Looking to Freedom

Molecular fingerprinting suggests that every life-form on earth today originated from the same bacterialike ancestor. That ancestor eventually led to the three main surviving branches of life, the archaea, bacteria, and eukaryotes (the organisms made of cells with a nucleus that include algae, plants, fungi, and animals).

...in the evolution of organisms and ecosystems there are innumerable random events of history that shape outcome. Outcome is not preordained. There are no correcting factors or laws from above that specify the form of the ultimate outcome...

-Bernd Heinrich -Winter World

A moment of saddness among my mirth today....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500877.html

yes global warming exists..

Tom At Cruachan

On Cruachan's plain slept he
That must sing in a rhyme
What most could shake his soul:'
The stallion Eternity
Mounted the mare of Time,
'Gat the foal of the world.'

-William Butler Yeats

a wild stallion

Alchemy is also shy, and it also keeps to substances and lets them silently fill with meaning rather then blurting out what seems most precious.

--What Painting Is -James Elkins

I have been thinking about assumptions. I assume that I will wake up tomorrow and that my weekend, which I am waiting for will occur. As I age this gets idea gets more regular as if the passing of time, having grown greater since its beginning will continue unchecked. So I plan uninterrupted in a kind of luxury. I can't imagine or focus on time being finite, yet ultimately it is. Somehow I wonder what meetings we take for granted because we believe that they are going to happen again. What would I say if I thought that I was not going to see.... well that is for another day.

Building your own universe

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6545246

So if you could choose an object to squeeze and create a black hole out of it what would you pick?

... I, too, await
The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.
When shall the stars be blown about the sky,
Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?
Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,
Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?


-W.B. Yeats "The Secret Rose"

Juniper Rain

Happy Birthday

My Grandmother Florence was by far the most important influence on my life and person. She was an amazing woman who was funny, caring, and tough as nails. She worked when women were still expected to stay home and raised 4 children by herself. Despite all of the difficulties in her life, she lived through the Great Depression, 2 World Wars, and other historic times, my grandmother never lost her sense of humor. In fact she could make an entire room light up in laughter at her jokes.

She was a daughter of a steel worker, who would read by latern after his shift. My Grandmother often joked, that like her father she would spend her last dollar on a book. My Grandmother and I would go to the library when I was a little girl. She would let me get a armfull of books, and she would get one as well. We would sit at her apartment and she would read to me with her soft crackly voice. She instilled her love of reading in me, which is a great gift.

My Grandmother was on her way out to dinner and was dressed very nicely, when she encountered a bum on the street outside of her apartment building. He asked them for a cigarette or something of the like. My Grandmother looked at the filthy man and walked over to him and gave him a warm hug. The man was shocked and began to tear up. When my Uncle asked my Grandmother why she had done that (he was rather angry at her risking herself); my Grandmother replied, "He looked like he needed a hug."

I miss her and hope I still make her proud. :-)

So I have had a few days of freedom from obligations and suddenly I find myself at home on a Friday night. I am struggling to not work, which in itself is a bit pathetic. So here I am blogging because I haven't blogged today. I spent the day birding and it was unproductive. This may explain my restless mood this evening.

ah well, perhaps tomorrow...

Happy Thanksgiving

"When you ride hard on a mountain bike, sometimes you fall. Otherwise you're not riding hard."

George W. Bush
July 7,2005
From Presidential MisSpeak

O Brother, Wisdom is pouring into you
From the beloved saint of god.
You've only borrowed it.
Although the house of your heart
Is lit from the inside
That light is lent by a luminous neighbour
Give thanks; don't be arrogant or vain
Pay attention without self-importance.
It's sad that this borrowed state
Has put religious communities
Far from religious communion.

-Rumi Translated by Kabir and Camille Helminski

Can art change the world? The movers and shakers think so...

http://www.artinfo.com/News/Article.aspx?a=24225

Age tends to smoothe the rough edges of people and they lose their passion. Somehow they become content with a shadow of their original dreams. It is much easier to surrender to everyday convention then to break from it and chase at hope.

I want to remain rough to break skin on the edges of my passion.