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"The things we want are really the times we share."
"The most important things we bring with us are within us." "If I had only one thing I would take a smile over an iPod." ~ Rob Hueniken |
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From the monthly archives:
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While it is still summer and the leaves are green, I thought I would present a poem I wrote about The Leaf. It is a testament to the life span of leaves, and their group contribution to the success of the tree. In many ways we are each a leaf of the tree of life and community. |
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The Leaf Brown and wrinkled on the ground By Rob Hueniken Technorati verification code: 7irbm6pu38 xip85ykjvh |
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One of my favorite natural events is a windy day. Feeling the strong but invisible push against my face is a joy that I have felt since childhood. Barring flying grit, rain or the need to ride a bicycle, a windy day is a great way to have fun. I don’t need a kite or a reason — I just enjoy feeling the wind.
On rare days when the wind is very strong, I find that I can jump up into the wind and feel it hold me up — just for a moment — as I body surf on the air.
In the city one needs to get to an open street or park to really feel the wind. I don’t count the high-velocity air sluices that pummel workers between high-rises — that is not really wind — it’s a man-made pushing match between nature and people.
When we lived in San Diego there were steady, strong winds by the ocean shore. Walking there, I saw people controlling kites using two strings. I loved the idea of working with the wind and being able to control a kite, and took a good look at those aerobatic kites. I didn’t imagine trying to buy one — instead I lovingly created it out nylon and wooden dowling. When I was done with the thread, duct tape and glue gun it looked just like the kites I had seen others flying!
But when I tried flying the kite it fluttered to the ground immediately. Confused, I asked some other kite flyers for a closer look at their kites. Sure enough, I had not swept the wing tips backward, to make the underside of the kite look like the bottom of a boat. That is why the old-fashioned kiddy kites never worked: they were flat. A kite needs to be V-shaped to let the wind sweep past it on both sides.
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| Here’s a picture from today (Aug 30, 2009) with me holding the kite I made in San Diego. |
Whether you are flying kites or just enjoying the breeze on your cheeks, I encourage you to be a fan of wind, and to reconnect with the simple joy of one of life’s earliest invisible mysteries.
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While having lunch outdoors yesterday my friend and I were visited by two wasps. The wasps in our area rarely sting you if you let them be, but “letting them be” usually involves them hovering around or crawling on both your food and yourself.
We kept hoping the wasps would go away but they persisted. It was too nice a day to eat inside and swatting the wasps with our forks was not going to be effective.
While we coexisted with the wasps we noticed that they liked my friend’s Caesar salad more than my Greek salad, so my friend got to spend more time with the wasps.
But at one point a wasp flew slowly over my plate, very low – about an inch above the plate – and I saw the pepper and dry spices on my plate move around. The wind from the wasp wings was actually strong enough to create a tiny dust storm!
I had never thought before about how strongly wasps need to beat their wings in order to fly. But I realized at that meal that it is equivalent to a person blowing very gently – just enough to shift some pepper from an inch away.
It is a subtle reminder that everything we do can have a secondary effect, both on our world and on others around us. People are much bigger and noisier than wasps, and how we drive, walk, and behave have effects beyond just moving us around or getting our things done.
What we do affects our world, far more than the wind beneath wasp wings.
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Thoughtful reflections on life, by my friend, RonBaker-c1:29
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San Francisco foodie and scientist, Darya Pino, Summer Tomato
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Global neighbor, Jan Geronimo, Writing to Exhale
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