Wonders of Nature

Lunar Eclipse  by Glen Tepke Some of our most most profound moments arise when we are mindful of the ordinary, everyday happenings in the natural flow of our lives. A wondrous thing can occur when we look with fresh eyes...  we experience reality anew.  An honest and open look may throw us into confusion at first, but then there's always the potential for that "ah" moment when our understanding of nature deepens, and our conceptual world broadens... a moment of profound satisfaction. That's what happened to me last night as I walked my small pet beagle, and  I looked up at the moon. I tilted my head, and the shape of the craters and lunar seas took on the form of a rabbit, but that was not the surprise.  I've traveled the southern hemisphere where the rabbit on the moon resides.  I saw myself standing on the surface of the earth, nestled within the thin sliver of blue atmosphere that shelters all life as we know it.  The moon stood ...

Pomarine Jaeger by Patrick Coin B irds often get caught by the fierce winds of hurricanes, finding shelter in the eye and riding a tropical cyclone, sometimes for thousands of miles.  Some storms make landfall and travel far inland, and wayward sea birds settle on foreign coasts or in lakes and ponds. A fter the Superstorm Sandy, pomarine jaegers were found in many places as unlikely as Pennsylvania. Rescued pelicans  in Rhode Island were flown back to a place more like their natural home, Florida. B irds of all stripes follow the wind during their yearly migrations.  Sometimes the process is interrupted by violent events like Sandy, and they may end up far from their preferred habitats.  There were many such  sightings  after that massive northeastern hybrid storm: a Ross gull from the arctic turned up in Upstate New York, for instance, and in New Jersey a red-billed tropicbird was spotted. S andy is an example of how life itsel...

White-headed Capuchin , a photo by  JoeOcchipinti  on Flickr. A s New World monkeys of Central America, white-headed capuchins are perhaps one of the most recognizable of all primates, best known as partners of the street-performing organ grinders of early 20th century New York City. White-faced Capuchins are known to be very clever and can easily evade capture. In fact, they are so intelligent that they are sometimes used as animal helpers for  people who are paraplegic. In our travel to Costa Rica we were fortunate enough to observe two different troupes of Capuchin, one in a mangrove forest and another near our beach hotel.  In the mangroves, they were wary of us and posturing for us to leave (above), while by the beach resort they couldn't have cared less, and happily socialized with each other (left).  I will long remember the day when standing in the growing shadows of tall palms, we watched these wondr...

W hen facing illness we give consideration to our health and to our bodies, but before then we take our health for granted.  Sandy has engendered a moment of clarity for all of us.  Our relationship with the natural world is as intrinsic and as fundamental.  As with our own health, we often don’t give it much thought until crisis comes. Earth is our home.  We have no other.  Sandy's aftermath Sandy is only the latest example of a rapidly changing climate.  We can now see and measure the effects; changes like the radical disappearance of the polar ice cap, the increased frequency of droughts and forest fires, and the rise in sea level.  These things are no longer a matter of speculation. Let us see clearly… Taking care of our planet is the defining issue of our times. As a civilization, we are beginning to understand many of nature’s wondrous mechanisms, including those that have shaped the evolution of our atmosphere and climate...