Catching our tail

We're almost there, still nipping at our own tail, so the annual journey around the sun is almost complete, 364-1/4 days we have been traveling the more or less circuitous route, only to arrive at our beginning. Well, not quite, perhaps arriving at the beginning of one circle, yet we and the sun have been together on another journey. Together with 200 billion other suns we are swirling around within our Milky Way galaxy. And the Milky Way galaxy is heading ... where? Some astronomers think on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy. In 3 billion years. Be ready.

Contemplating the debris

I took a walk this evening with a flashlight, and the full moon, and my breath guiding my way, it was cold. And I didn't look up much at first, for I read once about the dark matter of that overhead in the night sky, the great majority of the universe, that called the dark matter (or dark matter and dark energy), accounts for 97 percent of all the universe, yet even calling it dark matter is a bit misleading, for the term "dark matter" is really a place holder, it is a made up term to describe that which cannot be described. Dark matter really means, "I don't know." Plain and simply. The great "huh?" that we dignify with "dark matter." After all the calculations are done, we are left with a remainder of 96% unaccounted for. Meaning that everything we see, the material world (which includes a whole bunch that our eyes don't see, such as infrared light, but with instruments we can "see") is 4% of the whole. Four percent! (give or take a few percent, depending on where you gather these kinds of facts). But what is 4% of anything? Not very much. Fill a glass with 96% water and 4% sand. Stir it up and see the bits swirl about the great volume of water, all the stars and galaxies of the universe swirling about in that glass nearly full of water. One cosmos theorist calls the 4% of the known universe the debris. He calls it something so unimportant that when you remove it, you will not miss it. Huh? Okay, take our glass of water with the bits of sand swirling in it, now with a filter, filter out all the sand, the 4% of the total volume. Now hold up the glass of water, the glass 96% full. Nearly full. All the stars and the galaxies and you and me gone. Yet the glass doesn't even seem to miss them. It still looks full. That is why the theorist laughs when someone looks up into the night sky and makes poetic statements about looking into the universe. He laughs because what you really are seeing is the "mere" 4% of the total. That night sky ablaze with countless stars. Is the mere 4% of the total. So tonight as I was walking in the moon lit desert, with flashlight in hand, I was thinking about the 96% that my eyes couldn't see. I switched off the flashlight and even with the full moon, the landscape was still dark, dark enough that the difference between noontime and full moon time were, I think, similar to the 96% and 4%. I then looked straight up and as always, the desert night sky is a blaze of twinkles, and I had a hard time thinking this but 4% of the whole. And of course I had to include myself and the surrounding desert in that 4%. Yes, everything on this planet Earth is included in the 4%. Then I reached down, the flashlight beam making a yellow circle on the sand, and I took a handful of sand, cold in my clenched hand, and flung it into the air, and with the beam of the flashlight watched the grains of sand interrupt the darkness, for without the sand in the air, my flashlight beam had nothing to deflect the photons. Are the stars about just so much sand flung across the universe? Or simply, as the theorist said, mere debris? We too the debris of the universe? Turning back, with the flashlight beam sweeping the path before me, I thought of the 4% as not debris, but that little of great value. And why? For hidden inside this 4% is what I think of as potential. That mysterious force call potential. And it is this force that breaks through the unknown to become ...

Did God cry?

The Mayo Clinic has a resource for new parents and some answers to the question: why do newborns cry a lot? Of course the reasons are varied and many and it is the job of the new parents to figure out the immediate cause so that an immediate solution can be found. I wonder who helped Mary and Joseph with newborn baby care tips? Without the Mayo Clinic, and in the culture of those times, I'm sure Mary had to rely on the goodness and compassion of the women surrounding her (while Joseph handed out cigars?), but if she did have the Mayo Clinic, then she would have consider the following whenever baby Jesus cried.

I'm hungry.
I need to burp.
I pooped.
I'm tired.
I'd rather be bundled.
I want to move.
I'm lonely.
I'm hot.
I want to suck on something.
I've had enough.
It's just that time of day.
My tummy hurts.

Now, after considering this list, I really don't think Mary needed the Mayo Clinic. I think the women about her didn't need any list, they just knew what to do.

And what did God think of all this?
A new experience?
That we all went through.
We're not alone.

Mail order Yucca

Bro. Clarence said he discovered on the web a nursery in Texas that specializes in cacti and other heat and drought resistant plants. I can't tell you how excited he is, he was outdoors all day making sketches of what plants would best fit in this or that area, and then back to the Macintosh to check the website again to determine the size and habits of this or that bush or cacti and of course the cost of his now imaginary desert garden. Well, I will wait and see if this all comes to pass, for I'm afraid our labyrinth remains undone, and so it goes sometimes, that we need to become verbs in order to create nouns. Yet isn't it more comfortable to be a noun?

The naturally unnatural future -- Returning to Eden?

"Let's start thinking about what sort of Earth we want our descendants to inherit."

What a big and difficult question. For some (or most?) it seems a simply question. But when we look around and see what our builders of the future are building, we see oodles of "artificial" mammoth structures growing in China with a gravity defying skyscraper as the most recent example, continuing the trend of "making room" with clever and interesting boxes to shelter the forever increasing numbers of humans ever more unchecked by prior evolutionary checks, so it seems that humans are restructuring the entire planet into a willy-nilly patchwork of habitats that attempt to provide creature comforts to humans, and in the process are trading the unknown for the known. Or our notion for the "known." The old notion of the "natural" is rapidly becoming the new notion of the sacred. And as our ancestors built cathedrals to house the "spirit of the sacred," the future seems wanting to save the untouched and unspoiled remaining nature and keeping it untainted forever by human touch. Have we finally found Eden? (and it was here all the time?) And this time we willingly stand outside and look in, in awe. Finally knowing that we, the once ejected, are again given the chance to be the keepers?

Writing in the sand with my index finger

Stars decorate
the sky
under I snore

Forever time stands
still waiting waiting
A baby cries

Beyond the Joshua tree
rain drops
lightning dances

A lizard waits
and listens too
the old man snores

A million snores
half a world asleep
lunch in Kyoto

A child is born
again and again and again
Right now!

Bare-bones natural and fleshy artificial?

Erase humans from the grand picture, and all is natural. Erase humans from the grand picture, good and evil disappear. This self-aware being with imagination that can be acted upon changes nature as it is and was. This being with the ability to gain insight through symbols (language) can transform imagination into acts that can reconstruct nature, which therefore makes us humans, little creators. So with our limited storehouse of precise words, we use artificial to describe creations created by little creators, and natural to describe Creation. Yes, Big Creation, which of course includes the creation of ALL, including the little creators and their little creations. So you might think the word artificial a bit artificial, for it attempts to elevate us humans into creators, when as Bro. Chet* has shown, the Tinker-toy set is already in place (and who made the Tinker-toy set?), we human after forever time have discovered we too are constructed Tinker toys!? And, all our little creations are but humans playing with the Tinker-toy set.

*see How do you make a universe? (Tinker toys)

To destinations unknown

Maybe a scientist is like a bicycle rider, and telling everyone that a destination is the goal, yet secretly the bicycle rider just loves riding the bike, and if the stated destination is reached, then hurriedly a new destination is announced, for riding the bike is what it's all about. Then over the years all these bicycle riders have little accidents here and there, making ruts in the once pristine landscape, but quickly seek atonement by announcing the bicycle rides are for humanity, they at the same time create innumerable problems for all, and create comforts and well-being too, a mixed bag that keeps them pedaling and keeps the sitters and walkers thinking we all are heading somewhere, somewhere together to an unknown destination, a destination that only the bicycle riders know where. Or do they?

A letter to my past self

I would tell my younger self that you haven't arrived yet, so instead of chiseling youthful wisdom into stone, write it in a paper journal with a yellow pencil that has a big eraser, and too, instead of planting intellectual roots, continue the journey, and when you pass fellow beings that have planted their roots, be not troubled and too quick with judgment, and finally, in the long run, kindness to others is best, even when that kindness isn't returned, and when the olive branch offered is refused with a volley of arrows, then return to the path and make haste, for another day is straight ahead, just beyond the daybreak, with always a hint of promise in the air.


Addendum:

From a "Calvin and Hobbs" comic strip (from the past).

Calvin: "Ah, I got the letter I wrote to myself."

Hobbes: "What did you write?"

Calvin: "Dear Calvin -- Hi! I'm writing this on Monday. What day is it now? How are things going? Your pal. Calvin."

Calvin: "My past self is corresponding with my future self."

Hobbes: "Too bad you can't write back."

Calvin (next day): "I got a letter from my past self."

Hobbes: "What's it say?"

Calvin: "Dear Future Calvin -- I wrote this several days before you will receive it. You've done things I haven't done. You've seen things I haven't seen. You know things I don't know. You lucky dog. Your pal. Calvin."

Calvin (sniffing): "I feel so sorry for myself two days ago."

Hobbes: "Poor him. He wasn't you."

Deal with it. Think about it.

"Deal with it. Think about it."*
Almost the exact words that a dear old pastor used to explain what "those old men" of the Council of Nicea handed us in 325 AD, a creed that is recited as though it were a theorem, yet in fact is a most puzzling poem. Of course a "youthful" me rebelled at the thought of sheepishly reciting anything that isn't "clear" and unambiguous and fact. He said it was the early Church Fathers way of saying that we too were to deal with what they were dealing with, so across the ages it is: "Deal with it. Think about it." A youthful me was disgusted by sheep. And now? Sheep compose most of the world. I've dealt with it. I've thought about it. Most folks just want to get by, to survive, and in the arena of ultimate questions with no simply unambiguous answers, I think most are simply too exhausted to expend an ounce of strength pondering doctrine and dogma when all they want is community and friendship and love and want most from religion is answers to how one lives peacefully in community with real friendships and how to live life lovingly.

*Today Chet Raymos writes on "Science Musings Blog" about Wallace Stevens' poem, "Man Carrying Thing" which has these line, "Deal with it. Think about it." Which sparked my memory of those words, but not from the poem.

With eyes closed

After a late meal this evening Bro. Juniper was telling of a trip long ago to Japan and while hiking in a mountainous area he came upon a small building and thought it to be a Buddhist place for meditation. It seemed deserted so he peeked inside and was surprised to find a Christian cross on the wall. Then he heard a voice, and not understanding Japanese, he quickly shut the door, feeling a bit guilty for trespassing, but coming toward him was an elderly Japanese fellow with a long white beard. He did speak English, much to Bro. Juniper's relief, and after bowing and a hardy handshake Bro. Juniper was ushered inside. He said the floor was some sort of stone, perhaps sandstone, and even though outside it was a warm and humid day, the stone floor was cool and a welcomed seat to enjoy a cup of green tea. Soon it became apparent that the elderly gentleman was most hungry for someone to share talk of the Bible with, and what Bro. Juniper remembers most was a discussion about the meaning of Matthew 6:22, and the gentleman's interpretation of "if therefore thine eye be single."

Matthew 6:22-24 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

He explained to Bro. Juniper that the "eye be single" was the third eye of meditation, and he repeatedly touched his index finger to his forehead, emphasizing where the third eye is located. He went on with comparisons of Buddhist meditation, and even the Hindu concept of the inner eye. He said Jesus didn't use the plural "eyes" but the singular "eye" and how that means the inner eye and how Jesus was teaching how the inner eye guides the whole body to be light, to be pure. Bro. Juniper remained there for a few days, and quickly learned the discipline of awakening for pre-dawn meditation. He said he left with a greater desire to somehow wed the Eastern "inner-eye" meditation with his more traditional Christian meditative prayer. During this storytelling we all listened with keen interest, many of us nodding as though that is how we understand this scripture, but then Bro. Sedwick said he didn't agree. It was his understanding that in the 1st Century a common Hebrew idiom was "eye be single" or "good eye" (as well as various translations: "if your eye be clear" and "if your eye be whole" and "if your eye be healthy") and meant someone being generous. Someone with a "bad eye" was greedy. Then with a bit of deductive reasoning, Bro. Sedwich noted that Proverbs 22:9 reads, "The person who has a good eye is blessed, because he is generous and gives to the poor." And with a bit of finality in his voice, thumbed through his Bible and then read Proverbs 23:6, "Beware of the man with the evil eye, he knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing." Bro. Clarence then entered the discussion saying he can easily think of the meditative "inner eye" as being an eye that sees the light in the darkness, and therefore sees the true value of generosity and the ultimate inhumanity of greed. I nodding in agreement to that too as I departed for a short stroll in the now very chilly desert night. Then after a bit and with two eyes closed, I aimed my third eye to heaven. And something funny happened. Inside my head I imagined the Milky Way overhead and could only think of how generous God is to a mere human staring up with eyes closed. But still seeing.

Meditating upon forever change

Sometimes deep into the night, deep into the desert, with but the canopy of stars above and a meandering breeze that seems to come and go as it pleases, and a kind of darkness below the circular horizon that stuns the eyes, and tiny sounds about, some familiar and some strangers, and seated atop gritty sand with still warmth from the long departed sun, new smells tickle the nose, and the body slowly finds an ease and seems held upright by that breeze, and the mind, oh the mind, wants to take it all in as the senses grow bolder and bolder. What was once ordinary becomes extraordinary. Then the mind lets go, the voice in the brain is dumbstruck, and what was thought to be stillness suddenly becomes forever change. And in the blink of a blind eye the entire universe slips into that silent mind.

Meditation without a name

Under the shade of a tree,
with no name,
and an ant,
with no name,
I watched
and imagined
I was that ant,
hither and thither and yon I went,
soon too,
I had no name

What is truth?

Hasn't evolution provided somewhat of a conundrum for us humans? We want truth, yet we are confused about what is truth. The problem. A human mind evolved in one way, and now, like a found tiger cub that is raised at home with love and care, we hope for domestication. Will it work? Can it work?

So what is truth? From the Big Bang to the first spark of life, all was truth. And then in those pre-human jungles and deserts and savannas and forests, all there was was truth. Nothing but truth. What was, was. Not a brain that existed then would argue this. Not a brain existed then that could think anything else. Truth, for the living -- all life -- was survival, be that adapting to strategies of fearsome violence, or strategies of clever camouflage and rapid escape (plus countless other adaptations). It took the human brain that evolved into a thinking mind to change all this. Truth could now be denied. Which didn't change the truth, for all other life still lived in full truth, but this clever new thinking, self-aware human mind could make strategy for survival out of creating imagined truths, at which time untruths entered the picture. Since the Big Bang, untruth had not existed. Since untruth entered the picture and the human mind traded knowledge of truth for self-awareness and imagination, humankind has struggled to regain that pre-human pure vision of truth (without acquiescing self-awareness and imagination), and so far science is our only tool. But the question becomes, can we destroy all untruth without too destroying self-awareness and imagination, and who we are?

Blink of an eye

I would think that sometimes a blink of an eye is more valuable than an eternal stare.

Lao-tzu put it nicely:

When the Tao is lost, there is "virtue"
When virtue is lost, there is "benevolence"
When benevolence is lost, there is "justice"
When justice is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty,
the beginning of confusion.

Placing bets

Evolution is what evolution does. Or so they tell me. If unfocused multitasking (and mindless?) busyness (and business) creates more adaptable humans, then that's what humans will become. That is, until some gene-splicing neoevolutionist figures out how to bypass natural evolution with a new "human-guided" evolution on a rather large scale. Then, all bets are off. The rest of the story, to come.

Text messaging and cell phones and the human thumb

I imagine in the future information and knowledge will be cascading in ever increasing amounts so that future schooling will teach one to be a generalist with focus on search and access techniques. What I find interesting with the new "chatter" generation is that they are realizing what humans have always hungered for, ongoing togetherness. In the past, writing and reading (novels?) created an artificial togetherness that satisfied, or helped to satisfy, a solitary human's aloneness. And in the distant past it took great effort and time (and social skills?) to daily come into contact with more that a few others. But now one can carry a cell phone and maintain an ongoing "novel" with countless others, and in the process have an ongoing feeling of togetherness as if one were constantly surrounded with friends of choice, yet have the power to turn them on or off with a tap of a prehensile thumb.

The prehensile thumb, of course our forerunners along the evolutionary timeline provided the grasping thumb, which thereby freed the hands from walking "on all fours" and thereby stimulated the curiousness of the species with evermore "picking up and inspecting" of stuff found along the way, which stimulated the brain which was busy attempting to understand these new things that the "new hand and thumb" where constantly picking up and inspecting, and so it goes until the grasping and holding fingers and thumbs become secondary to the tapping fingers and tapping thumbs, which will continue the evolution of the hands until they became the talking hands at which time humans lose grip on their humanness. The rest of the story, to come.

One half of a conversation

This morning I came across some big floppy disks that I was tossing into the trash basket when Bro. Simon came to borrow some Cadmium Yellow, I have been giving him some informal art lessons, now he is trying his hand at oil painting, and already he has taken a liking to Vincent van Gogh, so my oil paints are disappearing at an alarming rate, but that is another story for another day, this story begins when Bro. Simon's eyes caught sight of the big floppy disks in the trash basket. He immediately retrieved them and asked if he could have them, for he is a collector of old computers and said he could make use of these "perfectly good diskettes." With them and the Cadmium Yellow he disappeared, only to return at noon with a "print out" of what was on my discarded floppy disks. I had no idea what I had stored on them, and it turns out that the "print outs" contained "my side" of some sort of exchange. I can only imagine that it was before the Internet, when the only exchange of ideas with computers was by modems and bulletin boards (or whatever they were then called). Anyway, here is my side of a conversation of which I suppose we will never know the other side. I will leave the other side to your imagination.

If I ventured out at night with my toolkit of wooden ruler and magnifying glass to measure the cosmos, you may laugh or you may smile at my simplicity or you may simply shake your head.

In my last astronomy class we talked much of measurement. Parallax is all about measurement. Without measurement what is the Doppler red shift or the Hubble constant? Without measurement, I'm afraid we have no science.

Perhaps I should deconstruct my first comment, for I fear it has been misunderstood. I am not commenting on the joys of nature, for I fully appreciate Bro. Theo's joy, and your joy, and my joy of nature.

"If I ventured out at night with my toolkit of wooden ruler and magnifying glass to measure the cosmos, you may laugh or you may smile at my simplicity or you may simply shake your head."

A scientist would think comical to see someone attempting to be scientific, yet going at it in such an absurd way. For me to hold a magnifying glass to the night sky, and then to attempt measurement of distant realms with a wooden ruler, would be both comical and farce. For the tools and the understanding of the enterprise are simply not there.

Now you may see that I was "turning the tables," if you will, on Bro. Theo, who presented an outline of his book, his quest to find God by trekking about an earthly landscape, yet comes to the conclusion that God doesn't exist, at least a God that one can communicate with, for in all his searching his bodily sensors were unable to find a material god. In his mind, or so I guess, the wonders around him are sufficient enough to boggle his mind, and if one cannot touch or hear the God that the local parson imagines, or "the church" has constructed, then not only is the constructed god dismissed, but God is dismissed.

And finally, in this bit of deconstruction, I view Bro. Theo frolicking about the peninsula in search of the Creator of ALL as amusing as me measuring distant galaxies with my wooden ruler. Each fully misunderstanding the quest at hand.

And so it is. Except for your last paragraph. For my part I can totally understand and enjoy and investigate and measure and ponder the material world, as well I seek to do with the immaterial world, or if I dare use the word spiritual. Yet on the other side of the table the 'profitably and pleasantly' are reserved for the material, while the 'spiritual' is treated simplistically and condescendingly (anthropomorphic 'dad' in the sky). And finally, you say "Theo is a skeptic" and my understanding of skeptics, in the realm of science, is that they are up to challenges, in fact that is what the scientific method is all about. So I'm a bit puzzled that my tiny 'contrary' comments should be viewed as unprofitable or unpleasant.

I attempt to converse here with Bro. Theo's statement as the genesis of my comments. I haven't read Bro. Theo's books, and haven't commented on them, but have commented on what is presented in his statement. Perhaps using the cross, and a bit of rambling, will illuminate my thinking a bit. I understand the world of the human senses, the natural world, the material world, as the horizontal plane of life, and the spiritual as the vertical plane of life. It is on the horizontal plane that we must all live, yet it is the vertical plane that we can choose to understand, or not, to dwell within, or not. Many simply dismiss the spiritual as unknowable, hence a useless pursuit. Yet science is all about unknowns. We live in the greatest unknown, the universe. Dark energy accounts for over three quarters of the mass-energy of the universe, nearly all of ALL is hypothetical dark matter and dark energy. This is what science tells me, at least the physicists, that nearly all of ALL is but chalk marks on a chalkboard, a theory that creates mystery to make all the other equations work. I wonder if dark matter and dark energy are the stuff of my imagined vertical plane, the plane of what can't be measured, what can't be touched by we humans. Imagination seems so unique to humans (for do other creatures write novels? or tickle each other's minds?) as well as the idea of potential, humans can and do break out of their scripted DNA, and imagination is what triggers a human to mindfully or mindlessly do things that have never been done before. We the only animals that have broken through the scripted DNA in any meaningful (or meaningless) ways. You speak of mystery, yet I find that the natural world holds little mystery, yes many unknowns, unknown simply because scientist haven't discovered or focused attention on these unknowns, a focus that breaks down the complex to the simple and in the process reveals the watch for what it is, gears upon gears and a spring. Yet the inner world of the human mind is the true mystery, for as much as science attempts to tease the mysteries out, then more mysteries are discovered. Inside my skull is an imagination that thinks the cosmos is composed of .3% neutrinos, .5% stars, 4% hydrogen and helium, 25% dark matter, and 70% dark energy. Oh yes, .03% material, other than hydrogen and helium. For me a far greater mystery is why fellow humans dismiss a Creator of this ALL, yet are confident that ALL just exists and by not the evolution of Darwin, but far before that, by a cosmic evolution. ALL came to be, and by chance and happenstance all things have come down to a being that can think such thoughts, and not only think such thoughts, but can argue over them. And they often do it in the name of science, when it is science that holds 95% of ALL to still be a mystery. A true mystery. Oh you of such great faith!

A drop in the ocean

If I were a drop in the ocean and that someday came when I found myself riding the surface, I think I'd thank all the other drops for their company, then as the sun transformed me (and the other "surface drops") to vapor, I'd bid farewell as I was whisked away for a most exciting journey ... as a cloud?

To whom?

When daily I awake to the splendor of life and marvel at the unknown (to me) and further marvel when that unknown to me is exposed to the light of day, by more often than not a scientist (or a writer of science), and that which I hold in my hand, a leaf from a tree? within it, far too many wonders than I can comprehend, yet some I've seen chalked on a blackboard in symbols by a botanist that exposed the workings of some tiny piece, of course I'm grateful to the botanist, yet the wonder itself? The leaf in my hand. And throughout the day the countless natural wonders, and into the night, gazing up into the desert sky, for me more splendor in a blink than I can grasp, and inside, what can I call it? inside a primal urge? all throughout the day and into the night, that urge, that need, a want, a want to give thanks. To whom?