List of butterflies seen on Saturday:

Mourning Cloak Monarch/ Viceroy Black Swallowtail

Also saw a milkweed plant dispersing winged seed, dreams setting off on voyages. And as fall deepens and trees drop their leaves, the filigree of branches in early morning light against the brick walls grows more and more intricate. And in the distance at the feeder, titmice feed.

Native American languages are divided into six phylum or families. The Cherokees who lived in this area (Georgia), when there was nothing here but deep woods full of flitting deer and mysterious mountain loins belong to a group called the Algonquian. To say hello in Cherokee, say sHi-yo (spelt siyo). The Meso Americans (Aztecs etc) became cultivators and established organized civilizations. The Great Plains Indians remained nomadic, moving with the game (bison) and gathering. Bruce Chatwin proposes in the "Anatomy of Restlessness" that the neuroses that modern society suffers from are directly mapped to the phenomenon of "settling" down. He would have approved of the Sioux and the Navajo and wouldn't have much use to the Incas and their bombastic cities.

However in the end the "civilized" killed both the nomadic and the city dwelling Indians with their civilized diseases, smallpox and liquor. Where that didn't suffice, machine guns did the job as at Wounded Knee. And tens of the "civilized" were awarded the Medal of Honor , the highest US gallantry award for their gallant act of killing a whole tribe, women and children included. But then history is always written by the victors.

A scribbled poem on watching a three year old girl play:

Golden haired child, this walk and twirl, this twinkle and delight, red strawberry juice tinted hands and a bird mouth breaking into high sudden giggles and then suddenly cries! Through you how close do I come to my Divine!

J. M. Coetzee won the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature. Having read his Booker Prize winning novel "Disgrace" and superb memoir "Boyhood", I think it's a well deserved honor!

From the BBC: news.bbc.co.uk

The most interesting fact I noticed: JMC was a computer programmer after college, before he jumped into English and writing. Which means that I can take inspiration from him, as I continue torturing the alphabet!

Inspired by John Folwes’s “Aristos”, I penned some quick thoughts:

1. Sex leads to collapse of ego because of the nakedness it requires.

2. Orgasm is the point of annihilation of the self leading to freedom from the tensional states of living.

3. Sex in itself is neither good nor bad. It is energy. It is force.

4. The quality of a sexual act is determined by the framework that surrounds it. The framework consists of the decisions or impulses before and the consequences (net good or net bad) after. Few questions to ask: a. Was it engendered by a life affirming impulse vs. passivity or death? b. Are the consequences creative or joyful vs. chaotic or dissipative? c. Is the framework “transactional” (exchange of sexual favors towards some end, “using” of the other person) vs. “meditative” (a pathway to further familiarity and deeper meaning)

5. The quality of the framework also determines the “rasa” (Sanskrit: aesthetic pleasure) of the sexual act. It determines if it is a repetitive monotonous act or a “spiritual” process.

6. The framework can be thought of as the body of an engine where forces come together. Fuel and air mix and are sparked. If the engine is well designed, the energy is converted into something of utility, as an example, a driver to one’s creative effort. If the engine is shoddy or non existent, while it surely leads to wastage of energy, can also leave “scars”.

7. Sex cannot create the framework anymore more than a force can create the engine! To make the engine is the job of a craftsman.

8. Wide sexual experience has to be recognized as a double edged sword. The utility of it lies in the fact that it enables one to “taste” Life’s fundamental mystery in a multiplicity of modes (multiple partners, places, styles and times). However such multiple “tasting” doesn’t subsume “experiencing”. It might even act as a hindrance toward that deep “experiencing” by destroying the “freshness” (Zen equivalent: empty mind) that is required. Such “grease” can clog up the engine and require an extensive “overhaul”.

9. Marriage (the culmination of a relationship?) or any other “relationship” does not simply imply a license to have “lict” or “moral” (guilt free?) sex. They however do imply an opportunity and a commitment to love or at the very least (given how most of us don’t know a jack about love or how to be loving) an opportunity to learn how to love.

10. Man is always torn between giving and receiving. And this can be extended to sexual pleasure. All wisdom however points to the advantages of giving. First it provides “closet space” to put what one might then receive. Second it always involves expansion, which also happens to be the sign of Life. Third the only “control” one can exert on is on “giving”.

11. Human neuroses, which may affect sex, cannot be addressed or cured by having more sex.

12. Sexual revolution can only follow “spiritual” revolution.