think about this: if you can solve what you're working on in your lifetime...you're not thinking large enough...

truth AND yet: what are those small steps we CAN solve?

Reverence.

"Summer is the time for talking, the mountains say, when the bird are singing and the creek is gurgling and there are leaves on the trees that rustle in the wind. NOW is the time to sit silently together, to feel the ice break around you, to wait for the first bluebirds to return to the feeder. NOW is the time to heal." -pam houston

Wild places have always healed me. Mystery heals me. Wonder stirs in me. But mostly, tonight I feel the heart stopping astonishment that arises when the human eye gazes into more vertical space that it can at one time comprehend. I believe the french have lent us a word for this final step beyond beauty, beyond comprehension...sublime.

reverence.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

-E.E. Cummings

Here's a poem that I love. In fact, i've been hearing it from my father every birthday - not my birthdays - but on his birthdays. And I smile as i write this: my dad is still six, clever as clever. I'd like to adopt the poem as one that i'll start reciting on my birthdays to come...

So in "light" of my 1/4 century birthday:

Now We Are Six

Author: A.A. Milne

When I was one,
I had just begun.
When I was two,
I was nearly new.
When I was three,
I was hardly me.
When I was four,
I was not much more.
When I was five,
I was just alive.
But now I am six,
I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six
now and forever.

I appreciate those who can beautifully put to words, a 'more than words' expression.

"They sought salvation not in fact, but in feeling, in experience. Man is matter. That is fact. He is a collection of minerals. That is fact. Reduced to his elements though, the life went out of him. His calcium did not cry; his zinc did not love; his iron did not appreciate a good joke. Apart, something was missing, that spark of life, the electricity of the actual world, foreboding, non-sensical, haunting. Before and after the body, only ripeness, what some call spirit, the great mystery, remains alive in the grass, moving with the wind, swimming in all moving water."

I heard the other day that our human cells, the cells that comprise "us" (eyes, heart, hands, etc) are all replaced every 7 years. I also heard someone follow up with, "then, what makes us who we really are?"

it's quite beautiful when you think about it.

NPR: Volcano story

Science Communication and NPR

NPR: Science Friday is one of my favorite podcasts to listen to - I mean who wouldn't want to learn about the science behind a falling leaf***(see below)? I find my passion/ excitement for science communication continues to grow towards a tangible task. I love science - yes i love rocks too - but being able to wonder, awaken wonder about our natural world is exciting....I love asking questions and understanding the amazing systems that make up our bodies - our habitat - our earth!

Miscommunication is a hurdle..and there is a disconnect and loads of assumptions made between scientific research circles and the rest of the world. The relationship between between science and society (the church, politics, industry etc) historically and today could be helped with some improved communication (this is a whole multi-dimensional conversation that I might try and write about at some point ). So that will be my job, or is my job - to communicate science, wonder, systems and understanding - which in turn creates a connection to this place we call home.

Anyway, an interesting podcast to listen to that touches on this conversation and gap - rift between thought processes....

"Fifty years ago this week, British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow. gave a lecture at Cambridge University describing what has come to be known as the 'Two Cultures,' a growing divide, lack of understanding, and lack of communication between the sciences and the humanities. In this segment, we'll look back on the 'Two Cultures' lecture, and what followed afterward. Is there still a fundamental divide between the sciences and the humanities?"

NPR: Science Friday "Clash of Two Cultures" CLICK HERE

**a tree wants to attain the most efficient metabolic state: in the winter that means shutting down it's food producing operations, ie: leaves uses sun, water and CO2 and turn them into food. So literally, the tree pinches off it's leaves, and says goodbye, to essentially "hibernate". Again - it's all about the metabolic state when it comes to winter survival for a tree or an animal. (did you know while a bear is 'hibernating' for the winter, their heart only needs to beat a minimum of 8 times a minute to achieve the lowest metabolic state?)