Winter Hare

Image: "Winter Hare" by Hilary Salomon.

See also the previous posts:
• Winter Hare 2017 | 2016 | 2014 | 2011
• Snow Is in the Air
• In Winter Field
• Across Snow-blanketed Grass
• Winter Rest

Pole

I can appreciate why [pole-dancing or simply "pole"] has a greater appeal to gay men like me. Beyond its focus on style over brute force, pole hasn’t completely shaken its deviant origins. It came from the fringes of society, and for a lot of gay men this feels familiar; we know what it’s like to unite around something others see as taboo. . . . [T]here’s something queer about pole.

– Bo Franklin
Excerpted from "Are You Man Enough to Pole-Dance?"
1843 Magazine
March 27, 2019

Related Off-site Links:
The Passion of a Male Pole Dancing Champion – Cynthia R. Greenlee (Narratively, March 28, 2018).
Male Pole Dancers Are On the Rise – Diane Passage (The Huffington Post, May 25, 2011).
Pole Dancing for Males – What You Should Know About Pole Dance Classes – Masha (Basic Invert 78, February 20, 2018).

Images: The Leveret (Puerto Vallarta, Mexico – February 5, 2020).

The Mexican Hare

The white-sided jackrabbit (Lepus callotis), also known as the Mexican hare, is a jackrabbit found in a limited range in North America, from southern New Mexico to northwestern and central Mexico. The animal is considered threatened in New Mexico, with its numbers in decline in recent years.

Most activity of the white-sided jackrabbit occurs during the night or at dusk, particularly on clear nights with bright moonlight. Its activity may be limited by cloud cover, precipitation, and wind, but temperature has little effect. Its escape behavior consists of alternately flashing its white sides when running away. The white-sided jackrabbit, when escaping, makes rather long, high leaps. When startled by or alarmed by a predator, it leaps straight upwards while extending the hind legs and flashing the white sides. In its resting position, a white-sided jackrabbit is camouflaged with its surroundings. The long hind legs and feet are adapted for speed, giving the animal lift and an ability to run in a zig-zag fashion that surpasses its pursuers. The long ears serve to locate sound, as well as regulate temperature when they are raised like a fan to catch passing breezes in hot conditions. The eyes, like those of most nocturnal or crepuscular animals, are laterally arranged, giving them a complete field of vision (360°). As a result, approaching danger can be perceived in advance.

– Source

See also the previous posts:
• The Rabbit That's Actually a Hare
• The Hares of the Americas
• Tough Dudes

Day 3 of the “7 Days of Sweat Challenge”

Continuing with a series of exercise videos courtesy of The Body Coach (aka Joe Wicks). These full body, equipment-free, 20-minute workouts aim to make you “feel more energized, more alert, more productive and more focused.” Plus, you’re “going to burn some body fat and feel really confident moving forward.”

To start at the beginning of this series, click here.





NEXT: Day 4

Related Off-site Links:
The Body Coach – Official Website
7 Science-based Strategies to Boost Your Willpower and Succeed With Your New Year’s Resolutions – Jelena Kecmanovic (Salon, January 2, 2020).

Bel Homme

Image: Subject and photographer unknown.

Hare Décor

Image: “Hare Licking Paw Antique Brass Table Lamp” (artist unknown).

See also the previous posts:
• Hare Décor, 11/22/19
• Candlebright
• Hare Décor, 1/20/12
• Table Hare

The Art of Mauna Nada

Mauna Nada is a multimedia outlet that acts as a resource for the creative expressions of partners Jeremy Worker and Brandon Simmoneau.

The words translated from Sanskrit mean Silence and Sound, representing the opposing, yet complementary paths the two are on. Brandon is a deaf photographer wielding his camera, his editorial eye, and his passion for adventure to share his vivid visual perspective. Jeremy is a singer, writer, and activist, using his voice and his words to soulfully depict his findings. The two come together on Mauna Nada to document and share their parallel journey. The intention is to continue the ripple of inspiration by providing authentic, moving, and engaging content.

Related Off-site Link: Mauna Nada

See also: The Art of Ego Rodriguez | Liam Campbell | Richard Vyse | David Jester | Aaron Moth | Travis Chantar | Douglas Simonson | Guglielmo Plüschow | Vilela Valentin | Dante Cirquero | Nebojsa Zdravkovic | Brenden Sanborn | Wilhelm von Gloeden | Richard Haines | John MacConnell | Leo Rydell Jost | Jim Ferringer | Juliusz Lewandowski | Felix d'Eon | Herbert List | Joe Ziolkowski

Field Runners

Image: Photographer unknown.

Day 2 of the “7 Days of Sweat Challenge”

Continuing with a series of exercise videos courtesy of The Body Coach (aka Joe Wicks). These full body, equipment-free, 20-minute workouts aim to make you “feel more energized, more alert, more productive and more focused.” Plus, you’re “going to burn some body fat and feel really confident moving forward.” (To start at the beginning of this series, click here.)





NEXT: Day 3

Related Off-site Links:
The Body Coach – Official Website
7 Science-based Strategies to Boost Your Willpower and Succeed With Your New Year’s Resolutions – Jelena Kecmanovic (Salon, January 2, 2020).

Mistwalking

Writes Tom Cowan in the foreward of Frank MacEowen's 2002 book, The Mist-Filled Path: Celtic Wisdom for Exiles, Wanderers, and Seekers . . .

There are reasons to love the mist. . . . The mist is a threshold state in Celtic spirituality. It is sacred. We might even think of mist as a sacrament in the old Catholic sense of that term: an outward sign of an interior state of grace. As Frank MacEowen explains it, mist consciousness is druid consciousness, saint consciousness, shaman consciousness, and Christ consciousness. It is the awareness and perspective of a person standing at the threshold of sacred experience.

. . . Longing too is a holy state for those not afraid, as Frank puts it, to surrender themselves to the great pull that lures us into life, to places we have not yet dreamed of, places where the Great Shaper of Life longs to shape us. [We are invited to] lean into that Divine Power so that we might discover its presence and then honor and celebrate it in simple events of the day.

The Celtic spirit, like the Celtic mind, does not want to get locked into a rigid framework with no way of escape. Like the mist, the spirit wants to shift, rise, disappear, and return. Frank knows this. The rich treasure of Celtic mysticism – pagan, Christian, and postmodern – is not a hoard for dragons to guard, but more like a sail to hoist into the wind to let the elements of God decide direction and destination. With an exciting boldness Frank pulls the old ways out of our many pasts and into the present but always with a sensitivity to what is authentic and appropriate for these new times and places. Nor is he blind to parallel teachings from other cultures and centuries that support, enhance, and make sense of the older Celtic ways. You will find in The Mist-Filled Path the indigenous wisdom of Africa, Asia, and Native America, Sufi and Buddhist teachings, some renegade Catholic ideas, a touch of modern depth psychology, and ideas about social and environmental activism, all seen through a Celtic lens. You can trust this guide as his eye wanders over the vast mystic landscape, and he points out the next steps on our pilgrimage. We are, to use his phrase, "people of the wandering fire," and we need to know the geography of the modern world we wander through if we hope to interact intelligently with others of different beliefs and values.

If you take this book to heart, it will not make you look like a strange remnant of a lost civilization caught in a modern time warp, trying to find your way back into a mythic past. As presented here, Celtic spirituality is not a romanticized artifact or an atavistic throwback to earlier times but a modern ethos for dealing with environmental crises, the poor and homeless, the uncertainties of a hostile and dangerous world, and the mind-numbing, spirit-numbing boredom that our consumer culture generates in so many people.

. . . The Mist-Filled Path is an engaging, lyrically written account of old Celtic ways and a challenging manifesto to live them in the twenty-first century. . . . You will realize, I hope, as I did in reading these pages, the great joy that comes from mistwalking.

– Tom Cowan

See also the previous posts:
• Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
• The Divine Masculine Principle
• Animal Energies
• “We Are Still Mythical”

Opening image: Jonathan Yule.

Bel Homme

Image: Chonlawas "Jayjay" Khumkoet (photographer unknown).

Day 1 of the “7 Days of Sweat Challenge”

Now that a new year is underway, perhaps like me you are wanting to get motivated so as to get your body fitter and toned. So courtesy of The Body Coach (aka Joe Wicks) here is the first of a new series that will help with that. Unlike The Body Coach, however, I won't be sharing one of his workout sessions each day for seven consecutive days. (For all seven in one hit, go to The Body Coach's YouTube channel.)

Following is how The Body Coach introduces his special workout series.

I’ve had so many messages from people saying that they’re struggling with motivation and they’re finding it hard to exercise and workout. . . . So I thought why not give people a 7-day challenge? I’m calling it the “7 Days of Sweat Challenge.”

[Here is the first of seven] full body, 20-minute workouts. No equipment, no excuses. You’re going to feel more energized, more alert, more productive and more focused. You’re going to burn some body fat and feel really confident moving forward. It’s going to give you a little bit of a kick to keep you going and hopefully give you the momentum to keep fit all through the winter.





NEXT: Day 2

Related Off-site Links:
The Body Coach – Official Website
7 Science-based Strategies to Boost Your Willpower and Succeed With Your New Year’s Resolutions – Jelena Kecmanovic (Salon, January 2, 2020).