Another photo from our visit to Reno a few weeks ago.

---

Another three weeks have passed without an entry. It's not like nothing has been happening - actually a lot has been going on. I visited Reno with Mona to visit Becky and my Dad, who has been having some health problems. I've been attending a lot of events at the University. I'm trying to find reasons to be optimistic and avoid depression despite our lack of success finding a house and the need for me to postpone finding work until after the holidays.


Becky and Rowdy a couple of weeks ago - Rowdy is getting a little wobbly these days.

One reason I am holding off aggressive job hunting is our plan to visit Mexico for a week or so just before Christmas. We decided not to drive all the way down there, planning instead to fly into Guadalajara to visit the surrounding area - probably by bus. In order for us to both be there together it will mean leaving Mummadog with Mona and Clark at the ranch. I hope this isn't too hard on her - it was hard for me to accept the necessity of doing this.

I walked her around the neighborhood today as I always do, and was grateful for the clear sky and sunshine. Tonight I went out to dinner with a group I see monthly, and the woman seated next to me has a primary home in Everett, Washington, and a condo here in town. She likes to visit here frequently in the winter to escape the Washington gloom and rain, for even though it is colder here at times, the sun shines more than three hundred days a year, with much of the overcast occurring in the summer months as thunderstorms roll through.


Mid-day shadows suggest we are approaching the winter solstice.

---

I've been trying to figure out why there aren't any real pumpkins sitting on peoples doorsteps and porches, and on a recent morning when I found half my herb garden frozen and mushy it dawned on me - you CAN'T have a pumpkin outside here, because in October there are regular hard freezes.

A weeks or so ago, when we had that first snowfall, I saw a uniquely Fort Collins sight. Driving home from the university, I passed a guy wearing shorts pedaling his bicyle along a bike lane while he acccumulated a considerable amount of snow on everything but his bare legs. Pat told me people here would wear shorts all winter, but...

---

I started a new painting today - just a sketchy underpainting so far. Hoping to work on it most of the day tomorrow.

---

This morning began cold and cloudy. Mid-day, I looked out the kitchen window and was surprised to l see a light snow falling straight down in still air. I went out to do a few errands, and within an hour the snow began falling more heavily, blotting out the horizon and sticking where it fell. By the time I returned home, it looked more like mid-January than mid-October.

I took the Mdog out for her second walk of the day, and she didn't look especially pleased with the effect of falling snow.

---

Before I returned home this afternoon, I spent an hour and a half browsing in a used bookstore I recently discovered in Fort Collins. They had a good selection of Buddhist books, including an excellent translation of The Way of the Bodhisattva, by Shantideva. As I looked over some verses, I saw a lot of material relevant to my struggle to overcome negativity and the depression that sometimes accompanies it. Here is a bit from the section called Vigilant Introspection...

Wandering where it will, the elephant mind will bring us down to torment in the hell of unrelenting pain.

No worldly beast however wild and crazed could bring upon us such calamities.

If with mindfullness' rope the elephant of mind is tethered all around, our fears come to nothing.

Every virtue drops into our hands.

In the Buddhist way of thinking, if there is a Hell, it is a byproduct of misdirected thinking.

I've seen a number of similar discussions, pointing out that a deliberate effort is required to stop giving in to the thoughts that lead us to negativity. Discipline to turn away from indulgence in habitual thinking. It is a choice, really.

---

The 9X12 painting of Mona and Clark in Wyoming is nearly done after this afternoon's effort. I was a little worried that I wouldn't come up with a good approach for that lower right corner (see previous post), but I'm satisfied. After I grabbed this photo I did a little more work, adding some additional detail in the lower left corner - a few sunflowers on that side of the road. This is not a color-correct reproduction.



I'm pretty happy with this being the first landscape I've ever attempted...

---

Started a new picture yesterday - I'm still working on what to do with the lower right corner...

I haven't commented a lot recently on the continuing struggle with depression that has plagued me since the departure from California (and before?), but the good news is that slow incremental progress seems to be underway. I really work at it, and lots of people help out - sometimes a lot.

One small thing I do is subscribe to an email list from a Buddhist lama - Sogyal Rinpoche. This morning, after a couple of especially bleak recent days, the following popped into my inbox...

The more often you listen to your discriminating awareness, the more easily
you will be able to change your negative moods yourself, see through them,
and even laugh at them for the absurd dramas and ridiculous illusions that
they are.

Gradually you will find yourself able to free yourself more and more quickly
from the dark emotions that have ruled your life, and this ability to do so
is the greatest miracle of all.

The Tibetan mystic, Tertön Sogyal, said that he was not really impressed by
someone who could turn the floor into the ceiling or fire into water. A real
miracle, he said, was if someone could liberate just one negative emotion.

Sogyal Rinpoche