The Morning After

Beginning to inhale, the Winter Solstice moment has passed. Yang is rising.  I was restless all day yesterday, maybe too much yin. Couldn't work in my office because some ADA-required modification to the building is underway and it is unsafe to walk through the corridor.  How ironic.  I should have taken the free time to do some shopping, but that was just too dreary and depressing.  

At home, after monitoring business email, I succeeded in a technological challenge. I managed to hack the settings of my new alleged all-region DVD player which came ready to read only U.S. region DVDs.  But I watch and acquire a lot of Asian media.  How to correct this is not documented in the manual or officially on-line.   But, you can find anything on the Internet,  and in less than a minute, I discovered instructions on how to accomplish this.  Well, five different methods for the Coby 514; eventually one of them worked.  I am so proud of myself (and grateful to the video geeks who posted the information).  This should probably be a topic for the yin Tao 61, but the activity seemed so yang.  I will not review here the truly awful movie that I used to test the modified region setting.  (How can Andy Lau stoop so low?)

My old Christmas cactus is clearly ready to bloom, the miracle that re-occurs without my intervention, despite my neglect.  I would post a photo of the delicate new buds, but my camera connector is in my office.  I am disabled.

The kolea are busy in the yard and patrolling the street looking confident and at home.   They are not concerned with the discussions I have been over-preoccupied with on several Taoist forums; they are simply Tao manifest.  I watch them the way Zhang San Feng observed the snake and crane.  How can I be more like them, and the cactus, and my cats?

And we honored properly, our solstice wedding anniversary, a true celebration of yin and yang.  Our favorite table, at our favorite neighborhood restaurant, a crisp Bombay martini,  a table-side-constructed Caesar salad, a perfect glass of Cabernet, osso buco, shrimp and scallops, linguine, zabaglione.  But the restaurant was very busy, very crowded, very noisy, waiters were rushed. And the inevitable heartburn at 3 a.m.

But today, the morning after, all is well.  Except I still must go to shop, plunge into the Christmas frenzy.  Why didn't I do more on-line?  If only it was as easy and natural as the kolea snagging bugs in the grass.