Word Paintings

It is evening meditation
Beneath tall pines, their long inhalations
Whispering softly beneath a moonlit night.
My entire being is focused upon the Lotus –
Opening in this twilight beneath a pale blue moon.
I am overcome with its simplistic beauty in this light
and its perfume embraces me, holds me close,
transfixed, while obliterating all else in this Universe.
I shall never want to leave this moment.

Word Paintings

A dark shadow falls across the valley,
Though not a foreboding darkness,
Rather a soft, wispy tangle that lures one closer,
And wraps one’s mind with thoughts of
Becoming lost in its warm, humid muddle.
It dances, sometimes thinly,
Tickling the passerby with butterfly wing kisses.
Sometimes thickly, requiring a sweep of the hand
To brush away its encroachment,
unveiling the treasure it conceals,
In this blue-tinged glow of moonlight.

Word Paintings

A solitary rose,
Hidden within a garden,
Lying silently between the terrace walls
Until discovered by the gardeners hand.
It opens ever so slowly, gently encouraged,
Coaxed by the resonance of the gardener’s gentle touch.
And embraces him with her tender petals,
Pledging never to let go.

Word Paintings

Whispered words float delicately past
Like dandelion umbrellas upon  the evening breeze,
Until a timid courage emerges
Speaking softly above the rustling blanket beneath.
One kiss, and her words are emboldened,
Swelling to reach her chosen listener,
Sweet words that caress my lips
As well my soul.

Three Square Inches

The daunting task of being a professional hockey goaltender.

Central Hockey League: Rushe Hudson for prohockeynews.com

AMARILLO, Texas –– To the casual fan who comes to the arena to sip a brew, inhale a hot dog and enjoy a splendid brouhaha, it’s the goaltenders fault his team won’t earn a point in the standings tonight.

Of course, we self-proclaimed hockey aficianados know the key to stopping goals lies in great defensemen and relentless back checking. It is up to the defensemen to insure that a “no parking sign” is placed in front of the net . . . it is the defenseman’s duty to see that the large-butted screen does not occur. It is their duty to insure that the sneaky forward doesn’t charge the net to flip a quick one-timer behind the goalie.

Visualize this. The standard ice hockey puck is 1 inch thick (25.4 mm) and 3 inches in diameter (76.2 mm)… a small hole –– just slightly larger than 1 inch by 3 inches –– is all that is needed to slip a score past any netminder. Considering the hockey net is 48 inches by 60 inches, that is 20 rows of pucks stacked 48 high!

For those of you who are slow to access your calculator on your smartphone, that comes 960 possible holes that a goalie has to cover.

Of course, few forwards seem to have the patience needed to stack 960 pucks in front of the net, so they tend to rely upon the speed and power of their 100 mph slapshot to forcefully pierce that one tiny, uncovered hole. According Ken Dryden, perhaps one of the greatest goalies to play the game, covering the hole is sometimes simply not a physical reality.

“Hull’s slapshot has been clocked at just under one hundred twenty miles per hour,” says Dryden. “If he blasts at my upper left-hand corner from our blueline and my glove is two feet below the point of entry, it is quite impossible to stop it. Why? It takes less than half a second for the puck to travel from stick to nets, which is less time than is required for my brain computer to decide what to do, to tell my glove hand to lift and to have the glove lift.”

And this does not even take into account the clever little twists of a well placed wrister or the surprise of a deviously-flipped backhand. The task of a hockey goalie is definitely a daunting one.

Amarillo’s netminder, Mike Brown, a former Boston Bruins draft pick,  stands third overall in the CHL with 916 saves! Yet he also leads the CHL with 16 losses. In anyone’s stats file that converts into way too many shots being fired on goal. Forecheck, backcheck… some element is missing in the Gorillas defensive play.

Finnish netminder Tuomas Lohtander, has seen a hot glove in early January turn limp with the last five games counted as losses, and his save percentage dropping below .900.

Outside the net, half of Gorilla defensemen are sporting double digit negative plus/minus ratings and four of the forwards fare no better. Amarillo’s penalty kill record is a hefty 50 PPGA… worst in the league.

With only a dozen games left in the regular season, the Gorillas playoff hopes look as promising as a penlight in a coal mine, and the winning streak that never came again after a stellar start in October has reduced the Jungle to a sea of empty blue seats.

In fact, Amarillo could well be considered the Heartbreak Kids of the CHL. Twenty five of their 33 losses have come by one point, with 8 of those in overtime. They are an exciting team to watch, a dangerous team to play against and usually in the mix until the very end.

But it all boils down to those three square inches.

The Gaia Theory

The Gaia hypothesis is an ecological hypothesis proposing that the biosphere and the physical components of the Earth (atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere) are closely integrated to form a complex interacting system that maintains the climatic and biogeochemical conditions on Earth in a preferred homeostasis. Originally proposed by James Lovelock as the earth feedback hypothesis, it was named the Gaia Hypothesis after the Greek supreme goddess of Earth. The hypothesis is frequently described as viewing the Earth as a single organism. Lovelock and other supporters of the idea now call it Gaia theory, regarding it as a scientific theory and not mere hypothesis, since they believe it has passed predictive tests.

James Lovelock defined Gaia as:

a complex entity involving the Earth’s biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet.

His initial hypothesis was that the biomass modifies the conditions on the planet to make conditions on the planet more hospitable – the Gaia Hypothesis properly defined this “hospitality” as a full homeostasis. Lovelock’s initial hypothesis, accused of being teleological by his critics, was that the atmosphere is kept in homeostasis by and for the biosphere.

Lovelock suggested that life on Earth provides a cybernetic, homeostatic feedback system operated automatically and unconsciously by the biota, leading to broad stabilization of global temperature and chemical composition.

With his initial hypothesis, Lovelock claimed the existence of a global control system of surface temperature, atmosphere composition and ocean salinity. His arguments were:

* The global surface temperature of the Earth has remained constant,
despite an increase in the energy provided by the Sun.
* Atmospheric composition remains constant, even though it should be unstable.
* Ocean salinity is constant.

Say hello to Gaia…

Gaia is the third planet from the sun. It sits a comfortable 149,500,000 km from the Sun. Through friction it’s spin is slowing, but currently one day is about 23hrs 56min 4.1sec. She sings a song at around 7.83 hz with additional resonant peaks of 14.3, 20.8, 27.3 & 33.8hz. The song is created by the electromagnetic waves created by the 2000 thunderstorms occuring at any one time… 50 lightining flashes per second!
When you are able to find isolation… Get away from the bombardment of TV, radio, WiFi, Bluetooth, micro wave, cellphone waves… You find yourself at one with your surroundings… Because the resonance of your mind is in harmony with earths song.