Nature – Page 12 – Nourish-n-Cherish

🕊️🍁 🦅 Hawkish Power? 🐦‍⬛🍁 🦅

As soon as I came home, the words rattled in me

To capture the moments when joyous and noisy, turned to eerie and silent.

The terrifying sound of all the birds leaving at the same time

The fluttering of a thousand wings – away, away to safety.

The ecstatic beauty of standing under a tree

With thousands of leaves fluttering gently down.

The ears pricking up with the joy of

Listening to hundreds of little birds chittering above.

All gone with the arrival of one regal hawk

The birds all flew, while the hawk gawked.

Without the rustling of the birds

Even the leaves stopped falling.

Of what use was this power?

When there was no one to exert it on?

It was a show of power so instant, so terrifying and so alien to the beautiful wintry surroundings, that I shuddered in spite of myself.

My thoughts swirled with dictators and their absolute clawing for this kind of power. Do people in power not want a happy, joyous populace? I thought of the happy chittering and camaraderie of the birds from moments ago and stood under the tree not making any noise, content to enjoy the sounds of life overhead.

As I walked back home from this eerie setting, my mind wandered to all the fittings of power and its lure over mankind. It doesn’t look like it will abate. Countries continue to go to war, and though countries may win or lose, the people involved always only seem to lose – their trust, their security, their loved ones, their hopes, their peace.

🐙The 🐙🐙Kraken 🐙🐙Sleepeth🐙

I don’t know how many of you have heard of the Carta Marina: I hadn’t and was agog after reading about it. It is a fascinating geological map showing the mythical monsters in the oceans and where they are to be found.

Completed by Olaus Magnus in Italy in the mid sixteenth century, it attempts to outline all the monsters known at the time in the Nordic regions from various accounts.

In the book, The Underworld – Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean – By Susan Casey, she writes about the Carta Marina:

“On land the action is orderly: tiny figures are farming, hunting, skiing, playing the violin, By contrast, the ocean is in chaos, awash in dangers and tragedies, livid with waves and currents flowing, swirling, pooling, seething. Aid the tumult, twenty-five monsters make their appearance.”

Susan Casey – The Underworld – Journeys to the Depths f the Ocean

I may have mentioned several times in these archives that the daughter is a mermaid born to human parents. Which is to say the endless fascination with the oceans, and natant joys of reveling in the waters are things we all enjoy.

After reading about the Carta Marina, I went looking for the Kraken picture. When you browse through the daughter’s artwork, there are quite a few aquatic themed paintings. This one – it is Kraken – the mythical creature that is spoken of with awe among the nautical elite. I must admit I am endlessly fascinated with octopii, squid and I suppose the kraken as well.

octopus

Dictionary.com summarizes this perfectly: https://www.dictionary.com/e/squid-vs-octopus/

In summary, if you see a sea creature with eight sucker-covered arms and a round shape, that’s an octopus. But if it’s got a long, thin, triangular shape and 10 limbs—eight arms and two tentacles—it’s a squid. If you see it swallowing a ship, it’s a kraken.

Sea-faring must have been a difficult vocation as most vocations in humankinds’ past seems to have been, but it also provided the richest tales of adventure and mystique to those whose fortunes or destinies never allowed them to leave the small square footage they’d been born and raised in.

Screenshot 2023-11-13 at 6.48.32 PM

Even now, as we set out sights on interplanetary travels, I find the deep allure of the deeps as fascinating as ever. Would we see into the eyes of a greenland shark that is rumoured to live on for 350 years or be pulled into the clutches of the mythical Kraken? Or be dumbfounded in the noises of the monster that rises out of the depths of the ocean in the FogHorn – By Ray BradBury (I believe the book is out of print – but I can never truly forget that feeling of deep awe and fear as the monster rears towards the lighthouse thinking it’s being called by a mate. I felt a strange sense of loneliness for the last monster standing the night I read it as a teenager)

As Sylvia Earle says, “Looking into the eyes of a wild dolphin – who is looking into mine-inspires me to learn everything I can about them and do everything I can to take care of them…You can’t care if you don’t know.”

I looked at the picture, and remembered the poem by Lord Tennyson

Below the thunders of the upper deep

Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,

His ancient, dreamless, invaded sleep

The Kraken sleepeth

– Alfred, Lord Tennyson

References:

Life in the Ocean – the Story of Oceanographer Sylvia Earle – by Claira A Nivola
The Underworld – Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean – By Susan Casey
The Carta Marina – The map of monsters 16th Century – By Magnus
The FogHorn – by Ray Bradbury

🍁I Found A 🍁🍁Million🍁🍁 Bucks 🍁

“It rained last night, did you hear?” the son said the first thing in the morning as he crept groggily downstairs.

I confessed I hadn’t. It had been a late night – one fraught with beeping alarms, low-battery carbon monoxide filters, very cold temperatures, and a spate of international phone calls. I remember peeking out at the full-ish moon before finally collapsing into a warm bed, but not much else. In fact when the alarm went off in the morning, I was in the midst of a strange and confusing dream in which somebody was giving me a recipe. I can’t remember the details, but I also remember my first thought being – what a strange recipe!

Luckily I shook all memories of frog chutneys and slime pickles aside and made for the open air. The air was fresh – the Earth beautiful after the rains, and I was not going to miss it.

I was rewarded with brilliant cloudy skies, rain-drop topped leaves, and quiet birds shaking their wings and beaks throughout.

I stopped to marvel at the casual beauty that lay there in front of me – the lake not realizing the perfect reflection it provided to the mountains in the distance, the fall trees closer by, and the still groggy white heron on the opposite shore. All just there for anyone wanting to see it. Sleepy, dewy, cloudy, misty.

fall-COLLAGE

I stood there trying to remember the chemical names that were responsible for the brilliance of the colours reflected before me: carotenids, anthocyanins and tannins. I wondered at the wisdom of these trees: realizing that it was time to stop photosynthesis and let the tannins and cyanins or whatever take over without any fanfare, and producing the most breath-taking show for the world to revel in.

🍁Carotenids : the pigments for the orange and yellow colors

🍁Anthocyanins: the pigments that are responsible for the purples and reds.

🍁Tannins: responsible for the brown color.

Almost instinctively, I looked around and found myself alone. Alone in a bustling suburban area – the only one who took a quick detour and stopped to admire the lake on my way from somewhere to somewhere. It felt nice. Special. Like I had won a million bucks.

November is already on its way out – 2023 is already on its way out. The trees have put their show on, on time. I gave myself a little scolding: My Christmas tree was not up yet. “But I did have some beautiful poinsetta plants beaming their reds at me in the morning, that was something! “ I said to myself heading to a small park bench, and there: I found a million bucks.

I left it there for the next lucky person to find, and went on my way, a smile playing on my lips.

Who said the universe did not have a sense of humor?

The moon in the willows

With the full moon approaching, the beautiful waxing gibbous moon was often visible – a pale disc, even as the sun is setting, and sending hues of oranges and pinks sky-over. It is a beautiful time of year. November fall colors are in full glory, the occasional rains make for good cloud cover, and the nip in the air makes for an energetic walk whether we start that way or not.

On one such evening, as I frisked about, I looked up at the sky. In one breath taking moment, there was the moon shining through the spilling branches of the willow trees. I took a picture, but of course, it captured nothing of that moment.

A few steps on, I smiled as a small wren pipped in and out of the gingko trees. The gingkos are all cloaked in a golden yellow. All of them are waiting: waiting for an older gingko who has still not changed colors completely. In Oliver Sacks essays, he writes of the communication patterns between these beautiful trees who have lived to tell us tales from the time dinosaurs roamed the earth to now.

It must be marvelous dipping in and out of the fall colored foliage like that. Imagine living in a nest surrounded by the golden glow of a gingko tree, or the multicolored heaven of a maple tree. Oh! To be a shape sifter would be marvelous.

Back home, I nursed a cup of hot coffee as I peered into the sunshine outside. I shushed the daughter as she came over to see what had me quiet. There it was: a big fat brown rat, sunning itself. “Ugh! Go away! Go away!” the daughter said, but the rat did not think it necessary to budge. I tried opening the door loudly, and it moved towards the shadows of the trees hesitantly. The daughter gave me a stern look, “What would you do if it ran inside Mother?”

I admit I had not thought of that possibility. “In my experience with rats, they scamper away, not towards you. Unless, of course, you were a cat, and the rat was infected by toxoplasma gondii.”

I looked at her with what I call a winning smile. She ignored this, and went her way. I let the rat be, and went about composing a little poem in my head. What I mean to say was it was a marvelous day to be outside. Thanksgiving can come in various forms. It can come in the form of

The moon in the willows

The bird in the gingkos, and

The rat in the shadows.

True Heaven on Earth

“Just try them! True Heaven on Earth is right here!”

I find myself telling the children versions of this multiple times( in response to which I have multiple sets of eyes rolled at me). Parenting helps develop a thick skin like nothing else does.

I roll my eyes right back at them and I am fairly sure I do the e-roll better than they do. I learnt eye-rolling as an art form as a young dancer from a pretty young age after all, I say with pride. The daughter disagrees:

“Too much flounce – it should be subtle,” says the daughter.

“That way, you can always deny you ever rolled your eyes?”

She has the grace to laugh at least – “Yes.”

The son’s style is still developing, and therefore a lot more noticeable.

Back to the problem of True Heaven on Earth, though, I use this term mostly with respect to fruits, and flowers – the marvelous, wonderful variety of them that we enjoy. Ephemeral joys, yes, but also eternal.

The children do not seem to recognize the joys of fruit-eating and it is somewhat of a disappointment. For once, I am grateful that my childhood did not have easy access to chocolate. Maybe I too might have succumbed to chocolates in favor of the variety of fruit flavors..

Novembers in California smack of persimmons, apples, and pears. The satisfying crunch of these fruits after a day crunching leaves outside? There should be a word for that.

In the spirit of grateful Novembers, I beamed around the home relishing these gifts of heaven spotting the home. Flower bouquets and fruit baskets fill the soul like nothing else does, and I was pampered enough by friends and family for gifting me with these over the past few days. The fruits and flowers smack of the bounties of our planet, but they also manage to evoke a sense of gratitude for the thrill of friendship and the memories of shared experiences.

“All in one bite or one sniff!” I say.

“You’re weird!” the children chorus, and I agree whole-heartedly. Where the children are concerned, it is a compliment and I shall graciously accept.

I hum and prance through the rooms with a bounce in my spirit, and a shirt that proclaims ‘The Earth laughs in flowers’. Ralph Emerson might have said it, or a truly marvelous poet who attributed it to Emerson to give the beautiful phrase longevity. With the internet, I am never sure. Either way, it works.

🍁Sauntering🍁,🍁Strolling🍁, 🍁Scrunchfesting 🍁

The son and I pranced into the house with our bouquet of fall leaves. We went for a walk to feel the nippy November air on our faces. While out there, we ran after leaves fluttering down in the winds, and indulged in the inevitable scrunch party.

“No one saw us jump and scrunch in the leaves, Appa!” he said entering the house wind-blown and happy.

“Are you sure?” said the husband, accepting the beautiful bouquet of fall leaves from us, and giving it right back to me with a flourish.

“ I saw some neighbors scuttle inside looking dubious at the activity outside. You sure it wasn’t you two?”

The son guffawed loudly at that. I scrunched up my face – but was too happy to care. Who could when you’ve just been able to look at views like this?

Seems only yesterday we were ushering in 2023 and now we are already looking at the final curtain calls of the splendid trees before the closing of the year. As usual, if I throw my mind back the year felt differently at different points in time. Bleak, dreary, joyous, hectic ,the travails of aging with parental figures, friends, events, work, school, volunteer work and so much more.

There is a book called the Secrets of Infinity in my library – Edited by Anonio Lamua, it is a gorgeous book. It gets taken out and seen every now and then just for the sheer brilliance of the topics and the range of topics in them. But there is one thing the book doesn’t quite put the finger on: the feeling of infinity in the repeating seasons of the Earth, the different joys of each month.

The Tibetan Infinity Knot and the Ouroboros come close in their symbolism – but one of more to do with our actions and therefore Karma and the other a destruction/creation paradigm.

“So, how do the leaves turn color?”, I said with a flourish revealing the book Summer Green to Autumn Gold – By Mia Posada. The book’s illustrations managed to capture the natural beauties outside, and we settled in to read the book contentedly.

We flipped the pages comparing the leaves we had in our precious bouquet to the ones in the book. The final reveal of the pigment colors gave us the different colors.

🍁Carotenids : the pigments for the orange and yellow colors

🍁Anthocyanins: the pigments that are responsible for the purples and reds.

🍁Tannins: responsible for the brown color.

“Trees must be beings of infinity!” , I said sighing happily and the son rolled his eyes.

The Light of Being

The evenings have been drawing in earlier and earlier. As if the natural tilt of the axis weren’t enough, there was a time change thrown in. The result is that my evening walk is in the company of the glittering stars, and I am grateful for these little reminders of light – as far away as they may be.

One evening I found myself thinking of this and that on my evening walk. The stars twinkled above, the leaves crunched below. Though I could not make out the colors just then, I could imagine them well enough in my mind’s eyes – bright reds, yellows, deep maroons.

Californian Novembers are magical indeed.

Where our northern or eastern counterparts would already be bracing for the winters, our autumn cloaks are just getting started. Our gingkos have only just donned their beautiful cloaks of buttery mellow yellow, the maples and oaks, their swirling cloaks of ruby reds, and thick velvety ones of deep maroon. I wondered when the cold would start and looked up at the stars instinctively.

Albus Dumbledore seemed to wink at me through the stars:

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

– Dumbledore in the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

I swished on for a bit pondering.

Deep in the epipelagic layers of the ocean, there are creatures who have taken this to heart. In the twilight zone, the only light they have is their own. How must that feel to them? The deepest darkest nooks and crannies of an unforgiving ocean made accessible only through their own bioluminescence.

IMG_2457-COLLAGE

In one fell arc bypassing lands and atmospheres, the stars and the bioluminescent life in the oceans seem to share a Light of Being.

What are our sources for finding the light in ourselves – the means of switching on the inner lights? Good friends, warm meals, bracing walks in nature, the finest ideas in literature, art and music. Hygge. A halo that reflects the warmth and light within, in the harshest of winters, and the coolest of springs? If only we could all cast our own little patronus.

Books:

☀️ Energy Sources 🗺️

The son and I were discussing this and that when we hit upon one of our favorite topics of discussion: energy sources. The fellow has been very happy that we now have a solar roof.

“And now – we generate more solar power than we use. Isn’t that awesome?!” he piped up as we were out on a walk one evening after a particularly hot October day. (I wondered if the solar energy could be bounced off our heads too, and that earned a weak chuckle and an eye-roll.) Of course, this led to an interesting discussion on energy sources and we got talking on the recent articles or books we’d read.

“There is one place where they take your steps and convert that into energy. Like you step on the floor and that becomes stored energy. Cool right?”

“Cool!” I agreed, and screwed up my face at the nearby freeway noise. “I am sure if we can just figure out a way to take all that wasted energy from all the fast and noisy cars on the freeway, and use it to power the cars behind them, that would be even better – you know get off gasoline altogether? ”

“They are already working on it somewhere. Life is so exciting in these energy fields!”. he said.

Later that night, he bellowed that he’d left me an interesting article to read on my bedside table on Energy Sources.

August 2023 Issue of OYLA – Energy All Around Us- Generating Electricity from Dance Floors, JellyFish and more

#33 AUGUST 2023

If I haven’t raved about OYLA before, allow me to. The magazine is a gem of science and mathematical tidbits . I was enthralled by the article and read it all agog, exclaiming at the right intervals. It pleased the son.

A thoroughly fascinating article in which the different types of energy sources are briefly touched upon. Piezoelectricity – the technique of using our movements to power energy.
The many ways in which sound vibrations can be turned into electricity (apparently a new generation of architects are working on powering skyscrapers powered with noise energy – so the hustle and bustle of the city, the blaring sirens, freeway noise everything is actually used to power the building – isn’t that brilliant?)
In another section, it says nanoantennas are more efficient than conventional solar cells and they have a ‘good chance of displacing conventional solar panels’.

All highly exciting possibilities. I was especially thrilled to read this bit about jellyfish and their green fluorescent proteins.

Quote: (from the Bioelectricity section)

“Some jellyfish glow in the dark. This is due to the green fluorescent proteins (GFP) that are present in their cells. Such an element may not need sunlight at all and could instead “feed” on bioluminescent radiation (like in fireflies) and ultimately they might be used in nanodevices.”

It must be wonderful being a jellyfish or a firefly. Were there some jellyfishes who glowed more than others, the same way some human beings are more energetic than others?

Individual energy levels is a common topic of discussion in our household as we are surrounded by friends and family who seem to be made up of inexhaustible sources of energy and positivity. ‘How do they manage it?’ we say as we admire these folks, but it is something I’d love to gain an understanding about.

Would it make the difference between glowing, glowing less, or glowing more?

Once Upon a Goat

The son and I stood by the river bed near our home once more gazing upon the goats in the riverbed. An endlessly fascinating pastime, we always return smiling and shaking our heads fondly at the kids and goats, and a little awe at the sheep dog whose job it is to herd them all.

75AA2498-E9FE-4C9F-B211-BFFB9F499459

One evening, we saw two dogs gaze into each others eyes with an understanding that seemed to acknowledge their respective roles in life, while the goats gathered around looking curiously at the new dog behind the fence.

5E935F80-BB6D-40C3-8DE6-667BFCC5A791

“Hmm – maybe you should write about the goats huh?!” Said the son one day after we had spent a few minutes chuckling at their antics. I agreed. I had written a rather serious post by my standards, and I was in the mood for something light, something that shows the lightness of being, joie-de-vivre and all that. Goats seemed like a good option.

As luck would have it, the first book I had to read that evening was a children’s book on goats. I picked it off the shelf, and the son chuckled approvingly. “Oh – this is such a good book, right?”

“Yep! I love it too!” I said grinning too.

Children’s books are such a reliable source of light. Where else in this world would you be able to find as unalloyed a source of whimsy, fun, and a sheer exaltation of the nonsensical?

This book seemed to tick all of the above.

Once Upon a Goat – By Dan Richards, illustrated by Eric Barclay

once_upon_a_goat

A king and a queen want to start a family and ask the fairy godmother for a kid who has “glowing skin, bright eyes and hair like ocean waves”.

I did wonder how they arrived at this combination to ask for in lieu of a hundred other qualities, but remember this is a fairy godmother asking them what they’d want. I suppose I’d be flustered too. What would you ask for?

Anyway, the fairy godmother, busy with hundreds of wishes like these I hope, grants them a kid with just these qualities. Only it is a goat kid and not a human one. The king and queen are flabbergasted, but go on to accept and love the goat kid anyway. Their lives are more messy than they’d have liked perhaps, and their rose bushes suffer a bit maybe, but otherwise, they are a happy family.

It is when the fairy godmother stops by to check on how the little family is faring, that she realizes her folly. In the meanwhile, a human baby is being raised by goats in the countryside.

What follows makes for a hilarious take on families, and acceptance.

Hint: A large heart makes for great joy and from generosity of spirit stems more happiness.

Who knew goats would play such a big part in our laughter that day?

Successful Transitions

Reminders of time passing are all around us. It is there in the first drizzle of October nights, in the nippy mists of November mornings, and the frigid temperatures of the freezing winter months, as much as it is in the growth of hope and new leaves in spring.

IMG_7697-COLLAGE Yet, even after a few years of these cycles, we still do not comprehend the effects of time as effectively as when we see those around us age, or loved ones lose their vigor. It has been a hard lesson and one everyone goes through in life. But the past few trips to India have really brought this to us with increasing clarity and sadness. Sadness, not for the coming of the inevitable, but for our own reluctance in accepting it.

It is hard seeing once vibrant aunts and uncle lose their vigor and charm. Precious few hold on to their good graces as they age. Many lapse into complaining about their lot. Still others, refuse to accept their diminishing physical prowess, and insist on being in-charge even in situations where they are clearly past it.

What will our folly be?

The more I saw of the aging and the elderly, the more I wonder whether there is an easy way for us to move towards acceptance. I understand first-hand the shock of it. I remember thinking with shock when my daughter’s friends called me ‘Aunty’ for the first time all those years ago. When had I become an ‘aunty’? But now, I love it when the friends of my children call me ‘Aunty’ – it is a word that fills me with joy.

This is also a reason I find myself attracted to books by authors like Miss Read. (Jacqueline Winspear was recommended to me recently and I like the style and wisdom in her writings as well). Fictional and functional characters such as Miss Clare and Mma Ramotswe of the No 1 Detective Agency come to mind. They bring to life the kind of people we admired through our childhoods: normal people living life with grace, common sense and love for those around them. It is comforting to read that practicing these apparently simple tenets lead to a good life.

As I read the essay on psychosocial intelligence in the book: Putting the Science in Fiction – Collated by Dan Koboldt , I could not help nodding along at the bits of writing related to our lifespans as outlined by the essayist Maria Grace. Maria Grace is a psychologist and a curious observer of the human condition. In it, she says that

🍀”Psychosocial development encompasses the changes in an individual as they manage various societal expectations across the lifespan.”

While there are many books that guide us through adolescence (now more than before) , I am constantly looking for good books that guide us through the middle and later stages of our lives. There are always philosophical works – the wisdom of humankind through the ages distilled in our myths, fairy-tales, vedas, religious texts, fables and epics. Philosophers such as Seneca, Aristotle and Buddha who have given us a peek.

When we are children, we rarely understand what adults mean when they say childhood is far easier. I don’t think I ascribe to that theory. Those of us lucky enough to have people looking after us certainly have things to be grateful for, but adolescence is also a period of great uncertainty and angst.

However, I understand now what teachers and parental figures meant when they said childhood was easier, for adulthood brings with it a whole host of different challenges. The expectations of our roles in society, the ability to care for different generations – older parents, our siblings, colleagues and peers, and younger children ( our own, niblings, friends children, those in our care).

🍀”In addition to the tasks of preparing older progeny for launch into the world and managing the increasing needs of older parents, individuals at this stage of the lifespan are also expected to step into social leadership roles. A commitment to lifelong learning and growth marks a positive resolution to this stage, whereas Ebenezer Scrooge-like preoccupation with self and comfort mark an unsuccessful one.”

As I read on to the late adulthood sections of the essay, specifically, navigating the travails of old age and its associated ailments. She goes onto say:

🍀“Those who manage this transition (late adulthood) successfully do so by recognizing the worth of their previous and continued contributions to their society and future generations. Depression, despair and giving up mark unsuccessful transitions.”

I have yet to read any books by Maria Grace, but her essay on psychosocial development in the Putting Science in Fiction book is an excellent one. (Essay: Character Development Beyond Personality Quirks)

science_in_fiction

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