We Passed Second Section On Monday.

Three of us passed our second section test on Monday evening.

We were tested on a couple of our stances, and how long we could hold those.

We were tested on four different forms as well, and also four different kicks, and punch combinations as well as chung combinations.

It's also very cool that we are all three of similar ages, early 50's to early 60's.

Upon passing second section in this art, we receive our first gi, but not the belt. Apparently that comes later.

It was a bit like Oom Yung Doe Christmas. A happy occasion.

I congratulate my classmates!

Thank you for reading.

I bow to my instructors.

I bow to the flags of our nation and art.

I bow to the masters, students, and martial arts practitioners who have passed this art down to us through the millennia.

Thank you All.

Regards,

Dan Stafford

Just a quick note: Loving my new keyboard

Regards,

Dan Stafford

Finally Feeling The Christmas Spirit...

 

St. Nick's Yule

Saint Nicholas was grateful,

For the stars circled Polaris at the top of the world,

The greatest clock show on Earth,

Where the spirits of all our ancestors lie in the lower world,

The spirits of everything on Earth live in the middle world,

And the spirit of Magic and Wonder guides the upper world.

A drum was his spirit reindeer,

He flew on the powerful beats of its taut hoof,

All over the spirits of this world,

On Solstice Night,

Yule,

The night of the year that the world is reborn,

When the clock-tick drumming leads to the love and peace of Spring,

And the Sun begins its slow treading back to the North.

Every year,

This is a gift,

Every moment precious.

Dance with Old Saint Nick,

Around the tree of the world,

Let your spirit be light,

Somewhere tucked in the soft boughs of the Great Tree.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

(C) 12-07-2025

The Lost Worlds Of The Elder Geek...

 

Elder Geek

How he longs for the soft internet of the nineties,

When ads were still around the borders of the page,

As un-moving as concrete in the Human jungle.

Wild and free was that West.

A search query brought up obscure pages from bloggers you never heard of,

Delights from the quiet corners of the Earth,

The hopes,

Dreams,

Poetry,

Wonders of the quiet night,

In it for the long read,

Un-disturbed,

Notification-free,

Just a mind and its screen,

A universe of innerspace,

Innocence lost.

The web has gone from sweet young chaos of discovery to bot-splatted distractory hell.

The worlds of wonder that we have lost,

One could weep for it,

If two ad videos and ten notifications didn't block their tear ducts with distractium.

AquarianM

By: Daniel  A. Stafford

(C) 12-06-2025

When It Comes To Climbing Mountains...

 I'm going to meet a new friend tomorrow for a spiritual journey. 

We're going hiking on a walking trail to a place where fresh sage grows. 

I'm taking my drum, and some gifts for Mother Earth.

Life is always about the journey, until it's about listening to the softer voices that whisper within.

There's no telling where the journey might lead, but we can always wish for something good and decent.

Thank you for reading.

Dan

Let The Turkeys Run Free...

 Let The Turkeys Run Free...

"Autumn Creek" created by Gemini 3.0 & Nano Banana from prompt by Daniel A. Stafford

I am thankful for... The sky over my head so I can breathe.

I am thankful for... The wife who I love, and who loves me back.

I am thankful for... The world below my feet, so that I have a place to stand, and that allows everything else I am thankful for to be.

I am thankful for... The farmers who grow the food so that I can eat.

I am thankful for... The family I come from so that I can be here at all.

I am thankful for... The blankets and pillows on my bed so I can sleep when I am tired.

I am thankful for... The home that keeps us housed, warm, or cool, depending on the season.

I am thankful for... The floor sweepers, the electricians, the plumbers, the carpenters, the IT technicians, the concrete pourers, the landscape workers, the clerks, the servers, the ship builders, the warehouse workers, the auto mechanics, the diesel mechanics, the cashiers, the hosts and hostesses, the cleaning crew at hotels, the ditch diggers, the doctors, the dentists, the dental hygienists, the nurses, the optometrists, the architects, the museum docents, the park rangers, the snow plow and truck drivers, and every other person who makes everything around me function. If you go to work every day, I respect you and am grateful for you.

I am thankful for... The people who give to charities when times are tough.

I am thankful for... The people who have lived on this land for millennia, and try to teach us ways to help life on it survive, whenever we are wise enough to listen.

I am thankful for... The people of all colors and cultures who bring us wonderful new things to make our community and society stronger, richer, and full of wonderful things.

I am thankful for... Books, so that I can learn and read stories.

I am thankful for... Freedom of speech, so that I know who is good and kind, and who is not.

I am thankful for... You.

Happy Thanksgiving, with love.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

(C) 11-27-2025

Image prompt: "Please create an image of at least 20 wild turkeys walking through a valley where the hills on either side are covered in Autumn leaves, a babbling creek runs along the bottom with shiny river rocks and rainbow trout swimming in an eddy pool near the point of view, and there are vattails growing and tufting at the near edge, and milkweed with burstin pods near the creek, a couple of pheasants on one side of the creek, and a red fox on the other. Have a few wild gourds growing near the creek as well. Make the sky a soft charcoal grey overcast with a slight fog rising from the creek. Use watercolor as the media."

When Poets Became Master Magicians...

When Poets Became Master Magicians... 

I wrinkled my nose @ scents of a technological onion in #2025,
& being the #MWGIC,
I wrote of the time that #poetry became wild & dangerous,
4suddenly #poets were the geniuses of tech,
And where there is #blackpoetry there must be #whitepoetry, & maybe gray, like #magic

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/universal-jailbreak-ai-poems

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 11-23-2025

Article linked above by Futurism

Tikinauts Episode 1, Chapter 3: Inside The Mothership

The Tikis came here in the Moon thousands of years ago. 

When they found the Earth already inhabited by a sentient species, they thought they would resupply the Moon and continue searching for a water world to replace their destroyed home world. 

Unfortunately, their hyperdrive failed when they couldn't find helium 6 to refuel it. Apparently our solar system is utterly devoid of this particular helium isotope.

Without helium 6, their star drive is just collecting dust.

In the years since, the Tikis have been living in the Moon, making occasional trips to Earth for necessary supplies, and working on finding a solution for their star drive issues...and partying, of course.

Tikinauts Episode 1 Chapter 3: The Mothership

There are legends of a time before Earth had a Moon. 

Of course there are! The Moon is the Tikis' Mothership! The only reason it is covered in rocks and dust is because it's been sailing through the ocean of space for millions of years. It's picked up all that debris by flying through clouds of it while travelling across the galaxy.

Did you think the Moon was some kind of natural object, or something?

Tikinauts Episode 1 Chapter 2: Party Gods

Did I mention that the Tikis love to party? After millions of years traveling through space, what other entertainment was there?

Another star floating by in the galaxy was old, old news for them.

The Tikis are basically immortal unles some outside force kills one of them. They don't age like you and I.

You'd think that gods wearing spacesuits of basically wood flying in a wooden spaceship would be afraid of open flames, but ironized bamboo doesn't burn so easily.

The Tikis fell in love with fire after watching humans playing with it in their scanners. Fire was rarer than Earth unicorns on their water-planet home world. They've adopted tiki torches match, stick, and brazier.

Tikinauts Episode 1... The Arrival

They came from a water world being boiled by its sun thousands of years ago. 

They used ironified wood to survive the rigors of open space, and hydrogen for fusion.

They used bamboo to build a life raft to cross the infinite ocean of stars.

Somehow they dropped a bunch of seeds over China, probably because they were bored shitless and partying after the discovery of a habitable planet with large oceans.

Of course, the pilot got blasted, and they managed to crash on Rapanui. They erected monuments for those who didn't survive, of course. Then they embedded the dead in their own monuments, as was their custom. All it would take is a quick X-ray of a few Moai to verify my tale, but who has an X-ray machine that big?