7/26/2025

Purple-loosestrife

Went down to check to see if it was open, and it was open on the Kew Garden Hills side, but when I got. to the Forest Hills side, it was locked!

Closed for the second time in a row

Trying to go to Willow Lake and the gates are locked is really annoying. I went a week prior and it was locked too, so it's been locked for a while. No explanation. Quite annoying. It was closed for a few months this winter.

So I walked down the off ramp, and looked to see if there was a break in the fence of where to break into the reeds. The traffic was so heavy, I was too impatient to cross. Anyway, I think the place to go in is to walk down the on ramp from Jewel. I didn't do that, but I did explore to see if there were any other path, and I couldn't really find them. There's so much garbage dumped there, it's quite disgusting. 

I take exception that they don't say when they will reopen (NYC).

The Pat Dolan Trail is closed

The Pat Dolan Trail is closed until further notice due to maintenance and repair needs. (source)

It's a bummer because I had to walk along the road with lots of cars. But it afforded me a view I don't usually have of my beloved lake/pond, and the connecting stream to Flushing bay. 

I walked to Forest Hills, and saw the high school where Simon and Garfunkel went, and my stepfather. I didn't look for a trail to connect with the lake because the walk was longer than I wanted it to be already. 

I stopped at the donut shop, now called Jerusalem Fresh Bagels and got an apple fritter and coffee. They have non-bovine source milks for your coffee. I forgot to ask until after the milk was already in the coffee, I just assumed they wouldn't. It's a Bukharian hangout, everyone shook the hands of one guy sitting there when they came in. I like tight ethnic communities, I think they're wonderful. I saw I'd walked over 5k, so the walk would end up being 11,666. About 4 miles. 

My destination was the one place I know that sells coffee beans at reasonable prices. My grocery store probably charges twice the price for whole beans. I've been thinking maybe less coffee would be good, but I do love freshly ground coffee. 

I haven't been down to the lake because it's been closed off, I'm getting older and it's a colder winter than past winters. I suppose if they're going to close it off they can do it during the winter when there's less use. I haven't wanted to wildcat it across the highway like I imagine the hobos and delinquents do. I do feel an antisocial anger towards authority, and the desire to go into the one space that has lots of trees and birds. 

Mall to home

I need to walk more, and I succeeded in getting 14.5k steps. I'm down about a thousand steps from last year.

I walked along Queens Boulevard, looking at the places I used to go when I lived in Rego Park and the new buildings. In Forest Hills, I took the route through Willow Lake. I'm usually on the other side, so this is a fun photo for me. 

I ran into 4 people from the Flushing Bay Conservancy group Guardians of Flushing Bay. They were testing the water. This is the source in Willow Creek, not sure where it starts, but there were minnows in the water. 

Felt a bit tired so only did a 5 minute lake meditation. It's gotten colder, and for some reason the cold is getting to me this year, I'm getting older. 

It's a beaver supermoon tonight, it coincides with the moon's closest approach to Earth in its orbit, known as perigee. As a result, the moon will appear larger and up to 30% brighter than usual, creating a captivating visual spectacle.

Sept 20th

The weaker trees and branches are beginning to turn color. 

I saw by the lake for a nature meditation. Maybe just sitting with my eyes open to look at the lake. You can see the branches a fisherman put in to hold his rods. Henry wasn't there. Looked like it would be too difficult to get past all the stuff.

There weren't birds on the lake. I wondered about fall migration. My friend in Portland went to watch Vaux Swifts go down a chimney as a planned stop on their migration, passing through. 

"We’ve been watching the Vaux Swifts most nights roost in a chimney at a high school a few blocks away. They are tiny birds which are in the process of migration from Canada down to Venezuela and hit Portland annually throughout the month of September. This year there have been fewer than most years for reasons unclear. Some years there have been up to 35,000 in a single evening all trying to roost for the night in the chimney. This year the numbers have so far maxed out at 5,430 for a single night. Hundreds of people show up each night at sunset with blankets and bottles of wine to watch and there is usually a fair amount of drama as Cooper’s Hawks hang out on the chimney ledge and nab the first Swifts that try to slip by. 

It’s pretty cool watching the massive swarm of birds that all fly in unison making really interesting patterns in the sky before deciding all at one to funnel into the chimney reminiscent of iwater going down a drain. Being stoned enhances the spectacle in my experience. The birds would normally roost in hollowed out trees, and the chimney apparently seems like an acceptable substitute. 

One year a long time ago the school custodian turned on the boiler by mistake and there was a massive tragedy. The school then decommissioned the chimney and installed a whole separate heating system so that the incident would never happen again. The school mascot is of course the Swift."

Good friends share nature experiences with you. 

I skipped a meditation online with friends in Iran to take my daughter to school this morning. They stopped by to drop something off and I hopped in the car to join in the short journey a few blocks, then walked down to the lake. 

I get nervous a critter will come up to me, there are racoons who seemed kind of ill who lurk around sometimes, and there are hobos who live under the bridge, but most likely is the Filipino fisherman. Haven't seen him in a while because I haven't been down there much lately. There's also a birder who walks around with his binoculars and guide. I've run into park rangers a few times and students doing some nature project. There was supposed to be construction of a run off pipe, but I don't see evidence of that anymore. 

I saw a posting that at 10 on Sunday they'll form a group to pick up the garbage. There are two spots where a garbage bag has broken and people just left it. Most likely the hobos or the people who go down there to smoke. Now that it's legal, I smell it in my apartment on the second floor quite often, but honestly when it was illegal, I smelled is just about as much. My upstairs neighbor his retired and smokes a lot. He has advanced stage COPD, so he doesn't smoke as much these days. 

Say what you want about the narcissism of blogging but I thought I had to get active and get down to the lake to update the blog. 

39 degrees F

"As a child looks forward to the coming of the summer, so could we contemplate with quiet joy the circle of the seasons returning without fail eternally." (HDT's journal)

Global warming is confusing because I can't really guess the temperature, and I'd for sure wouldn't notice a 2 degree difference, but it would be disastrous. I'm wondering how much this like is going to raise when the waters start rising. I'm not sure if it's going to happen much in my lifetime. That's another issue, humans are kind of selfish, not really concerned about what happens after them. A hot day or a cold day isn't global warming, and change and extinction is always happening. I guess the question is what can we to to avoid some man made changes that might harm humanity. I want my children to live in a fairly stable and kind world. In AA we are tought to think through the consequences of picking up that first drink. I think humans are addicted to selfishness and self absorption against their own interests, and we need to think about the future constructively. 

Valley of tears

Winter Solstice

 

Monday

 

Henry the tortoise wasn't there today and not lurking under the water when the sunlight came up. The wind goes north to south, right to left, across the lake today. Plans fly in and bank to land into the wind at laguardia. When it's busy one plane ever 45 seconds, and depending how buys in 45 second chunks like 90 seconds, and so on. 

Lake meditation, I just look at the lake, the birds, the trees in the distance. I think about eagles dropping carp that are too big and heavy on land to eat later. There was mouse on the trail, bloody, so I thought maybe a bird left a snack for later. 

Ran into Eric the fisherman and his wife, and he said the third racoon passed away, and he told the rangers. 

Racoon

There was a racoon who didn't run away, and just shirked when I walked by. I talked to the fisherman and he said there were 2 dead racoons down the path. He even wondered if the 3 hobos living under the bridge had been trapping them. He asked them and they denied it. This guy seemed to shake the in the cold. I thought for a while to call 311, he might be rabid. I searched for a while to see if I could fill out an online form, but I couldn't find it. So I resolved to meditate and if he was still there on the way out, I would definitely call. He wasn't there on the walk out. No point in reporting a sick racoon whereabouts unknown. 

Been thinking about the 3 marks of existence, impermanence, suffering and no permanent self, and this racoon wasn't long for this world, he seemed sick. I watched the second half of Lion King last night. My daughter watched it up to Mufasa being killed, but deprived herself of the recovery from the loss with Hakuna Matata. I had to look at the recovery, and see Simba raise his son the way Mufasa raised him, to the pride. The point is there's a cycle of life. I'm not going to save every sick racoon. 

Henry was in the water today when I arrived for my 20 minute lake meditation. I offset lake meditation with my 30 minutes of anapanasati and the occasional metta, karuna, mudita and upekkha meditations, and pure awareness, and 6 elements. As the sun became more tempting he wrestled his way up onto the reeds and out of the water. He's definitely a sun lover, and will move to the best of his ability as a tortoise to catch sun rays. I was tempted to help him out and lift him into a sunny spot, but invasive red eared tortoise carry many bacteria and germs that don't effect them, but effect humans.

 Today the lake had lots of birds, more than usual. You can hardly see them in this terrible phone camera photo. These perhaps loons sit low in the water and often go under water. There are other birds too, geese, ducks and seagulls. They flew over and then flew away. 

Fairies and Elves

Reading Thoreau's journal, he mentions ferries and elves. 

My tortoise meditation friend. He's a red eared slider, same species as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Supposedly it's a pet species, and thus fairly invasive since humans are messy. They're from the midwest. They're on the list of the top 100 invasive species. "Red-eared slider turtles are the world's most commonly traded reptile, due to their relatively low price, and usually low food price, small size, and easy maintenance." And, "Reptiles are asymptomatic (meaning they suffer no adverse side effects) carriers of bacteria of the genus Salmonella."

My birder friend helped me to identify the hawk as a Coopers Hawk. Ran into the birder and the fisherman. I'm the meditator. There's a joke in there somewhere. Or a loan.

Tracked down a renaming of birds article.

Fall day

The quarter waning moon is just out of frame to the right. Lots of planes in the air. Planes seemed to be taking off from La Guardia. 

Water was low, I check and it's low tide, peaking around 1pm.

My picture of him flying away is too blurry, I think it's a hawk. My birder friend says it's a Cooper Hawk.

Little guy wasn't scare of me. Getting some sun. Not the one I met nesting and laying eggs this summer.

 

Willow Lake

I was looking at the traffic zipping by as I walk over the fenced in bridge. I never really talk about the traffic that circles this quiet place. You can hear cars off in the distance, trucks honk, you can see the movement.

Someone bushwhacked my little spot and cleared out about 10 feet of reeds. I guess it’s a fisherman because fishermen want better access to the lake so they can fish. There are planks where a fishman can stand. I haven’t seen any women fishing so far, but they are welcome to, I’m sure. 

Someone in the tower across the thing was flashing the sunlight back at me. I don’t know if it’s actually trying to communicate with me or not, or if it’s just random. The sun is to my back in the morning so I’m looking west.

I bought five wood chips to begin to start out a wood chip platform.

This is a sacred space that I share with others, human and non-human.

I wonder what it was like to dig this lake. One time I asked a park fellow if he thought it was more of a pond than a lake, and he said, “yeah, it’s a city lake.”

The loons sit low in the water unlike the ducks who seem to float a little higher. They dive under the water and seek fish. One takes a while to get out of the water and was running and flapping like the dickens for about 20 to 30 feet before he can get past the water, and catch up to his friends.

The leaves are still just starting to turn. It’s been a fairly warm fall, but the cold weather is finally triumphant.

Willow Lake

 

So what is the trigger that makes leaves of deciduous trees begin to turn color in the fall? Is it sunlight is it temperature? Is it moisture? Is it health? What kind of combinations of all those four things stop? Leaves have begun to turn at Willow Lake.

Some asshole came through and cut down a few young trees with an ax. He can tell it wasn’t a park ranger because they left the trees on the path, blocking the path. They also cut the trees off at high heights, so that obviously they were just doing what was convenient not what was needed. I was thinking about what defines an asshole. An asshole is impulsive and limited in their vision. They don’t really understand their impact on others and they’re transparently selfish. They they have no regard for everyone else. I know that conservatives don’t buy into the left-wing version of trying to help everyone and think that all we can be is selfish and I know that that’s 50% of personalities. I don't think that it’s OK to not think about others, and to everyone needs to learn how to behave to support others. Thinking about others isn’t a waste of time for my own selfishness.

Tuesday

I saw a loon in the lake, diving under to catch some fish, and I saw some lantern flies, and I saw evidence of birds, feathers. I heard insects and frogs and birds, and I’m not sure if I smell or taste anything, but there’s definitely a biting fly at the park, when my daughter played in the sprinkler, they ate out of me.

Supposedly you can eat juniper berries but they’re astringent.

Cock’s Comb

Walking back we noticed onions around trees, and asked google, why put onions around yards. Supposedly they're natural bug repellents, and there's lots of lantern flies these days. I swear, I'm just learning so much. 

"What demon possessed me that I behaved so well."

 

"Thoreau found alienation oddly liberating" is a proposition of the biography by Walls.

I am fairly alienated. I've washed up in middle to late middle life with a daughter to take care, difficulty finding work, and my partner left me, and it's not easy dating really poor. I've also been fairly attractive, I realize that now, and a tubby middle aged man, isn't quite as lucky. I feel pretty authentic and true to my ideals, I express my truth, but it got me fired after 3 days in one job I had, and quickly a new girlfriend dumped me.

My friend copies my blog posts into ChatGPT and then regurgitates it back to me in poetry, playing with the various options. It's kind of funny but weird, and he didn't tell me, I had to guess, which was difficult because I didn't want to offend him if he really wrote them. He says that's the modern issue, you don't want to accuse people. He's retired and does edibles, and plays with ChatGPT. Sends me videos of him dancing on the beach. He's the one I've done so much backpacking, canoeing and camping. 

I've been thinking a lot about how with no clear thing, pleasure becomes the guiding principle. The problem is aiming for pleasure, is that often unpleasurable sections create pleasure. Pleasure is the result of something but when you target it, it evaporates quite a lot. Pleasure is derived also from pain in a yin and yang of life. I took a class on Taoism and really enjoy it, but think it's shamanism, there is no creed really, though there is some metaphysical palaver. Shamanism is great because you can develop your own truths, and you can reject all the other truths society tries to put onto you. I think Hinduism is so large there is room for shamanism, so you can get J. Krishnamurti quotes like this: "It is a waste of energy when we try to conform to a pattern. To conserve energy, we must be aware of how we dissipate energy." There's a Hindu ashram in Encinitas where my friend lives. He uses the bathroom on long runs.

Part of the eruption of joy watching soccer is built on boring hours of passing the ball around, the fight for possession. Part of the joy of opera is long endless arias that don't strike you. Part of the joy of jazz is after hours of garbled near chaos, there's some clarity, a riff that does make sense. He does take breaks from edibles and runs, which is something we also used to do together. We would run to Coney Island, jump in the ocean, and eat a hotdog and take the subway back. Talking running is great, and we would have great conversations. He calls me when he's on a run and sometimes I go for a walk to talk to him. He helps me relate to my ex who is angry and difficult in my experience of her, and has legitimate grievances. I'm sure it's all my fault, is a kind of mantra that doesn't help.

"What demon possessed me that I behaved so well." When you reject behaving well, it's hard to fold back into society. I do quite enjoy solitude, so I'm OK with being alone a lot in a crowded city. I'm friendly and would talk to anyone. Spending hours in the park watching my daughter, I get bored and just talk to everyone. I live in an immigrant neighborhood, and I really love learning about all over the world. I read about China, Ukraine and Latin America. I recently met a fellow who was the son of a Iranian diplomat, and stayed. He opened for Ramones and Iggy Pop, but his band broke up on the brink of a record contract. He sells rugs now. He went to Billy Joel's house, to install some rugs.

I really enjoy being thrifty. Being poor is a good way to reduce your carbon footprint. I see myself as a bachelor for the rest of my life. I love nature, and thinking and writing. Thoreau had the women in his life to take care of him, and he would go wandering and exploring and rough it.

Thoreau didn't have high quality spiritual practitioners to distinguish between the various traditions of the east, and might have seen them all of one. I'm not sure if he had the keys to unlock Buddhism the way I did. 

I don't like the Beat writers now, they're almost as bad writers as Transcendentalists, but they too hard a kind of spirit to them that I appreciate, and I enjoy the drama of the literary scene. 

Willow lake is my Walden pond. I meditate, but it's overgrown now, and the bugs get to me. They're building a drainage down there, and there are surveyors there every day, with ribbons on trees, I hope they don't cut them down. Cutting down trees really hurts me, I love trees so much.

Yesterday when I took these photos, I was thinking about mental formations. One of the instructions in anapanasati is to calm mental formations. I really like to excite my mental formations. Sitting so many years in meditation digs out these insights, there's always a counter force to every aspect of the path. 

I've been to Walden pond. Next time I go, if I go again, I'll do some hikes now that I know more about them.

I'm in the Walden section of the biography of Thoreau. 

Survey folk

Today there are new flowers out and there are some petals on the path. every days you could say like Heraclitus you can step in the same river twice, you can’t walk down the same path twice.

I don’t think I’m being paranoid by thinking the birds make special chirps when I first arrive, but when I sit down next to the lake, they go back to their regular noise style.

One tortoise stuck his head up during my 10 minute meditation.

Survey folk we’re going in when I left. A guy says they’re putting a drain in.

Today I start my year of Thoreau.

Holes for eggs

I think this mother is looking to dig a hole for her eggs.

Tortoise are water turtles. I haven’t seen one this big. There were a few holes around the place, like she dug but gave up because she couldn't get deep enough. 

Lush vegetation, the hair on my body was triggered by plants, insects, and spider webs. Calm waters, no wind, hot and humid. 

Reading today about Thoreau I read about the summer of 1816: "a volcanic winter event caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in April in the Dutch East Indies (known today as Indonesia). This eruption was the largest in at least 1,300 years (after the hypothesized eruption causing the volcanic winter of 536)"

Willow report

 When I was a rower, I love flat water, calm, no waves, no wind.

There white fuzzy balls falling, with little seeds in them. The carp said hello to my meditation. No tortoise nearby though, peaking their heads above water. I can identify red wing blackbirds. A bird announced my existence, birds are the scouts of the natural world. 

Muskrat love

 

It’s only 60 degrees but it’s supposed to get up to 77 today. I hear splashing, maybe a muskrat. I can’t see beyond the invasive reeds. I’m invasive, Northern European mutt. Today is Thomas Pynchon’s birthday and I’m thinking about the rat priest in V. Am I the muskrat priest meditating by the man made lake?

Maybe it’s a fish, I see a fish mucking about. Taking a risk, lots of birds, but maybe the eagle is gone, I can’t see it in the Willow tree with my bare eyes. So scary when something comes from underneath the water, it’s like unwanted unconsciousness. No sharknado today.

Not everyone gets in lightened. Ananda hung out with a Buddha for decades, and had an eidetic auditory memory and still wasn’t enlightened.

After the ecstasy, the laundry...

Walking out I came across my birder friend, and told him how freaked out I was by fish jumping out of the water, twice. He wondered if they were trying to breath, but I thought they got stuck chasing little fish in the shallows and reeds. I asked him what birds would eat the fish that seem suicidal to me, and are asking to be plucked out of the lake. He said cormorants, the sea ravens, and Osprey, the fish hawk. He hadn't seen the bald eagle that sometimes hangs out there.

Saw a bird pop out of the water, and I thought loon, and he said might be a tern, but it didn't look like any of those photos. It didn't look like a loon. Looked like a double crested cormorant. Not sure if that kind of cormorant could eat that big fish that was breaching the surface, it was bigger than a hero. I mean I know they can really open up and swallow. 

Told him how I thought this area was the valley of the ashes from Great Gatsby, but they're saying it's over where they're building the stadium off Northern, where the chop chops used to be. He said this makes sense, it's off Northern Boulevard. He thought they used to try and play baseball in this area, he was guessing. He said there are random fence posts. He said in the 7 years he'd been coming there, it's filled in with greenery, used to be more sparse.

Asked him if he saw the article in the Times about Anhinga. Someone sent it to him. I hadn't seen any but they're supposedly in Prospect Park. More evidence for global warming, he doesn't deny but sometimes you just see birds expanding their territory.

After rain

 

I used a stick to try and drain the puddles on the path. It didn't really work, when I came back hours later the puddles were smaller, but I think it was soaking in and evaporation. 

Met a guy birding, said he’d seen warblers. He had Sibley’s guide. He didn’t know the eagles had stayed longer this year.

Further down the path a woman got off a bike and practiced her snare drum. When I came a few hours later, she was still practicing her drum.