Books – Page 42 – Nourish-n-Cherish

The Green Belt Movement

It was a beautiful day, and the children had been very good on a hike together. We had chuckled our way through the muddy paths still damp with the recent rains, attempted to climb a tree, looked out for robins, thrushes and hawks. Cows on these hillsides were minding their own business and grazing. Calves of all sizes made a welcome sight. A couple of pups were frolicking on the trail, and made for great hilarity. There is something alluring about the fresh outlook of the young and we enjoyed the hike taking in these heartening glimpses of life thriving around us. The children, puppies and calves on the trail that day were bursting with the fount of youth.

From up above, we could see the tiny houses lined up like toys on glimmering silver ribbons. The Earth around us was clothed in marvelous hues of Green, and peace seemed to hail. ‘Did you know? All those areas down there were fruit orchards with thousands of trees. Apparently, these hills too were more like forests about 50-60 years ago. Then they cut down the trees so the cattle could graze, but now the ranchers have gone, and we don’t really need all these hills for pasture, but the trees are gone too.’, I said sadly.

The children looked appalled at this, and we set about discussing how important and beautiful trees are. “I wish we could replant all those trees!” said my little environmentalists wistfully, and I heartily agreed.

The Green Belt Movement

A few days later, I was grazing in the library, when my eyes fell upon the beautiful book, Planting the Trees of Kenya, by Claire A Nivola, The Story of Wangari Maathai. I picked it up intrigued, for I love to read about that beautiful continent.

Planting the trees of Kenya - Wangari Maathai — Planting the trees of Kenya – Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai was the first woman to win the Nobel prize from the continent of Africa. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for making the connection between natural environments and the well-being of the people.

Wangari Maathai – Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2004. First woman from Africa.

The book started off with the beautiful page depicting the Kenyan countryside when Maathai was a little girl. Kenya was clothed in its ‘dress of green’ when she was a little girl. Fig trees, olive trees, cornets and flame trees covered the land, and fish filled the pure waters of the streams.

The Fig tree was considered sacred, and it was one of her favorite trees.

Maathai then went to the US to study with the Benedictine nuns where she imbibed the lessons of doing more than you receive and to make a larger impact on Earth.

She returned to Kenya, full of hope, only to see the landscape completely transformed. Even the fig tree was gone, the streams had run dry and large-scale farming had take over the individual farmers needs. Food was more expensive and she was shocked to see that ‘economic progress’ had left behind a sickly, weak, and much poorer populace.

She was the first person to make the link between people and nature living together in harmony.

Why not plant trees?

As can be expected, she was faced with opposition and setbacks at every turn. Her nursery did not thrive, the governments did not embrace the program, but none of that deterred her. She encouraged the women to take up tree planting. She visited schools and gave the children saplings to plant and nurture trees and even taught them how to make their own nurseries.

She, and this is my favorite, appealed to the gun-bearing soldiers with the slogan : Gun in your righthand and a tree seedling in your left. She said to them that if their goal was to save Kenya, both aspects are equally important.

Ever since Wangari began her Green Belt Movement in 1977, tree by tree, person by person, 30 million trees have been planted in Kenya, and the planting has not stopped.

http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/wangari-maathai

What can we do?

When I look at the hills near where I live clothed in its rich shade of green in the rainy season, my heart sings. But I know this is a short-lived season before we have signs saying ‘Brown is the new green’, and the summers dry out the landscape bringing with it the threat of wildfires.

Last year, the very places that were most damaged by the wildfires were also affected by devastating flooding in California. These are nature’s wake-up calls.

SoCal – same areas affected by fires now devastated by storms

Every year roughly the size of the country of Costa Rica is being lost to deforestation.

UN Deforestation Statistics

Wangari Maathai died in 2011, but her lessons for us need not. What will it take for a similar program to take root all over the world, so we can save ourselves and our beautiful planet?

Ode to the Headphones

I surveyed the Christmas gifts piled under the tree and felt we had gone overboard again – did I really need those noise canceling headphones? The husband and children vociferously insisted in 18 Mhz frequencies that I did.

“But I like listening to the natural sounds when I walk. I don’t want to shut it out and listen to something else! The chickadees song, the squirrel’s titters and the wind rustling through the trees, these are all sources of joy. I feel alive when all my senses are in sharp focus! It IS music for me.” I said looking desperate.

It was perfectly true. Who can stop themselves from thinking of William Wordsworth’s Daffodils while on a brisk walk enjoying full communion with Nature?

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

The daughter rolled her eyes with typical teenage scorn, “ We know you like to listen to the wind rustling through the trees, and the rain pattering and all that. But you got to admit – the train clacking noisily, with you in it, is not exactly a natural sound, and therefore there is nothing wrong with shutting it out!”

It was a fair point. I could also tell that this was one of those things that the husband was high-fiving himself for. The strangest things excite the dear fellow. Like the time his face lit up when he did something brilliant to free up one HDMI port in the spaghetti system of connections near the television area.

“Didn’t you notice the change in sound output? “ he said looking remarkably proud of himself.

The truth was I hadn’t noticed. But when a puppy fetches a piece of wool from under the couch, tangling it all the way through every spot in the hall, and looking mighty pleased with his efforts, that is not the time to be telling the puppy that one was really not looking for the wool. When he rolls on his back lifting his legs to be tickled in his tummy, you coo and tickle the furry creature, and put the wool back somewhere out of reach. So, I did the square thing and tickled his tummy, uh-huh-ing at regular intervals as he related all the things he had to do to change the connections so that the sound system was rigged through the thing-a-ma-jig while retaining the mick-a-mumma-tone through the mimble-tum-milkatonia.

puppy-with-wool

The noise canceling headphones seem to make him just as happy, and I accepted the gift after he gave the pitch that put poets to shame. The Ode To The Headphone was spirited, bordered on romantic, and clearly reverent. Wordsworth may have pitched it strong with daffodils, but when it came to wireless headphones, the husband won.

I tucked it into my bag wondering if I ever shall use it, and went for a bath using the scented soap the daughter had gifted me (now that is the sort of gift I appreciate.)

A few days later, the husband asked me how I was getting along with the noise-c headphones. I think my shifty look gave the game away. “You are not using them! Give them to me here – I will set it up for you.” he said looking incredulous, yet wondering why he should’ve expected anything better from me.

Hell hath no fury like the headphones damned. I handed over the set carefully preserved.

“Here ..just try this now.” he said with the forcefulness of the wronged, and I accepted with an equally becoming meekness. The symphony of marriage I tell you.

The next day on the train, I looked forward to reading The Tao of Travel by Paul Theroux. Maybe reading the book along with the noise canceling headphones would help me see how my world transformed.

It certainly was transformed. But something strange happened.

No sooner had I quietened my hearing, when I noticed the olfactory seemed to be doing double duty. Did noses grow sharper when the hearing dulls? I touched the prominent beak thoughtfully – any sharper and I might as well take up wood-carving. I felt nauseated with unsavory smells. They flooded my nostrils making me want to gag. I looked around alarmed. I had not been warned of this particular side-effect.

woody

Then, I saw the reason: I had not quite noticed that I was only two feet away from a fellow who had spent the night on the turf, hitting one good shot after another, and had gone to bed on the morning train, after vomiting and soiling himself spectacularly.

Wondering whether a pair of cloth clips for my nose could have been a better gift, I resorted to breathing like a rhino chasing a pack of lions out of its territory – huge snorts followed by short, quick gasps. Mozart was playing something, but all my nose could think of doing was sending signals to the brain with the smells of the samaritan.

I peeked out the window in disgust, and a signboard helpfully told me,

After you die, you will meet God!

Will I still be able to smell when I die? I thought waspishly.

That evening, the family asked me how the headphones were. I said truthfully that they were marvelous for the sound, but went on to relate the smells, and how we shall all meet God, to general hilarity.

The daughter said, “Well….you must savor anything natural Amma. Enjoy your senses, and feel alive!”. She pirouetted around the kitchen deeply inhaling and mocking me in what I thought was a brilliant fashion. I stood there laughing and relishing every bit of my humble pie.

The Tao of Travel gleamed at me with its wisdom, and I said to them. Did you know that Wordsworth – that staunch lover of flowers and fresh air, had no sense of smell?

T’is The Season To Be Grateful

Every year end, by the time Christmas rolls around, the husband and I look like the crumpled and frazzled dolls hanging off the hastily put together Christmas tree ourselves. This year too, we had fallen to our usual folly of not co-ordinating the Christmas gifts between us for the children. I stealthily went off and hastily piled up a bunch of things, so that come Christmas morning, there is something under the tree. As I gift-wrapped the presents, late one night with the children safely tucked in bed, I was reminded of one of Miss Read’s sensible sentiments on Christmas – she is one of my favorite authors for a reason:
The thing to do, is to get absolutely everything in the summer and lock it in a cupboard. Then order every scrap of food from a shop the week before Christmas and sit back and enjoy watching everyone else go mad. I’ve been meaning to do it for years.

The day before Christmas, the husband waved a suave hand in my direction with the loving parting words, “So, you’ve got the kids for the day right? Right! I am off. “ His eyes gave me a look deep with meaning that said, “I got to go and get the gifts”, to which I gave him an equally meaningful look that said, “Don’t worry! I got them all gifts. Just buy the milk.”
We’ve been married for 15 years and understand each other perfectly, and so obviously he thought I was admiring the cow-lick on his newly combed hair (blog post waiting to be done), and tootled off bringing gifts for one and all, and no milk.

The result being that we were all feeling thoroughly spoiled for Christmas. After surveying the pile under the tree, I felt that we had gone overboard again. Did I really need those noise-canceling headphones? (The resounding answers did seem to warrant them, I’ll grant you that. ) Maybe, the motto around Christmas should be: if we were bindle stiffs, what would we need? Bindle stiffs, I was curious to learn the term, are those who carried their clothing around in a bundle.

I started on my Children-in-Africa lecture, when the children must’ve realized that it is better to take pre-emptive action before this lecture turns into a vegetable-praising healthy-eating fest that cuts into their hot-cocoa-under-the-tree dream. They pronounced mid-way that they were donating half the gifts (piled neatly on the left of the table ) to the poor. I noticed the particularly angelic and noble expressions on their faces as they made this solemn announcement, and stifled an urge to laugh.

I was glad of the opportunity to relax around friends once Christmas had come around, in the warm regions of Southern California. Days spent laughing, chatting, reading, playing and goofing off are like balm to the soul, and we reveled in the warmth of good companionship, and not being ruled by the clock.

As the year wound down, I realized that politically, speaking, it may have been a tough year, but we have much to be grateful for.
Bill & Melinda Gates foundation’s newsletter was uplifting and I was glad to end 2017, on a grateful and hopeful note.

I wonder if you have read the book where the hungry caterpillar expresses its thanks to every living being it comes across. If not, it is a marvelous children’s book, with Eric Carle’s signature illustrations and wonderful message: Thanks From The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

As we head into 2018, it already promises to be a year in which we shall be called upon to remember such simple things as being kind to every living being and to care for our environment.

The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine

Days were blurring into weeks, and I had a flustered feeling. When days like these rear their heads, I reach for a children’s book to read. I’ve said it before, and I shall say it again, and again: Children’s book authors and illustrators are the true custodians of the human spirit.

I had picked up a book left unwritten by Mark Twain, and finished by another author of today, Philip Stead. The book’s title is a mouthful, and its contents a mindful: The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine: By Mark Twain & Philip Stead (Illustrated by Erin Stead)

Apparently, Mark Twain, after a long day’s work, was asked by his children for a story using a picture as a prompt everyday, and this story was told to the little girls in France. He liked it enough to jot it down, but did not quite finish it.

The origin of the story

When a book like that comes along, it feels like perfect cure for the cold winds whipping the Californian hairlines. The narrative voice makes you sit up and wonder how brilliant it is, and brilliance in simplicity is rare indeed. The book suffuses you with enough warmth to get you going through the windy, cold days.

The story starts off with a simple note from the Author explaining the circumstances and getting us to believe that Mark Twain told him the story about our hero, Johnny, while sipping tea and coffee overlooking a lake on Beaver Island. This simple note then sets the tone for two unreliable narrators in the story, and the book chugs on towards the hinterlands of imagination giving us a healthy dose of incredulity, hilarity and thought.

Our Hero, Johnny, lives a miserable life on a farm with his miserable grandfather and hen named, Pestilence & Famine. One day, he is sent off by his grandfather to sell the hen, and off goes Johnny with Pestilence & Famine.

A Jack & Beanstalk-y bit later, Johnny finds himself with an kind, old lady who trades him the hen for some old blue seeds, with the promise that if tended to properly, a plant will rise, and “when a flower comes up, eat it, It will make you full and you will never feel emptiness again –“

“I tell you this”, Twain said to me, raising his teacup in the air, “there are more chickens than a man can know in this world, but an unprovoked kindness is the rarest of birds.”

“So, did the hen die?” asks the Author of today, and Mark Twain says yes, while the author today believes that the hen and old woman are living happily.

“Your version lacks credibility”, said Twain. “Surely the old woman is dead. “

“And it should be noted”, he added, “that if Charles Darwin taught us anything, it is this: The chicken is dead too. And, lucky for her, because there are many unflattering ways to leave this world, but none quite so unflattering as being forced to live in it.”

The blue seeds turn out to yield the Juju flower, and Johnny finds himself hungry and desperate even after eating the Juju flower. He walks to the edge of the forest, and falls feint only to look up and find a skunk, Susy. After nearly losing his mind Johnny says to Suzy, the skunk: “How is it that you can talk?”

“All animals can talk! … A lion can speak to a squirrel can speak to an owl can speak to a mouse. A camel can spend to a pig who can speak to an elk can speak to an elephant. A whale can talk to a gull. A giraffe can speak to a hermit crab. It is only humans that no one can understand. It is why they are so ignorant and backward and lonely and sad – they have so few creatures to talk to” Susy added. “But I do not mean to offend, You do not seem ignorant or backward.”

“But you understand me?” asked Johnny.

“Yes”, answered Susy, “for evidently you have eaten the Juju flower. It is rarely given to anybody.”

Please read the rest of the book to see what happens to Johnny and how he finds himself going to the King of the land.

Mark Twain’s words are still prescient:

“Terrible things are always happening to Kings. It makes you wonder why anyone would want the job at all.”

Playing Aeronautic See-Saw with Lions

Have you thought about how an airplane crew feels with respect to their dress? I look at the air hostesses tottering up and down the aisles wearing heels, tight fitting skirts, berets and what-have-you, and give them commiserating smiles when they look forlorn at the way their wards on the plane are attired.

The poor blighters look like they are dressed for one of those high brow diplomatic commissions where they stop countries from throwing tomatoes at each other. Just a moment, hold on – I feel like Archimedes in the bath-tub. I am not bathing, I mean, I feel one of those Eureka moments coming on: Maybe they are dressed for the part. I have seen these stellar folks walk up to people and tell them to stop throwing tomatoes, or to refrain from kicking the passenger’s seat in front of them, though better judgement tells them, ‘To blazes with the tomatoes. D’ya think tomatoes can ruin that attire. Tchah!’

eureka

We had seated ourselves toward the back of the plane, and it proved to be an excellent vantage point to observe one’s fellow passengers scramble aboard. In sharp contradistinction to the crew, we seem to have rapidly climbed the comfort curve and equally rapidly slipped down the presentation curve. Some of the folks on that plane! I am not sure they would have been allowed to lounge in their own rooms in the days of Victorian clothing, let alone poke their heads out to observe traffic. Yet, here they were, looking rather pleased with their debonair sense of fashion taking their seats on an airplane headed to Las Vegas. Oh well.

“I should be used to the way Americans dress when traveling, yet it still manages to amaze me. It’s as if the person next to you had been washing shoe polish off a pig, then suddenly threw down his sponge saying, “Fuck this. I’m going to Los Angeles!”

― David Sedaris, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls

When everyone was strapped in, and the flight buzzed with the excitement of school children on a field trip, the flight attendant came up in front of the audience. I settled down to watch a stellar production of how-best-to-fasten-the-seat-belts when I was met with a bizarre announcement instead.

The flight attendant seemed to feel the same way, for she came up this time, braced herself for some of that iron resolve that lions summon up before roaring, and asked for a passenger to volunteer to move to the back of the aircraft. ‘We need the lift to be more evenly balanced’, she mumbled.

None of that confident button-your-seat-belt attitude. Here was no lion, here was a caterpillar that was quite willing to poke its entire self back into the folds of a flower.

The thing smacked of euphemisms. Lift to be balanced indeed.

One appetizer bite sized lady gallantly stood up, and said she’d go. She was one of those svelte beauties that could have dotted these beauty magazines when young, and probably filled up on half a lettuce leaf. Mouse-like about summed up her appearance.

I could see the flight attendant struggle. I mean, how do you break it gently to the appetizer that laudable as the effort was, the entree is what the doctors prescribe for tummy rumbles? Lions educated in modern thought resist the urge to laugh at mice who offer help. Summoning up her L.courage again, and praying none of this would get tweeted and bandied about the internet, she tried again. ‘Thank you very much Ma’am. But, maybe, some one who can help the frontal pressure be eased, so we have sufficient lift for take-off. You can come back after the flight takes off.’

lion_see_saw

We could have helped the poor things by calling out, “She is looking for someone stouter on the scale folks!”, but the same modern education seemed to restrain us all, and we watched as a brave spirit stood up looking sheepish. He towered impressively, looking like a football player who could mow three lions when stirred. The airplane clucked approvingly, and gave the fellow admiring looks. I don’t think his mother could have looked on the fellow more lovingly when he tucked into his sausages. He followed her looking like Mary’s little lamb to the back of the aircraft, while she squeaked, “Thank you thank you sir. You may come back after the flight takes off.”

I suppressed the uneasy image of an airborne see-saw bravely, and pretty soon, we were airborne.

I wonder often about the life of a flight crew. They must have their moments of getting-back as they march smartly down aisles dressed like Napoleon at battle, trying to herd a lazy bunch of bovine swatters lounging around in yoga pants, and flannel night-suits. I like to think they attend black-tie events in pajamas just to get even with the world.

I wasn’t mistaken.

Just as soon as one calmed those take-off butterflies somewhat, the smart officer came on saying something to the effect of, “Good evening all. We are cruising at 33,000 feet and a cool 23 F outside. Please relax and enjoy your flight.”

I saw the impressive gentleman (the one whose mother lovingly … never mind. 3 paragraphs above) make his way back to the front of the air-plane, and I wondered how cold it is to be playing on the see-saw.

see-saw

Sunset In The Queen’s Garden

In what was an impressive track record for last minute booking, the husband booked a trip, that flew us into Las Vegas and from there onto the beautiful sights in Utah. In one week, we had been in 4 states: California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah.

Sitting in the car that bright morning as we drove past Zion national park into Bryce Canyon national park, I felt the familiar stirrings of wonder. Nature often has this effect on me. The magnificence, brilliance and grandeur of nature never fails to instill awe. Always partial to trees, rivers and mountains when it comes to scenery, I could not help thinking how nature had once again jostled me out of my familiar likes and dislikes and opened my mind to appreciate beauty so different and so breath taking.

As Johannes Kepler says in his book, Mysterium Cosmographicum

The diversity of the phenomena of Nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.

We had driven past Zion national park early enough in the morning to go on to Bryce Canyon National Park. We received the first glimpse of hoodoos in Dixie national forest. Set against the bright blue sky, they looked like statues from another world sent here to evoke an art that stuns and astonishes. We were listening to a Harry Potter audio book: a series that nudges even the most reluctant thinker into imagination, so it was no wonder that my mind buzzed with actors from another world setting the stage for the impressive hoodoo theatre.

“What should we do at Bryce?” asked the husband

“Well… the Queen’s Garden trail comes highly recommended, so that and a few other trails ought to do it.” I said vaguely, and continued musing.

Would the Queen’s Garden be as poetic as its name? Would there be any hoodoos? Little was I to know that Bryce Canyon hosted an entire amphitheater of them, and that we would be able to walk amidst them.

One of the things I like best about road trips through the National Parks in the USA are the poetic names every point is given. Take for instance the Queen’s Garden. Instead of saying Rock Point or Hoodoo Lookout, the trail was given a mystifying and satisfying name: Fairy Loop through the Queen’s Garden in the Amphitheater. Who wouldn’t want to do that? Apparently, one of the hoodoos resembled Queen Victoria in the setting sunlight’s shadow.

Could there really be a weird coincidence of having one’s silhouette set in stone that gives us a clue as to which human beings live on in name and fame? Or do we only assume likenesses to those already living on in name and fame? Hoodoo musings are quixotic.

The day at Bryce Canyon was beautiful and as other-worldly as it is possible to get in so short a span of time.

Meandering through the park, we found ourselves washing up near the Queen’s Garden trail towards day’s end. The trail itself looped from Sunrise Point dipped via the Queen’s Garden and came back up near Sunset Point. If the point had not been named Sunset Point, would we have stopped to take in the grandeur of the sunset over the Amphitheater like setting of the valley? I am not sure. I do not think the sunset is any more spectacular here than at any other point in the Canyon, but simply by naming a point Sunset Point, we were encouraged to wait for the hues of the setting sun to unleash its marvelous palette of colors across the skies, thus bathing the amphitheater before us in surreal colors.

The setting sun took its time. It first peeked behind a hoodoo and then cast its fading light slowly upon the horizon.

As we stood there bundled up bracing for the sudden dip in Winter temperature after the sun sets, I could not help thinking of Ray Bradbury’s thought on the Happiness Machine in the book, Dandelion Wine: A Sunset is only beautiful because it doesn’t last forever.

While it lasted though, it was magical.

“Doesn’t it make you feel poetic?”, I said gazing mesmerized at the hoodoos in the amphitheater before us. “This Queen’s Garden hike reminds me of Alice’s trip down the rabbit hole. This is a Wonderland. The gargantuan arches of orange and pink beauty beckon!”, I said theatrically, flourishing my hands wide and raising my face heaven-wards. It is imperative at moments of impetuousness such as this to ignore teenagers inserting the practical note into life.

“It is just erosion.”, said the daughter bringing me back to Earth in a thud, but I saw her smiling happily and taking in the horizon.

Without art, science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science, art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery. The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous. -Raymond Thornton Chandler

http://www.zionnational-park.com/bryce-canyon-trails.htm Quote below:

The Queen’s Garden Trail leads hikers past wonderful rock formations, including Gulliver’s Castle, the Queen’s Castle and many that are unnamed. Man-made bridges are scattered throughout the trail. At the end is Queen Elizabeth’s garden and the Queen herself, standing on a backward facing camel, calling out orders to the ships in the garden. The queen can also be seen from Sunrise Point.

Standing there under the rays of the setting sun, waiting to unleash another cold night, before rising again, the daughter and I imagined the place as it would have been millions of years ago, with underwater life teeming in its depths, crafting the very hoodoos for us to delight in today.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” — Lao Tzu

If only, we let Nature go on its course without hurrying to leave our indelible imprint on the canvas, I am sure something even more remarkable can be handed down to generations after us.

Can Mammoths Stop Thawing Arctic Permafrost?

“Let’s not watch this – it is depressing, and some of that stuff makes my blood curl.”, I said as the daughter suggested some gothic fiction. It was the week-end before Halloween, and we were picking our Friday evening entertainment. Never an easy task.

“Fine! What do you want to watch?”

“Cosmos” I said without flipping a heart beat. (Watch the you-tube video introducing Cosmos here)

To her eye-roll, I said “No really! You see, there are so many things in there that I wanted to understand as a student. I plodded along to the library and I got to admit, the Physics books in there. “ I gave a shudder here, and I fully meant it. “I suggest you curl up with one of those tomes in our library looking jaundiced, pale, and excellent cures to Insomnia. I thought some of them needed vitamins, sunshine and exercise to regain what Doctors call a healthy glow. “

geek_world

So, we sat together and watched a Cosmos episode by Neil deGrasse Tyson on global warming. In his slow, sure voice, he rumbled like the volcanoes on Venus that set the poor planet into an irreversible green house cycle.

The World Set Free (Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey)

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/cosmos-a-spacetime-odyssey/episodes/the-world-set-free/

We have twenty years at the current rate to stop us from going into an irreversible state like Venus.

The daughter gave me a significant look .I gave her a more sig. look, and we sat there looking like stuffed frogs with s. looks etched on our faces digesting the info. “How could you think this was okay to watch, but that movie was too scary. This is the scariest thing I have ever seen. How do you think it will all end?” said the daughter sounding worried, and deeply stirred.

A few days later, I read out a passage from the book I was reading. Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History’s Most Iconic Extinct Creatures. (Related post: Mankind trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth by impregnating Asian elephants with mammoth genes.)

Screen Shot 2017-10-27 at 4.37.00 PM

Pleistocene park – Using 160 square kilometers of Siberian Tundra given to him by the Russian government, Zimov’s goal was repopulating the area with modern equivalents of prehistoric animals that had adapted to Arctic conditions (moose, Yakutian horses, Finnish reindeer and even North American bison.) … To re-create the effects of the Woolly Mammoths on the land, he’d bought in a World War II tank …. Punching holes in the snow, … , using the tank treads to mimic the continual stomps of Mammoth feet, he’d worked the land, year after year. And along the way, he’d accumulated data that were staggering in their implications.

Within his 16- square kilometers refuge, he had lowered the permafrost temperature by an average of fifteen degrees.

We change the world just be being. I remember watching a video by National Geographic in which they chronicle how 41 wolves introduced in the Yellowstone park, changed the ecology and even the physical structure of the park.

Introducing Wolves in YellowStone National Park – National Geographic Video

If that was the case with 41 wolves, what would introducing Mammoths do? Would it save us from the brink of extinction or introduce problems of the kind we hardly envisioned?

We never know the ramifications of our creations. I mean we are a species who has unintended consequences from a ‘Like’ button on Social Media.

The Physics Of Myth

“Which is your favorite tree?” asked the children one day.

I am often asked questions like this, especially by the elementary school going son. Your favorite color, your favorite food, your favorite flower and on and on till I shriek in agony, at which point he flips to – when was the first time you ate with a spoon, when was the first time you touched a frog, when did you first climb a tree?

I thought about the favorite tree one though: which one was my favorite tree? Is it the oak tree that I plonked my satchel under every day in school, or the flowering jacaranda trees under which we had steaming hot cups of tea with friends, or the tall eucalyptus tree that edged our street towering majestically against the skies signaling home was nearby, or the fir & pine trees that contributed to many an amateur flower arrangement lending beauty and joy to the surroundings, or the willow that made one want to relax just by its shape and allure, or the gingko tree that makes me smile on a evening walk, or the oleander trees that sag with flowers in the summer, or the fruit trees in my backyard that are so hospitable to squirrels ,or the redwood trees that urge me to be like them: strong, resilient and upright, or the curious, curvy bristlecone trees that remind me they are older than our oldest myths, or the pine tree with an elephant head that reminds me of the time the son as a toddler tried to fit his understanding of Physics into Myth?

It was a tough question and I told them so. The son scenting a ‘wild’ story from his childhood asked for the story, and I mock-sighed before telling him:

“One day a couple of years ago, when you were very much a toddler, and had just started attending a preschool, you picked up a book from the library about Lord Ganesha. You were thrilled with the find because Indian mythology is hardly found in the libraries in America, right? Lord Ganesha Curses The Moon – was the title. Appa and you settled down to read together at night.

Anyway, so, remember the story? It went something like this:

The moon used to beam as a full moon every night. One day, the moon laughed at Lord Ganesha when he tripped and fell in the forest. Ganesha promptly got angry at the moon, and cursed it into oblivion.The whole world plunged into darkness (this was before electric lights remember?). At this, the book painted some gory pictures of the problems faced by the population because it was completely dark. People fell, people bumped into each other, people were robbed. Soon, everyone begged Ganesha to take back his curse. But he couldn’t. His word being law and all that.

So.

An impasse was reached, and soon the king of Gods, Indra, came to him and asked him to do something about it. Ganesha thought and thought, and finally reached a compromise. He said the moon could grow from no moon to the full moon, and then shrink back again to no moon. That ought to teach him not to laugh at people. The moon agreed, and that is how it remains to this day.

ganesha_moon

After the story, Appa asked you, “What do you think of the story? Do you really think that is what happened?”

You had that serious look on your face as you thought about it, and you said, “Yes, of course. That’s when the moon must have started going around the Earth, and the Earth started spinning, so the moon could grow bigger and smaller.”

“Appa told me what you said later, and ever since I think of that story and remember how you fit your understanding of Physics into that mythological story when I see that fir tree with an elephant head.”

“Did I really do that?” asked the son laughing heartily, and I smiled.

It was true of course. His response had us flabbergasted, for we hardly ever consciously think about how we continually shape our worldly views and understanding. We subtly and subconsciously incorporate the stories we hear, choosing to consider which ones to digest and which ones to leave.

“So, as you see, I cannot only name one favorite tree. I love them all. Just like…”

“We know…. we know! Just like you love us both!”, said the children, and I smiled my favorite smile.

Teapot Spirituality

“Sheesh kababs! What is with Amma – is she tired and cleaning again?” said the daughter, when I acted like a teapot sliding off my tea spout.

I whistled my protest with as much dignity as a teapot sliding off the tea-sp. could when caught in the act. “There is nothing wrong with me. Merely that a lot of work needs to be done, and I cannot come and play a game of Life now. I have Life to deal with now.” The queenly dignity sounded overdone like these actresses who act for 10 dollars when paid 3. I waved my hands impressively at the surrounding environs.

It was true, at least in my mind. Pots and pans needed washing, the floors needed scrubbing, the ….

“You said you are tired at the end of the week, and it has been a tough week. You just said we escaped a fire, and we should just be thankful for Life huh? Get it. Get it? Come on now.”

teapot

I could not argue, and after a flimsy protest, waved down by the children who helped me get the kitchen to a state of relative cleanliness, we sat around playing the game of Life. There was a serendipitous beauty to it. The evening had made me nervous and jumpy, more conscious of the gift of Life, and as usual the children had led me to the calm instead of the frenzy, with their customary élan.

Northern California had been reeling from the effect of wild fires. After an unnaturally hot summer, calamity struck too close to home for comfort. This time, it was people we had lunches with, people we holler out to when we catch a glimpse of them in crowded places. People who will slowly extend that quizzical look into a slow, wide smile as they recognize you, these were the folks asked to evacuate.

Luckily the fires had been contained, and I felt like we could look forward to a quieting down. I had spoken too soon. That evening, flames leaped higher than trees behind our home, and smoke billowed from nearby. The bags were packed in the car: documents, some cash, a change of clothes, laptops, water bottles, snack bars, and a few pictures. When it comes to it, that is all there is, isn’t there? Nothing else matters.

That night, everything felt keener. The comfort of putting away the dishes, the joy of playing a board game, the delight of being ordinary, the familiarity of the mundane, the contentment of a bedtime story, the gratitude for the simple act of breathing.

“I just got twins Amma.” said the son after rolling his dice.

“There goes your quiet retirement!” said the daughter, and the children went into peels of laughter, and I joined in noticing how much better it felt to laugh with abandon. I felt the 17 facial muscles work as the laughter gripped me. I observed the act of laughing together as if I was perched atop the roof, looking at us having a good time. Is this what consciousness is?

I finished the piece on resurrecting the Woolly Mammoth using genetic samples obtained from the pristine Arctic Tundra, and impregnating an Asian elephant with the questions on consciousness, and whether or not there is a Soul. I love it when a work of fiction explores the questions posed by futuristic Science, and I finished the post by tying it up with Never Let Me Go, By Kazuo Ishiguro.

Everyone knows, teapots are far from spiritual, and my understanding could make a teapot sing. If you were to explain the concept of consciousness, conscience and soul, how would you do it?

The Concept of Conscious Conscience

“Appa got me the Cheetos”, said the daughter sounding gleeful over dinner.

Cheetos, I had explained to her that morning, was full of food coloring, and therefore not a good idea.

“You went and asked him for that after everything I explained to you this morning? Carcinogens. You know what? I think you should look up Mammoth DNA sequences and compare and contrast it with the genome of an Asian elephant.”

“That is the world’s worst punishment ever!” she said pulling an impressive teenage affront with ease. “I don’t think anyone has been given that.”

“Well..there are several reasons you are being given that, “, I said. “One: I am reading the book that is all about resurrecting the woolly mammoth by impregnating an Asian elephant with mammoth genes. Two: Did you know that the elephant, that large an animal as it is, does not suffer from cancer? Maybe there is something in it’s genetic makeup that prevents malfunctions during cell reproduction.” I said giving her my Idiot’s Guide to Genetics lecture.

It’s true. I had just finished reading the book called “Woolly – Bringing a woolly mammoth back to life” by Ben Mersich. For someone who does not know the first thing about genetics and genome sequencing and such, this is a good book to read. It is written like a fast paced novel, moving between the lives of reclusive scientists, Sergey and Nikita Zimov in the Russian Tundra and Jy Minh’s work in Hwang Woo-Suk’s Sooam Laboratories in South Korea to George Church’s lab work in Harvard. All these efforts are working towards resurrecting the woolly mammoth using DNA samples obtained from mammoths preserved in pristine conditions in the Arctic Tundra.

Screen Shot 2017-10-27 at 4.37.00 PM

If that feels like Jurassic Park, it is, though the book explains why it is not exactly like Jurassic park, but sort of. It is Pleistocene Park – a concept that beat Jurassic Park by 2 years in conception.

If you are looking for a scientific explanation of techniques, and theory, this isn’t the book. The book is to be made into a movie, and is written as such: I can imagine the scenes leaping off the pages. Following the Russian scientists on a quest to resurrect life in the Arctic life makes a thrilling tale. Combining that with the race by Korean scientists to engineer and reverse engineer life, and scenes from a research laboratory down in Harvard makes for brilliant movie scenes. Only as the book assures you, it is not fictional. It is true. You will pause and think of ramifications, of the evil that can be wrought when powers like this fall into wrong hands, of political leaders with no qualifications dictating the genome factory.

Life from life, Minh thought, as he moved past the implantation table. Still, he couldn’t shake the chills he felt as he thought of those 3 dogs, lying supine, tongues hanging to the side around the breathing tubes, as the surgeons did their work. He chided himself for his own backward thinking: of course, futuristic science always seemed unnatural – until it became routine.

The discussion that evening over supper bleated over to the world’s most famous sheep, Dolly, who had been cloned in 1995. Sheep, Mammoths and Dogs make good cloning subjects for they do not yet touch the uncomfortable topic of human cloning.

http://www.businessinsider.com/sooam-biotechs-is-bringing-back-the-mammoth-2015-9

Human cloning, however, is a topic you can rely on authors to explore.

The thought provoking work by Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go is worth a read in this context. The book talks of a future in which clones are generated from a master copy, and are raised separate from mainstream society, just so that they can function as ‘givers’ and ‘carers’ – a euphemism for organ donations. It is a heart rending read, as it centers around three young people, who have the same feelings of love, jealousy and friendship that ‘mainstream’ people do. Their art work is collected by a lady, who is trying to petition the state against this barbaric practice as Art shows the soul, and clearly the ‘spares’ have souls.

Human beings are tinkerers – we always have been. What have we in store this time?

Is there a concept of the Soul that is separate from the engineered parts of cells, muscle, tissue and genes?
Is Consciousness something that can be engineered?
What role does our conscience play while tinkering consciously?

Related read: Of Dinosaurs, Genes & Aliens

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