A great airline, Air New Zealand. We left Los Angeles a little while ago and soon it will be the 6th of July – for just a few short hours…

I am digging The Practice of the Wild by Gary Snyder. What a fantastic book!! We should all read it, in fact I urge you to read it. We have much to learn from it. He is my vote for American Living National Treasure. I heard he came to SFe a number of years ago and held a very well attended talk at the Lensic. I hope he returns someday.

Now that it has become clear that Santa Fe is indeed my home and place – after looking all over the map for a “new” place to move to – I must deepen my knowledge of home. I want to have a knowledge of the local biosphere and watershed. I want to be able to name all things and places, peaks and ridges, vegetation and wildlife. To be shure, after twenty years of living here there is a familiarity of place that I can build on and deepen. I know the outline, now I need to fill in the detail… like getting to know the subtle expressions of a melody I have played for years…

It takes decades to become truly intimate with one’s musical instrument and it will take time to become truly intimate with this Northern New Mexico landscape. At times it feels so familiar to me already, but there is so much more to discover…

Arriving in Sydney… 27 hours travel time, door to door…