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| Christopher Capell photo |
From here on out, the temperatures begin to drop and the days start to get shorter than the nights. — Farmer's Almanac
Practice, life, everything, about living, it seems, comes down to balance between opposites: light and dark, hard and soft, life and death, sweet and sour, male and female, heaven and earth. The Autumnal equinox was Monday, providing a fine opportunity to stop a moment to marvel at the earth hanging in balance between all these poles.
I celebrated the equinox by planting my feet on the earth and looking up at the sky. After an early-morning practice in San Francisco with Peter Sanson, a visiting Certified Ashtanga teacher from New Zealand, I headed up Hawk Hill in Marin for my fortnightly stint as a Hawk Watch volunteer. By the time I left the studio, the sun was fully up, the sky was clear and bright blue, making a perfect backdrop for hundreds of migrating raptors. A half hour late to my shift, I barely had time to say hello to my hawk-watch team-mates as there were so many hawks in the sky: Cooper's Hawks, Sharp-shinned hawks, Broad-Winged hawks and more, there were hawks everywhere. The day would go by quickly as there was rarely a moment when the sky wasn't busy with migrating birds (and the hill full of both tourists enjoying a stellar view of San Francisco and other avid bird watchers). It was tremendous. It was was wonderful.
Autumn Sky
In my great grandmother's time,
All one needed was a broom
To get to see places
And give the geese a chase in the sky.
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The stars know everything,
So we try to read their minds.
As distant as they are,
We choose to whisper in their presence.
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Oh Cynthia,
Take a clock that has lost its hands
For a ride.
Get me a room at Hotel Eternity
Where Time likes to stop now and then.
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Come, lovers of dark corners,
The sky says,
And sit in one of my dark corners.
There are tasty little zeroes
In the peanut dish tonight.
