of all the beautiful salmon, the most remarkable is the jack. this one stays in the river when all its brothers and sisters travel out to sea to feed for a few years. when the big ones come back to their home rivers, he is right there, waiting for them. because rivers don’t have nearly the food that the ocean does, jack is just a handful in size, whereas the ocean goers grow to huge size, sometimes even more than fifty pounds. poor jack gets pushed around and very rarely passes on the genes.

even less often than a blue moon, jack comes to rescue. perhaps there is a landslide that blocks the rivers’ mouth. perhaps there is a calamity at sea, and no one returns.

at times like these, when the same old same old has petered out; the jacks get together with each other. they have all the same genetics as their mighty cousins, even though they are no larger than a trout. the reason they are jacks is because they stayed in the river when everyone else left. and they breed like there is no tomorrow.

their offspring grow back into the huge chinooks. the run continues. the sub species saved.

from just looking at one, it would be impossible to know why the jacks stayed behind; what unplanned misadventures might befall the sea run hordes; and how important jacks really are.

The mountains and water of the present are the realization of the words of eternal buddhas. Both abide in place in the Dharma, having realized ultimate virtue. Because they are in the state before the kalpa of emptiness, they are vigorous activity in the present. Because they are the self before the sprouting of creation, they are real liberation. The virtues of the mountains are so high and wide that
we always realize moral virtue which can ride the clouds by relying on the mountains, and we unfailingly liberate the subtle effectiveness which follows the wind by relying on the mountains. Dogen, Sansuigo, 175.

A little more sky indoors · Steven McDonald

simply a remarkable thread 🙇

@eigenhectorsay, is that money maximizers benefits owners. while paperclip maximizers benefit paperclip hoarders. conceptually the same, practically entirely different. of course, there are good long term arguments that money maxxing ultimately burns up planet earth (but so would paperclip maxxing taken tonthe extreme). on balance, paperclip maxxing is safer. simply because our system is already geared and optimized to money. therefore, any money making maxxing can rapidly propagate through the entire system; this is dangerous and fast. whereas our system is not optimized for paperclip power. so this would take far longer to propagate through the system and is therefore safer (less potentially beneficial though).

the obvious way to mitigate this money maxxing danger is strong human and environmental protections and redistribution mechanisms now, before the money maxxing totally floods the system and law based steering becomes totally impossible.

No tanha for jhana.

only about once a year, on any actively discussed and hotly debated topic, do i read a post that is so obviously true that it instantly settles all the debates with truth and wisdom.

for 2026, this is that post.

just as lynn margulis showed in her detailing of mitochondrial incorporation, the great turning will happen by symbiosis.

inside of protective, semipermeable membranes, small cooperative communities are inventing new patterns. and they are beginning to replicate within their own watersheds. eventually these new, local scale patterns strengthen and form federations between each other. the old way is not destroyed or eliminated by too down macro forces; that’s just another totalitarian impulse.

instead, the new ways are symbiotically incorporated by the old way. over time, the new patterns continue relatively faster regeneration and come to be the norm. even then, many pockets of the old way remain.

holo or hylo may be these local patterns. i am sure that sovereign indigenous nations are another. when you look closely, like chanterelles after a soaking fall rain, you can see them popping everywhere.

Asagaya on a Rainy Night, by Takahashi Shotei, ca. 1920

so i pulled one card from a deck my good friend brought as a present. wouldn’t you know? i pulled void 🧐

Holy shitballs this is perfection! 👌🏼😱

@cmilesb @themopinomicon Sounds like Hank was a beautiful human being.

Somehow accidentally deleted this one but this is still one of my favorite pieces

@cmilesb Never in a million years and yet somehow it’s perfectly on-brand

there is a drop from the old way to the new. it is the small minority that lets go because of the mind or reason. a few let go because social aspiration and people like to follow the cool. but for the largest majorities, they will only let go and drop into the new when they tire, can no longer hold their own weight or the old way breaks entirely. same old same old.

“Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to visit them from time to time.”

George R.R. Martin

Art Peter Seminck

This is a base-setting for our species. I’ve heard other interviews with this man and he is also a mathlete. This is what all humans are capable of, if there is safety and security. Now I have no idea what his personal life or childhood was like, but he seems to have figured 1…

this sunny sunday in vancouver was a sex party. late summer 74 degree bacchanalia. amateur olympiads, tight two pieces, bouncing volley balls all over the beaches. and lovers, hand in hand, around each bend. making out in broad daylight as if mourning incipient, endless gloom.