Do You Realize – that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize – we’re floating in space

Do You Realize – that happiness makes you cry
Do You Realize – that everyone you know someday will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes – let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last


You realize the sun doesn’t go down
It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Images of Fungi and Plantae near Flagstaff, AZ, USA, Earth.
Words from Animalia – The Flamming Lips.

“We’re here to awaken from the illusion of separateness”

“All spiritual practices are illusions created by illusionists to escape illusion.”

“It’s all real and it’s all illusory: that’s Awareness!”

“As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can’t see how it is.”

“The question we need to ask ourselves is whether there is any place we can stand in ourselves where we can look at all that’s happening around us without freaking out, where we can be quiet enough to hear our predicament, and where we can begin to find ways of acting that are at least not contributing to further destabilization.”

“It’s only when caterpillarness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control.”

“You and I are the force for transformation in the world. We are the consciousness that will define the nature of the reality we are moving into.”

All quotes attributed to Ram Dass.

With the rains we’ve had, the trails are getting grippy-fast and fun again… also, our human-caused fire season is just about over. It has been an interesting season. Over 4th of July weekend, Flagstaff had firework stands for the first time in my 11 years of residing here.

Interestingly or ironically, this comes 1 year after the Schultz Fire just North of Flagstaff, and less than one month after the largest wildfire in Arizona state history, the Wallow Fire, burned over 500,000 acres including approximately 1/4 of the Apache 200 mountain-bike route. It may be quite sometime before that route is ride-able/enjoyable again…

Schultz fire zone – summer 2011 – one year after the fire.

Harvesting burned, but useable trees one year after the Schultz Fire.

Remember the fire started by the city of Williams, AZ 4th of July fireworks? It burned anywhere from 0.6 to 100 acres depending on which website our emotions would like to believe.

Now we can also remember the Eager grass fire sparked by their 4th of July fireworks show. This happened just a couple weeks after the largest fire in AZ history threatened to burn the town…