Koi at Descanso Gardens, February 2007

Whenever I see a pond that has been stocked with koi, it seems as if I am looking at the gods’ own handwriting. Each fish is like a separate letter of the alphabet as it moves around in the water with its fellows.

The same goes for clouds. Or groups of birds, or even insects.

What is the point of perceiving things in this way? I believe that, even if we don’t know what these formations or creatures are signifying, we humans are perhaps part of an ongoing conversation—one which we might never understand in full or in part. That realization is good for us.

It’s when we don’t realize that we are part of the conversation that we are most unhappy.

Today at Chace Park in the Marina, it was a cloudy and very humid day (thanks to the monsoonal moisture from Mexico), but the crows and squirrels very very much in motion, as were visitors to the park.