Ash bowl, ceramic vase, resinous Douglas fir section, weathered juniper, crinoid fossils, canine teeth, braided cotton thread, limestone with fossilized seashell and quartz crystals.
[Photo 
Max Vollmer, Click on image to enlarge]
Study In Brown
Chehalis Western Trail – Olympia, Washington
Need to relax and reflect? You could walk the Chehalis Western Trail outside Olympia, WA, where this photo was taken by my daughter, Yukyo, on New Years Day, 2026. The trail
[Photo Emily Vollmer, Click on image to enlarge]
Chaco Canyon Road – NW New Mexico
Where to go? Toward an expansive horizon is always my first choice. In the case of Chaco Canyon Road, the southern exit from Chaco Culture National Historic Park, it was 40+ miles of dirt road across the Navajo Reservation with the warning sign declaring, “Road not maintained, may be impassable to passenger cars.” There are no structures, no signs of habitation the length of that road. There are steep drops into and out of arroyos that flood with cloudbursts, as well as deeply rutted mud slumps that require 4WD to cross even in dry weather. There are no guarantees. But being alone with the unknown is a great way to get to know yourself. [Photo Max Vollmer, Click on image to enlarge]
Where To Look?
As I look out on the world, I see suffering, hardship, injustice, and violence borne of ignorance. But I also see courage, kindness, sacrifice, and generosity that grows out of our shared experience as humans. It has always been so. It will always be so. I choose to focus my attention and energy on what brings us together in community. Whether that be a community of two, or twenty, of two hundred, or twenty million.
Meredith Monk
Meredith Jane Monk (born November 20, 1942) was an American avant-garde composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Barack Obama.
Renee Nicole Good was a mother, poet, activist, citizen, and ultimately a victim of U.S. Government orchestrated racial violence. To honor her, I am celebrating women with the strength to follow their conscience, their passions, their dreams despite the risks associated with doing so. Without them the world would not be as rich and beautiful as it is. [Click on Full Screen icon in the lower right corner to best appreciate the video]
Caroline Shaw – In Manus Tuas
Caroline Shaw, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music with her composition, Partita for 8 Voices, performing an original solo piece. In Manus Tuas – In Your Hands. In memory of Renee Nicole Good. [Click on Full Screen icon in the lower right corner to best appreciate the video]
Dharma rain Potluck
I was invited by my daughter Yukyo (Emily) to join a potluck at Dharma Rain Zen Center in Portland on December 26. There was a catch. Delicious vegan dishes were shared by the dozen or so monastery members plus myself, but then we went to work shelling, by hand, three or four bushels of dried corn from the monastery gardens. It will ultimately be ground into cornmeal for polenta and other dishes. We also shelled several varieties of dried beans for monastery meals over winter. [Photos Max Vollmer, Click on any image to enlarge]
Besides shelling corn, I ground one of the corn varieties into corn meal using a hand crank grinder. Two passes through the grinder did the job. Needless to say there are machines that will do this, but the meal was worth working for.
Traveling Wilburys – End Of The Line
I can relate. Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty. [Click on Full Screen icon in the lower right corner to best appreciate the video]
What kind of world is being born?
Excerpts from a Christmas essay titled “What Kind of World is Being Born?” written by Vinson Cunningham, featured in the December 25, 2025, New Yorker magazine newsletter. ” . . . All of us are surfing events, responding to tectonics deeper than we know. Only time will tell what we’ll be forced to sit and think through and attempt to describe.
[Continued . . .]
These days surrounding the winter solstice are dark, dark, dark. Nice time to think about what we might make together when the light returns. Merry Christmas, no matter how sharp the birth pains. Fear not!“
Warmth on a cold night
[Photo Max Vollmer, Click on image to enlarge]