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Picking up the mic/pen/keyboard

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Check, check, one-two, one-two; mic check, one-two, one-two. Time to blow the dust off and enter this space. It's been a while.  In some ways I feel as though I'm in a dream. There was a man once who lived in a small mountain village in central Japan and shared his thoughts about that experience. Who is this man? Am I this man? Since finishing my dissertation and graduating from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa a lot has happened.  Some highlights: -I obtained a temporary academic position and moved to Tokyo--it was hot and weird, I've never been a fan of Tokyo. -I obtained a tenure-track academic position with Earlham College, located in a miniscule midwest mecca called Richmond, Indiana. -A beautiful corgi, who my wife and I named Pualani, suddenly came into our lives--and changed them forever, our first daughter. -My wife joined me in Indiana and gave up on living in Hawaii. We were depressed, we struggled, but eventually learned to appreciate live in the midwest, kind...
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tsunami

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A surreal night, watching the devastation in Japan while the blare of tsunami sirens bounced about the walls of Honolulu's myriad concrete buildings. Waves penetrated my sleep. Best wishes to all in Japan who are feeling as uncertain as the ocean. May calmer waters come your way.
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Reading David Abrams The spell of the sensuous: Perception and language in a more-than-human world and came across this gem of a passage in which he describes the role of perception in the life of an organism. Consider a spider weaving its web, for instance, and the assumption still held by many scientists that the behavior of such a diminutive creature is thoroughly "programmed in its genes." Certainly, the spider has received a rich genetic inheritance from its parents and its predecessors. Whatever "instructions," however, are enfolded within the living genome, they can hardly predict the specifics of the microterrain within which the spider may find itself at any particular moment. They could hardly have determined in advance the exact distances between the cave wall and the branch that the spider is now employing as an anchorage point for her current web or the exact strength of the monsoon rains that make web-spinning a bit more difficult on this evening. And...
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Checking back in

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Hello? Hello. . .? Anyone still out there? After too long of a hiatus, I've finally found my way back to the blogosphere. Not sure what the content of my posts will be from here on out. I still have plenty to say about Japanese environments, rural communities, forest governance, and the like. But, my mind is wandering to other topics as well. Will have to see what comes out. Last night found my way to Mardi Gras here in downtown Honolulu. It was an odd mish-mash of Brazil, Cuba, and Nawlins, an oddly appropriate mix. Anyway, I was back home and in bed by 11PM. . .hardly the late-night revelry that the organizers intended, I'm sure. Ah, but such is the life of an over-worked grad-student (am I overworked). Right, well, I'm back. Let's leave it at that for now. There are various papers awaiting my revisions. Over and out.
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Days and days and days go by with not a word on my blog. Then, today, one of these little guys decided to come along and wake me up. This morning as I sat in my office on the University of Hawaii at Manoa campus a Japanese White Eye decided to come for a visit. The bird announced itself with a light thud on the glass (clean windows, a bird's nightmare). I stood from my chair and examined the ledge outside my window. There lay the little bird. So small and delicate, its little breast rising in falling with rapid breaths. It seemed mortally wounded and near its last breath. I'm a lover of birds and the Japanese White Eye I love above all others, so I felt compelled to stay there with the little fellow in his final moments of life. It was heartbreaking. But, seemingly just as quickly as this wee champ had gone down, it suddenly sprung back on its two feet. The bird's eyes seemed wide, like a quarterback who's just had his bell rung. The movements of the ...
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Spring Snow 春雪

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While most of the archipelago is enjoying spring, with summer lurking just around the bend, Ontake-san still suggests winter. Well, at least in form. I'm in Hawai`i, so I have no tactile sense of the mountain, but surely its snows are heavy with water. The sun, in its increasingly long arc across the sky working to slowly dismantle the labors of winter. Winter does not give in so easily however, rearing its head and gnashing its teeth now and again (particularly this year, where there was a snow storm well into April). Nights too, on the mighty mountain, still belong to winter. But, soon the summer sun will prevail, at least for a few months, as it has for so many years. Its lovely, this child-like wrestling match. *photo courtesy of the blog 水と緑のふるさと王滝村
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原谷苑の桜　Sakura at "Haradanien"

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A short video taken before coming to Hawai'i of sakura (cherry blossoms) falling at Hara-dani-en (原谷苑) near Kinkaku-ji (金閣寺) temple in Kyoto. Sorry, I'm not savvy enough to include some fitting music or anything. . .so it's just video as is, which my wife Aki clarifies at the end. For those who haven't been to Haradanien is worth checking out during sakura season. . .guess you have to wait a year now. Haradanien website (Japanese only)
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