Lions through the smoke

Red sun rising again this morning, much like it set last night. Last night it looked overly large and swollen, like one of the itching mosquito bites on my legs. This morning it just looks a bit weary, tired of trying to reach us through the fire-smoke haze that brownly particulates the air with ash from the BC wildfires up north.

Can you imagine the air filled with smoke?
It was. The city was vanishing before noon
or was it earlier than that? I can't say because
the light came from nowhere and went nowhere. 

    - from, Smoke, by Philip Levine

Crossing the Ballard Bridge this morning that same weary sun cast a lovely red reflection of itself, stretched out toward me like a stripe of Oscar-night reception red carpet along the water below. I thought about stopping to try and capture the image in a photo, but as anyone who knows the bridge also knows, that isn't really possible. Not without consequences!

Smoke, like memories, permeates our hair,
our clothing, our layers of skin.
The smoke travels deep
to the seat of memory.
We walk away from the fire;
no matter how far we walk,
we carry this scent with us. 

   - from, Smoke in Our Hair, by Ofelia Zepeda

The campus has the quiet sort of busyness of summer quarter as I pull in this morning. I'm digging out of email and tasks from a week off: consequences.

We went up to BC for the week. We were supposed to be in a cabin on a lake in the middle of the wilderness area where all the forest fires are burning, but with the area evacuated and roads closed, that wasn't possible. So we spent our week in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island, basking in unusually warm weather and breathing wood smoke like we were sitting on the wrong side of a bonfire all day. Despite the change in plans and the smoke, it was a lovely week away. I finally got to meet some of Darren's Vancouver friends in person. Good people and gracious hosts!

Rain forest
Mist and mystery
Teeming green
Green brain facing lobotomy
Climate control centre for the world
Ancient cord of coexistence
Hacked by parasitic greedhead scam -
From Sarawak to Amazonas
Costa Rica to mangy B.C. hills -
Cortege rhythm of falling timber. 

   - Bruce Cockburn, from If A Tree Falls

So the sun is blood red, the air smokey, some of those "mangy B.C. hills" are burning (as is America's democracy), my inbox is overflowing, and, for whatever reason, I'm still feeling good. Very much like another Cockburn tune that didn't come up in this morning's random shuffle playlist:

Sun's up, uh huh, looks okay
The world survives into another day
And I'm thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me 

I had another dream about lions at the door
They weren't half as frightening as they were before
But I'm thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me 

Walls windows trees, waves coming through
You be in me and I'll be in you
Together in eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me 

Up among the firs where it smells so sweet
Or down in the valley where the river used to be
I got my mind on eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me 

And I'm wondering where the lions are...
I'm wondering where the lions are... 

   - Bruce Cockburn, from Wondering Where the Lions Are

They're out there, very real and still pacing through the smoke, but at bay for now.

Today's playlist:

• Olsen Olsen, Sigur Rós
• Please Forgive Me, David Gray
• I Tried to Leave You (Live), Leonard Cohen
• For Those That Are There, Kyle Asche Organ Trio
• Naima, Karrin Allyson
• Turpentine, Brandi Carlile
• No More "I Love You's", Annie Lennox
• Íllgresi, Sigur Rós
• Lonely People, Augustana