How often do we perceive the land and the sky as a kind of temporal nest? How often do we think of light as already ancient? The past seems mostly personal, familial, tribal. The present can seem to contain only the in-box of our electronic mail, the ceaseless beeping of machines, images of thin children standing on dust. The future? As uncertain as ever.
Geologists can identify whole eons in a stony glance. Biologists speak of vestigial organs. Astronomers amble through billions of years every night. Their knowledge surprises and soothes me, but this is not conventional faith, which insists that certain things can never be wrong. It's a fidelity to facts, provisional though they are, given our human limitations, and it is also an openness to wonder. I find the grandeur and meaning in science that my father mostly finds in religion, although, like many people, he sees each as founts and not necessarily contradictory ones. In any case, neither one of us seems especially fond of death. We take comfort where we can.
Beneath the maple tree, I perused an old science book for children, Heinz Haber's Our Friend the Atom, and I learned that in each breath of air there swarm 25 X 1021 atoms. That is: 25,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms. I learned that the atoms that Leonardo da Vinci breathed are still in the atmosphere today -- of course -- and, considering "storms, updrafts, hurricanes, trade winds" and the master's re-uptake of atoms in "closed rooms," the book claims that "with every breath ... you inhale 100 million atoms that were once breathed by ... da Vinci!"
Rocks and stars remind us of and touch us with time, and breath is a kind of immortality.
CONNECT
Thank You, Jess.
Geologists can identify whole eons in a stony glance. Biologists speak of vestigial organs. Astronomers amble through billions of years every night. Their knowledge surprises and soothes me, but this is not conventional faith, which insists that certain things can never be wrong. It's a fidelity to facts, provisional though they are, given our human limitations, and it is also an openness to wonder. I find the grandeur and meaning in science that my father mostly finds in religion, although, like many people, he sees each as founts and not necessarily contradictory ones. In any case, neither one of us seems especially fond of death. We take comfort where we can.
Beneath the maple tree, I perused an old science book for children, Heinz Haber's Our Friend the Atom, and I learned that in each breath of air there swarm 25 X 1021 atoms. That is: 25,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms. I learned that the atoms that Leonardo da Vinci breathed are still in the atmosphere today -- of course -- and, considering "storms, updrafts, hurricanes, trade winds" and the master's re-uptake of atoms in "closed rooms," the book claims that "with every breath ... you inhale 100 million atoms that were once breathed by ... da Vinci!"
Rocks and stars remind us of and touch us with time, and breath is a kind of immortality.
CONNECT
Thank You, Jess.
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