Dancing Lion Chocolate is open! 917 Elm Street, Manchester, New Hampshire.

More info about Dancing Lion – as well as the process behind building the logo/identity – to come shortly. In the meantime, take a look at pages 48-49 of this article in The Hippo and visit dancinglion.us to learn more about Rich’s extraordinary chocolates.

For the past few weeks I have been running/walking/living out of a pair of Niesas (these I did not make, but they are excellent inspiration!):

The first time I put them on I ran around the block and couldn’t stop grinning like something ridiculous. I honestly didn’t want to take them off after my run (coming from me, that means a lot, as I usually quite dislike wearing shoes and socks )

Niesas are designed by Feelmax, a small family-run company in Finland that’s not so small anymore. The shoes are not specifically designed for running but they happen to be perfect for it – the designers were originally inspired from traditional Sami moccasins (of the Scandinavian Arctic). Niesas aren’t easy to find in the US yet but I think they’re truly brilliant.

They’re ultra-lightweight with a sole of only 1mm thick (2mm with insole) and have an amazing barefoot feel, even better than my homemade huaraches. The cold/heat transfer through the sole is incredible, but something to be wary of! On a recent trip to Los Angeles I realized that the city is full of toasty parking lots and that my feet would soon be toast if I didn’t add tar to my list of things not to step on. Frozen earth will be a challenge as well (plus the soles are quite smooth on the bottom, but because they are so thin the muscles in the foot transfer through the sole and compensate pretty well for the traction issue.)

I have tried on a pair of Vibram FiveFingers but I was never really drawn to them – perhaps it was the feeling of my toes being separated and contained. I love that the Niesas are more shoelike and aren’t skin-tight – there is ample room at the top of the shoe so that my toes spread naturally when I shift weight onto them, but not too much room so that the shoes feel too big.

And now ChiRunning‘s got me hooked. [Much] more on that later.

“Maybe these trees can teach us something about ourselves, Marie and I and you, we’re nothing. We’re little snapshots in time, and we’ll soon be gone. This grove has burned in huge fires during the past millennia. Redwoods don’t die if they burn. A redwood can be burned to a blackened spar, and afterward it goes, ’Wooah,’ and just grows back. Look at Kronos. It’s hammered. Its dying. And it’s more beautiful than ever. These trees can teach us how we can live. We can be hammered and burned, and we can come back and be more beautiful as we grow.”

–Steve Sillett

There is such a thing as “tree time”. As Richard Preston describes in the book The Wild Trees: “…time has a different quality in a forest, a different kind of flow. Time moves in circles, and events are linked, even if its not obvious that they’re linked. Events in a forest occur with precision in the flow of tree time, like the motions of an endless dance.”

An explosion of reiteration, like fractals.

“A tree creates a complex structure in many scales – an architecture made up of nooks and crannies and shaded, moist spots and fertile pockets where all kinds of living things can become established and interact with one another.”

–R. Preston

Photo found on http://www.gillesebersolt.com/rea/sob.htm

I have found that, running, walking, living barefoot – or with ultra-thin soles that protect from glass shards or other sharp objects – better connects me with my surroundings and my own sensitivities. After wearing these all summer I have noticed my feet strengthen and my balance/posture improve. Also… it’s been really fun to make my own shoes (and a lot cheaper than buying a pair at a store).

The first pair I made (4mm Vibram Cherry from a 40″ sheet I found online; hemp string).

Added some elastic I found at a thrift store (it was labelled “ballerina cord”). Incredibly comfortable but wears out relatively fast (after only two weeks of constant wear). I found some smooth, round nylon string I’m going to try next.

I’m looking around for different lacing materials and am excited to keep experimenting with various ways of tying them up. Invisibleshoe.com has some excellent tips and tricks for huarache-making. Thanks to Barefoot Ted for giving me inspiration to make my own.

That’s the knot that can wear out pretty quickly with the the black elastic. Working on figuring this out.

I plan to share more moments from this black and white roll. Eventually.

Speaking of bikes in trees, I stumbled upon this recently on this incredible image on the Sierra Club website:

“Decades ago, a child chained a bicycle to a tree on Washington’s Vashon Island. The tree, unperturbed, grew around the bike.” (Photo by Ethan Welty/Tandem)

I think this comment is pretty brilliant:

(I absolutely agree, Terry.)

Two weeks after I moved to the Bay Area was two weeks too long without a bicycle. The abundance of bike lanes in the East Bay (as well as San Francisco) make the transition from rural dirt road mountain biking (with zero cars) to relatively busy neigborhood streets (like Telegraph Avenue) a bit easier. My bike is how I get to the farmer’s market, the subway, the ocean, and how I visit friends. It’s allowed me to find neighborhood secrets and natural nooks / overlooks I likely never would have discovered. I am endlessly thankful for my bike!

When seeking out a trusty steed, I tested out a number of bikes and on a blue and white roadbike that felt perfect from the first pedalstroke. The only thing not so perfect about it was the paint job. So, I decided on a new palette:

Here was the beginning of my  painting design (done in Photoshop):

You can see some of the original blue and white paint poking through from my not-so-careful digital paint job. In real life, though, it’s fully painted – I decided to leave some of the original black paint and fill the rest in with green plus tan pinstripes. It’s amazing how color can completely transform an object and its personality.

On road biking in general: I still haven’t gotten over the SPEED factor. Compared to my old clunker, this bike almost feel like cheating