The World – Page 23 – Nourish-n-Cherish

Dancing Hippos of Loango

The summer solstice was unusually hot this time of the year.

I was just back from the pool. The children looked at me approvingly as I hummed through the early evening light making dosas for dinner. “Amma is like one of those partying surfing hippos of Loango isn’t it?” said the children, and I beamed.

“Those hippos are so cool – riding the coastline, swimming so well – I want to be able to swim like them. I mean, I sputter and bumble in the pool. Imagine if I could swim like the happy hippos of Loango?” I sang and danced a little hippo jig.

The children exchanged glances and burst out laughing. “You know? Some moms would be offended if they are called the surfing hippos of Loango. “

“Well, I am honored.” said I truthfully. “Fascinating creatures hippos. Do y’all remember the hippo handbag I had? Drew admiring glances a few times that one.”

“Yeah – also pitiful ones ma. That one was falling apart – we know, actually the whole world knew, you liked the hippo handbag.” Said the older eye-roll and the younger eye roll in unison.

I laughed. “By the way, did you also know that Taweret – the greek goddess of childbirth was a hippo?” Said the mythology experts in the house, and I glanced up from my dosas with wonder and curiosity.

Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taweret

Taweret , a goddess depicted as a pregnant hippopotamus standing upright.

Mankind has for ages gleaned its inspirations from the animal world. All the more reason for us to protect the diversity of life and the planet that nurtures them all.

Ever since we saw the first episode on National Parks narrated by Barack Obama, we all fell in love with the surfing hippos of Loango, the flying sifakas of Madagascar, the camouflaging coolness of the sleepy sloths that have the potential to cure cancer and so much more.

Watching programs featuring the wild in the National Geographic or the National Parks series make me glad that I am alive in today’s day and age. The camera angles, the kind of cinematography, the explosion of knowledge and sharing, the entertainment options and standards, technology everything is instrumental in a wildlife show. Where previously, we had to rely on the mental imagery through words such as Gerald Durrell’s, now we have the ability to see the guanacos act of survival in the Patagonian landscapes right along side the sluggish sea lions on the Californian coast. If that isn’t lucky, I don’t what is.

I have tried capturing a butterfly with my phone several times, and I must confess this simple act is all it takes for me to gain a sense of awe with the captures of these wildlife photographers and documentary producers.

The Oceans As Soul Refreshers

Explorers arriving at the nourishncherish home would have found the chronicler walking around with one book more often than others, Chasing Science at Sea – Racing Hurricanes, Stalking Sharks, and Living Undersea with Ocean Experts by Ellen Prager.

You see, I wanted to finish reading the book before World Environment Day World Oceans Day on June 5th. Then, I thought I will somehow make it to World Oceans Day on June 8th. Now both days have come and gone, many marvelous meals have been tucked into, many laughs shared with friends and family, many meetings sat through, many hikes and bikes to appreciate the world around us, but the book is still in my hand.

The book is engaging at a fundamental level – a subject and set of anecdotes so absorbing and amusing that despite all the demands on my time, I do not want to set it down unfinished. Every time I have gone to the edge of the land overlooking the waters, the lure of understanding the world is beyond me. How would it be if we had evolved under water instead of on land. How would our technologies have taken shape? Then, there is a gratitude that we are land dwellers and 3/4ths of the Earth is uninhabitable by us.

The pressure of living under the sea must be enormous and I wonder about how the various creatures of the sea manage. A friend of mine had taken a picture of a chips bag at high altitude. Imagine that bag 10,000 feet under the ocean. Apparently, every 33 feet the pressure increases by another atmosphere. With what ease these dolphins and whales navigate the pressure differences as they come up to gulp air and go back into the depths of the oceans?

One evening I stood watching the magnificent waxing gibbous moon over the bay waters one one side, and the setting sun on the opposite side. I remember reading that the creatures of the ocean have their own lunar cycles to follow. The little turtles that come ashore on full moon nights to lay their eggs, the fish orienting themselves by the direction of the stars, the birds using their innate gifts of navigation to traverse the Earth on there impressive migratory journeys – everything ebbed and flowed into the mind’s eye much as the gentle waves lapping nearby.

“To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.” –
Rachel Carson

There were pelicans bobbing elegantly in a uniform motion a distance away, seagulls, avocets and blackbirds flying energetically, while the herons stood stoic as ever apparently gazing at the moon and waiting for the fish in the waters below.

How must it be to live under the sea? How I wished to be a little mermaid just then to glimpse into the ocean worlds? Imagine my surprise when I sat with the Chasing Science at Sea book that evening to read about Aquarius – the under sea research station that allows marine biologists and oceanographers to research the oceans. They spend hours at these deep pressure stations after which they need to be carefully acclimatized to the surface atmosphere before returning to the surface. While inside Aquarius, they can stay for as long as their mission takes, but:

At the end of a mission, aquanauts undergo a 17-hour decompression that is conducted within Aquarius itself, while on the bottom. At the end of decompression, aquanauts exit Aquarius and scuba-dive back to the surface.
NASA site on Aquarius

The truth is that the oceans are still an enigma. Despite underwater diving equipment, the ability to scuba dive, submarines, and remote access vehicles, the oceans are vast, and full of an alluring mystery.

A few years ago, I read a book on marine farming and was enthralled at the possibilities of seaweed farming and kelp forests, but not a little afraid as we start taming the seas. We have not shown ourselves to be good custodians of the lands and the atmosphere.

As I determinedly read about the adventures or the scientists, a strange calm engulfed the soul. Water and water-related imagery often does this. I slipped into bed with beautiful thoughts of the oceans and how little we really think of them in our day-to-day problems. What amazing soul refreshers the waters are?

The Happy Cluckers Are Named

I pinned the Volunteer badge proudly to my chest and walked into the son’s classroom. There, on the board, was a list. The teacher was busy adding to the list and I was flummoxed. There was no categorization. I mean this was not a grocery list, not an author list, not a mailing list, it didn’t look like ice cream flavors either. This list had no theme.

A sample:

Caramel
King Cluck III
Nathan Drake
Westerpoolch
McFlurry
Lee

I must’ve looked quizzical, for the moment the teacher saw me, she said somewhat sheepishly. “Well, we are coming with a list of names for the chicks in Science class. Say what you will about my job, it is never dull!”

I laughed agreeing heartily. The son had told me about the chicks they were raising in Science class. I just hadn’t realized all the background work that went into raising them.

I have the greatest admiration for teachers as regular readers know: their job is the hardest (but also the most gratifying as the father likes to remind me. He was a teacher for 40 years and is still happy to teach when he can.)

Once the class had settled down, I set about reading a story I had written : Father’s Day in the Jungle, followed by an article published in The Hindu newspaper: Space Racers – Together the Fun Begins, and the saying on the Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan.

The children were a marvelous audience as usual. They were curious, wanted to know about how we got the images of our planet, and how it came to be called the Pale Blue Dot. There is always a moment of awe as I imagine the Voyager II spacecraft turning around just before exiting the solar system to take that picture of Earth – the picture immortalized in Carl Sagan’s words as the Pale Blue Dot. I hope a little of that awe was captured by the children in class that day.

The innocence, intelligence and joy in an elementary school classroom was more keenly acute this time so close on the heels of another meaningless gun shooting incident in America.

I am always grateful to the children’s teachers who allow me to come and read to the children, for the experience is extremely satisfying, and the energy of the young children is like a tonic of sorts.

That evening, I asked the son whether the chicks had names yet, and he said happily. “Yeah! The voting was intense. But Caramel and Westerpoolch are happy cluck-ers ma!”

I was reminded of Miss Read’s sayings: Miss Read was a country school teacher who wrote prolific books about life in the English countryside with generous measures of common sense, nature, and gentle humor.

“Life went on. No matter what happened, life went on, inexorably, callously, it might seem, to those in grief. But somehow, in this continuity, there were the seeds of comfort.”
Miss Read, Emily Davis

A Special Post to Celebrate Syzygy

“You’d better make it a special post!”, said the son. He is the one who is ardently fanning me in on, and keeping tabs on whether I am writing enough these days. His natural state of calculating kicks in, and he says “So, if you write another post in the next 36 hours then…”, and I have to remind him that it is not like that. One does not have to follow a punishing rigorous schedule for a hobby. That I will write and when I do, it feels joyous and good. Not laborious and like finishing up an arduous task for the sake of doing so.

There must have been a natural syzygy (aligning of the stars) when I started my blog seventeen years ago. The time it takes for a wizard to come of age in the magical world. I must say, the blog has given me an excellent magical education. I may not have graduated from Hogwarts in this time, but I certainly have learnt a thing or two on the magic of persistence, the seer of light in a dark universe, or any number of things.

Herbology: My specimens may still not be thriving, but as a chronicler of the natural world, I think Professor Sprout would gladly have me in her graduating class.

“Science has taught me that everything is more complicated than we first assume, and that being able to derive happiness from discovery is a recipe for a beautiful life. It has also convinced me that carefully writing everything down is the only real defense we have against forgetting something important that once was and is no more,”
Hope Jahren, Lab Girl

Read: A Celebration of 🌎

Astronomy: Professors Carl Sagan and his many many friends have been amazing companions in the starship of the night. Comets, moon cycles and changing constellations not withstanding, there have also been the amazing journeys through space on light ships designed and envisioned by Johannes Kepler.

Ancient Runes: Professor Vector has opened thine eyes to many wonders of the Mathematical world and how they help us find a structure to our days. A way to find the incontrovertible truth if you will.

“Changing Mathematics from a computational discipline into a beautiful, abstract philosophy.”
Pythagoras of Samos (580-500 BCE) who continued the philosophy of:

Transfiguration: How else does a serious minded member of the software engineering firms of the world transform into a magic seeking writer who will arduously work out a sentence structure sometimes tens of times to get that laugh?

https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2020/06/27/💦-🌳-earth-🌏-magicians-💥❄%EF%B8%8F/

Potions: Professor Snape, Dr Oliver Sacks, Paul Nurse, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Ed Yong, and so many more professors have taken me under their wing and spent many enjoyable hours explaining the joy behind reactions.

Care of Magical Creatures: Hagrid, Gerald Durrell, Sy Montgomery and numerous other writers of the natural world have introduced and opened my experiences to the world of creatures around us. Snail tales, pelican and duck friends, and so many instances of the world around us.

https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2021/08/29/donkey-days/

Writing & reading have sustained and enthralled me every step of the way, and it has proved to me how remarkable life’s moments are – even in a seemingly unremarkable life such as mine.

Like Sy Montgomery says in her book, How to be a good creature:

Thurber taught me this: “You never know even when life looks hopeless, what might happen next. It could be something wonderful is right around the corner.”
Sy Montgomery – How to be a good creature

It usually is in the form of a new book, or a new idea that magically transforms an ordinary day into an extraordinary one. The power of fleeting thoughts that can take flame, grow and sustain in a wholly positive way, weaving magical moments and learnings. What can be better than that?

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”
George R R Martin in A Dance with Dragons

Here is to more years of fruitful occupation, magical meanderings and posts that entertain and hopefully enlighten. This is my 1000th post.

Thank you, my readers, for being with me on this magical journey. Of course, the blog owes its very existence To My Family & Other Animals – who are frequent and oft quoted celebrities on this blog.

The Human Experience

“You could be listening to anything at all, and this is what you choose to listen to?” , said the daughter.

I chuckled. We were driving through the Great Plains of the Mid-West between Wisconsin and Illinois. Snow flakes were flurrying lazily across the windshield, which was amusing to watch, since I could feel the car shuddering with the winds sweeping the plains. The great windmills on either side of the freeway were moving and converting the wind energy, while the snowflakes seemed to be dancing lazily and flitting across the plains. To see the flakes against the depth of the vast plain fields was mesmerizing enough, but to have Dr Indre Viskontas’s lecture accompany the scenes outside made for a new appreciation.

I was listening to the excellent Great Courses lectures by Dr Indre Viskontas. In her energetic voice as she talks about how we hear and see, the world becomes magical again.

Listening to Dr Indre Viskontas speak about the faculties of seeing and hearing, makes those of us given these two abilities more appreciative of all that goes on beneath the skin to make these happen.

12 Essential Scientific Concepts

How we perceive light, hear the frequencies of sound that are audible to us, make for our human experience. The frequencies heard and seen by each creature on Earth itself is different. From the magical birds who sense the Earth’s magnetic field for their migration journeys to the fish who are able to navigate by the position of the stars from deep under the ocean, we each have our own unique way of living. Of Life.

In Dr Oliver Sack’s book, Musicophilia, he says:

“Every act of perception, is to some degree an act of creation, and every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.”
Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia

Dr Indre Viskontas is also an Opera performer, and her joyous voice brings out the polymathic abilities she possesses. Truly, as she regales cognitive neuroscience and how our brains understand better, I am reminded of some wonderful musings with our dance teacher at school. In between rigorous bouts of dance practice, she insisted that her students were all bright, athletic, and doing so much better than we would have without dance. And, in the energy of youth urging us towards our better selves, we wanted to believe her. Could that have been a belief that spurred us on? We would not know – for good teachers, coaches and mentors all excel in that subtle balance of belief, discipline, and inspiration.

But maybe the musicality and the dance do make for better neurological experiences. As Dr Viskontas says in the lecture above,

Art and science are after the same thing. The goal is to understand the human experience. Science does it by extracting general principles about the world, and art uses individual experience to highlight what is universal.”
Dr Indre Viskontas

Why is it that we are moved by a piece of music to visualize a god vs demon war on stage, or the haunting love-lorn calls to one another? Because music, like whales can attest, can evoke worlds in our imagination.

“Music can also evoke worlds very different from the personal, remembered worlds of events, people, places we have known.”
Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

And so, I wanted to say to the daughter, “When I could be listening to anything at all, I chose to listen to the lectures trying to understand the human experience in a vast, barren landscape, made unbearably beautiful by the beauty of the symmetrical snowflakes, and the gushing of the winds against the car. “

What I did instead was laugh, and let her call me weird. ‘Weird’ I am beginning to understand is one of the best compliments that a teenaged child can give you.

We Should Dance!

Today is International Dance Day. To those of you who did not know: my nieces danced their way into our hearts last week with their marvelous Arangetram (Dance performance signaling they are ready for the stage). The pair of them have been dancing for about a decade, and enthralling those around with their nimble movements, naughty smiles and joyous outpouring of dance.

They freely share their gifts of the garb and their dance with those around them: The younger one who even now occasionally cartwheels as she is talking to you, & the older one who lovingly gave us a painting of a dancer for our new home.

Their Arangetram on you-tube has nourished me and fulfilled me in so many ways throughout the week. It has been an interesting week in the corporate world for yours truly, and watching pieces of their performance on you-tube in the morning or in the evening before bed has made all the difference. To the chagrin of the daughter, I have taken to leaping across kitchens with even more energy and dancing at odd hours of the night.

True art transcends time and space. Their performance this week took me back to my school days all those decades ago. Thinking back on our school days, I remember dance being woven into our very being. Our dance teacher remains the sort of creative person who can take up a stage and transform it into the warring fields of the Gods Vs Demons, or the romping gardens through which Lord Krishna traipsed or the love-lorn gardens of any maiden pining for her Lord.

I remember all the rehearsals, watching as a young girl, and then being excited to be part of the dance dramas as I grew older. It was beautiful to watch her choreograph, adjust according to our abilities, but pulling us along, and pushing us to excel with every dance.

I remember thinking even as a child who had the immense pleasure of learning from her that being inside her brain must be marvelous: forever creating, forever forging higher connections and all with that wonderful laugh and personality.

I was itching one evening on a linear walk to dance – the rain had stopped, the sun was breaking through the clouds and a brilliant rainbow was in the making, and a moment like that makes your very Being yearn to dance. Why could we not transform into peacocks at will? Then, no one would scurry away looking worried when one breaks out into a spontaneous dance on the trail. Children prance when they feel like it, adults do not. Children cartwheel as they talk to you on the video call, we do not. This growing up business is all most confusing.

Why do we not dance more as a species? Together – all of us regardless of ability, age, sex. Dance and music are the yearnings of the universe in us after all.

Reminds me of this beautiful book on dancing I found a few weeks ago at the library: I Will Dance. Written by Nancy Bo Flood and illustrated by Julianna Swaney, this book is a beautiful reminder of why we all need dance in our lives.

Quote from the Book’s About page:

Like many young girls, Eva longs to dance. But unlike many would-be dancers, Eva has cerebral palsy. She doesn’t know what dance looks like for someone who uses a wheelchair. Then Eva learns of a place that has created a class for dancers of all abilities.
I Will Dance – By Nancy Bo Flood, Illustrated by Julianna Swaney

I Will Dance – By Nancy Bo Flood, Illustrated by Julianna Swaney

Dance enables the soaring of the spirit, to unleash the inner peacock in us whether we are peacocks or not.

The 4 Seasons

We have been traveling in the Chicago area for the past few days, and I must say folks spotted us Californians miles away. They chuckled, they were amused and they had no idea why we scuttled and huddled like penguins in winter when it was clearly spring – ask the daffodils who were springing up to say hello to Lincoln statues everywhere.

Illinois does not let you forget that Lincoln hailed from there. The roadways, streets, statues and even a bust in a university that had a funny story of a Lincoln statue whose nose folks rubbed for good luck. I tried rubbing the daughter’s nose for luck, but it didn’t seem to amuse her much. A shame really – for the very child as a toddler was famed for joyously peeling off a gargling laugh like a tinkling stream every time we made her nose ‘disappear’ in what seems like just a few years ago. Oh well. Time.

I saw some folks out with light jackets, a spring in their step, and not so much as a cap. We? Well, once you wear the cap, mask, gloves, extra thick jacket, thermals, boots, you’d think there isn’t much place left to freeze. But there is. And we froze with every gust of wind by Lake Michigan and Lake Mendota. After a lovely stroll through the park by the lake, I mumbled through the layers to the daughter, “Nothing makes you feel so alive as catching that gasp of crisp air right?!”

Her muffled retort made it past all the layers, and she said, “Oh – is that what we are calling this chilling cold now? Crisp! Ma!”

I must say driving from Chicago to Madison, Wisconsin and then from there to Urbana Champaign back to Chicago made for a marvelous time. It was good for the soul to contemplate the nothingness and vast expanse of space in the world. The Greek myths of Hades and Persephone’s plight came alive in those days starker than anywhere else I’ve seen. The Earth was barren for miles and miles around us. Spring planting had not yet begun, and what would have been green fields on either side in the summer and fall were empty, preparing for another season. The cold winds and a slightly snowy day made for exciting drives on the interstates reminding us of Lincoln’s Illinois. Windmills flailed their arms long and wide, while the little car shuddered along with the whipping winds and the large vehicles on the road.

Other days made for marvelous blue skies with scudding clouds. The characteristic blue skies and white clouds of Planet Earth are especially welcome when one is traveling and out and about.

We were told by indulgent folks that they experienced 4 seasons – a dig at Californian winters, no doubt. But after the cold days of Illinois springs, I am quite ready to take on the winters of California, and headed out on a rainy day walk almost as soon as I could find my bearing s again, only to be rewarded by a marvelous rainbow for Earth Day!

What’s more I didn’t have to pull my freezing fingers out of their gloves to take these pictures.

Shark Splashers & Bear Growlers Creativity Index

“Why would I punch a shark in the nose?” I said swiping the phone with my hand as it rang on our evening walk.

The husband who had probably called with a view to getting a sane opinion mopped his brow on the other side. Was this really a good idea? He seemed to ask himself. After a second of stunned silence he said, “What did the poor shark do to deserve being punched in the nose by you two jobless folks out on a walk?”

The son & I laughed. We were on our evening walk and the fellow was telling me a little story he had imagined the whole afternoon when I had droned on in one meeting after another. The thrilling tale involved Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, the Boston Tea Party, and somehow as I nodded along, the tale had an inexplicable presence of trained sharks by the British Army going after the American Revolutionaries. The revolutionaries, on their part, weren’t quiet either. They had trained bears. How the bears fought the sharks with the humans aboard made for a loud, raucous tale with lots of noise and action. I was a confused, if slightly inattentive audience. For one, the day’s meetings were not yet pounded of the system, and for another, a marvelous spring sunset was in progress. The egrets, ducks and geese were making a fumble of noises, and the son’s story did not quite hold my attention till the sharks and bears fighting sequence made an appearance.

I double tracked and asked questions not letting on that I had let my mind wander over the past mile. He gave me a swift look, and said, “I know you haven’t been listening. Fine! I’ll explain again.” And off he went from the beginning again. This time, the story was even wilder than I imagined while half listening.

I shuddered a bit at the high moments of battle between creatures.

That night I did chuckle to myself on the sharks vs bear theme to the American Revolution.

It also led me to think of the Torrance Studies for Creativity (in the book, In Praise of Wasting Time – By Alan Lightman) where they studied the different aspects of imaginative story telling in children and had an independent body of panelists rank the ingenuity, creative elements, and nuances to the story telling in primary school going children. The study apparently shows a drastic reduction of the creative elements somewhere around 1990. The correlation is plain. It is around the same time that the usage of the Internet and screen time soared.

The study is here:

The Creativity Crisis: The Decrease in Creative Thinking Scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking – By Kyung Hee Kim, School of Education, The College of William and Mary

It does make me wonder how many marvelous tales we will be missing with the advent of more advanced technologies. Even brilliant ideas such as code generators, image generators can either be used actively by us to better ourselves or passively used to distract and stop us from doing the hard work of utilizing our talents. Which way will we choose?

I do hope the shark splashers and bear growlers continue to use their imagination to better this world.

A Whale of a Time

“Just read some book that is interesting, but not too interesting. Shouldn’t make me laugh too much, or make me say.”Oooh! That is interesting right?”, but make me sleepy in 10 minutes.”, said the son.

I said I would try.

The strange specific request was because it was well past bedtime. The lights were off, but the young fellow was having trouble falling asleep. I could hear him chuckling at the conversation in his sister’s room, and getting up every few minutes to dart across and contribute. The rambunctious older sister and father were given a sober talking to so bedtime rituals could commence and I looked at the stash of books by the bedside trying to find one that would fill this vaguely specific request. The written world did not disappoint, and pretty soon, I had in my hands several books that could help.

However, the book on Whales seem to fit the description perfectly. It was interesting enough, the illustrations beautiful and the content remarkable yet not thrilling enough to keep one awake at night. It was like listening to Whale Song.

There is something remarkably therapeutic about the color blue.

The Mute Painter

Seeing the pages in various hues of blue, with the lovely pictures of the most beautiful and interesting creatures on Earth made for a magical few minutes. It is no wonder that the daughter loves doodling with blues, and drew numerous pictures of whales.

The light blue on the pages lulled one to sleep and before long, the fellow drifted, and I tiptoed out with the book.

Reading about whales on a weekday night is strangely relaxing. I kept going. Spreadsheets, documents, planning, working, cleaning – everything seemed irrelevant in the face of these creatures. The feeding, bubbling and the many aspects of the whales is beautifully shown. The illustrations in the book make it a relaxing artistic phenomenon – I have spent many nights since looking at the pictures in the book.

Sample page to show the beauty of the illustrations in the Whales book by Kelsey Oseid

Whales also gently reminded me of my recent folly: It has been sometime since I went on a children’s book reading spree. So, I went about rectifying this immediately. It is no wonder the old spirit has been feeling jaded lately. Nothing like a dose of magic, art, laughter and childlike stories to rejuvenate the spirit. Sometimes, when we make a Whale of a Mistake like that, all it takes is a trip to the library to invite the guardian of the spirit to visit again.

I look forward to reading this lot, and having a whale of a time.

Why Do We Grow Up Really?!

The son and I were poring over the article to select. It was an important decision to make. I was being given the opportunity to read to the son’s classroom. He was proof reading the list of articles I had from approximately 1000 articles that I thought might interest an elementary school classroom.

“This one is nice Amma, but it has too many big words.”

“This one – ahem! No!”

“Oh come on! How about this one? That’ll appeal to the cat lover in your class!”

“Hmm….you are right there. But I already showed him that article you showed me last week on toxoplasma gondii Amma.”

“This one – maybe – maybe. But let’s look for something that will catch the attention from the beginning.”

So it went, till I showed him one that I knew would get his attention.

Why is our sky not green?

The cosmologist in him sat up, the child in him shone. He beamed at this one.

In this one, the astrophysicist, Carl Sagan, writes about how he could get up anywhere on the solar system and figure out which planet he would be on purely by looking at the skies. I could say the children marveled at that thought process.

The essay, Sacred Black , in the book, Pale Blue Dot is well worth reading. He explains the reasoning behind the colors of the planets as we see them. He deduces the color of the sky based on the elements found in their atmospheres.

Venus, he says, probably has a red sky.
Mars has a sky that is between ochre and pink much like the colors of the desert.
Jupiter, Saturn – worlds with such giant atmospheres such that sunlight hardly penetrates it, have black skies interrupted here and there by strokes of lightning in the thick mop of clouds surrounding the planets.
Uranus & Neptune – uncanny, austere blue color. The skies may be blue or green at a certain depth resulting in an aquamarine or an ‘unearthly blue’.

When we were through with the article, I asked the young cosmonauts what they visualized their best skies to look like. Of course, there was a magnificent range of answers including one that somehow involved cats!

“Oh! You must be the cat-lover!” I said laughing, and the ailurophile or felinophile (cat lover) grinned cattishly.

ailurophile, aelurophile
a lover of cats. Also called felinophile, philofelist, philogalist.

I told the fellow about the post on toxoplasma gondii and their teacher laughed too. Her day involves moving attentions from cats to maths multiple times a day.

So, it was that I read: Why the sky isn’t green – a science based article followed by a trip to a place of pure imagination and fantasy: St Patrick’s Day in the Jungle

Of course, the children switched tracks marvelously, and we finished the class reading by discussing the Irish music in St Patrick’s Day in the Jungle done by a good friend with a refined musical sense, and the talented artists from Holland who helped with the illustrations for the little book.

The iBook is also available: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/st.-patricks-day-in-the-jungle/id829152649?ls=1&mt=11 (Please go to iBooks on your iPad and then look for the book)

After the story, the c. lover was the only one who wanted to know whether the tiger did manage to escape the trap set by Oby Elephant after all in the St Patrick’s Day in the Jungle book.

I seldom fail to come away refreshed after a visit to the classroom, and this time was no different. An otherwise dull week sparkled with the memory, and shone on through the week-end.

Why do we grow up really?

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