Michelstadt am Pazifik
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bierfreund.bsky.social
Michelstadt am Pazifik
@bierfreund.bsky.social
580 followers 240 following 920 posts
FSD with the next update.
Je bands, donc je suis.
First, do no harm whatsoever.
Second, practice virtue as much as possible.
Third, tame your mind.
These are the teachings of the Buddha
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bierfreund.bsky.social
Ok. No idea what these are. Went home around the anniversary of the fire for a rainy day hike. I’ve read that fires spread rare nutrients, perhaps that’s why I saw these fungi for the first time.
Chalky white columns of fan-shaped mushrooms rise up the charred trunk of a pine tree in the gray light of a rainy day.
January 20, 2026 at 5:42 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
Working on my shrine at home
Card of the Shakyamuni Buddha and the Four Noble Truths lit by flickering electric candles repurposed from Halloween.
November 13, 2025 at 3:16 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
Happy Halloween!
November 1, 2025 at 1:55 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
Red tail hawk, dining on a mourning dove. I heard the doves frantically trying for any shelter before I heard the soft POW of the hawk’s strike and a small spray of feathers.
Distant shot of a red tail hawk perched on a utility pole, tearing into a mourning dove it seized just minutes before. Bay of Surprize in the background.
October 30, 2025 at 3:40 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
Went home the other weekend, itad been too long. Walked over to The Old Place, saw some orange along the path. Traffic cones up here? No, it’s pumpkins! Miraculous since nobody’s been there for months, so these volunteers grew entirely uncultivated and unwatered. I’ll spend a day carving them.
A glimpse of orange amongst the brush - pumpkins mostly hidden by dry brush and grasses beside a trail. Orange is a very foreign color in this setting. How the pumpkins came to be is quite the mystery. Nobody walked this land for months. I know since any passage through the dry grass leaves traces. How did seeds come to be here? Pepitas sold as snacks are roasted and salted, so not viable. Dropped by a bird? Perhaps, but where then did the bird eat them in early July? Six pumpkins lazing in the sun above the Sea of Surprize (the largest rolled a bit down slope). Clearly undisturbed by any creature as they grew on the dry and barren hillside. Two have brown spots where they rested against each other as they matured, an indication of no human intervention. They are a great gift from the land. Oh Friends, this means so much to me especially after all we lost.
October 23, 2025 at 3:34 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
“The homes, friends, pleasures and possessions of samsara cause me continual torment by means of the three sufferings.”

Alt text
Finally hanging artwork today in the temporary apartment. This is one of my dearest possessions, and now it cannot be replaced. A picture of the Old Place, shot by Steve Kahn sometime in the early seventies. This image is one of the most painful reminders of this time and place. The tenants in the cabin were Scientologists, they put the piano outside since they thought it wasn’t “clear”. It’s been decades since fog rolled in off the ocean like this. The cabin burned in the ‘93 fire, and without the water from the septic tank the grasses died and the eucalyptus trees suffered in the drought. What was left of them burned in the January fire.
October 12, 2025 at 11:15 PM
bierfreund.bsky.social
I went home to see what remains. Some native things, like the yucca. Some non-native things as well.
Chaparral yucca blackened by the fire but sprouting again. The neighbor was away the day of the fire. Native grasses, rushes and pampas grass engulfed the roasted hulks of his vans. The desiccated eucalyptus trees that shaded them remain only as charred trunks, embraced by wild morning glories.
September 25, 2025 at 4:28 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
I went home to see what’s come back after eight months. Before and after.
Hillside overlooking the coast with thirty years of dense tangled brush Hillside overlooking the coast with eight months of brush
September 25, 2025 at 4:04 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
Temple cat sleeping in the Buddha’s lap
July 27, 2025 at 9:50 PM
bierfreund.bsky.social
I want to go home.
I so badly want to go home.
Lower storey of a duplex apartment building reduced to a concrete shell by the Palisades fire. Exploded garden pots and charred remains of a garden in front. Ashes and debris litter the interior and the remains of the bedroom to the right.
February 9, 2025 at 7:27 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
Four Buddha Images Used as Decoration
Head of the Buddha turned gray by ashes on the brick patio of a burned-out house. Only porch columns, the front steps and a charred beam remain. The overcast sky merges with the pales blue ocean beyond. A seated Buddha regards the black water of a swimming pool. Burnt banana and giant bird-of-paradise plants rise in the background with the collapsed roof of a destroyed house beyond. A bare-breasted statue of a woman toteing a jug remains miraculously white below a sindged seated Buddha placed between two boulders. Little remains of the original vegetation. A fallen Buddha head lies under a birnt tree next to a patio dusted with ash. Only crumpled appliances and the retaining wall of the house remain. Wirey dots of burnt sumac bushes cover the gray slopes beyond.
January 28, 2025 at 5:34 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
Last night I dreamt I was home again, right when the last light faded, in the curve before the middle property. right on the hillside was this really bright outdoor light on a post. Whoever put that there? I turned and there were glorious roses the color of blood oranges. Must tell Julio!
Unmortored stacked stone wall lined with century plants apparently unharmed by the blaze, along with two palm trees the somehow survived. Wirey black remains of native bushes, gray ash-covered hillsides and fresh dirt where the fire caused a lanslide.
January 23, 2025 at 4:50 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
Karma Thegsum Chöling SoCal put up a GoFundMe page to support a member of the sangha and his husband who lost their home in the Palisades Fire.

Please consider a donation.

gofund.me/214779ff
Brick steps between a stone wall and crumpled blackened ruins of a shed and washer leading to a completely obliterated apartment. Only the retaining wall behind remains. Blackened tree trunks stand on either side on gray ash-covered slopes.
January 22, 2025 at 6:26 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
An aspiration by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso

May adverse circumstances arise as friends along the path
May adverse circumstances actually bring us benefit
May we realize emptiness, complete freedom from all elaborations
As a result may we bring great benefit to all sentient beings
Ruins of a Spanish style house with pool. Only the chimney, rock walls and foundation remain. Twisted and charred debris litter the site. Sunlight tinted orange by the smoke plume from the Palsades fire reflects off the ocean beyond. A row of burnt palm trees in the background.
January 20, 2025 at 5:42 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
Live and Direct after the Fire
Lost the ability to post afternoon of the Palisades. Maybe fixed? Video by landlord who stayed to bitter end. His car 60’ away exploded shortly before this
January 15, 2025 at 2:45 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
More Live and Direct from Windy SoCal
Puffy steelwool gray and smokey orange clouds towering overthe ocean. Motionvisble tothenaked eye Twin rotor helicopter headed to a water drop
January 7, 2025 at 11:34 PM
bierfreund.bsky.social
Feral black-headed parakeet in a territorial standoff with other parakeets. These birds are loud, raucous and rarely silent. This one emitted low croaking sounds every 20 seconds.
Bright green bird, similar to a parrot, with a solid black head and tail feathers. Perched on a wire in the open. They can be 25 cm in size.
January 2, 2025 at 1:26 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
Happy 2025.

View over the west edge of the Bay of Surprize
Glittering sun trail on the pale gray-blue ocean, looking over coastal scrub lands and a slice of the Grand Route.
January 2, 2025 at 1:08 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
In the tradition that I follow, on the first day of the solar year, we offer a candle for peace in the new year. Couldn’t do it this year without crying. Peace seems so far away.
Single candle in a blue glass holder in front of the Buddha, Akshobya, Amitabha, Chenrezig, Milarepa, a greeting card from BDRC and the counter I use for prostrations, all on a desk crowded with debris from quotidian existence.
January 1, 2025 at 8:25 PM
bierfreund.bsky.social
From the Magic Circle on Christmas Day, looking east and west.
View over the Bay of Surprize on Christmas Day. Late afternoon sun on shimmering gray water, faint pattern of swells. White surf at the point. The canyon appears green but is still terribly dry. The remains of cloud cover paasing rhrough. Sunset over Point Doom a liitle while after the big light in the sky hit the water. Traces of orange in the sky and on the sea. A thin band of buildings along the shore. Dry winter brush stretches for kilometers in all directions. Signs of deer, but none visible.
December 26, 2024 at 10:17 PM
bierfreund.bsky.social
One of the joys of two days without electric power during the fire is a return to reading for pleasure.
December 15, 2024 at 9:17 PM
bierfreund.bsky.social
What I don’t worry about:

Leaving my phone or wallet in the car
Kids knocking at the gate on Halloween

What I do worry about:

Squirrels eating all the bird seed
Rattlesnakes in the patio
Wildfires near us every thirty years or so
Sunset over Big Rock the first day of the fire northwest of us. Sun tinted blood red by the smoke. Blood red reflections shimmer on the water. The Grand Route is empty. Dawn on the second day of the Franklin fire. Bright blood red clouds now that the wind shifted to slowly bring the marine layer inland so the smoke and haze are trapped over the bay.
December 15, 2024 at 8:36 PM
bierfreund.bsky.social
Der Zauberkreise
Ein Zauberort mit Santa Monica Bucht im Hintergrund.
November 29, 2024 at 1:13 AM
bierfreund.bsky.social
Despite the bright winter sun it’s quite cold. I had to put on clothes to go outdoors.
Bright winter afternoon sun shining on the brush-covered east canyon wall
November 24, 2024 at 11:12 PM
bierfreund.bsky.social
The sun burned off the thin marine layer, two cups of strong coffee and I still don’t have enough energy to do anything other than a smoke offering.
The uncleared breakfast table with coffee mug, tea cup, crumpled napkin, miscellaneous debris of a quotidian existence and roses brought in from the garden.
November 24, 2024 at 10:07 PM