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. I’ve found that, especially in the desert, I am never less alone than when I am alone. [Photo Max Vollmer, Click on image to enlarge]
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 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 all women, particularly those 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, 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]
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]
Shelling beans in the dining area. Entrance foyer to the left, kitchen to the right.Yukyo shelling dried pole beans.
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.
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]
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!“
Celestial Transients. Artistic rendering by Olena Shmahalo for Scientific American magazine.
Happy Solstice! As good a day as any to talk about ” . . . Celestial transients, which are astronomical objects that appear suddenly from nowhere and usually disappear soon after, that contradict the standard truth that the universe changes predictably and slowly over billions of years. They include what the typically staid National Academy of Sciences called “the most catastrophic events in spacetime.” [Quote from a Scientific American newsletter article titled, Mysterious Bright Flashes in the Night Sky, December 16, 2025, by Ann Finkbeiner and Clara Moskowitz, Click on image to enlarge].
This is a relatively long read, but well worth the time it takes if you are feeling self-important at the moment. Prepare to be humbled by the immensity and the mysteries of the cosmos. Astrophysics is experiencing a golden age, thanks to the tools . . . orbiting telescopes, ground based radio telescopes, stellar and interstellar probes, etc., and the ever greater computing power available to process data. Of still greater importance is the international cooperation of scientists made possible by the World Wide Web.
Go to www.scientificamerican.com to sign up for the free Today in Science newsletter. You can then choose from specific newsletter topics like: Mind & Brain, Health & Medicine, etc.
Oregon Mozart Players Candlelight Concert 2025 at Central Presbyterian Church, Eugene, OR
I’ve volunteered for the Oregon Mozart Players off and on for over 25 years and was happy to usher once again for this year’s Candlelight Concert. Beautiful music for the season. The program included Alessandro Scarlatti’s Christmas Cantata, as well as a Concerto Grosso by Archangelo Corelli, and Suite III from Ottorino Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances. Even the names are musical. My favorite was a 20th century Christmas Suite by English composer, Alec Rowley, based on traditional English carols. [Photo Max Vollmer, Click on image to enlarge]
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable; and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly… this is my way. (Anonymous)
Max Vollmer, Click on image to enlarge]
