The first month of 2025 came and went. A flash.
A few highlights:
- Participated in a daylong zazen retreat with the Anchorage-based Upright Noble Zen. I joined my son for the practice period.
- Three days after the retreat, I dropped him off at the airport for a flight to England. He is studying humanities at Oxford in a Middlebury program.
- On the 18th, I returned to my childhood home in SW Arkansas to see my aunt before her exit. Alzheimer is vicious. As I sat with her in silence, the three unavoidable realities--old age-sickness-death-were in full view. She died the day after I returned to AK.
- #47 was installed in the Whitehouse on the 20th. Hateful authoritarian edicts undermining democracy, promoting racism, creating anxiety and chaos across the nation and beyond.
