Eco is Where the Oculus Animae is.

Ecology: the branch of biology dealing with relations and interactions between organisms and their environment. 

Economy: the management of the resources of a community especially with regard to its productivity. 

How often have you pondered the fact that economy and ecology share a root term 'eco'? Eco or oeco has both Greek and Latin roots to mean the same thing: home or habitat. While it's overuse in the advertising world to illicit 'green' sensibilities is all to common, its place in the concept of economics is downplayed almost equally. Resources used to be considered assets of a community geographically and culturally speaking, and they still are, but boundaries have blurred and communities aren't what they used to be. Everything comes from somewhere and theoretically you're going to be a bit more personally invested in the gold in your backyard rather than on the other side of the world. This also doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Cultures these days have evolved a phenomenal ability to compartmentalize. Life, love, work, and family would appear to be mutually exclusive. People, families, and corporations all make short sighted, self-destructive choices in the name of frugality. When did this happen? And is it a good thing?

Strange thing this idea of eco, the homeplace, community. As a vagabond I never fully belong anywhere but at the same time I see each place to land through a kind of rosy filter of optimism. It's all too easy to take something that's always there for granted and let the negative come more to light than the rare beauty.

Last Friday night I was abruptly reminded of the absurdity of my vacant sense of place. "We are all citizens of planet earth" the gentleman pointed out. While this has always been the case for all creatures here, now more than ever, we humans need to remember this everyday. Not only are we never truly alone, all of our daily actions have far reaching effects both geographically and pervasively through time. Also in this train of thought the concept of possession could be replaced with stewardship. Everything and nothing is truly ours, yours, here. So the best we can do is work with what's in front of us and value it to the best of our ability.

So I will leave you with this: What did you truly value today?

The Past Holds Us Up, Only If We Let It in the Present

"Follow Beauty, for where she is not, there is nothing."

I don't even know him that well and here we are sitting on a log across the river, pondering our existence.
"Do you want to try to meditate?"
"Here, on this log, facing each other?"
"Yeah! Let's each think of a question then sit silently for five minutes and see where our minds go."
What followed was externally simple but internally too intimate to share. Looking forward with the river rushing under me, the sun consuming the break in the treeline above, and the strength of a long deceased redwood sustaining me, a sense of calm overtook. While so focused on internal critizism, I've failed to listen to everthing around me. I've failed to see the trees for the wood. It was really the first time I let the redwoods be part of me instead of just around me. It took a friend who's never seen them before to show me how.

As that day progressed, even work seemed like a pleasure. We sped around the back of our mountain to overlook thousands of acres of wild lands. Both of us being from the East, sights like this are a rare commodity. The conversation bounced from bigfoot to the existence of the divine in us all and many places in between. Dusk set in to the increased chorus of pacific treefrogs. We decided to start a campfire, which I initially failed at, and got on a second try. With the light and warmth radiating from the center point, the day concluded as it had passed, superbly serenely.

Day two started early, was strenuous and punctuated with a beer break and naps. Just when I found myself starting to worry that I was being a bad host, I'd let the thought go. So what. If he wanted to leave, he could. After hours of hard work we'd have to come back the next day to ride. A bit disappointing but no worries. Popping your equine cherry on a beautiful beach is worth a little wait.

That night I watched "Groundhog Day" while he snored away behind me. Never one of my favorite movies, I enjoyed it in this context. It struck a chord on this actual day of the groundhog. When every day is exactly as the one before, your happiness and well-being is entirely up to you. We have to be somewhere, might as well enjoy it. I've been in one of the great American landscapes for weeks and taken it for granted.

The windy road to the stables gave way to more speak of why we wander. Here this person next to me is only a year older than me and similarly traveled, but yet has the strength to see exponentially more. And I had the pleasure of picking his juicy brain and open heart for 48 hours. Something I did right in the past or just luck's time to fruit. Either way, this is the perfect culmination of an emotional roller coaster that was winter.

Getting ready for my next jaunt on the road, I stride confidently focused squarely on the Beauty. How she manifests herself, only time can tell...so why worry.

             *Thank you from the reaches of my heart to all my friends and family that have helped me through these past three months.*