Gleanings, Fini 2020, Good Riddance!
A short audio-visual menu for free period or recess only!
It happens less often than it should for good mental hygiene-- the brain dump; the venting of nothing more than a list of types and topics and broad categories of things I wish I knew more about. Things I wish I could connect with other things so that they were webs of knowledge and not mere facts.
What I can do and feel compelled by my vague goal of mental digestive system regularity is from time to time is pass on the old so I can take in the new, and in the process, share my own lights and wonder and confusion with a few folks who care enough to ask what's on my mind (in a passive sort of way, but your being here matters, so thanks for indulging me!)
THINGS FOR EYES AND EARS
Time lapse photography first appeared to my bedazzled eyes by way of Walt Disney's Sunday evening Wonderful World of Color. I never saw or thought of time in the same way after that. How Things Work really was more marvelous than I had imagined.
I am an admirer of ravens, and upon hearing one from a friends patio or porch, you can be sure I'll lift my finger in the all-quiet sign: Listen! A raven! They are my favorite feathered neighbor.
I have a bit of writing started somewhere in which I struggle with the right-ness of a technological consumption of nature by way of digital field guides. That will come later, meanwhile, here are some of the "findings" from PlantSnap, and yes it's on my iPhone.
My friend, fellow treehugger and frequent collaborator in pubic presentations and discourse on matters of Earth Care, Jane Cundiff, recently shared this "teaching" she offered to her students at Radford University, and to her Floyd County and world-wide network of friends.
I just had the (Zoom) conversation with our son last week about the importance of our 8 yr old grandson's science (home) schooling, and how essential mathematics was to his education in that regard, and more than that, the confounding centrality of mathematics as a pattern seemingly embedded in the cosmos at the Big Bang, waiting for us to discover and use.
The first link below is a full NOVA well worth viewing and contemplating, along with the short piece on humanity's eye-blink presence on the Earth stage. It’s an important moment in human history to take stock of just where we are in the Full Scope of cosmic history.
Okay, well I realized at this point that posting the whole of my brain dump this morning with four other main categories like this one above was a risk to have eyeballs crossing, so I’ll pick back up with the rest of it, and some new additions, in a couple of days—when 2020 is nothing but a gristle of scar tissue in our memory and history, and a low point from which we can only ascend. Right?
Thanks to all who responded recently to my query, and it turns out, all but one who responded did NOT get the post in question, and I want to know from SubStack WHY!
If I ever work through my stack of emails I will try to go back to yours and look at some of those links.
Thanks for more things for brain fun! I've been wondering about a good plant app. And thanks for sharing my video. I hope folks find it a useful reminder for themselves and perhaps something to share with others.