We are at the butt end of the summer holidays, with kids returning for the new school year and most people already back at work. The weather has been very hot and sometimes very humid, not unlike the tropics. Sticky skin and sweaty sleep are the order of the day.

Ann and I have had a busy time of it. We have two cars and I wanted to downsize to one, so we ended up buying a new car. Base model but still expensive for us. Adding to the woes of a shrinking bank balance was the need to buy a small caravan for Tom to sleep in, because Ann's daughter JJ is coming to live with us in May. So we bought one and it arrived yesterday, much to the consternation of our crazy neighbour, who feels that she entitled to tell us how to run our lives and our property. I prefer not to linger on that vexatious topic.

I have started a new shift on 2RPH, reading the Newcastle Herald on Friday fortnights. It is quite a change from reading The Australian, which is a long-winded and almost indigestible slab of newsprint. The Newcastle Herald has a more tabloid feel, with shorter sentences and paragraphs and a far less fustian tone. I enjoy reading both, of course, as the differences are the very spice itself.

The January Grand Sumo Tournament in Tokyo turned up many surprises with the retirement and or withdrawal of yokozuna, the less than stellar performances of ozeki and a surprise winner in veteran Mongolian Tamawashi, who is a sekiwake. Lest you are confused by these rankings I so freely bandy about, here is pyramid that sets out the various divisions. The top tiers (Makuuchi) are the focus of most of my commentary.

In my Bachelor degree back in the late 1970's, I found myself often surprised by literature. I mean, of course, writers and poets and playwrights about whom I knew very little and whose talents leapt out at me like so many revelations. There had been an inkling of this interest in later high school, when I was bemused at being the first to complete Wuthering Heights in my English class. I took to John Keats too, his verse like an exotic drug to my humdrum middle class existence.

There is a lot of reading to be done in an undergraduate arts degree and I tried to do most of it, leading me in many delightful directions. Old and much-read books keep circling back on me and it was while reading a few pages of Leaves of Grass that I heard about the passing of Mary Oliver. Whitman was but one of her influences (she counted Emerson and Shelley too). Her verse is a raw immersion in the natural world - a sense of the transcendent - of being part of and yet apart, is apparent, elevated, you might say, in a way that is rare in the modern era. The truth is, Oliver pays attention and she walked and walked in her native Ohio and then in New England. That immersion is available to everyone should they seek it - the settling of the mind, a rising clarity.

She was a good poet too, as this short piece, August, reminds us.


When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.

Famous last words and all that! Yes, I regret being correct when I wrote yesterday that Kisenosato Yukata would likely have to retire. Clearly a 3-0 deficit, an ongoing injury and an inability to perform his brand of sumo proved too much for the popular Yokozuna. His stablemaster announced his retirement last night, so the hunt will be on for next Japanese champion, though this could be a while in the making. Prior to Kisenosato's promotion in 2017, the last home-grown yokozuna was Wakanohana in 1998, who retired in 2000.

Below, Kisenosato in happier days, seen here with stablemate and Oseki Takayasu.



ps. Kisenosato now takes on the sumo elder name of Araiso and will stay in the sport, as a stablemaster.

The New Year Grand Sumo Tournament is underway in Tokyo and there have already been a plethora of upsets. Ozeki and Yokozuna have all fallen to lower ranking wrestlers, with little consistency all round, excepting the mighty Hakuho. Most disturbingly has been the poor start of Yokozuna Kisenosato, whose injury in 2017 seems to have shaken both his confidence and capacity to wrestle. He is down 3-0 and has never really looked like winning any of the bouts. Having missed a number of basho in 2018 and now clearly under-performing, it seems likely he will retire any day now. In fact there is much speculation on this point and the consensus is that he is teetering.

It is a sad situation because Japanese yokozuna are few and far between these days, Mongolians dominating this category. There are some good Japanese wrestlers in the lower ranks who may rise to the top but Kisenosato offered much promise before his shoulder injury. Alas, I feel that his days are numbered and each bout might be his last appearance in the sport.

Yesterday he lost to top-ranking maegashira Tochiosan and below is the moment of his defeat. I hope that he can take stock and continue, but every loss adds to the mountain he must climb.

Ann had a rare day off work today. Since it is raining, all three of us are inside. After the heat wave of the past couple of weeks, the gentle mist that is descending and the lower temperatures are a blessing. Even the magpies seem more cheerful and birds of all sizes and colours are about.

Ann is a good cook and this morning she made a Chinese dish which has been spiced up in the usual Thai manner. There are chicken and mushrooms in a kind of broth(Tom Ka), a thin soup, cucumbers and a spicy red paste. Of course there is also rice, the mainstay of any Asian table. Delicious and filling!

I don't talk a lot about faith or religion. Most people, I suspect, wrestle privately with beliefs and few appreciate being preached at by wide-eyed converts. I was once one of the latter, and I while I didn't evangelise, I was probably still a tiresome nuisance. Decades later, my passion has abated even as my curiosity has increased.

The truth is that, no matter how far I run, or how much I seek distraction, a still small voice within continues to call me to God. It is not conditioning and it is not madness and it is not even especially direct. Moreover, it is the manner in which my attention is directed towards something that raises again, the question of God, completely out of the blue. This has happened all my life for as long as I can remember.

Most recently I have been tussling with the problem of reconciling theism with science. I understand only too well that scientists cannot factor in metaphysical phenomena when science is being done. But it strikes me that the gulf between faith and science is largely a false dichotomy, geed up by fanatics and special interests on both sides.

I began reading John Lennox, God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?, a few days ago. I find within this lucidly written tome a compelling philosophical rebuttal to the positions taken by aggressive anti-theists like Richard Dawkins (brilliant as the man is). More on that later, perhaps.

I believe fervently in science but cannot support the outright rejection of a super-intelligence (ie God) that was the First Cause. I don't think that science will ever solve the question of 'what came before' and often as not, the simplest explanation is the best. No, I haven't taken leave of my senses - it is possible to rational when it comes to belief - and my doubts remain as prevalent as ever.

I remain open-minded and happy to be challenged, but those challenges need to be supported by truth, by evidence where possible, by inference if necessary.

Abell 370 galaxy cluster (Hubble)

And lest you think I am a stick in the mud who cannot celebrate a festival (and sure, I have given you cause for thinking so) here is a photo of my beloved and I at the New Years Eve festivities in dear old Penrith last night. We took Tom and a friend too and whilst they were spending my money on carnival rides, we sat on a picnic blanket amidst the thronging crowd. The heavens opened at 8.30 but cleared in time for the fireworks at 9.

I often read a poem that I wish I had the skill and patience to write. Poetry is a form that requires constant honing and practise and probably an aptitude too. But if you read widely enough and write often enough you are likely to become at least competent, and that is why I am not.

I was going through a box of letters and postcards yesterday and found a few love letters from a lovely woman I knew 30 years ago. They were passionate and sincere and for me, deeply flattering, in the sense that I was the target of her affection. I will say no more about that relationship, for I do not want to compromise either of our circumstances in the present.

But, this poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, is the one I would like to have written for her then.

Sonnet XXIV

'When you, that at this moment are to me
Dearer than words on paper, shall depart,
And be no more the warder of my heart,
Whereof again myself shall hold the key;
And be no more—what now you seem to be—
The sun, from which all excellences start
In a round nimbus, nor a broken dart
Of moonlight, even, splintered on the sea;
I shall remember only of this hour—
And weep somewhat, as now you see me weep—
The pathos of your love, that, like a flower,
Fearful of death yet amorous of sleep,
Droops for a moment and beholds, dismayed,
The wind whereon its petals shall be laid.'