PNW

[pnw4u]

River Road Meditation

We live in a working class neighborhood, half a mile from the Blugene railyard, River Road humming on the other side — and our bedroom’s up in the attic, close enough to the roof that the trains don’t just pass by, they announce themselves right through the bones of the house.

Most nights, the soundtrack is the same — EMS, fire, police, sirens bending the dark like hot metal. Nothing new. I can sleep. Just the neighborhood breathing.

But last night — sometime after late thirty, when the clock stops meaning anything — I’m lying in bed with some leftover rhythm still rolling around in my head, when a train rattles through, whistle blowing long and low, and suddenly the beat in my brain locks into step with the rhythm of the train.

Then the sirens start up on River Road — that rising, falling, coyote in the city howl — and the whole thing braids itself together into one strange, accidental symphony.

And I’m thinking, Alright. All we need now is a car alarm to join the band. Didn’t happen. Didn’t matter. Sleep was already a lost cause.

So I get up. Go downstairs. Sit cross legged on the couch like some midnight monk in a house that won’t shut up.

Breath first. Then heartbeat. Let the sounds move through me — train rhythm, siren arc, the restless city, the samba in my head passing through my body.

Let it go. Release the jaw. Release the shoulders. Let the subtle body light up like a dim constellation. Breath and heartbeat. Breath and heartbeat.

And time — whatever it is — lets go of me for a while. Maybe fifteen minutes. Maybe a lifetime in a moment. Long enough for the noise to settle, for my body to relax, my mind to clear and sleep to finally find me.

[pnw4u]

Sun shining again First week of February Seeing buds on trees

Too much warm weather for the middle of winter Winter holds its breath

Cold waits in the shade Jack Frost lurks in the shadows to freeze this false spring

[pnw4u]

The Cost of Freedom

The cost of freedom is a debt paid in blood and struggle. It's the shattered bone beneath the boot, the screams swallowed in the dark, the bodies left uncounted in the rubble. It's in the cold dawn where the fallen lie, where mothers clutch empty arms and fathers wear grief like armor.

It's the fire that burns in the eyes of those who refuse to bow, the raised fist that breaks chains, the brutal truth that liberty is soaked in sacrifice and justice is carved from pain.

It's in the shattered glass beneath bare feet, the whispered prayers in the trenches, the bloodied hands that build anew on the ruins of tyranny.

The cost of freedom is the courage to face the abyss in spite of fear, to walk through the storm and rise, heartbroken but unbowed.

It's the spirit that fuels our fight, in the tears that fall like rain, the unyielding hope that something must be saved.

And we pay the cost of freedom. We pay it because silence creates a wound that does not heal.

[pnw4u]

Urgency is not hysteria. It’s clarity

Urgency is not hysteria. It’s clarity - And clarity is what this moment demands.

The U.S. Border Patrol has a record of being one of the most corrupt federal agencies in the administrative branch of our government, with little to no accountability or governmental oversight. It has a long history of scandals ranging from systemic racism, sexual harassment and excessive use of force to corruption and abuse of detainees. These issues are often due to rapid, massive hiring surges, lack of oversight, inadequate agent training, a culture of impunity, and militarization of the agency.

You can clearly see this culture of corruption and impunity in the 2016 internal reporting from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where the agency documented abuse of power by employees - such as providing sensitive information to criminal organizations, facilitating drug smuggling, committing fraud, misusing law enforcement databases, and stealing government property, and human trafficking by harboring undocumented immigrants in collusion with criminal trafficking networks.

When CBP’s own reporting reveals misconduct that undermines the integrity of a federal law enforcement agency, it’s not just a bureaucratic embarrassment. It’s a rupture in the shared reality that democracy depends on. These aren’t isolated lapses; they’re symptoms of an institution abdicating its public mandate. Once an institution begins to tolerate such behavior, even at the margins, it signals a willingness to let power operate without accountability. We're seeing that in our streets now.

This is not a new story in the United States. Our history is threaded with moments when institutions failed to restrain themselves, insisting they were acting in the public interest even as they protected injustice. Slavery was upheld by courts and Congress. Industrial exploitation was enforced by police and private militias. Segregation was maintained by local governments and federal indifference. In every era, institutions claimed legitimacy while betraying the people they were meant to serve. And in every era, it was ordinary people - organizers, workers, protest marchers, and whistleblowers who forced the truth into the open. The abolitionists confronted a legal system that protected slavery. Labor organizers faced courts and brutality from police forces aligned with industrial capital. The civil rights movement exposed the complicity of local and federal authorities in maintaining racial hierarchy. In each case, institutions insisted they were acting in the public interest, even as their unjust actions betrayed the very principles they claimed to defend. And each case, ordinary citizens had to step into the breach. It was the public - organized, persistent, morally grounded - that forced a reckoning.

That’s the pattern we’re living through again now. What ties these moments together is a simple truth: institutions rarely correct themselves. They respond to pressure, to scrutiny, to the refusal of citizens to accept injustice as the natural order of things - when the public refuses to accept corruption as normal. Democracy is not just a system of rules; it’s a collective agreement about what is true, what is fair, and what we owe one another. When institutions break that agreement, they weaken the fabric of our evolving democratic society.

In a Democratic Republic, institutions draw their authority from the people - our trust, our belief, our willingness to let them act in our name. When they act with integrity, they strengthen our common ground. When they act with impunity, they fracture it. Once that fracture begins, it spreads. It creates parallel realities: the official narrative and the lived experience of local communities. Democracies don't usually survive that split for long.

Institutional accountability is not an abstract idea. It’s a reality playing out right now in the world we share. The question is whether we will act before the fracture widens. Whether we will insist on truth, demand transparency, and refuse to let corruption become normalized. Whether we will remember that democracy survives only when people are willing to defend it.

That’s why cooperation and moral courage are not optional. They are the tools that hold a shared reality together. Our fates are intertwined. Moral courage reminds us that truth must be defended, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it’s dangerous. This understanding informs the only reliable counterweight to an institutional drift towards an autocratic kleptocracy.

This is the moment when that counterweight is needed. The task of insisting that power remain tethered to responsibility belongs to us. It always has. Peaceful civil disobedience, investigative journalism, community organizing, public advocacy: these are not symbolic gestures. They are the mechanisms by which democracy pulls itself back from the edge. They remind institutions that their legitimacy is conditional. They reassert the principle that public power must serve the public good. https://www.cbp.gov/document/report/corruption-cbp-retrospective-study-cases

[pnw4u]

We Will Not Submit

We will not submit. We will resist— not with the clenched fist of destruction, but with the steady pulse of those who refuse to surrender their freedom.

We resist as peaceful warriors, witnesses to what must not be lost, for resistance is a rhythm, a returning, a vow renewed each time the world demands it.

We hold the line with open eyes, with voices unbroken, with the steadfast truth that freedom is a practice, and courage is a choice made again and again

We will not submit. We will resist— and in that steady refusal, we become the future

[pnw4u]

First Blood

First shots fired, first blood drawn— not on a battlefield, but on what were once quiet streets. Gunfire, sharpened by fear, ricochets through the neighborhood. Silence follows, then screams, heavy as smoke, settling on everything we thought was safe. Flags raised, with no victors— only the ache of seeing somebody, bloodied, dying in the street, and knowing something fragile has been wounded, unable to return to what it was.

[pnw4u]

Perhaps we're here to help each other & create a sustainable future? Perhaps in doing so, we evolve to gain a deeper understanding of both our individual & collective purpose?

It becomes difficult to contemplate greater purpose when people are hungry, worried about finding a safe place to sleep or being bombed & shot at.

About 10% of the world's population live in extreme poverty & go to bed hungry every night. That's about 800 million people. Over 14 million children worldwide suffer from severe malnutrition. An additional 3 billion people live on the edge of poverty (probably a conservative estimate).

Then there's war - According to the United Nations, 2 billion people (a quarter of the world's population) live in conflict affected areas. An estimated 84 million people have been forcibly displaced because of war, violence & human rights violations. In the near future, an estimated 274 million people will need humanitarian assistance due to war.

And that doesn't take into account the numbers of people forced to migrate due to climate change & the resulting societal upheaval.

Those who are able should be grateful for the opportunity to ponder such things, but many who live lives of privilege just don't care.

[pnw4u]

Rhythm

Everything vibrates

finding its own rhythm

Nothing rests

All things move

like the tides

like flood and drought

Like the swing of the pendulum

from one side to the other

exaggerated truth becomes a lie

Mind manifests perception.

Beyond ego,

Mind transmutes

base perception

into purity of thought

Touch the elephant.

Beyond the vanity of ego

Find your truth

Feel the rhythm &

Mind the gap

[pnw4u]

another day

Just another day.

Each day unique in it's own way.

Make plans, then adapt,

moment to moment, day by day.

Take time to reflect,

thankful for each moment of life,

come what may.

[pnw4u]

MORNING TRAIN - Curtis Salgado & Alan Hager

[pnw4u]

The Tubes - What Do You Want From Life? - 12/31/1975 - Winterland (Offic...

[pnw4u]

Meditation

Tend to goodness. Evolve beyond beliefs & expectations.

[pnw4u]

Mirror of the Heart

Meditation and prayer is wisdom beyond concepts. Mindfulness is wisdom beyond performance. Proper behavior is wisdom beyond correction. Non-judgemental observation is wisdom beyond achievement. Consciousness is wisdom beyond the physical realm. Evolution of consciousness is wisdom beyond frame of reference. Acceptance of reality is wisdom beyond effort. Understand aspects of awareness free of identity consciousness. Understand all phenomena as unceasing. Bring understanding that what is unceasing manifests in infinite ways. Bring understanding that what manifests unceasingly is unborn. Bring understanding that what is unborn does not come and go. Bring understanding of what does not come and go is non-dual. Bring understanding that this non-duality is free of limitations. Bring understanding to the point of non-biased observation, letting go of conceptualizing phenomenon through the lens of ego. Bring understanding of all phenomena to the point of experiencing their essence lucidly, without distraction or anxiety.

[neurosciencestuff]

Largescale brain epigenetics study provides new insights into dementia

The largest study of its kind has unveiled new insights into how genes are regulated in dementia, including discovering 84 new genes linked to the disease.

Led by the University of Exeter, the international collaboration combined and analysed data from more than 1,400 people across six different studies, in a meta-analysis published in Nature Communications. These studies had used brain samples from people who had died with Alzheimer’s disease. The project, funded by Alzheimer’s Society and supported by the Medical Research Council and the National Institutes for Health, looked at an epigenetic mark called DNA methylation at nearly half a million sites in the genome. Epigenetic processes control the extent to which genes are switched on and off, meaning they behave differently as needed across the different cell-types and tissues that make up a human body. Importantly, unlike our genes, epigenetic processes can be influenced by environmental factors, making them potentially reversible and a possible route to new treatments.

The study looked at epigenetic patterns across the genome, in a number of different regions of the brain. The team then related the amount of DNA methylation to the amount of neurofibrillary tangles within the brain, which is an important hallmark of the severity of Alzheimer’s disease.

The team looked in different regions of the brain, which are affected in Alzheimer’s disease before looking for common changes across these cortical regions. They identified 220 sites in the genome, including 84 new genes, which showed different levels of DNA methylation in the cortex in individuals with more severe Alzheimer’s disease, which weren’t seen in another area of the brain called the cerebellum.

The team went on to show that a subset of 110 of these sites could distinguish in two independent datasets whether a brain sample had high or low levels of disease, with more than 70 per cent accuracy. This suggests that epigenetic changes in the brain in Alzheimer’s disease are very consistent. The findings were subsequently confirmed in an independent set of brain samples from the Brains for Dementia Research cohort funded by the Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK.

Professor Katie Lunnon, of the University of Exeter, who led the research, said: “Our study is the largest of its kind, giving important insights into genomic areas that could one day provide the key to new treatments. The next step for this work is to explore whether these epigenetic changes lead to measurable changes in the levels of genes and proteins being expressed. This will then allow us to explore whether we could repurpose existing drugs that are known to alter the expression levels of these genes and proteins, to effectively treat dementia”.

Dr Richard Oakley, Head of Research, Alzheimer’s Society said: “Epigenetics is a flourishing area of dementia research. Work like this, led by the University of Exeter, is another step forward in our understanding of the incredibly complex role our genes play in Alzheimer’s disease.

“It’s now important to delve into the specific impact of these epigenetic changes and the associated genes on the changes in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. This work is in early stages but breakthroughs in research begins with work like this, and it brings us a step closer to developing new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.

“Alzheimer’s Society is delighted to have part-funded this work and ‘Brains for Dementia Research’, which provided the tissue samples to this research team. Without the support of charities, this work simply would not be possible - we are committed to investing in, and accelerating, dementia research. However, dementia research remains hugely underfunded. We need public support now more than ever to help us continue our ground-breaking research to make a world without dementia a reality.”

[pnw4u]

Two Paths

There is something profound happening with human consciousness. It seems to be taking two divergent directions, both directions claiming some sort of universal awakening. One in the direction of rational intelligence, understanding of reality, & evolution of mind - allowing us to transcend the negative aspects our animal nature. The other seems to be wondering off in the direction of paranoia, conspiracy theories, delusional thinking & anti-social behavior which leads to social dissolution & disintegration of civilization.

I’ve come to realize that our self-absorbed ideological & political squabbles have no social value. They are as ridiculous as our primitive anthropomorphic religious beliefs which demagogues use to divide us.

I reject any position that promotes intolerance, superiority or use of violence as a path to a sustainable civilization. What matters is love & compassion. What matters is mind; what we do with our ability to communicate, formulate ideas & cooperate with each other to bring those ideas into material reality. 

So what are we doing? Are we going to piss it away for temporary personal aggrandizement & the illusion of superiority, wealth & power? Are we going to continue to use the gift of mind to invent ever more efficient ways to kill each other & recklessly exploit nature's bounty? If so, then take a wild guess as to what our fate as a species will be.

We have the gift of consciousness & a degree of free will. What we do with this opportunity is entirely up to us. I seriously doubt that some anthropomorphic God is going to come down out of the sky & save our species from the bad choices we've made. So let's ride the wave of time as best we can & behave in a compassionate, cooperative, non-violent manner that contributes to the greater good for ourselves & our children.

[pnw4u]

Pale Blue Dot

On February 14, 1990, before taking leave of our solar system from about 4 billion miles away, the the Voyager 1 space probe took the "Pale Blue Dot" photograph of Earth.

In his book by the same name, Carl Sagan wrote:

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar', every 'supreme leader', every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturing, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

[pnw4u]

Desideratum (morning contemplation)

Move gracefully and mindfully in the sphere of life.

Be fair, kind and compassionate, assisting others without selfishness.

Be generous without ostentation.

Honor truth, love, friendship and loyalty.

Remain free of infidelity, hypocrisy, self-righteousness and  superstition.

Face adversity with a serene and open mind, fulfilling responsibilities without despair.

Be resolute in times of danger.

Lay hold of tasks without pretension, but with composed courage, watchful resolution, remorseless energy and power of mind.

Embrace good fortune without pompous presumption, and regard property or even life as not too dear for the protection of innocence, virtue, and fairness.

Be a relentless judge of self, but tolerant of others

Endeavor to oppose error without arrogance, and promote intelligence without impatience.

Properly understand how to reckon and employ appropriate resources.

Acknowledge those worthy of merit, regardless of social status.

Honor humble virtues and disfavor vice despite its illustrious facade.

Acknowledge the hand of God and pursue the higher purpose of consciousness, holding faith and hope as more than words without meaning.