“Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.” ~Joan Chittister
“The moon is a loyal companion.
It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light.
The moon understands what it means to be human. Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”
~ Tahereh Mafi
“When we open to the pain of our world, we discover our interconnectedness in the web of life. This is the gift of dark and dangerous times: to find again our mutual belonging.” –Joanna Macy
“Logic and sermons never convince, The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.” ~Walt Whitman
“Meditating under the solemnity of the night sky… a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe.” ~Victor Hugo
“i want to be in love with you
the same way i am in love with the moon
with the light shining out of its soul.” ~Sanober Khan
“Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking, loving, and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning.” ~Elie Wiesel
“There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind.” ~Hannah Senesh
“I don’t think existence wants you to be serious. I have not seen a serious tree. I have not seen a serious bird. I have not seen a serious sunrise. I have not seen a serious starry night. It seems they are all laughing in their own ways, dancing in their own ways. We may not understand it, but there is a subtle feeling that the whole existence is a celebration.” ~Osho
“I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.” ~Vincent Van Gogh
“The world rests in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb. Nighttime is womb- time. Our souls come out to play. The darkness absolves everything; the struggle for identity and impression falls away. We rest in the night.” ~John O’Donohue
Originally appeared in Braided Way: Faces & Voices of Spiritual Practice
“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” ~Thornton Wilder
Edible flowers as well as chard, basil, chives, and other tender plants grow on my front and back porches. I water them each day, aware a killing frost will arrive soon. I’ve been succession planting lettuces and globe carrots, but missed replanting one pot. That explains its proud crop of weeds. When I water, I water those weeds too. They might as well enjoy what time they have left.
This is my favorite season. Gorgeous autumn leaves, vivid blue skies, and a certain slant of light in late afternoon illuminating everything with a stained glass glow. Each one a reminder that what flourishes must also die. As I can, freeze, and dry our produce each fall I can’t help but think of my ancestors, yours too, whose preparations for winter were about survival.
We are living in difficult times. Unprecedented times. Rampant disease, devastating injustice, and a climate teetering toward ever-worsening disaster. Somehow it helps me to remember our ancestors endured famine, floods, war, ill health, and oppression. Our existence is the direct consequence of ancestors who persevered despite the odds. We carry their resilience and courage in our genes.
Thinking of my ancestors’ stories magnifies my sense of gratitude. Unlike nearly everyone who came before me I have a safe home, enough food, and access to medical care. I can connect with people anywhere in the world. I have rights, including the right to make my own choices, something that would astonish my foremothers. The very desk where I’m sitting is filled with writing and art projects as well as stacks of library books. This is true wealth.
I’m reminded of a concept called mental subtraction. It’s a version of the old school “count your blessings” approach. My mother and grandmother used it often by telling us we were lucky to have what we had, whether food on our plates or clothes on our backs, especially compared to those who had much less. (Typically in response to a child balking at yucky food or dorky outfits.) It’s not helpful to reply to others’ misery with “it could be worse” but choosing to reflect on our own good fortune can be helpful. When we take the time to savor people and experiences we tend to be happier.
Here’s how mental subtraction works.
Pick something positive in your life – say a good relationship or a personal achievement or a friendly neighborhood.
Take a few minutes to imagine your life without it. What would be different right now?
Write down how you would be impacted, including emotional impact.
Refocus on the present moment. How do you feel now?
Research shows many benefits to regularly expressing gratitude for the positives in our lives, but the effect is even stronger when people reflect on the potential absence of these good things. It’s one thing to think, “I’m glad Jada is in my life.” It’s another to consider, “Imagine if I’d never met Jada!” Seems negative doesn’t it? But the brain’s workings habituate us to our blessings. We get used to a supportive friend or a good job. They inevitably become familiar, even when we try our best to be grateful.
But considering our lives without these positives can bring them into better focus. It’s sort of like the classic 1946 movie It’s A Wonderful Life. The main character, George Bailey, is in despair and considers suicide. An angel intervenes. He doesn’t ask George to be grateful. Instead he shows him what the world would be like if he’d never been born and those blessings never occurred. It’s a sugar-sweet movie version of mental subtraction.
In studies, people who practiced mental subtraction were happier and expressed greater appreciation than those who did not try the practice. It also boosted satisfaction with relationships and offered more positive self-reflection. Sort of like thinking back on our ancestors’ trials, a few moments of mental subtraction every now and then can reawaken us to the good in our lives.
“We have surface time, which is the time we move through every day, but we need to reach the rhythms of deep time. Like the ocean is all waves and movement on the surface, we need to sink through time to the depths where the true rhythm lies.” ~John O’Donohue
I stopped using online calendars years ago, preferring the inconvenience of art-rich wall calendars. On January first I perform an annual calendar ritual. I go through the previous year’s written-on pages, using a colored pen to transcribe birthdays and anniversaries on the new year’s clean, optimistic squares. Then I add regular gatherings — second Saturday for book group, third Monday for women’s spiritual group, every Wednesday for focused meditation, and so on. As I do, I can’t help but reflect on the past year. All those days filled with classes, meetings, deadlines. All the celebrations, house concerts, potlucks, and family gatherings. All the trembly courage it took to give a talk or lead a meeting, now comfortably in the past. I always write an overly optimistic list of the ways I’ll challenge myself in the next year. I rarely do more than a few.
The calendar I picked for 2020 offers beautiful tree-themed art for each month. And like everyone else’s calendar, it lies. I no longer even cross off what’s cancelled. Why bother, when there’s nothing to add in its place? Looking at it I imagine another me, in a parallel universe, doing those scheduled things. My other self doesn’t appreciate them nearly enough. She complains about being rushed, about traffic, about long lines. She vows to slow down and appreciate the moment. When she does she notices new things while stuck in traffic, enjoys the faces of people standing in line, savors more fully the pleasure of a porch chair after a long day. But she’s not always so mindful.
None of us could have imagined the year we’re in. Time takes on a different dimension when so many people have died and so many are suffering. We can’t help but sink more deeply into these hours of ours.
My calendar hangs by my desk, beautiful and useless. Time’s measure no longer fits on its pages.
I got a suspicious email back in August. It alleged I’d won a statewide contest. I am not so easily fooled. I wrote back:
“In case you are a wealthy foreign prince, I have nothing to extort. I’m a friendly hermit who drives a rusty 2004 Honda and wears worn out shoes.”
The emailer responded with contact info for the Ohio Poetry Day Association (OPD), which has awarded Ohio Poet of the Year since 1938. He said he wasn’t affiliated with the organization, but was helping out since they had trouble getting in touch with me. He asked me to call Amy Jo Zook, contest chairperson for Ohio Poetry Day and coordinator for Poet of the Year. He explained the organization is run by such a venerable board that they only operate by phone and mail.
Suspicious indeed. But I investigated.
I googled Amy Jo Zook and discovered she has a doctorate in English, won the Ohio Poet of the Year award herself back in 1988, and has volunteered for literary causes for decades. I reverse-searched the number I was given and it matched up with her name.
Hmm. Could this be a real thing? My publisher had sent my book off for several awards…
A Nigerian prince seemed a more likely possibility than my winning anything. Rather than think about it, I went back to editing manuscripts. When that distraction didn’t work, I took a bucket of kitchen scraps out to the chickens, picked some green beans, and watered our mulberry saplings. I still couldn’t muster up the courage to make the phone call. Maybe it was the memory of my mother listing among a woman’s sins the attitude, “she certainly thinks highly of herself.”
That evening, bolstered by two substantial glasses of Merlot, I finally called Dr. Zook. She explained that books are nominated by publishers, literary groups, libraries, and other independent sources — self-nominations are not accepted. No list of nominees is released. The choices are narrowed down to eight or fewer books, which the OPD judges then compare individually before voting.
She told me about the history of the award.
Back in 1938, the State of Ohio set the third Friday of every October as Ohio Poetry Day. This was the first poetry day established by a state government in the United States, thanks to Tessa Sweazy Webb who spent thirteen months lobbying the Ohio General Assembly. She argued, ‘For each living reader a living poet, for each living poet a living reader.’
And Dr. Zook told me about her years handling the details of Ohio Poetry Day and its publications, all proudly done without email or internet. She said the annual OPD event takes place the weekend of October 18-19th at the Troy Hayner Cultural Center in Troy, Ohio with workshops, readings, and all OPD awards. (She mentioned Mary Oliver was Ohio Poet of the Year in 1980!)
All this to say, I was indeed voted Ohio Poet of the Year on the strength of my newest collection, Blackbird.
My impostor syndrome is now in full flare. Vast appreciation for Tessa Sweazy Webb, Ohio Poetry Day board and judges, and my wonderful publisher at Grayson Books, Ginny Connors. Also, vast shock at finding myself in any category that includes luminaries such as these recent Ohio Poet of the Year winners: Susan Glassmeyer, Kathy Fagan, and Maggie Smith. Sometimes good news IS real.
Pinch me when you see me.
“Poetry is more a threshold than a path.” Seamus Heaney
I usually write about peace, love, and understanding. This post is not one of those. It’s devoid of deeper meaning unless an ancient angry Santa sounds refreshing right about now.
Tired of Christmas movies drenched with syrupy cliches? Need something with a sharper edge to watch with teens or friends or the house guests who stay up till all hours? The film I recommend contains no overly sweet sentiment, although there are characters wearing sweaters without a trace of irony. It’s an unexpectedly entertaining horror movie made in Finland.
This 2010 subtitled movie takes place in a rural, hardscrabble area of northern Finland where ten-year-old Pietari lives with his widowed father. Pietari and a friend spy on a secretive mining operation near the Russian border, trying to figure out why the workers are blasting apart a hill. It’s rumored the place is where the original Santa Claus is buried. When the child is told that Santa doesn’t exist, Pietari looks into the legends. He finds that the old stories portray Santa as an angry being who wreaks vengeance, even tossing naughty children in a boiling cauldron.
Pietari’s father, who makes a living hunting and butchering reindeer, discovers that a large herd has already been massacred. Other frightening things begin happening in the area as well. Pietari begs adults to consider that an evil Santa is responsible, but no one takes him seriously. — not even when the town’s children start to disappear. It’s only when a dangerous old man appears that they swing into action. It may be too late.
For viewers old enough to enjoy lots of Santa-related mayhem, this movie is the perfect antidote to crassly commercial holiday fare. It’s stark, unusual, and quietly menacing. Pay close attention and you’ll notice homage is given to all sorts of American films. But I’m pretty sure the herd of naked old guys is a cinematic first.
Derrell* is a college senior majoring in chemistry. He told me he owed his upcoming college degree, maybe even his existence, to libraries and librarians.
To understand this you need to go back to Derrell’s early childhood. His mother was in the Army serving in Afghanistan. His father was serving a 28 year sentence for what Derrell was told were false charges. Derrell and his younger brother Devon lived with their grandmother. She suffered from heart problems and diabetes. “I never knew her healthy,” Derrell says. “Her legs were always swollen up and it was hard for her to breathe.”
His grandmother had worked at a lunch counter for nearly 40 years, but by the time her two grandsons came to live with her she wasn’t able to work any longer. Derrell remembers his Gran as smart, always ready with an adage or Bible quote. He also remembers how little they had. A can of soup divided between the three of them, with stacks of plain white bread to fill the stomach, was a typical supper. No money for fruit. Definitely no money to go out anywhere, even to share an order of fries.
In the summer Derell’s grandmother walked the boys to the park. They stayed much of the day, eating a packed lunch, then walked back at supper time. In the winter Derrell’s grandmother walked them to the library where they also stayed most of the day. It was warmer there than in their apartment.
His Gran would flip through magazines or doze in a chair. Derrell and his brother would play in the stacks of the adult section until they were chased out by a librarian, then they’d shuffle off to the children’s section. There they sat on low benches, looking at stacks of picture books and watching people go by through the tall windows.
The best part, Derrell says, was a little drink nook where the library offered coffee, tea, and hot chocolate free for patrons. His Gran showed him how to make the best of a cup of hot chocolate. Dump out the packet, add hot water, but don’t stir. Drink it warm, leaving the dark sludge at the bottom. When it’s gone, take the cup to the drinking fountain and fill it partway with cold water. Mix with your finger. That way you get a hot and cold drink out of one packet. Derrell particularly liked the library’s styrofoam cups. They held the heat or the cold, and he liked to bite the rim until the cup looked as if it had been quilted with interwoven designs.
Librarians in the children’s section arranged all sorts of programs. He was ushered into the first one without knowing what the word “program” meant. There a librarian read aloud a book about a dragon, using puppets for the dialogue. One puppet was a dark green dragon with long teeth. There was also a princess in a shiny blue dress and a knight in foil-bright armor. Derrell was so caught up in the story that he didn’t leave when the other kids walked out of the room. He worked up his courage, holding his little brother’s hand, to ask “what happened next?” The librarian looked up from the case where she was packing the puppets. “Their adventure goes on,” she told him. “It’s just too big a story to tell the whole thing now.” Derrell went to bed that night making up all sorts of endings for the story.
Thanks to library programs, Derrell and his brother painted pictures, made dioramas, went to story hour, listened to musicians play, took part in painting a mural, watched a fencing demonstration, and attended nature programs where they were encouraged to touch baby crocodiles and tiny chinchillas. His grandmother’s cold apartment seemed like a way station between time at the library.
But summer came again and his Gran again took them to the park during the day. Derrell missed the library, but Gran said that was for winter. When cold weather returned Gran was too sick to go there with the boys. She trusted Derrell to take his brother on his own. But there were new policies in place. If kids weren’t signed up in advance they couldn’t attend programs. The door to the room where hot chocolate poured into styrofoam cups was locked. Although he tried to sit down and show his brother books, the little boy ran and yelled through the library until they both were asked to leave.
Things didn’t get better for Derrell. His grandmother got sicker and eventually died. His mother reclaimed them but was so ill with PTSD that she wasn’t able to handle them for long. They stayed with different relatives until eventually they were put into foster homes. Those were painful years. Derrell is still coming to terms with them. But he never forgot that sanctuary called the library.
“Gran probably took us to the library because it had free coffee for her and cocoa for us, ” he says. “But it changed my life. Even after I was a foster kid, I went to the library after school and on Saturdays to get away. The library was always the best kind of hideout.”
“My advice is to talk to librarians every time you go. They’re there because they’re into books too,” Derrell says, “and especially if you go a lot and they get to know you, they’ll save books they’re excited for you to read. If I hadn’t hung out at the library I wouldn’t have read books like 47, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, or Somewhere in the Darkness. And I sure wouldn’t have had my mind snapped open by men I wanted to emulate like Uncle Tungsten, Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman, and The Pact.
Derrell is now 23 years old, finishing up his last year of college classes and also working the late shift at a convenience store. He says he can’t even smell hot chocolate without the sensation of biting a design into the malleable shape of cup offered for free.
*name changed
Resources
Libraries are one of the cornerstones of civilization and libraries continue to help cultures evolve.
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 Tendinggot 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.
Isabelle. Photo by Claire Weldon.
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!
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.
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.)
Lots going on here, from peas and strawberries ripening in the garden to bigger excitements. I hope to start including weekend links and news along with my usual blog offerings. Let’s see if I can keep up.
I’m pleased to have an article in the creative education issue of Lilipoh magazine(print only) which will soon be available in Spanish and Chinese editions. And the biggie this week for me, I signed a contract with a small publisher to have a collection of my poetry published. I’m really thrilled about the news, but also feel suddenly shy. Poetry is so personal. Well, not so personal once it’s out in March 2014…
I share a lot of links via my Free Range Learning page on Facebook, but I recognize that plenty of people have better self-control than I do and stay off social media. So here are a few links for you to enjoy. Continue reading →
Voyager 1 and 2 are traveling through the outermost layer of the heliosphere. Image: NASA.gov
The most epic science fiction fantasy is coming true. For the first time ever a human-built vehicle is leaving the entire solar system behind. This is huge. The daily news cycle has barely mentioned it in passing. Most people on this lovely blue-green planet have no idea what our species has accomplished.
Six months ago experts predicted say it could happen any time. Now it has. Voyager 1 has flown beyond the heliosphere, the bubble-like region dominated by the Sun and its solar wind. We’re going where we’ve never been before. I’m talking interstellar. That’s defined as “the space between stars.” The whole futuristic thing? It’s here.
Thirty-five years ago NASA launched probes designed to explore our solar system. Perhaps to confuse historians, Voyager 2 blasted off first on August 20, 1977. Voyager 1 followed on September 7.
We’re making science history with 1977 technology too. That year our species toddled toward greater innovations. For the first time optical fiber was used to carry telephone traffic. New technology debuted, such as Commodore PET, Tandy TRS-80, and Apple II series computers. The Atari 2600 was released. And (coincidence?) Star Wars opened.
Voyager spacecraft sent back 52,000 images of Jupiter. (Image: nasa.gov)
Voyager spacecraft are powered by computers with 80 kilobytes of memory, using software without data storage capability. (They rely on relics known as tape recorders.) Despite weak signal power, information is sent from both Voyagers daily. So far that totals five trillion bits of scientific data.
Over time some of the instruments have been turned off to save energy but not before both Voyagers sent back remarkable, never-before-seen images of our solar system. Thanks to Voyager drive-bys we more fully understand the far-off worlds of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Science is still mulling over the data.
Then in 1990, as Voyager 1 moved ever farther from us, Ground Control directed the craft to turn around so its cameras could photograph the planets. From that vast distance, Earth appeared only as a point of light in the darkness. The image was titled “pale blue dot.” It inspired Carl Sagan to give a lecture and later to write a book titled Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. In it he wrote,
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
The Voyager crafts weren’t actually intended to do more than a planet hop for five years. But as we’ve seen, those unsung NASA types take their jobs seriously. They designed the probes to do a lot with a little. The program weathered funding cuts, even a Bush-era threat to end the entire program, and as money trickled in NASA reprogrammed the spacecraft to keep going.
The total cost of the Voyager missions from planning in 1972 to today (including launch vehicles, power source, and tracking support) comes to $865 million. This equals about eight cents per U.S. citizen per year. To put it another way, we’re cracking interstellar space for a fraction of the $6 billion the 2012 U.S. political campaigns were estimated to cost.
Now exploring interstellar space. (Image: nasa.gov)
The Voyager probes carry more than 70′s era equipment. Before the spacecraft were launched, Carl Sagan chaired a committee to determine what message we humans should send to beings who might eventually come across the Voyagers. That’s why each Voyager carries sounds and images from earth on gold-plated copper disks, electroplated with uranium-238. They’re called Golden Records. They include diagrams of DNA, maps of the Earth, greetings in 55 languages, sounds like a chimpanzee’s call, images of people engaged in daily activities, and music such as blues by Blind Willie Johnson and a concerto by Bach. One of the messages is by President Jimmy Carter, which says in part,
“This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.”
Here’s to Voyager 1. Eleven billion miles from the Sun and now beyond our heliosphere carrying determination and goodwill.
Here’s to humankind, achieving wonders even if we too rarely pause to notice. Let’s have another beautiful shift in consciousness, as we did when the luminous image of Earth seen from space was photographed in 1972 awakened us to a worldwide ecological movement. It’s time to shift again. We are co-participants in a much larger and more amazing story.
The older I get the more I recognize the wisdom my mother applied in parenting. For example, she believed that traditional games held their value. We played croquet in the back yard—-a lawn game that went out of fashion soon after the Victorian era. We played Battleship using only graph paper and pencils. And we played all kinds of clapping games, from Pat a Cake to silly counting rhymes.
Turns out I owe my mother thanks for more than my straight hair and tendency to burn immediately upon exposure to the sun. I owe her thanks for those games, particularly the hand-clapping ones.
New research finds hand-clapping rhymes and songs are directly linked to cognitive skills.
Dr. Idit Sulkin, of the Ben-Gurion University Music Science Lab, found that young children who naturally play hand-clapping games are better spellers, have neater handwriting and better overall writing skills.
Intrigued, she conducted further research. For ten weeks she engaged groups of children, ages 6 to 10, in a program of either music appreciation or hand-clapping. Very quickly the children’s cognitive abilities improved, but only those taking part in hand-clapping songs.
She also interviewed teachers and joined in when children sang in their classrooms. She was trying to understand why they tend to enjoy hand-clapping songs until a certain age, when other activities such as sports become dominant. Dr. Sulkin observed, “these activities serve as a developmental platform to enhance children’s needs — emotional, sociological, physiological and cognitive. It’s a transition stage that leads them to the next phases of growing up.”
Interestingly, Dr. Sulkin also found that hand-clapping songs also benefit adults. When adults engage in these games from childhood they report feeling less tense and their mood improves. They also become more focused and alert.
Clapping and singing, clapping and chanting—-this is found across all cultures in religious ceremonies, solemn rituals, joyous celebrations and to accompany storytellers. The experience of calling and clapping may speak to something deeper in us. Maybe we all should play a round of Miss Suzy or Cee Cee My Playmate at the start of every political debate, business meeting or extended family get-together.
is supposedly based on old Norse legends. We know our familiar fairy tales are cleaned-up versions of older, 
got a good review thanks to
. In it he wrote,
Laura Grace Weldon 