heathervescent

Coyote Fear

I am constantly amazed at how resilient we humans are - and yet so fragile. How beautifully contradictory.

As the boyf was out of of town, I decided to take the opportunity to spend some quality time in the desert at LoriLisa, my little scrap of Mojave wasteland. I knew it was going to be hot: 90+ degree hot, but I was not dismayed. My plan was to work in the evenings and mornings and lay low during the hot afternoon. 

I headed out early afternoon on Friday in time to arrive for a spectacular combination sunset and moon rise. Truly only planetary bodies can compete with the expansive geological scale of the desert. Mountain ranges eroded into prehistoric effluvial plains. It was over one of these ranges a blue-ivory moon rose from the desert haze. I was racing the clock. Flooring the pedal that flogged my combustion engine faster. I could not reach my destination fast enough.

Behind me the I saw the red-orange rays of the sun setting behind a past range. In a moment, the pavement gave way to sand and my tires kicked up a line of dust as I headed to the far edge of this sparsely populated civilization. We were bumping and jumping through the washes and fish-tailed the back tires a bit just for fun. 

The tires stopped, the radio silent, I stepped out into the cooling desert.

 * * *

We sat in my front yard, splayed out on a retired bedspread watching the planets shine and the moon rise, getting smaller and whiter as the night progressed. That's when the coyote's started their howling. I had forgotten to pack my pistol and had only my small knife on me. When packing for the trip, I had considered exit strategies for mere human (redneck/meth-head) predators - and had completely forgotten about natural ones. It was a lesson in city living. It's gotten to me. I felt tamed. 

Out in these places I have heard the lone or two coyotes calling out his brethren, often far far in the distance. Not this time. This was a large pack - I would expect at least 7 or more. And it sounded VERY near. Intertwined with the coyote's barks and howls, I could hear a dog. It was easy to hear the difference. I expected the pack to visit LL any moment. For hours the coyotes barked in the near-distance. We watched and listened to the desert, no safety of the firelight. (I had opted against a fire because the moon was so bright.)

The planet set and the moon carved an ecliptic pathway across the sky, outshining the milky way and all but the brightest stars. The howling subsided and that's when I noticed the strange rasping sound of the wind in the creosote bushes. My vision was shifting and everything took on an underwater illuminated pointillism.

Moonshadows lept from my fence posts, my house, my legs. I was not quite brave enough to do my midnight walkabout - one of my plans for the evening - with that pack of coyotes and my pistol left at home. So I strayed not far from my land. 

The wind caressed my skin - soft warm and comforting. The upside of an unbearable desert day is a warm night. What does one do out here, I pondered? What can one do, but watch and think and see and listen and be silent. To be present. To feel the wind. To see the moon shadows. To hear the coyotes. To smell the air. To taste fear and comfort. To be present in the moment for hours.

Future of Space Travel Analogy

The breakthrough came this morning:

Birds are to the Earth as Humans are to Space.

The analogy is not as simple as it may seem. There is a new Nature report out describing a type of internal GPS/internal avian magnetic compass that birds use to navigate their migrations.

Wouldn't it be cool (and perhaps it is necessary) for humans to create/develop a similar sense to navigate to cosmos?

What does the World Want?

Do you know what the world wants?

How about the earth?

How about the United States? What are our goals as a nation?

I've been thinking about these things since I started my first grad class, World Futures. People have so many assumptions about what they think is right or correct or the way to do things. Today I read an article about biofuels that posited that increased focus on biofuels would increase poverty and hunger.

The only reason global warming is a problem is because it might be a problem for humans. It might make the earth not optimal for the human race (and possibly a bunch of other animals). But in the scheme of the universe, does this really matter?  I mean, what does the earth want?

Let's assume that the earth wants life on and around it. If that's that case, then it really doesn't matter in the long run whether or not an animal (human, plants, etc) is extinct now or later. Everything dies. The human race will cease to exist at some point in the future. Life will continue. But what kind of life does the earth want? What kind of intelligent life (if any)?

I often think about pollution and destruction of the environment in the same frame of mind as ingesting drugs or other "poisonous" items. To much drugs of any kind can often kill you, or do irreversible damage. That sucks for the person who damaged themself, but if they survive, they will still live, still have experiences, life. Life wins. If they kill themselves by drug usage, well then, their life transforms and lives on another way - sometimes that energy lives on in their stories.

Recently I have become obsessed with economics and have started reading copious quantities of financial reports and documentation. I started wondering, what is the goal of our nation - the United States. And I sadly could not identify any goal. It made me think that perhaps our past goals (set by our founding fathers) have been achieved, and we are in the state of confusion, waffling, figuring out where to go and what to do next. We've gotten our priorities confused, gotten bit by the hierarchy bug, forgotten our values, taken drugs.

This makes me very sad. And I wonder, is it possible (yes, of course the possibility it there, but how high the probability is it) for a country, a nation, to have goals?

And if a nation can, what about a world?

Fun with your perception

Seeing is not believing, but it's all we've got. These two videos about optical illusion and the attention of your perception are astounding! Thanks for the pointers Marcel.