There’s so much birdsong that a moment of silence sounds odd. I remind myself to simply listen. Right now I’m sitting on the front porch with coffee, part of my casual daily awe ritual. Two girls are walking down the street with goats on leashes, a neighbor’s donkey is braying, and our garage is lit up like magic as my son welds something he’s designed. A perfect summer afternoon.

It’s peaceful, even productive around here. The man I love has built the most awesome kiwi arbor of all time AND a garden bell sculpture that’s now for sale in a the gallery of our artist friends Steve and Debra Bures. On our back porch are nearly two dozen hypertufa pots, drying after a recent backyard hypertufa-making party. And I’ve got two baskets of freshly picked green beans so we’ll be canning dilly beans soon.

Lately I’ve been amazingly blessed to receive a wealth of poetry-related gifts. I was a featured poet on Houseboat and a poem of mine appeared on Every Day Poems. My book Tending got a good review thanks to Fox Chase Review. Biggest gift was the wonderful review by Ivy Rutledge on Mom Egg Review that left me hand on heart stunned with gratitude.

Before I move on to links I have to share this. My daughter took a picture that perfectly reveals our cow Isabelle’s personality.

This photo is a meme waiting to happen. Have some caption ideas?

 

On to some links.

Illumination

Find a few thousand ancestors by connecting with others who are building a family tree of the entire human race. All seven billion members. You start small with a family sampling, entering the details you know. If a name on your tree matches a person on somebody else’s tree, then you are given the option to combine trees. With a click, your tree can double. Repeat this a few times and you will eventually be linked to a worldwide family tree. (Geni’s Big Tree is 77 million, and WikiTree’s is 7 million). There’s also a Global Family Reunion in the works!

Check out my strange theory (I’m sure others thought of it long before me) of why we care so much about celebrities.  

“The Shamanic View of Mental Illness” is a fascinating article by Malidoma Patrice Somé, who wrote one of my favorite autobiographies, Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman. He says,

Those who develop so-called mental disorders are those who are sensitive, which is viewed in Western culture as oversensitivity.  Indigenous cultures don’t see it that way and, as a result, sensitive people don’t experience themselves as overly sensitive.  In the West, “it is the overload of the culture they’re in that is just wrecking them,” observes Dr. Somé.  The frenetic pace, the bombardment of the senses, and the violent energy that characterize Western culture can overwhelm sensitive people.

 

Over ten years ago, African leaders pledged to invest more in agriculture. Too many nations have not kept that promise. So nineteen of the biggest musical stars on the continent have recorded a song asking them to keep the promise of supporting smallholder farmers. Each artist wrote his or her own verse, and the song features languages including Swahili, Pidgin, Shona, and Xhosa.

 

Earth Notes

An extraordinary large-scale international climate change project is underway in Africa. Eleven nations are collaborating to plant a 4,000 mile “wall of trees” across the east-west axis of the continent as a defense against the Sahara’s expanding desertification. Called the Great Green Wall, it will be nine miles wide and stretch along 4,300 miles, across the entire width of the African continent.

Many of us who care deeply about the earth plant gardens, not only to bring flowers and food into our lives but also to help pollinators. It’s startling news, but when we buy plants from nurseries and big box stores, we’re unwittingly bringing home the very same pesticide that’s been killing honeybees. That pesticide isn’t only a residue on the plant, it’s also exuded from the blossoms—-poisoning honeybees. Here are the details.

 

Jadav Payeng is known as the Forest Man. He lives in a hut in Assam, India with his wife and children. Since his teenage years he’s been planting and tending trees to combat deforestation, poaching, and large scale encroachment. So far he’s restored nearly 3,000 acres that are now inhabited by elephants, tigers, apes, rhinos, and other animals.

 

 

If you haven’t already, check out the extraordinary Scale of the Universe.

 

Mindful Living

I’ve spent a lot of years as an anti-nuke activist, working against nuclear weapons as well as nuclear power. What I learned about my connection to the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in WW II left me with questions about what drives us to do what we do. My article about this is called “The Bomb and Me.”

I also write in “Laundry Zen” about finding meaning in a task we normally consider mundane.

 

Here’s a wonderful bit of the Sagan Series featuring Feyman’s talk, “Think Like a Martian.”

 

Learning

“Advanced Math is Child’s Play.” I got a chance to interview natural math pioneer Maria Droujkova. She explains that, for young children, math is an enticing adventure that’s too often simplified into rote busy work.

It is as tragic as if parents were to read nothing but the alphabet to children, until they are ‘ready’ for something more complex. Or if kids had to learn ‘The Itsy-Bitsy Spider’ by heart before being allowed to listen to any more involved music.

“Trashing Teens.” Great article about the artificial immaturity forced on teens.  “American teens are subjected to more than 10 times as many restrictions as mainstream adults, twice as many restrictions as active-duty U.S. Marines, and even twice as many as incarcerated felons.” and “In this country, teens learn virtually everything they know from other teens, who are in turn highly influenced by certain aggressive industries. This makes no sense.” That’s what I’ve been saying!

Another study shows that too many structured activities can impair a child’s executive function.  You remember executive function, processes we develop in childhood to help us make decisions and work toward goals, the one that helps us be healthier and more successful in adulthood. processes that help us work toward achieving goals—like planning, decision making, manipulating information, switching between task.

Speaking of brains, here’s a study that shows spanking reduces the gray matter in a child’s brain. That gray matter is the key to learning self-control. The more gray matter you have in the decision-making, thought-processing part of your brain the better your ability to evaluate rewards and consequences. So the more you physically punish your kids for their lack of self-control, the less they have.

“Science Shows How Drummer’s Brains Are Different.”  Science tells us there’s a link between intelligence, good timing, and the part of the brain used for problem-solving. Researchers showed that just being around a steady rhythm actually improves cognitive function. “It’s hypothesized that drumming was integral to community-building and that sharing rhythms could be the sort of behavior necessary for the evolution of human society.”  Hence, drum circles.

 

Auditory Yes

2Cellos perform “Il Libro Dell’ Amore” with Zucchero.

Sam Baker performs “Angel.”

Anna-RF performs “Weeping Eyes.” (Next links post, I”ll be sharing an interview I am thrilled to do with this group.)