Universal Mind

If you walk toward the Bay in yesterday's photo, and look Northeast, you can see the towers of this power plant. Here is a picture of the Moss Landing Power plant I took nearly 30 years ago. The plant has changed owners many times since then.  I was amazed to learn that it cycles more than a billion gallons of water through the plant every day. Which is why it was built where it was. The plant is right up the road from where I took the tanka workshop yesterday and learned more about "pillow words" or Makurakotoba from PK who has been making a serious study of ancient poetry. It was also a day of good fellowship. We had a wonderful time hearing about a few of our group who completed the challenge to write 10 haiku a day for 100 days. Now I am supposed to try writing some tanka. Tanka are short poems, usually in five lines. But today I just did laundry, fixed a lamp and replaced a button on my favorite denim jacket with all the pockets that button, which will hold cameras, binoculars, art supplies, small notebooks and glasses. Sigh.

For a long time I have been meaning to mention the blog that has been made of selections from Thoreau's Diaries. HDT was quite a serious journal writer and some people feel that the journals are his greatest monument. Someone has been posting his excellent selections from this work on his blog on the days of the year that correspond to the day on which that part was written. Here is the link to the post for today. There is also a selection for Kindle. This is really good stuff! Below is an example that I have been saving for The Memory Thread aka this blog. This is an experience that I have also had, but not frequently. Do check out Thoreau's blog, which, cheekily, is called The Blog of Henry David Thoreau.

Thoreau's Journal: 1-Apr-1860

I am surprised that my affirmations or utterances come to me ready-made,—not fore-thought,—so that I occasionally awake in the night simply to let fall ripe a statement which I had never consciously considered before, and as surprising and novel and agreeable to me as anything can be. As if we only thought by sympathy with the universal mind, which thought while we were asleep. There is such a necessity to make a definite statement that our minds at length do it without our consciousness, just as we carry our food to our mouths. This occurred to me last night, but I was so surprised by the fact which I have just endeavored to report that I have entirely forgotten what the particular observation was.