From a message to Bobby, with additional comment: Life could be so wonderful if it weren't for all the living we have to do. Yeah, the desert is not what it used to be. I really miss the quiet little place it was. Too many people and not enough desert now. I enjoy the variety of restaurants, and some of the stores are convenient, but I would honestly rather go back to the days when you planned to go down below to do serious shopping at least one day a month. It was a pain in some ways, but things were quiet and semi rural then.

Worst of all is the horrible light pollution. You can hardly see the stars anymore. Pele and Pele's Plume [aka Scorpio] are back, but so low in the sky you can hardly see them. Ummm... did you know that I have my own names for the constellations?

It may seem odd are first, until you remember that this is me talking. Then it seems normative...for me anyway.

Speaking of light pollution... why do some people, so many people, slash and cut the night with so many light sabers? Street lights, parking lot lights, mercury and sodium flood lights in their yards, what did the night ever do to them? All the high desert has become full of glare. No matter where I go to meditate, I am assaulted by wild and angry photons. Well, while smog is here in the evenings, it is more a smell and a headache than the eye burning attack it was a few decades ago. There is hope. If we could get smog reduced and the air less poisoned, maybe we can do the same for the Cathedral of Night that God built.