John & Anne Wiley

2013/12/23

Sisses, Bros, & Phone Religions

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,Relationships — John @ 22:30

Sisters
We’re lucky. Anne and I are among those who enjoy warm relationships with our sisters. This is especially nice during the holiday season, when so many of our friends dread difficult times with family. Plus we get to enjoy brief forays into the enchanted realm of Flight, going to visit.

0039 Over LA

0039 Over LA

After so many tormented drives on LA “free” ways to/from San Diego sisters, it’s such a contrast to be truly Free as we happily look down on all that smog and congestion. Occasionally we fly along the mountains, but usually we enjoy the coastal route where people have built dream mansions on the outskirts of the LA nightmare.

0085 Beach Billions

0085 Beach Billions

Not far from Laguna Niguel are mansions (surely very expensive) with private salt water swimming pools on the bluffs.

Brothers
I mentioned Bros in the title because although we each have three sisters and no brothers, we’re lucky in this regard too. First because we have great brothers in law whom we enjoy. Secondly because I had the great good fortune to enjoy a few years with Chris, my “brother” in the wonderful BBBS program.

Crazy With Chris

Crazy With Chris

We had so many fun times during those short years before he sadly moved away. We got to experience the deep caring of brothers we’d both missed out on. So it was delightful to hear from him today that he has a new “Smart” phone and might now be able to be in touch more again. That is, if he can figure out how to work what might actually be a more frustrating model than the ones Anne and I just got.

Religion
In texting with him about it today I realized that smartphones are a new religion.  Smartphones teach us patience and submission, and the fact that an all-powerful entity knows our every thought and action. It seems that Chris, Anne and I are not devotees. 🙂

2013/12/22

Home Lights

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,Random,SB Region — John @ 04:17

Old stories of flying sometimes touched on the heartwarming sight of lights burning to guide pilots home at night. With considerable skill and a good helping of luck, they’d navigate rickety and unreliable biplanes across empty darkness for hours. Literally kept alive as night descended by brief glimpses at compass and chart by a tiny red light kept dim to preserve night vision, and self-checking constantly without allowing fear of being lost as night crept in.

0037 Creeping Night

0037 Creeping Night

So very different for us winging home in Trusty Tripp from San Diego across the LA basin tonight, with familiar lights and myriad crowded freeways to guide us safely on past enchanted cloudscapes. Not to mention radio naviation aids those early pilots could only dream of. But even those are now far obsolete as we enjoy the latest GPS devices that turn night to day, in terms of knowing exactly where we are. So we have plenty of relaxed time to enjoy the sights, as Hwy.1 to Malibu slips twinkling past.

0039 You Are Here

0039 You Are Here

After the last light fades, we’re treated to the lights of home as we look across downtown Santa Barbara with the colors of business accented here and there by especially bright seasonal home lights.

0070 Santa Barbara Sparkle

0070 Santa Barbara Sparkle

But even without mentally traveling back a century to an open cockpit over a lonely black expanse, lining up to land at SBA brings a warm rush of comfort with her home lights burning brightly.

0073 Home Lights

0073 Home Lights

 

2013/12/18

Lizard’s Mouth

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 04:06

Right now for some reason the name somehow evokes the smell of recently eaten insects on the breath of some reptile. But in fact Lizard’s Mouth is one of our young Sarah’s fav local hangouts. Several times she’s wanted to take us there for a hike and scramble among the rocks. Now we better understand why.

7465 Lizard's Mouth

7465 Lizard’s Mouth

In the hour before sunset people were gathering for the show, which is surely spectacular there. This whole area of the mountainside is strewn with fascinating rock formations, and we’re enjoying looking thru the pix we snapped as we glided quietly by angling down toward SB. A mile or two East is another “rock garden” area with many silent stone sculptures.

7442 Another Rock Garden

7442 Another Rock Garden

My fav rock garden is actually several miles west of Lizard Rock, with another good rock garden between (so many rocks, so little time). But on this particular passage by this one, one clump of boulders caught my attention.

7441 Holey Rocks

7441 Holey Rocks

Unlike many “holey rocks” in our hills, these don’t seem to have been carved out by native peoples pounding acorns centuries ago. Instead my guess is these holes were carved by natural forces. Perhaps when they were on the sea floor, or as they rose thousands of feet along with what are now our mountains and were perhaps in a river for a time. Or maybe just soft areas in the sandstone yielded to the relatively light rainfall here over millennia. Sometimes taking in sculptures like these I imagine a time-lapse view of how features emerged in the ebb and flow of terrain and flickering surges of life between flashes of fire to etch textures of time on stone.

2013/12/06

Shadows

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 08:53

At the end of a recent flight as we taxied back to Tripp’s parking spot, I was captivated by our shadow.

6372 Tripp Shadow

6372 Tripp Shadow

Looking at it now gets me pondering shadows back into the past. Not just other flights earlier this year when our shadow passed across other people very involved in the different things they were doing, and only a rare few even notice our shadow crossing theirs.

3252 Shadows Crossing

3252 Shadows Crossing

My mind wandered back to childhood when my shadow was first so fascinating, and it crossed paths with the shadow of my departed Dad who also loved to fly. I’m often aware of the shadow his flying lessons cast forward across the decades, increasing my resolve to learn.

50 Past Shadows

50 Past Shadows

Even further back, before I was born my grandfather’s shadow as an aviator often passed across the landscape as mine now does.

36 Grandfather's Shadow

36 Grandfather’s Shadow

As they are cast from yesterday to today and out across tomorrow, how are the people and places our shadows touch, affected by our passing?

2013/11/29

Lightness

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 05:46

I’m not clear on why, but when we fly out to the Point Conception Lighthouse we always seem to return with an expanded “lightness of being.”

5841 Pt. Conception Light

5841 Pt. Conception Light

Of course, we only fly out there on calm days when the air is clear. In other words, very seldom. Usually there’s fog, haze, low clouds or smoke in the air and the wind is gale force as it rounds the point. So maybe the placid seas and expansive views as we approach the Point, conspire to shift us into deeper connection with the lightness we feel during pretty much every flight.

5843 Getting to the Point

5843 Getting to the Point

In the distance on the right is of course another point that’s within the boundaries of Vandenberg Air Force Base, and VAFB hasn’t so far allowed us to fly close enough for good pix of that. Luckily the dunes, rocks, sea caves, and heather here are quite enough to enchant the visitor.

5840 Point Conception

5840 Point Conception Enchantments

A relatively new resident on the beach, just barely visible on the narrow beach in the second pic (#5843) above, is Gingerbread. A lovely lighthearted name for this little sailboat that ended its adventures there.

5845 Gingerbread

5845 Gingerbread

As you can see from the sand that is accumulating in her cockpit and hull, she’s slowly sinking for a second time – into the beach. Yet somehow the sadness I feel in seeing this process further along every time we fly there, is transformed by the expanse of magnificence surrounding her. The dreamers who once pampered this little boat, have now moved on to other expressions of love.

Immersed in the experience of Lightness flying over this magical place, it’s easier to remember that Love is about Letting Go.

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