The day before

It's raining hard today and the trees outside my windows are almost free of leaves. We are in the heart of autumn, and it's the day before Thanksgiving. Tomorrow I'll spend the day in Longview, Washington with old friends. I was invited to go with Jennifer and family and about 35 others to the coast, but I declined. As Jennifer told her friends who asked why I was not going, "Spending the day with a noisy crowd of 40 people is Mom's idea of hell."

So, it's the day before the holiday and I've no cooking or planning or cleaning to do. How nice. I sit down in front the fire with my knitting and listen to a highly literate podcast. It was comforting, even uplifting to hear two adults discuss a broad range of topics in complete sentences without making fools of themselves.

When that was over I put down the knitting and picked up a book my neighbor had lent me: Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen. Thumbing through I came on a chapter about Thanksgiving and sat down to read. I confess I am not excited about reading this book, I expect it to disabuse me of several favorite convictions and be seriously depressing. The Thanksgiving chapter did not disappoint, nor did it surprise me. You and I know the myth is just that—a myth. Tomorrow we will tacitly ignore all those who came to these shores before 1620—the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Dutch—and distort the relationships those early settlers had with the local Indians.

But I'm not going to dwell on that. I'd rather enjoy the myth, at least through tomorrow. I put down Lies and picked up The Hidden Reality by Brian Green, who was discussing, when I left him, the cosmological constant. This is one of many elements in our universe that is little understood but has bearing on whether or not we, Earth, our solar system, could even exist. I suffered through several pages of math and put the book down.

Opening the door for the cat I saw that despite the shorter days and colder temperatures the geraniums on the porch are still blooming. I will have to bring them in soon, before they die in a freeze. This thought reminded me of a podcast from yesterday, about a distinguished biologist with dozens of peer-reviewed publications to her credit, who works with plants and has proven through experiment that plants both learn and remember and recognize sounds. How can this be?

I am thankful for all these ideas that are so easily available; thankful for science and the mystery, for the measurable and the imaginary. How lucky we are to be here now, on this beautiful planet in this unfathomable universe. I am grateful to all who return to read my often erratic reflections, and I send you thanksgiving blessings.

A short debate on science, materialism, and fairies

It hasn’t snowed for days here in Sisters country, and the asphalt paths are finally clear of ice. It was a relief this morning to walk on solid ground instead of skipping from dry spot to dry spot over ice and snow. There are, however, mounds of dirty snow everywhere, melting in odd, disproportionate ways. I suddenly realized I was seeing poorly carved snow sculptures in the melting piles. It was like finding familiar figures in cloud formations, and within a quarter-mile stretch I spotted a goose, two horses fighting, a lopsided crown, and a carefully balanced butterfly. None were perfect. As with clouds, they required imagination. 

Science would no doubt affirm that sun and wind had carved the fantastical shapes, but this morning I preferred a different solution. The sculptures had, I was sure, been carved by fairies wielding swords that were too heavy for them. I could see them in my minds eye. They were trying, poor dears, to embellish the dirt-covered snow with objects of beauty, but clearly they needed better tools.

I'm not discounting science here. I’m more apt to see evolution in nature than fantasy, but I always leave room for the latter. I resist the dominance of materialism* whenever I can, and if Eileen Cady, of Findhorn fame, chooses to tell me that Pan gave her the advice she needed to grow huge cauliflowers in N. Scotland sand, then I will choose to believe her. Because why not? 

I do love science though, and often find myself struggling through tomes I barely understand, in order to better understand my world. But science, especially physics, is lately as magical as a medieval necromancer. Physicists tell us that string theory works if there are 11 dimensions instead of four; but don't ask to see those dimensions because they’re much too tiny, and curled within themselves. Besides, the theory is currently unprovable. So on days like this I say, okay then, fairies and gnomes and ghosts and tree sprites and Sasquatch do exist. They just retreat to one or more of those eleven invisible dimensions when threatened.

Can you prove me wrong? 

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*My dictionary states that "materialism is the doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications"; a grim kind of philosophy in my book. Read that sentence again, replacing the word matter with money, and you have a picture of 21st century America.