it, and when contemplation takes the form of a gentle wandering breeze in the soft early morning? On such a day the songs of birds carry a wisdom without words and the music of the river hums in undulating whispers, the raccoon hails the beaver, the rabbit eyes the squirrel, and among them I go walking, lea...

Treading on the tail of a tiger while sleepwalking can be the best way. Much easier than when awake. Alternatively, to paddleboard across a lake in the summer, my daughter, can be quite fun. If Sensei Watts is right and it's all a game of hide and seek, then we need not fear treading on our own tail. As a matter of fact, we can have a good laugh about it in a few trillion years today. If the cloud...

The struggle of the sun to rise will be replaced by daylight and the calm realization that the second in command can easily assume the helm of the day as it progresses towards a strange and terrible night of irreducible stars to guide and deliver every lost ship to its port where once again the sun will rise as it inevitably does. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other...

The glory of the sun decreases after the slow explosion of color as of a Van Gogh or a Gauguin — being poor was how they let the coral from tubes of paint squeeze out to the end and fill the whole world, posthumously, with unanticipated splendor. Just like that, I empty my pockets and remove my shoes to pass through the gates of the dawn, empty and strangely alive at the tail end of the dying worl...

the sadness of leafless limbs their sad hallelujahs to the sun seeming to fail to rise hiding beneath birdsong leaves the sun paving a path of gold and answering hallelujah This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

The stirring in my heart I felt this morning stirred me to wakefullness in the dim light of the pre-sunrise dawn. I rolled over on my back and touched my neck to check my pulse, wondering about my family history felt in the mirror and the back of my mind, pointing me to an image of the dark dawn, a liaison with death’s dim grim grin looking back at my dim reflection blinding my dilated pupils’ pre...

Salamander sun sliding through the clouds, a revolution accompanied by birdsong, dandelions and rabbits suddenly (dis)appearing, blessed chaos in the backyard. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

The scene is set to create a universe from the mustard seed of a dream I can't recall. I opened my hand at dawn and there it was, almost invisible. And then I blessed it and let it fly. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

How to Move to Canada 1. The family of all things, as Mary Oliver put it, is where we struggle to find our place. When I think of my father's love and the legacy of love he left, I see myself standing there. Then I think of my mother and her grief in the wake of him disappearing across the distant horizon where the river empties itself into the ocean and the sun sets for us all. But then I think o...

"Decrease combined with sincerity" is what this morning's I Ching reading suggests I meditate upon. Canada the mountain above, America the lake below, Myself the evaporation of liquid water into drifting clouds heavy with the bounty of the rain to be transubstantiated into the gifts of grapes and wine and, flowing with the river, love pouring into the simplicity of the vast and mysterious sea. Not...

How to Move to Canada is the title of a book snagged from a Free Little Library and packed up with the thousand things jammed into my ailing Highlander and squeezed through the needle's eye of Sault Ste. Marie, mon amour in the passanger seat and navigating along the northern shore of Lake Huron through Sturgeon Falls, with a stop for lunch and to see her lovely tante et oncle. I am neither a rich...

The border guards raised their eyebrows at the amount of stuff we were hauling into Canada from the land of the insane to the south. So we had to get out and make an accounting. A friendly interrogation ensued, since the mutual love between our two lands persists despite ongoing questions about obliviousness and drunken driving of the ship of state. My love and I answered their questions satisfact...

The Sleepy Hollow Motel, between the thumb and forefinger of westernmost Gitche Gumee, is where my love and I lie in the innocence of love and the guilt of humankind. We’ve dined on peanut butter and bread and the last few ounces of the Monkey’s Shoulder we brought with us from Washington State (a gift from a Spokane friend, now transformed to emptiness). And now, after making love, we sink into t...

From Devils Tower in Wyoming to the Black Hills of South Dakota, arriving on the set of the old west Deadwood and tracing the footsteps of Wild Bill and Seth Bullock to await the dawn over the presidential district, we walk the gulch and gawk at fellow gawkers hearkening back to the 1800s and keenly felt in the inner truth of the present madness afflicting these United States and all of us teeteri...

Sunrise off the interstate syncopates our Montana sojourn waking up in Billings to the music of regrets merging into a melody of love’s momentous consolation in the family of things, in shared memories and plans, in the motel breakfast buffet, in the foibles of friendship and the knowing what not to say when politics and friendship collide. At the Wyoming state line meadowlarks begin to sing in ea...

Sunrise separates the night from the day. And on this day I'm driving away from the gray with lightning and hail at my back and the music of the mysterious mountains before me, the imprint of the constantly changing dance of light and dark and meaning and chaos playing out like a piano scroll made of dark pavement and painted lines and rumble strips keeping me in line. I repent of my too harsh jud...

The family of all things, as Mary Oliver put it, is where we struggle to find our place. When I think of my father's love and the legacy of love he left, I see myself standing there. Then I think of my mother and her grief in the wake of him disappearing across the distant horizon where the river empties itself into the ocean and the sun sets for us all. But then I think of this dawn, this sunrise...

Early morning traffic under the brutal comfort of the unangry orange and gold sunrise, vermillion and scarlet, pale pink and cobalt mauve moving into a deep and infinite blue. Something heavy being pulled along the unforgiving solidity of the highway, the driver listening to right wing radio conspiracy theories and taking gulps of coffee. A sedan with headlights befitting five a.m. gliding in the...

Inwardly free of sorrow, the sun radiates its fullness to the sheltering morning as the verdicts of wisdom shine forth and the dull-wittedness of the deceptive is revealed in the sudden early light of summer speeding into spring, and the location of dawn on the eastern horizon inches to its maximum point in the land of the midnight sun. I wake from a solid sleep with the aching bones of old age hi...

The abysmal morning carries me on a current of dismay at abyss upon abyss, and yet the river of friendship continues to flow toward the Sea — I must believe it does and that these many changing lines must point to a place downstream past these eddies of confusion and propaganda to where the river turns again to flow toward the places I love, west past Umatilla, The Dalles, Hood River, Multnomah Fa...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe