Zenwind

The pages are too wide for me to view properly. If I want to read the text without scrolling, then I cannot see the avatars and thus cannot tell who is writing without going back and forth. Most other pages also require scrolling sideways. My eyes are old. Please give us old guys a break. :-) -Zenwind.

In a University of Queensland study, Australian medical researchers find that traditional Chinese exercises such as Qigong and Tai Chi help control diabetes. It is no big surprise to many of us here, but it is interesting to see it make the international science news. Below is a shortened tinyurl link to the original ScienceDaily.com article. http://tinyurl.com/97uy6 -Zenwind.

Li Po is my hero. Wish he was here. Found a new bivouac spot next to a clear stream in pine tree glade. Sounds lure me to sleep: stream gurgling; wind whispering through pines. It is getting dark with no Moon. Empty forest. Who is this drunken hermit in the woods? -Zenwind.

For me, the path to the Tao began with Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder in *The Dharma Bums*, then Snyder's translation of Han Shan's *Cold Mountain Poems* with a Chinese commentary on the poems in which Han Shan is called a "man of the Tao." Han Shan is the closest I have to a personal "saint." Alan Watts' book, *The Way of Zen*, emphasized how Zen developed after Indian Buddhism and Chinese Taoism met in China. That was the first that I ever heard real discussion of the Tao. I then read the basic Taoist classics. A very nice treatment was Alan Watts' *Tao: the watercourse way*. Ever since, I've been going to the forests and mountains. -Zenwind.

Neimad, you nomad, Bon voyage! Thanks for being such a free spirit. It reminds me of when I was young and spontaneously set out on the Road. It is truly inspiring. Hell .... you are probably long gone by now and won't even be reading this. My thoughts are with you anyhow. Travel far. Experience deep. Relish the world. Balance the Tao. You may meet Bilbo Baggins on the Road, as he is fond of adventures. His quotes on adventuring: "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the Road and, if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~ Bilbo Baggins ~ Again, "It is late. The Road is long. It is time." ~Bilbo Baggins~ Again, "The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say." ~Bilbo Baggins~ Bilbo Baggins, that mad Taoist saint. Sometimes I think I hear him singing on the Road outside my door in the middle of a Moon-swept night. Enjoy. -Zenwind.

Moon gazing is one of the pillars of my practice. If the skies will be clear, it is important for me to be out under the Moon as much as possible. I often sleep out (bivouac) under its light. I started a thread earlier here on Taoist Discussion forum entitled "Moon Risings & Phases," in which I included links to predict when the Moon would be visible on any given night. Sometimes I will set the alarmclock so I can get up and out to witness a waning Moon rise over the ridge late after midnight. Sometimes the weather report predicts just a small window of time for clear skies, so I may try to catch the view while lounging in a lawn chair. "Climb high. Watch Moon." -Zenwind.

Alchemycal Monkey asked me: <<Lately I have been teaching myself constellations and locating them... have you come across any good star maps in your moon wanderings?>> Wow! Up in Alaska, you are getting right underneath the polar stars. I really do not know of any good online star maps. Mine are old printed ones. (I guess I'm just hopelessly "old tech.") "Sky and Telescope" magazine or "Astronomy" magazine might have online resources. The bright planet rising in the evening now is Jupiter. Saturn looks to be in Cancer, as I saw it early this morning before dawn. Leo is coming up after. The heavens are simply amazing. Enjoy the skies. "Climb high. Watch Moon." -Zenwind.

Below, I have provided links to find the times of Moon-rise or general info on phases. The Moon is an integral part of my aesthetic and religious life, and I want to share this info with many of you who might not be accustomed to watching her mysterious appearances and wanderings across the skies. She is elusive, ephemeral and shy. It is especially difficult to keep track of the Moon's cycles if you are in a city with its lights and buildings. But you can often sneak a peek if you know when and where to look. For over three decades, I have tried to schedule my mountaineering trips and backyard bivouacs on Full Moon phases. (The week of First Quarter through Full is best.) The weather, however, is not so easily scheduled. I was out bivouacking under this last weekend's Full Moon. I feel bad that I did not beforehand remind folks about this great September Moon. Tonight, the Moon is late-rising and is Waning Gibbous with only 81% illuminated and shrinking. So, consider this my atonement. Here are my recommended websites: *** For daily and weekly purposes, this is my primary site for Moon phases and for local weather: WeatherUnderground. http://www.wunderground.com Just plug in your zip code or city info. There is an astronomy option, which displays times of sunrise, Moon-rise, etc., plus dates of the four phases ahead. E.g., tonight will be clear in my area; the sun is setting at 7:15pm EDT, but the Moon will not rise until 9:04pm EDT. Therefore, if I am hiking to a bivouac after sundown, I should bring a flashlight, as the first couple of hours will be Moonless and dark. But the great Orb of the Night will rise thereafter. I will be sitting, facing east, in a front-row seat. *** Phases of the Moon tables (through 2010). U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO). These do not tell you the time of rise, but the exact time of phase. Make sure you scroll down to the correct year. http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.html *** USNO Data Services. More astronomical info than I will ever need. Sunrise times, Moon-rise times, etc. http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/ *** The four phases of the Moon mark Buddhist observances. Gotama the ascetic became The Buddha under a Full Moon. Taoist and Ch'an imagery in poetry and painting is illuminated by the Moon. The ancient Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival is a Moon observance. Humanity has marked these celestial movements for millennia. I invite you to watch the Moon with me, even if your spot is far distant from mine. Enjoy. "Climb high. Watch Moon." -Zenwind.

Munch, you did a bivy out in a garden. Great! I think you are hooked now. You will never be the same. I am also short-sighted, and I wear bifocals. Years ago, I got a pair of military combat frames into which you can have your eye doctor put in lens of your prescription. They are tough nylon and have no bows. Instead, they have an elastic band that goes around the back of your head and is adjustable. (They are made to fit under gas-masks or scuba masks.) They fit close to your face, and you can sleep in them comfortably because there are no bows. I can wake up sleeping on my face without discomfort. I call them my Bivouac Glasses and really love them because I can wake up and see the Moon and stars. (Warning: they look geeky as all Hell.) The prescription is old and does not have the bifocal feature, but I can see the stars fine. My sister and her family was visiting recently, so we bivouacked out under the stars for my niece's 17th birthday. We saw meteors and looked deep into the Milky Way. It is clear weather in the Northeastern USA right now, and the Moon is waxing to First Quarter. Guess where I will be tonight. -Zenwind.

Yoda and Michael, thank you for the replies. I am a bit of a hobo, and my one bit of lifetime expertise just may lie in the art of the bivouac. I am 55 years old and have spent a fair amount of time under the stars. I will try to post, in the near future, some of my lessons learned from sleeping outside frequently in any weather. Good weather is always better than bad, but, on this planet, you sometimes must take what you get. Being prepared helps. I will work on writing down some recommendations. Yoda, you asked about bug repellent ("bug dope"). Yes, I must use it in the warmer seasons. The best has DEET in it. It does not kill bugs, but it masks human scent. A good smokey campfire or incense will help also. My biggest concern is the Deer Tick that spreads Lyme Disease from May to October. I try not to wade through high grass or brush. While sleeping, I wear a mesh head-net over my face in warmer weather. The buzz of the mosquito is music to hear, as long as the bastard doesn't bite you. Yes, Michael, the simplicity of the bivouac is one of its major beauties. The sights, sounds, smells, etc. are elemental. -Zenwind.

Do any of you here bivouac? To bivouac is to sleep outdoors in the open under the Moon and stars. To do so is to merge with nature. I see this as a Taoist question because of the Chinese landscape paintings that depict a ragged scene of craggy mountains, deep gorges, gnarled pine trees and vast misty distances. Did some of these ancient Taoists bivouac? To "camp" is to sleep out enclosed in a tent with all the luxuries. You can bivouac with a lightweight tent for emergency rainy weather, but the spirit of the bivouac is to be under the open sky whenever possible. Just you and the natural world. It is to be eye to eye with a chipmunk at dawn. To bivouac is to carry a light load and to settle down at dark like a taoist hobo or a dharma bum. Bivouacking is my practice, my training. The Moon rises in the east, and I watch it come up over the horizon. I fall asleep with the Full Moon high and rising in the southeast. I wake up to see it poised at due south at midnight. Before dawn, I see it sink toward the west. It watches over me. I peep at it from my sleeping bag and smile. We are friends. I grew up on a farm in a small town in northwestern Pennsylvania. We were too poor to afford a tent, so I slept out in the open in the spacious lawn. If it started raining, I picked up my sleeping bag and stumbled to the roofed porch. I slept out almost every night of the summer with my faithful Great Dane dog and half a dozen cats. My first bivouac was on a summer night when I was quite young, in the 1950s. My father and I slept out in the yard. We did not have sleeping bags then, but he spread quilts and blankets out on the grass. I fell asleep quickly but woke up in the middle of the night to be absolutely shocked, astounded and fascinated by the deep, rich and mysterious array of stars. I remember taking in one large slow inhalation of breath and, as I closed my eyes and drifted off again, exhaling out all the troubles of the universe. I awoke again shortly before dawn with a slight glow in the east but still a lot of stars shining. I was alone. It took me a while to realize it, but my father was milking the cows. I could hear the faint rattle of the milking machine motor. I rolled over and slept some more. When I woke up again, the sun was over the horizon and dew was saturating everything. I was hooked. As a Marine in Viet Nam, I bivouacked on rainy hillsides in my poncho. Sometimes the stars would shine and I could see the Southern Cross. These days, I bivouac in any dry weather, even in the northern winter. In winter, you need either a good winter bag or two sleeping bags combined, and you must have a foam pad under you. Sometimes the snowflakes tickle your nose. Bivouacking is Taoist practice for me. I have a secret spot in the Allegheny National Forest that I call "Dharma Point." High on a big rock, it sits above the forest and faces the east. A good spring is nearby, and I never see a human. A good spot. "Climb high. Watch moon." -Zenwind.