Delighted to report that we have entered a week’s worth of significant rain. Fire season is over. I feel a certain mindset of vigilance, sustained so long that it feels normal, relax and diffuse away. Aaaaahhh…
Interestingly, big blue oak acorns were dropping every 5-10 seconds this morning. We had more than an inch of rain in the last 36 hours and we’re forecast to get more than three inches this weekend. I wonder if blue oaks have evolved a mechanism by which they hang on to their best acorns until the winter rains come so that they have a high rate of successful sprouting. If they fell earlier and had to lay on the ground for weeks, rodents and insects might get them first.
Two girls and the moons of Jupiter
Alysia and I were camping at Gold Bluff Beach for seven days. Walking back from the beach one afternoon, I noticed that a new family in the campsite across the way had the same kind of tent we did. I commented on that in passing to the mom. She had two young girls, probably 8 and 10, excited and joyful about where they were: the beach!
That evening, I realized that the three brightest night-time objects were all in the sky. I thought I would point that out to them but they were already in their tent so I let it pass.
The next morning I mentioned it to them and the older girl said “that is cool” in the most genuinely expressive way that I thought teaching them would be an utter delight. We got talking and arranged for me to come over that evening. So that evening I brought my binoculars with me and pointed out the Moon (no need of introduction), Venus, and Jupiter. I got talking about Galileo as the first person to turn a telescope to the night sky. He saw mountains on the Moon. We looked at the Moon through the binoculars and saw mountains like he did. Galileo looked at Jupiter and we looked at Jupiter. I mentioned that he saw some pinpricks of light to the sides of Jupiter. I said he drew a picture of what he saw and that changed the history of the world. So let’s try it ourselves so they looked through the binoculars and then drew what they had seen. I shared with them a quotation that went something like “the genius of Galileo was instead of asking ‘why do things happen’, he asked ‘how do things happen’.” As an example, I told the story of how he refuted Aristotle’s notion that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects by dropping a heavy and a light ball simultaneously and showing that they hit the ground at the same time.
The next day while hiking on the beach, I reflected that the girls’ voices were uncertain when I talked about the falling things. They had mentioned paper and feathers as examples when I told of Aristotle’s opinion, So later that afternoon I went over with a small and large rock and dropped the two rocks at the same time. The girls, in surprised amazement, said, “They hit at the same time.” Dropped the rocks a couple of times. They always hit the ground at the same time.
I found a copy of Galileo’s moons of Jupiter drawings on my computer https://i.pinimg.com/originals/93/17/ab/9317ab436ee3f11db4eb6eb61837f403.jpg and brought it along with the binoculars that evening. It became obvious in the next several minutes that they really hadn’t been able to see the moons of Jupiter either night. My binoculars were not powerful enough. So I admitted that and then showed them the drawings Galileo had drawn of the varying positions of the moons on different nights. I had been very teacherly conscious of never calling those points of lights “moons”. The older girl looked at Galileo’s drawings and said “they’re like moons.” When I asked what she meant, she meant that they went around Jupiter like a moon would. And I said in a very delighted but very quiet voice, “they are moons.”
I closed our time together by telling how Galileo had realized that the moons going around Jupiter were a visible model of Copernicus’s theory that the planets revolved around the Sun and that thanks to the moons of Jupiter, more and more people stopped seeing the Earth as the unmoving center of the Universe and began understanding we were orbiting around the Sun.
The family went home the next morning. As they were packing up, I commented to Alysia that “you scatter your seeds and you don’t know which ones will take root.” Giving voice to that thought reminded me of a time at church family camp when I was about nine. I was freaking out because a bee was buzzing around me. An older man, perhaps in his sixties, came over and showed me that you don’t have to be afraid of bees if you don’t try hurting or scaring them. He held his hand out and let the bee walk all over it – a revelatory experience. I have never been afraid of bees since. I never knew the now long-dead man’s name but in those minutes together, he uplifted my life path.
I cast my seeds of upward spiral intent; I don’t know which will take root, what will grow.
This experience reminded me how much I love teaching. I no longer have the energy for the day-to-day planning required for classroom teaching. But the responsive interplay in striving to ignite the light of understanding…; I love that. Not mentioning “moons” to the girls, for example, in talking about the points of light so that they can reach that insight on their own; that is as fun as playing soccer or some other game.
Somehow, I want to create more opportunities to present and teach upward spiral ideas to others in responsive settings where I don’t know how deep the interactions might lead. I’d love to give Gaian sermons at churches or small group discussions in homes. Not for money but for the opportunity to strengthen the paradigms and consciousness our species needs now. It would be fun to travel for several weeks at a time, interacting, responding, playing, growing. If any of you have ideas on ways I might do this, let me know.
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Heather
I am almost every day thinking about your work and how it applies to systems that I work within. I find myself playing back challenges presented to me in my workday using metaphors that are top of mind for me because if something you wrote. I am often noticing the metaphorical stream water being slowed, spread. I can see many ways to apply your writings towards corporate leadership and honestly towards a gentle approach to reimagining capitalism without the fear factor of burning the house down. I can think of many travel opportunities and speaking engagements for you only limited by how much you want to move around!
John Anderson
How delightful, sowing seeds of learning like that! I share your joy in observing the older girl’s concluding they were indeed moons. I still get joy from seeing four-year-olds, without anyone pointing out their error, discovering they had in fact printing ‘b’ when they meant ‘d’…and then putting that error behind them. Discoveries by young minds, even though they echo discoveries of ages past, are still magical.
Bert Horwood
W.O. Mitchell in “Jake and the Kid” had Jake, the hired hand on a prairie farm say, “The kid’s mother was a teacher; they never get that out of their blood.”