Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Who Knew?

1,000th Phil’s Place Posting

Little Hazy Shasta.jpg
Mount Shasta

I can now realize how much I have put into this little journal. It started out to be just a few stories, like I was writing in letters to Marian. Here we are, 7 years and 1,000 entries later.

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I call him Caruso

It was/is also a place where I can store recollections of interesting moments from my past in what is turning out to be an interesting and eclectic journey toward enlightenment.

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Centemundi fishing spot on Shasta Lake

I soon discovered that I could add pictures and video’s. This was a revelation. If the subject was Thomas Edison, I could include his picture, and possibly an appropriately relative video.

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Pie 21

Then, I learned to film, score, and upload my own videos. This prompted an interest in better cameras which focused my attention on better photography and learning more about the subjects in the pix and videos I produce.

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Resting hummingbird

The need for interesting topics and useful information led to discovering the valuable treasures hidden in the clamor of commerce, sleaze, and ignorance that permeates the interweb.

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Pretty ‘circus’ rose

I have learned to navigate the sulphuric miasma of cyberspace, and how to avoid the ever present shoals of malignant mayhem and simplistic conspiracies. I know where to find real information on topics of history, space, art, music, science, biology and much, much, more.

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Mount Lassen

This little journal has opened a portal of discovery and a stimulus to my intellectual and spiritual quest for knowledge.

I hope you can accompany me as we continue adding to this collection of artifacts and curiosities. So far, we have explored everything from how to peel a banana, to the vertical analysis of the Gospels as compared with Homer’s Odyssey.  

If nothing else, you might enjoy my photography.

Today’s Video;


Well Seasoned

Sunday, February 23, 2014

The Band Plays On

Writing Life’s Soundtrack

Knothole bird

How convenient. I can sing any of the songs I have written, and it is just like being there, (and then), whenever that may have been.

One white rose

This comes in handy in case I forget how it felt to downhill ski, ride the desert wind in a land sailer, or any of the adventures I have experienced that made it into a musical time capsule. I sing the song and I am there.

Shasta from 2nd floor stairwell

I can relive the heartbreaking sadness of dealing with endings of romances, misadventures, and lost lives. Playing and singing the songs can transport me to those specific times when my emotions were so powerful that I set aside my anguish in poetry and music.

I call him, ‘Fluffy’

Love found, love in bloom, lust, all consuming passion and the wonderful people who shared those experiences, come to life in the now when I sing the songs they inspired.

Dean’s latest rose

I know just how rich my life is as a result of contributions by exceptional people, animals, places, and graces that populate my world. I am the most fortunate me on the planet.

Mt Lassen late sun, Saturday

I can write, play, sing, and photograph my way through life as it happens and experience those times in the future by paying and singing that song.

Saturday sunset with palm

Intensity of revisiting heartaches can vary. That’s a good thing.

Today’s Video;


Joyfully Enhanced Appreciation Of Life

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Post Presidents Day

Back On Track

Normal breakfast

I don’t know about you, but those strenuous, exciting, traditional Presidents Day Gettysburg Address recital competitions and Cherry Tree Chop Down contests sure do wear a guy out.

Bee “winging it”

I think I better start training earlier for the 50 mile hike, too.

Roses return

It’s good to be here where it’s just a regular Tuesday. I wonder what themed 3 day weekend is scheduled next? I had better look it up so I will have set out the appropriate decorations for that weekend.

Pie #19

Next Monday is Museums Advocacy Day. I wonder what decorations Kmart will have on sale for us to honor museums? I am sure everyone will get the day off, so they can go on their towns museum tour.

Sundown on Presidents Day

I would set up a diorama on the balcony depicting the grand opening of Redding’s first salmon fishing museum, but I expect I will be busy mixing a recording of PSB playing at The Post Office Saloon and Grill on the 21st, and playing music Monday at the Treehouse Jamboree.

Presidents night moon

Today’s Video Presentation;


Enjoying Everyday Splendors

Friday, February 14, 2014

Valentines Day

Love To Be Loved

All grown up

The first daffodil to appear this year has blossomed. How appropriate.

You may have followed its development here on this blog. If you are here at the Treehouse, you may have nearly stepped on it as you walk around to the back of ‘A’ Building, ( ‘A’, stands for alder).

By the balcony

Today is Valentines Day. A day to embrace love in all its splendor.

There are many kinds of love, and if we are lucky, we can know a few of them.

I love loving, and the warmth of being loved.

Waterproof succulent and rain globes

When I enlarge the succulent image, and look into the largest rain globe, I can see the back corner of ‘A’ Building, the sky, and some of the hedges and trees along the sidewalk. I can even see the garden hose wound up on its reel by the faucet. I love looking closely at raindrops. Does the rain globe in the image know it is loved?

Daffodils appearing in Dorothy’s garden, too

Zooming the daffodil image, above, I can clearly see a mosquito using the flower petal as shelter from the rain. I love this photography stuff. I think it shows.

If I am feeling the love of my place in the wonder of the cosmos, the pictures I take tend to contain some of that love. I know this because those are the pictures that move people to say something about how the image touches them.

Wood eater

I love to sing love songs. Most music is based on love of at least one sort or another.

In John’s shop kitchen

Love found
Love lost
Love in bloom
Faded love
Crazy love
Everlasting love
Love thy neighbor but, (Biblically), not thy neighbor’s wife
Love is sweet
Love can be bitter
Love can heal
Love can hurt
Love conquers all

I had better wrap this up while it is still Valentines Day

Today’s Video;


Love From Me To You

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

The Inclusiveness

And The Power

Hiding acorns

When I feel the need to communicate, compare, or at least explain my acquaintance with manifestations of cosmic awareness, I find it best to narrow the subject  down to two primary states of being that I love to experience.

Oneness with everything, by becoming an egoless nothing. That’s the place a familiar sense of inner peace takes me. It’s a state of passive inclusiveness. I developed that ability by practicing music, and through meditation techniques. One can feel their heart beat with the rhythm of repeatedly playing a song, or intoning a mantra, until you are completely immersed in the void. It is there that you may experience all that that is and is not. Results may vary.

Your mind can become untroubled and clear, as you physically join with the pulse of the music. Once you have had that experience, it is possible to follow the path to that heavenly existence, again and again.

A number of musicians that I have met through the years, know exactly what I am talking about. I call that, “The Inclusiveness”. Sometimes, on rare occasions, the whole band will reach that place together. For some people to understand, I have been known to describe that collective inclusiveness as, “Touching God”.

That feeling is what keeps some musicians, myself included, playing six nights a week, playing after hours and jamming on Sundays, for years on end. We just have to experience another a few seconds of The Inclusiveness now and then, and we will keep on playing until we drop.

The Power is an experience that is more rare, but having been a part of it, I will never look at life in the simplistic way I used to. It feels like my awareness becomes charged with electricity. It is not passive energy. It is too powerful to be contained. It flows through my being and spreads out into the space around me. I have been struck by this power while performing.

Some musicians and performers think they can get there by using drugs. In my experience, a drug high is just a drug high, no more substantial than junk food. I find love of music and meditation to be my path to enlightenment.

The music coalesces into it’s own universe. For a moment, there is nothing but the song, The universe contracts around the sounds and pulsing rhythms of all of us playing, dancing, and moving together in the music. I hear my voice singing as if from a distance, I can see my hands chording and strumming, and I feel the shared vibrations of my guitar and body as I sing and play.

The hairs on my arms and head begin to tingle, then, Zzzt! It’s like sticking my finger in a light socket, or being really close to a lightning strike, only it’s not over in an instant.

Charging through me, this energy radiates outward. I see that some people around me are touched by more than the rhythm and magic of the music. They look my way as the power expands. I can see the light in their eyes, and on their faces. I have shared this rare and precious moment with others and I am humbled by The Power. Life is awesome.

Today’s Microbial Video;

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Eternally Grateful

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Sunshine Monday

Rain Returns Tuesday Night

Blossoms in morning sun

Monday morning opened with sunshine, some blossoms opened on the tree by the balcony, too. It was a very pleasant pause between waves of storm systems making their way across the northstate as they stream towards lands to the east.

Morning sun on aloe

The next rain is expected to return sometime Tuesday night and continue through Sunday. It is certainly welcome. I liked the clean air and freshly washed look of potential photo subjects as I wandered around the Treehouse in the warm sunshine.

Tiny blue flowers enjoyed the sunshine

I saw a spot of purple in one of Dorothy’s garden plots, so I walked over to see what it could be. I had to be careful where I planted my feet so I wouldn’t crush the little blue flowers that were scattered throughout the ground cover greenery.

I got up close to the eye catching purple thing. Is was an iris. First one of the year.

Early iris in Dorothy’s garden

What a pleasant, and colorful surprise. I heard Brandi saying hello from up on Jo Anna’s balcony. Hi Brandi.

The view is reflected in Brandi’s eyes

The raven/crows were excited to have the sunlight and they could hardly contain their exuberance. They were the trombones in a symphony of birdsong that filled the landscape as far as the ear could hear. Alive. Life was radiating and pulsing in every life-form from microbes to mammals.

Bouncing off to bury an acorn

Sunday night, the Phil Seymour Band opened the Jefferson State Blues Society Jam. We had Sarah Pappenheim as our drummer. It is always a pleasure to have her play with us. We introduced a few new songs with good results. Good stuff, this music playing and singing pastime.

Magnolias are still blooming

Today was the Monday jamboree, here at the Treehouse. Peggy Richardson plays piano and I sing and play guitar. We make some entertaining adventures out of a broad range of musical selections. Today we introduced a couple of songs we played for the first time together; It’s All In The Game”, and “The Night Life”. They turned out to be ‘keepers’.

What a joy it is to be able to play and sing many different styles of music.

Tonight’s moon

I took some pictures of the moon and jupiter tonight, but cloudy conditions made it difficult to get both objects in focus, or even to be seen. If I allowed enough light to see jupiter, the moon would flare and become an undefined circle. Still, I like the hazy moody moon images.

Today’s Video;


Expanding Perspectives