Northwest Passage

 

Northwest Passage by Stan Rogers.  Performed by the Water Boys.

[Chorus]
Ah, for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea
Tracing one warm line
Through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea

[Verse 1]
Westward from the Davis Strait
'Tis there 'twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient
For which so many died
Seeking gold and glory,
Leaving weathered, broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones

Chorus

[Verse 2]
Three centuries thereafter
I take passage overland
In the footsteps of brave Kelso
Where his "sea of flowers" began
Watching cities rise before me
Then behind me sink again
This tardiest explorer
Driving hard across the plain
Chorus

[Verse 4]
How then am I so different
From the first men through this way?
Like them, I left a settled life
I threw it all away
To seek a Northwest Passage
At the call of many men
To find there but the road back home again

[Chorus]
Ah, for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea
Tracing one warm line
Through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea

Beachcombing near Bandon, Oregon

Raining all last night and most of the day. 
Cold and windy.  Heavily overcast gray day;
until the late afternoon.  

Explored the Bandon and Bullards Beach State Park areas of Oregon today.  

From my Yurt campsite, you can drive a mile or so out to the parking area at the north jetty.  The Coquille River enters the Pacific Ocean at this jetty.  There are many stone and earthen dykes far along both sides of the Coquille River to control flooding.  There are extensive tidal marshes extending farther inland.  

Here are three photos in the areas north of the jetty.  Lots of driftwood on the beach shores from high King Tides.  To the north, miles and miles of rolling big sand dunes covered with grasses, shrubs, and trees fed by high precipitation.  To the east, the Bandon Bridge, tidal marshes, and the coastal range.  

Bandon March National Wildlife Refuge.  A wide and long tidal marsh land-water environment. Tidal Marshland   I enjoyed a dine view of the tidal marsh lands near Rocky Point County Park, a few miles north of Bandon.  This year, from Bandon all the way notheast via road 42S to Coquille City, 30 miles, major flooding of the entire area was widespread and impressive in the fog.

Coquille River Photos

Bullards Beach State Park, Bandon     Photos

Bandon Bridge Photos

Bandon Photos

Bandon City - Information  

South Jetty State/County Park

Four Days in Grayland  

The Jetty as Metaphor
The Sandwich
Anjali Mudra and Bowing
Gassho, Tai Chi Chuan Salute

Waves of Reflections at the North Jetty
By Michael P. Garofalo
January 2023

In 2023, I will be studying the books by Deng Ming-Dao.

Taoism

Bandon, Oregon, Discoveries

Explored the Bandon and Bullards Beach State Park areas of Oregon today. It was sunny, cool, and not windy.  Started to cloud up in the evening.    

From my Yurt campsite, you can drive a mile or so out to the parking area at the north jetty.  The Coquille River enters the Pacific Ocean at this jetty.  There are many stone and earthen dykes far along both sides of the Coquille River to control flooding.  There are extensive tidal marshes extending farther inland.  

Here are three of my photographs in the areas north of the jetty.  Lots of driftwood on the beach shores from high King Tides.  To the north, miles and miles of rolling big sand dunes covered with grasses, shrubs, and trees fed by high precipitation.  To the east, the Bandon Bridge, tidal marshes, and the coastal range.  

Bandon March National Wildlife Refuge.  A wide and long tidal marsh land-water environment. Tidal Marshland   I enjoyed a dine view of the tidal marsh lands near Rocky Point County Park, a few miles north of Bandon.  This year, from Bandon all the way notheast via road 42S to Coquille City, 30 miles, major flooding of the entire area was widespread and impressive in the fog.

Coquille River Photos

Bullards Beach State Park, Bandon     Photos

Bandon Bridge Photos

Bandon Photos

Bandon City - Information  

South Jetty State/County Park

Four Days in Grayland  

Here are more photographs from others:

The Jetty as Metaphor
The Sandwich
Anjali Mudra and Bowing
Gassho, Tai Chi Chuan Salute

Waves of Reflections at the Bandon Jetty
By Michael P. Garofalo
January 2023

In 2023, I will be studying the books by Deng Ming-Dao.

Taoism

Feldenkrais Lessons near Portland, Oregon

I have enjoyed taking many Feldenkrais' small group classes from a local Feldenkrais practitioner, Christine Toscano.  She is knowledgeable about Feldenkrais, acupuncture, qigong, meditation, Jungian psychology, and she is a song writer and singer.

I also practice this method alone at home.  I have also read a number of books and listened to audio CDs on the subject.

Mrs. Toscano teaches at her lovely studio on 20th Avenue at 14810 NE 20th Ave., Vancouver, WA 98686.  Phone: 360-798-5286.  There is a small sign at the street titled:  Feldenkrais Movement Center.  

If your are driving north from Portland, on either I5 or I205, exit at 134th Street in north Vancouver, Washington.  Vancouver is directly across the Columbia River from north Portland, and another suburb of the Portland Metropolitan Area.  The Feldenkrais Movement Studio is a block north of the Kaiser Permanente Health Center, and three blocks north of the Legacy Hospital Complex.  Highway 99 changes its name to NE 20th Ave at 134th Street.  

This clean and comfortable practice space is very welcoming.  The other older people are all pleasant and quiet.  The teacher provides clean mats and support pads. Lots of windows look out on a large beautiful yard.  

The Feldenkrais teachers I have listened to all talk you through a series of explorative gentle movements and techniques for drawing out attention/awareness implications.  You self-observe, track, monitor, listen, feel, and experience yourself, non-judgementally, in a relaxed state, with a coach encouraging subtle insights.  

I have read and studied many books and viewed and studied instructional CDs, VHS tapes, and UTube videos about Feldenkrais, Yoga, and Qigong.   

Mrs. Toscano recommended we read Chapter 5 of the book by Norman Doidge, M.D., "The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity," (Penguin Books, 2016). The chapter covers the life and work of Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984).  He was a Ph.D. engineer, kudo master, movement therapist, author, and healer.  The chapter discusses some of the core principles of his theory and methods as follows:

"1. The mind programs the functioning of the brain.
2. A brain cannot think without motor function.
3. Awareness of movement is the key to improving movement.
4. Differentiation: making the smallest possible sensory distinctions between movements - builds brain maps.
5. Differentiation is easiest to make when the stimulus is smallest.
6. Slowness of movement is the key to awareness, and awareness is the key to learning.
7. Reduce the effort whenever possible. Relax.
8. Errors are essential, and there is no right way to move, only better.
9. Random movements provide variation that leads to developmental breakthroughs.
10. Even the smallest movement in one part of the body involves the entire body.
11. Many movement problems, and the pain that goes with them, are caused by learned habit, not by abnormal structure." 

Awareness Through Movement.  Easy-To-Do Health Exercises to Improve Your Posture, Vision, Imagination and Personal Awareness.  By Moshe Feldenkrais.  HarperOne, Reprint edition, 2009.  192 pages.  ISBN: 978-0062503220.  VSCL. 

Awareness Heals: The Feldenkrais Method for Dynamic Health.  By Stephen Shafarman.  Da Capo Lifelong Books, 1997.  224 pages.  ISBN: 978-0201694697.  VSCL. 

The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity.  By Norman Doidge, M.D..  Penguin Books, 2016.

Change Your Age: Using Your Body and Brain to Feel Younger, Stronger, and More Fit.  By Frank Wildman, Ph.D..  Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2010.  240 pages.  ISBN: 978-0738213637.  VSCL. 

Embodied Wisdom: The Collected Papers of Moshe Feldenkrais.  Edited by Elizabeth Beringer.  Foreword by David Zemach-Bersin.  North Atlantic Books, 1st Edition, 2010.  256 pages.  ISBN: 978-1556439063.  VSCL.  

Travel and Camping in 2019

Traveling in an SUV (2003 Ford Explorer)
2019-2020
Northwest United States and British Columbia
Camping Notes, Equipment, Plans, Experiences
By Mike Garofalo
January 2019

Travel in Washington, Oregon, Northern California, and B.C.
Books, Maps, Travel Guides, Natural History Manuals, Maps
Bibliography, Links, References, Notes
By Mike Garofalo
From 2006-2019

My Travel Plans for 2019-2020

I write about these short travel adventures in my Cloud Hands Blog. Follow the adventures by the Category Labels: Oregon, Southwestern Washington, Washington, Travel, Camping.

Lewis and Clark History

We went to Powell's Bookstore on Monday of this week.  I purchased books on travel in the Columbia River Gorge, northwest coast, and Lewis and Clark.

When Federal employees are back to work, very soon I hope, we plan to visit Fort Clatsop, where the Lewis and Clark Expedition spent the winter of 1805-1806, near the current city of Astoria, Oregon.

Shame on Democrats, Republicans and the President in 2019 for "shutting down" our federal government services.  Compromise, give in, move on, stop arguing.

I am now reading two books about United States history during the period from 1800-1810.  Jefferson was President.  The Louisana Purchase was finalized in 1803.  Captain Lewis Meriwether and Captain William Clark led the Corps of Discovery expedition from Washington to the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River, and back, from 1803 to 1806.  They where the first American expedition to explore uncharted territory up the Missouri River from St. Louis and all the way to the Pacific Ocean.  

A few decades after 1805, people were moving into the area of the Willamette Valley and to take advantage of the Columbia River commerce opportunities.  The town of Astoria, Oregon, was founded in 1811; Portland, Oregon, emerged as a city from 1843 to 1851; and Vancouver, Washington, a suburb north of Portland, where I live now, grew from a fur trading post in 1825 to an incorporated city in 1857.  

In 1870, the population of Vancouver was 1,722; Portland, 8,293; and Astoria, 639.  In 1890, Vancouver had a population of 3,545, Portland, 45,385; and Astoria, 6,184.  In 2019, the population of Portland is about 647,000; Vancouver is 175,000; and Astoria, 9,862.  

The Portland (Vancouver and Hillsboro) Metropolitan StatisticalArea (MSA), the 23rd largest in the United States, has a population of 2,226,009 (2010 Census). Of them, 1,789,580 live in Oregon (46.7% of the state's population) while the remaining 436,429 live in Washington (6.7% of state's population).

California became a U.S. State in 1850; Oregon in 1859; Washington in 1889; and Idaho in 1890.    


Undaunted Courage:  Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West.  By Stephen E. Ambrose.  Simon and Schuster, Touchstone, 1996.  521 pages.  Paperbound book.


The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery.  The Abridgment of the Definitive Nebraska Edition.  Edited with an introduction by Gary E. Moulton.  Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2003.  EBook.

I need to investigate using the Clark County Library System ebook options.

Travel in the Northwest
Bibliography, Notes, Links, Information, History, Nature
Washington, Oregon, Northern California, British Columbia
Prepared by Michael P. Garofalo