Different Drummers

2009-04-17T13:42:00.002-04:00

As we approach Earth Day 2009, I wanted to share the picture and some of Carl Sagan's words about our "pale blue dot". Amid all our efforts at recycling and finding cleaner energy, and saving species--sometimes it helps to realize just how unique this earth really is.

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived here - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

Carl Sagan, from "Pale Blue Dot"

2009-01-22T09:41:00.002-05:00

Elizabeth Alexander

Inauguration Poem for Barack Obama, Jan. 20, 2009

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

2008-12-07T10:11:00.002-05:00

In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.

Henry Beston
THE OUTERMOST HOUSE

I've often wondered why our fellow animals understand their place in the world so clearly, while we humans struggle so hard. They exist in a primal union with nature which we can never know. But sometimes there are moments like this one when, even through a glass, our eyes can meet and catch a glimpse of the "other".

2008-03-17T10:26:00.004-04:00

Dreams of the Animals
Margaret Atwood

Mostly the animals dream
of other animals each
according to its kind

(though certain mice and small

rodents
have nightmares of a huge pink

shape with five claws

descending)

: moles dream of darkness and delicate
mole smells

frogs dream of green and golden
frogs
sparkling like wet suns
among the lilies

red and black
striped fish, their eyes open
have red and black striped
dreams defense, attack, meaningful
patterns

birds dream of territories
enclosed by singing.

Sometimes the animals dream of evil
in the form of soap and metal
but mostly the animals dream
of other animals.

There are exceptions:

the silver fox in the roadside zoo
dreams of digging out
and of baby foxes, their necks bitten

the caged armadillo
near the train
station, which runs
all day in figure eights
its piglet feet pattering,
no longer dreams
but is insane when waking;

the iguana
in the petshop window on St.

Catherine Street
crested, royal-eyed, ruling
its kingdom of water-dish and

sawdust

dreams of sawdust

Sometimes we forget how these fellow travelers each have a lesson for us if we will only pay attention. Mice and moles, frogs and fish, birds and foxes, armadillos and iguanas, lions and tigers and bears, oh my! When we cage them, even for the good reasons we tell ourselves so that zoos can exist, they become less of who they are--just as we would, even if the cage were made of gold. Zebras and scanner stickers should have no connection--but in a world where humans put a price on everything, they do.

2007-09-07T11:15:00.000-04:00

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness,

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, "Stay awhile."

The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, "It's simple," they say,

"and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine."

Mary Oliver

I FINALLY figured out my Google sign in process, so have returned after a year; trees have always been a link for me to the "bigger picture"--my bumper stickers says, "I not only hug trees, I kiss them, too!"

2006-09-23T08:44:00.000-04:00

As we approach the Harvest Moon on October 6, 2006, I'm reminded once again of our trip there--of how impossible it would seem to the Romans, who named her Diana, that we could stand upon a goddess. Archibald MacLeish is another of my favorite poets, and in this one he ponders this amazing sight of an Earth seen from the moon.

VOYAGE TO THE MOON
Archibald MacLeish

Presence among us,

wanderer in our skies,
dazzle of silver in our leaves and on our
waters silver,

silver evasion in our farthest thought—
"the visiting moon". . ."the glimpses of the moon". . .

and we have touched you!

From the first of time,
before the first of time, before the
first men tasted time, we thought of you.
You were a wonder to us, unattainable,
a longing past the reach of longing,
a light beyond our light, our lives—perhaps
a meaning to us. . .

Now
our hands have touched you in your depth of night.

Three days and three nights we journeyed,
steered by farthest stars, climbed outward,
crossed the invisible tide-rip where the floating dust
falls one way or other down, encountered
cold, faced death—unfathomable emptiness. . .

Then, the fourth day evening, we descended,
made fast, set foot at dawn upon your beaches,
sifted between our fingers your cold sand.

We stand here in the dusk, the cold, the silence. . .

and here, as at the first of time, we lift our heads.
Over us, more beautiful than the moon, a
moon, a wonder to us, unattainable,
a longing past the reach of longing,
a light beyond our light, our lives—perhaps
a meaning to us. . .

O, a meaning!

over us on these silent beaches the bright
earth,
presence among us.

2006-08-24T09:26:00.000-04:00

I remember seeing my first petroglyph in Wyoming, and I just had to sit and be silent for awhile. We humans have such a yearning to be remembered, so we build pyramids that will eventually crumble--and long ago we painted our hands to mark a wall. Robinson Jeffers wrote the following poem, titled "Hands":

Inside a cave in a narrow canyon near Tassajara
The vault of rock is painted with hands,
A multitude of hands in the twilight,
a cloud of men's palms, no more,
No other picture.
There's no one to say
Whether the brown shy quiet people who are
dead intended
Religion or magic,
or made their tracings
In the idleness of art;
but over the division of
the years these careful
Signs-manual are now like a sealed message
Saying: "Look: we also were human; we had
hands, not paws. All hail
You cleverer hands, our supplanters
In the beautiful country; enjoy her a season, her
beauty, and come down
And be supplanted; for you also are human."

2006-08-14T09:06:00.000-04:00

This is the labyrinth I built in my backyard over the past 2 summers--with MUCH thanks to my youngest son Richard for doing the math and spray painting the design for me. I dug it by hand, using pavers since I'm a wimp and can't lift very much.

This is a seven-circuit, or classic, labyrinth; it is NOT a maze, since there is only one way in and one way out. Labyrinths are a form of walking meditation. My brother Pete, an Episcopal priest in Seattle, introduced me to them, and I walk mine every day. I've chosen certain topics for contemplation on each circuit--mostly friends and family, with the outer circuit being reserved for the planet.

This is the way I've tried to retain a sense of spirituality outside of the realm of organized religion. I have to agree with Albert Einstein, who once said:

"I cannot conceive of a god who rewards and punishes his creatures or has a will of the kind we experience in ourselves. Neither can I -- nor would I want to -- conceive of an individual that survives his physical death. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world...."

2006-08-07T10:20:00.000-04:00

This picture of the Horsehead Galaxy is one of my favorites; I used to ask my students to ponder the following data:

At the equator, the earth spins at 1000 mph.
The earth revolves around the sun at 18 miles per second.
The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second.
186,000 miles/second * 60 seconds/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 24 hours/day * 365 days/year = 5,865,696,000,000 miles in a light year
The sun is 26,000 light years from the center of the Milky Way galaxy, which is 80,000 to 120,000 light years across.
The closest star is Alpha Centauri, which is 4 light years away. If our sun were scaled down to the size of a period on a printed page, then the distance to Alpha Centauri would be about 8 miles away.
It takes our solar system 200-250 million years to orbit once around the Milky Way at 155 miles per second.
The Local Group is the cluster of galaxies to which we belong. It is a group of about 30 galaxies that is about 5 million light-years across. Within the Local Group, the Milky Way Galaxy is moving about 185 miles per second.

The students would just let their minds be blown for awhile--and then move on, as we all must. However, far from making our tiny lives seem meaningless, the idea that we participate in this cosmic dance is amazing. Timothy Ferris is one of my favorite astronomers; in THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE he says:

What is there about the human mind that so resonates with the rest of the universe that we’re able to understand anything about workings of nature on the larger scale? Every scrap of matter and energy in our blood and bones and in the synapses of our thoughts can trace its lineage back to the origin of the universe…. As the Koran puts it, the universe is as close as the veins of our necks. The evolution of the universe goes on not just around us but within us. Our thoughts and feelings, after all, are part of the universe, too, and its story is our story as well.

2006-08-05T08:51:00.000-04:00

Finally! After the terrible heat in the Midwest, the rains came yesterday--and I just took a walk and let them drench me! Thomas Merton, Catholic priest and philosopher, had this to say about the rain (excerpt from Rain and the Rhinoceros, Merton's essay while he sat in the rain and read Eugene Ionesco's play RHINOCEROS).

The rain I am in is not like the rain of cities. It fills the woods with an immense and confused sound. It covers the flat roof of the cabin and its porch with insistent and controlled rhythms. And I listen, because it reminds me again and again that the whole world runs by rhythms I have not yet learned to recognize....Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water....What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone in the forest at night, cherished by this wonderful perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself....Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, the rain. As long as it talks, I am going to listen.

2006-07-14T10:02:00.000-04:00

It seems everyone has a special part of nature that speaks to them--for me, it's trees. Even though San Diego CA had the most beautiful weather in the world, I wanted to get back to the Midwest for the deciduous trees--especially maples and oaks.

Another of my "different drummer" inspirations is the poet May Sarton, who expresses the value of trees when she says:

All the way down I had been in a state of great praise for trees, wondering...how could I ever live without them, thinking of their comfort, how they nourish and sustain us with their beauty and coolness, their steadfastness, the fact that they will outlive those who plant them. And I understood why old men plant trees....I would like to believe when I die that I have given myself away like a tree that sows seeds every spring and never counts the loss, because it is not loss, it is adding to future life. It is the tree's way of being. Strongly rooted, perhaps, but spilling out its treasure on the wind.

Albert Einstein said, "Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better." I choose to pay attention to trees--to sit beneath them long enough to hear their slow, patient quiet lessons. Others may spend time with stars, oceans, mountains, animals, plants--whatever touches your heart and mind.

2006-06-29T10:05:00.000-04:00

Another of my favorite anthropologists and philosophers is Loren Eiseley, whose most well-known book, THE IMMENSE JOURNEY, was published in 1946. His essays combine his knowledge of science with a powerful literary writing style. One of my favorites is "The Star Thrower", which has become an American folk story as others have adapted it. I have never found any of the "folksy" versions as powerful as Eiseley's own amazing essay, and I can only recommend that you read the entire piece of writing.

At the time he wrote the essay, Eiseley was in a period of great agony in his mind and spirit. He said, "I was the inhumanly stripped skeleton without voice, without hope, wandering alone upon the shores of the world." He walked the beaches of Costabel, watching the greedy collectors gathering shells to sell to tourists. Then he said:

Ahead of me, over the projecting point, a gigantic rainbow of incredible perfection had sprung shimmering into existence. Somewhere toward its foot I discerned a human figure stand, as it seemed to me, within the rainbow, though unconscious of his position. He was gazing fixedly at something in the sand.

Eventually he stooped and flung the object beyond the breaking surf. I labored toward him over a half-mile of uncertain footing. By the time I reached him the rainbow had receded ahead of us, but something of its color still ran hastily in many changing lights across his features. He was starting to kneel again.

In a pool of sand and silt a starfish had thrust its arms up stiffly and was holding its body away from the stifling mud.

"It's still alive," I ventured.

"Yes," he said, and with a quick yet gentle movement he picked up the star and spun it over my head and far out into the sea. It sank in a burst of spume, and the waters roared once more.

"It may live," he said, "if the offshore pull is strong enough." He spoke gently, and across his bronzed worn face the light still came and went in subtly altering colors.

"There are not many come this far," I said, groping in a sudden embarrassment for words. "Do you collect?"

"Only like this," he said softly, gesturing amidst the wreckage of the short. "And only for the living." He stooped again, oblivious of my curiosity, and skipped another star neatly across the water.

"The stars," he said, "throw well. One can help them."

Eiseley then goes back to his room, still caught in his existential despair--until he realizes that we are not just victims of natural selection but able to rise above it through our capacity for love and pity. We cannot expect the rest of the natural world to "love" us--but that does not take away our responsibility to love and care for that world. So he leaves his room to seek the thrower:

On a point of land, as though projecting into a domain beyond us, I found the star thrower. In the sweet rain-swept morning, that great many-hued rainbow still lurked and wavered tentatively beyond him. Silently I sought and picked up a still-living star, spinning it far out into the waves. I spoke once briefly. "I understand," I said. "Call me another thrower." Only then I allowed myself to think, He is not alone any longer. After us there will be others.

2006-06-27T08:03:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite "pilgrimages" was to Carmel CA to see Tor House and Hawk Tower, both built by the poet Robinson Jeffers for his wife Una and their twin sons. He used horses and pulleys to lift the large stones from the beach and place them in these unique structures. The website www.torhouse.org has much more information.

As a poet, Robinson Jeffers concentrated on the wilder aspects of nature. He loved living by the Pacific and had little patience with the foibles of humanity. Here is one of my favorites:

Civilized, crying how to be human again; this will tell you how.
Turn outward, love things, not men, turn right away from humanity,
Let that doll lie. Consider if you like how the lilies grow,
Lean on the silent rock until you feel its divinity
Make your veins cold, look at the silent stars, let your eyes
Climb the great ladder out of the pit of yourself and man.
Things are so beautiful, your love will follow your eyes;
Things are the God, you will love God, and not in vain,
For what we love, we grow to it, we share its nature. At length
You will look back along the stars' rays and see that even
The poor doll humanity has a place under heaven.
Its qualities repair their mosaic around you, the chips of strength
And sickness; but now you are free, even to become human,
But born of the rock and the air, not of a woman.

2006-06-26T08:49:00.000-04:00

One of the characteristics I love about Henry David Thoreau was his ability to notice the smallest parts of nature and hear what they had to tell him. He said, of snowflakes:

How full of the creative genius is the air in which these are generated! I should hardly admire more if real stars fell and lodged on my coat."--Henry David Thoreau, 1856

Another time he pointed out:

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.

For me, it's important to slow down enough to really "see" some of the smaller wonders of our world, so hear is a poem called "Gratitude" that includes many of them.

Gratitude

What did you notice?

The dew snail;

the low-flying sparrow;

the bat, on the wind, in the dark;

big-chested geese, in the V of sleekest performance;

the soft toad, patient in the hot sand;

the sweet-hungry ants;

the uproar of mice in the empty house;

the tin music of the cricket’s body;

the blouse of the goldenrod.

What did you hear?

The thrush greeting the morning;

the little bluebirds in their hot box;

the salty talk of the wren,

then the deep cup of the hour of silence.

What did you admire?

The oaks, letting down their dark and hairy fruit;

the carrot, rising in its elongated waist;

the onion, sheet after sheet, curved inward to the pale green wand;

at the end of summer the brassy dust, the almost liquid beauty of the flowers;

then the ferns, scrawned black by the frost.

What astonished you?

The swallows making their dip and turn over the water.

What would you like to see again?

My dog: her energy and exuberance, her willingness,

her language beyond all nimbleness of tongue, her

recklessness, her loyalty, her sweetness, her

sturdy legs, her curled black lip, her snap.

What was most tender?

Queen Anne’s lace, with its parsnip root;

the everlasting in its bonnets of wool;

the kinks and turns of the tupelo’s body;

the tall, blank banks of sand;

the clam, clamped down.

What was most wonderful?

The sea, and its wide shoulders;

the sea and its triangles;

the sea lying back on its long athlete’s spine.

What did you think was happening?

The green breast of the hummingbird;

the eye of the pond;

the wet face of the lily;

the bright, puckered knee of the broken oak;

the red tulip of the fox’s mouth;

the up-swing, the down-pour, the frayed sleeveof the first snow—
so the gods shake us from our sleep.

~ Mary Oliver ~

2006-06-25T09:31:00.000-04:00

Most of the individuals who have inspired me are naturalists and scientists, but I wanted to start this first post with a poem that has helped me through many difficult times. One of my favorite quotations from Anne Frank reads: "The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature... Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be…As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that there will always be comfort for every sorrow. I firmly believe that nature brings solace to all troubles."

Berry's poem reflects that same idea--

The Peace of Wild Things
Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.