More, from CHUANG TSU / Inner Chapters (trans. By Feng & English)

Confucius said:  Men cannot see their reflection in running water but only in still water.  Only that which is still in itself can still the seekers of stillness.  Of those things that receive life from the earth, the pine and cypress trees alone stand out.  They remain green summer and winter long.  Of those that receive life from heaven, the wise King Shun alone was upright.  Being fortunate, he was able to order his own life and thus order the lives of others.  Holding fast to one’s own roots is the foundation of courage. 

A single brave soldier may overcome nine armies.  If he can do this simply because he wants recognition, how much more can be done by one who rules heaven and earth, who embraces the ten thousand things, who dwells only for a time in the body, whose ears and eyes are just for forming images, who unifies all knowledge and never experiences death?  He will soon, at a time of his own choosing, leave the dusty world and rise to another level.  The world will naturally follow him.  Why should he be concerned with the affairs of the world?

We persist in attempts to chronicle the precession/procession of the seasons ~

Seems the receding daylight hours somehow magnify and intensify the sunrise/sunset times.  I’ve likened the initial rays of dawn to a sort of kiss on the hillsides.  The blush, the tender caress?

Former botanist and chemist I yoosta-be: my take is that this leaf stuck to the sidewalk had a substance akin to tannic acid leach out from the decaying cells.  (Please dive in and express your own theory/¿factual analysis?).

The heart of the sidewalk just as the sun sets …

I went to Escalante Canyon yesterday.  I’ve decided to substitute walking uphill as fast as I can for a running workout.  The Escalante Rim road beckoned — previously I had only been on it riding a bike, and with an estimated 830′ climb in about a mile, it’s a “moe-foe.”

Part-way up (axually I wuzz comin’ down) — lookin’ west at the road up Dry Mesa canyon.

(The above looked better and much more Zen-koan-like in person!)

The stones and rocks on the hill-top were begging for some re-assembling ~

Lookin’ south.  I tried to focus in on the San Juan mountains (some are “14-ers”) but the haze prevailed …

Down towards the mouth of Escalante Canyon (about 2 miles up from the Gunnison River) I couldn’t believe that there could be SO MANY UNLOVED PUMPKINS.  Thousands!

But there was one which, apparently, was not altogether unloved …