Great Peng Spreads Wing

 I was attracted to the lifestyle of animals at an early age. I longed to be something like a fox, needing nothing more for shelter than a safe enough place to sleep, finding food and water where I might, carrying nothing but my fur.  As I got older, I admired the frontiersmen on TV who carried nothing but a bedroll, a gun and a knife. I admired Indian braves who rode horses bareback, not needing the heavy, bulky saddles used by the whites.  It seemed to me that one of the main things setting humans apart from other animals was that humans were oppressively encumbered. In the story, A Christmas Carol, I knew the truth of the chains Bob Marley lugged around. They were the stuff we burden ourselves with. Still, I lived life more or less conventionally. I owned cars, as well as a house at one point. Renovating and selling that house convinced me to never again undertake home ownership. I divested myself of a lot when I moved into a series of ever smaller apartments. Then came the war in U

Well, that was a short-lived project: learning the taijiquan sword form and writing about the learning. I got through a few weeks and realized it was not going to be possible to devote the time needed while simultaneously preparing to leave the country to go to Ukraine. I had to keep eyes on the prize, which gave me cause to reaffirm for the thousandth time over the last fourteen months what the prize is. It is, simply, to devote the rest of my life to helping Ukraine rebuild and join the European Union and NATO. Just that. Everything else had to give way, except for my dear friend’s 70th birthday which was June 30. I think I told a few folks that I’d have been gone already were it not for that milestone, but honestly, that last month before the birthday party was so hectic with dispensing with the remainder of my worldly goods that I probably could not have left the country any sooner. So I’m writing this two and a half weeks into my farewell tour of the USA. I left Colorado on July 1