Wonders of Nature

C olor  will catch most everyone's eye from time to time.  It can't be helped as our eyes are designed to perceive the spectral wonders of the natural world.  It is one of those phenomenon that is so common most of us hardly give it any thought -- -- unless, of course, you are an artist, gardener or chromatographer. The sun emits an amazing  range of energy in the form of particles or waves (wave/particle duality will have to wait for an upcoming blog).  The colors we see in nature are a tiny part of that energy called visible light; science refers to the whole affair as the em (electromagnetic) spectrum. One em wave can span galaxies or be so short that a million times a million waves could fit in a spoon. To us humans, color is a ridiculously tiny part of that range with wavelengths from 390 (violet) to 700 millionth of a meter (red).   That range just so happens to be the frequencies of light most emitted from our sun.  (Can you guess...

Joe went for a walk... a guide to mind/body awareness through landscapes of consciousness W alking  along the beach conjures in me an intangible and immeasurable sense of peace and contentment.  I feel the wind, take in the rich smells of the ocean, and hear the sound of the surf.... read on The art of being mindful  

Water falls by way of gravity, making its way back to the ocean and leaving behind scenes of beauty like this clear mountain river in Jackson, NH. I walked another trail to Diana's Baths, a splendid series of waterfalls and elegantly carved stone. As I sat by the rush of water over hard fissures and rounded swirls of rock, I felt a sense of timelessness. What does it take, I thought, to break such hardness into progressively smaller stones, to carry all of that material downward and cover valleys with nourishing soil?  In turn, even the valleys disappear as all of the land is taken. What does it take to remove a mountain from the earth and cover the bottom of the ocean with its remains? Such a thing transcends me. The water flows and carves, giving no heed to the scale of human notions.  The White Mountains, like the rest of the Appalachians, are hundreds of millions of years old.  Once as tall as the Rockies, perhaps taller, they have been eroded down ...

We humans have been collecting sea shells for a very long time.  They have been used for tools, art, adornment, musical instruments, currency, religious and spiritual practices, and mixed with dry fish they make tasty chicken feed. Sea shells, protective outer layers made by a host of sea creatures, are composed of calcium carbonate, found in our homes as wall board and antacid tablets. The White Cliffs of Dover Aside from feeding chickens and relieving gas pains, calcium carbonate is utilized by a great number of living creatures. The White Cliffs of Dover, for example, are not only lovely, they made a great barrier against European hordes.  The Brits are quite fond of them, but the Coccolithophores that made them hardly get any credit. The cliffs are the remains of planktonic algae, creatures of microscopic size that excrete and live within a hard matrix of calcium. There is a great abundance of shells, from microscopic to hundreds of pounds, lin...

courtesy of Joe Brown Digital Photography Blending the elements of water and air into texture and form, clouds can seem as much a process of the imagination as they are one of nature.  When looking at the shifting shapes of cumulus clouds, I often wonder, am I seeing a reflection of my hopes or my fears?  Is this a heart I see heralding good things to come, or is it a horned face of a devil warning of future woes?  But such musings are as ephemeral as the clouds themselves, and my mind soon turns another kind of wonder, the workings of our atmosphere. NASA Image In meteorology, clouds are classified by form  -- wispy cirrus, blanketing stratus and billowy cumulus, and by height -- low, middle and high. Some clouds simply adorn the sky, while others portend precipitation.  The word nimbus is added to the rain-makers; cumulonimbus clouds, more commonly known as thunderheads, can rise to great heights and bring the most extreme weather.   In c...

by Glen Tepke E arly spring is a sensual experience of the grandest scale. As the days grow longer, there is a feeling of change in the air. In northern climes, the sun begins to warm your skin despite the winter chill that remains.  Most everywhere, the beginning of spring is marked by the natural alterations of the ecology -- the budding of trees, the early flowers breaking through the ground, the sound of birds singing, even the changing smells of the land. Spring is simply one of the great wonders of nature, and it is made possible by the incredible interplay between the earth and sun. Yachaks  in Ecuador S pring is indeed an experience of the senses, intimately linked to our sense of self as well our communal spirit.  From Easter celebrations to druidic rituals, all cultures, in one way or another, have imbued the dynamic arc of the sun across the sky with purpose and meaning. NASA Image  Earth and Sun I t is a time when days turn lon...

Witness the spectacular display of a solar eruption. Allow yourself to imagine the scale of it. Experience the power of nature and know yourself in it. A revelation.   NASA | Fiery Looping Rain on the Sun SOHO Image of a Solar Prominence Read my blog on A Coming Storm of Light

Image from Physics World Have you ever watched a large flock of  birds create beautiful patterns in the sky and wondered how it all works? Curiously, there seems to be no time lag between the movements of each individual. How does each bird know when to turn and where to go? People have wondered about this perplexing behavior for centuries.  Perhaps, as the ancient Romans thought, it is an expression of the will of the Gods.  Early scientists could not fathom the reason for such coordination, and some even suggested some kind of natural telepathy could explain this phenomenon.  Recent studies using high-speed cameras and computational models suggest that it is all due to the simple behaviors of individuals.  Yet, even these studies have raised questions that are difficult to answer.  See Explaining Bird Flocks in Audibon Magazine. I believe we need to look to the inherent wholeness in nature to understand why birds flock the way they do.  An ...