Month: August 2022

Blue Grasshopper

The opening chapter of Work as a Spiritual Practice features a shiny blue grasshopper landing on the head of a statue of the Buddha. I read and reread the book often and finally gave it away when I retired and moved. Since then, I’ve reflected on its lessons, such as awareness of the task itself as meditation, being present to one’s steps and breath even when rushing, and keystroke meditation. But I never saw a blue grasshopper until today.

Silvery blue and coral pink against the gray of a monsoon season sky, it struck me as too beautiful to be real. It also struck me as sign, a reminder to make all my work—writing, yoga teaching, community volunteer work, housework, my to-do list, everything—more of a spiritual practice.

T or sCenery

I do my best to capture the colorful character of my town in my books, describing enough to give a flavor of the setting and to ground the story in a place. For fun, I’m sharing a little more of what makes Truth or Consequences unique. A full tour would take many blog posts. If you enjoy this glimpse, I’ll do another T or sCenery post in the future.

The mural above is in an alley beside the Pink Pelican, a portion of the Pelican Spa. Mae Martin book six, Death Omen, has many scenes set at the Pelican.

New murals pop up all the time, many in unexpected places. This one is an an alley across from the the main Pelican Spa building.The wild fence below is on Riverside Drive, near Niall and Marty’s fictitious house which has an eccentric, art-embellished wall. (The mirror shot is as close as I’ve ever come to a selfie.) The guitars on the fence, and the hats that used to crown it, gave me the idea for the fence and gate at Joe Wayne’s house in Snake Face. (His fence is far tamer than this, though.) One of my neighbors claims this is not the weirdest fence in T or C. He says that his bears that distinction. I’ll have to take its picture and few others for a future post and let you decide.