Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

Photo by veintecerodos.

I still love this bit from Stephen Hawking’s 1988 book A Brief History of Time:

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”

There are many versions of this story, but this is by far the most popularized. My personal favorite goes like this:

An English philosopher was visiting India, and was introduced to a holy man. The philosopher asked the Holy Man the nature of the world, and the old man replied, “Oh the world is a great big ball that sits on the great flat back of the Great World Turtle.” The Englishman of course asked “What does the turtle stand on?” The seer replied “Why on the back of an even larger turtle of course!” Then the Englishman asked “and what does THIS turtle stand on?” The old man shook his head and sweetly smiled and said “it is no use my son, it is turtles all the way down!”

Why is it a turtle that the Earth is sitting upon? Why not a crocodile, or a cockroach, or a mammal even? Because turtles are one of the most ancient species that lives–it is, in fact, the most ancient of all vertebrate animals. It’s not as ugly or filthy as a cockroach, and because the turtle is considered patient, wise, and there’s very little threat of it tipping its head back and eating the planet. The turtle is safe, and with its shell has a solid foundation for the Earth to sit upon.

The turtle is considered in folklore to be a keeper of doorways. Some turtles’ shells have thirteen individual sections, or markings, which led Native Americans to associate the turtle with the lunar cycle and the power of female energies. Being opportunistic omnivores, and being a symbol of Mother Earth, Native American mythos considered the turtle to be powerful medicine, and a reminder that the Earth will provide. Its long life and slow metabolism reminds us to slow down and take our time, and shows us that sometimes it’s okay to live inside a shell.

The turtle appears in modern legends as well. Stephen King uses the turtle in many of his stories. In It, the main character meets a giant turtle professes to have had an upset stomach and sicked up the Universe. The turtle pleads not to be blamed for having inadvertently having created All That Is.

In King’s Dark Tower series, a turtle named Maturin is one of the “Guardians of the Beam.”

See the turtle of enormous girth!
On his shell he holds the earth.
His thought is slow but always kind;
He holds us all within his mind.
On his back all vows are made;
He sees the truth but mayn’t aid.
He loves the land and loves the sea,
And even loves a child like me.

The name Maturin is obviously borrowed from Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series, just as the name of the great bear guardian was borrowed from Richard Adams’ Shardik, both immensely cool references.

I found a painting of a sea turtle one time over at DeviantArt, a page which has since sadly disappeared, but fortunately I had saved the art piece, along with its inscription:

Due a very stressful period of my life I was constantly having bad dreams and nightmares. During one, I felt myself sink into deep, blue water. I saw the sun filtering down through the water and waves, and slowly a large gnarled, ugly Turtle passed over me. This huge behemoth of a creature, scar covered, and armoured created a feeling of peace within me. The next day, I painted this.

I do sometimes ponder the Earth and mysticism, and I wonder at the practice of using animal totems or having a spirit animal guide. I have no idea what mine would be, nor how I would find out what it is. I’ve always had a fascination with wolves and hawks, turtles and beavers. I hope that doesn’t mean I’m pretentious and slow and large-toothed. I like the idea of spirit animals, sure, but barring some monumental mythic quest, how would you find out what yours are? I have dreamed about whales. I see hawks virtually every day, but I usually accredit that to the fact that there are so many of them living around here. Suppose my spirit animal was a giraffe. Does that mean I’d have to travel to another continent to commune with it? I have no idea, and most of the web resources I find don’t give much good information, just carbon-copy duplicates of other sites that all share the same mentality and fraudulent air of Sybill Trelawney.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

I took my 3-year old son Lucas to the river Saturday (the Coosa River, specifically around Lay Lake in south Shelby County, AL) and we took to the water on my mom’s Yamaha waverunner. At one point out on the lake an island came into view, and I had to slow down and make a slow pass by the island, because it looked very odd. It was only about a hundred feet across and was covered with tall pine trees, some of which didn’t look very alive. But all the trees on the island were topped with something very white, and as I came closer I realized that the island was a nesting spot for egrets. Of course I didn’t have my camera with me, either, so I can’t show you how amazing it was. There were probably ten to twenty nesting pairs crowding the tops of the trees, in a mass of nests (which is why some of the trees looked dead). They were huge birds, with wingspans that must have reached six feet.

It occurred to me later that, before Lay Dam was built, this spot would have been a hill, not an island, possibly overlooking the river, which would have been narrow and fast in those days, and of course it would have been densely wooded. I wonder what it would be like to step foot on that island. Sure, there’d be a mass of guano probably, but what else? Might there be any mammals living on so small a piece of land? I dread to think it might also be a nesting spot for cottonmouths, which is entirely possible. But what else? Might it have once been a burial ground for the indigenous Creek Indians who lived around this area? I’ve found several spots around that area (which is where I grew up) where arrowheads could be found by the handful. Has anyone else ever decided to try to walk out on that island? I have no idea, I just know it was wonderful, and beautiful, and I want to go back again (and take my camera this time!).

Photo by mikebaird.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

This frog needs to be renamed:

It’s surprising enough to find a frog with claws,” says Blackburn, a doctoral student in Harvard’s Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. “The fact that those claws work by cutting through the skin of the frogs’ feet is even more astonishing. These are the only vertebrate claws known to pierce their way to functionality

Here’s a picture of the claws coming out, but it’s kinda gross so I didn’t gank it.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

I’m a very good sleeper. My wife has observed that I can lie down in bed, squirm a bit while I wriggle into the Optimum Comfort Position, and then I can say, “Watch this,” and fall directly to sleep. And she’s right, for the most part. When I get tired I can go to sleep. It’s a blessing I count, because I’ve known people who can’t sleep or who sleep fitfully, and I value the experience every day. But as a mechanism, a lot of things have to line up for it to work just right. I’ve spent a lot of time developing the process’s fundamentals. All the basics apply: I have to have the right temperature, the right pillow (or combination thereof, because I use two pillows. One my wife jokingly calls “Nurse Nancy,” because I hug up close and tight to it. But it’s really just a way to keep my shoulders from slouching, because I sleep on my side), and I need of course a good blanket over me. After that, things get really serious, but if I succeed at two key functions, then sleep is just a moment or two away.

The first requirement is some level of white noise. A small fan works well enough in this department. The reason I need the noise is pretty simple: I have an active imagination, and when I hear a noise I try to identify it. I try to figure out why that pipe might have rattled, I imagine the water flowing through it, down and down, the clogs along the way: is there a faucet running somewhere? Is it the dishwasher? And the level of noise at nighttime never ceases to amaze me. Minutiae of every sort, encroaching upon my imagination’s wildest forthcomings. What kind of bird was that? What is that growling noise in the closet? Did I just hear that noise the night-vision goggles made in Silence of the Lambs? And it gets worse, of course. But a certain level of white noise efficiently eradicates those mental wanderings, to the point where I am able to concentrate on only those things that increase my chances of drifting off to sleep.

The concentration is paramount in the process. I can’t think about things that are happening, and things that have happened in the past are a death knell for the sandman’s visit. Oddly enough, what I find most settling for my mind is something that I find very exciting, too, and it’s a result of that same imagination that would otherwise keep me from sleep if I didn’t have the white-noise generator. I think about my projects. The stories I’m writing, the ideas I’m nurturing, any and everything that keeps my mind active during the day somehow allows me to unplug when I turn out the light. Maybe it’s just a result of positive thinking, because with my projects I am always positive. Anything negative–bad memories or past failures–spells doom for sleep. I’ve turned over many an idea in my head in those final moments of consciousness and come up with a gripping new twist or a sensational, settling ending. Some of my best thinking happens in those few moments right before I fall asleep, and when I awaken, I find that I can expound and even improve the idea.

Saturday night I decided to sleep outside. I made a pallet on the back porch and let my dog know she was on guard duty, and then I settled in for a night of reconnecting with Mother Earth. She did not disappoint. There’s something satisfying in sleeping under the stars, waking up with a trace of dew across your forehead and pillow, and it’s always a bit startling to experience the world waking up, something I can’t do in my cocoon of comfort and white noise in the bedroom. Sunday morning I awakened with the rest of the world around me, those parts of it that are mostly only seen flitting in the periphery when you live in an industrialized society. The cool gray dawn met me with songbirds by the seeming multitudes, including one particularly throaty mocking bird who I think was about two feet from my head. I lay there soaking it all in for about thirty minutes, and then I staggered into the cocoon and got another hour’s restful sleep.

The experience was worth it. It reminded me of camping trips when I was a kid, when I used to throw down a sleeping bag anywhere and sleep with perfect comfort. I didn’t worry then about ticks or ants or mosquitoes, I just plopped down and didn’t care. But most importantly it reminded me of the life that lives on the periphery, of Earth herself, struggling to be a good home to us all, despite our virulent ways.

And now I’ve got another project in mind: a permanent dwelling, that I want to build somewhere on my six acres, fashioned after the example of the native Americans once of this area, the Creek Indians. A wigwam, if you will. A retreat, yes, but also a hub, a place to recharge and reconnect with primitive, fundamental elements.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

In the continuing saga of my life, I had an interesting experience I’d like to share, and one that again has awakened something inside me, something creeping and profound. Last summer I was with my mother and two nieces (aged 14 and 15) in my mother’s garden. She plucked a ripe tomato from the vine and smelled it, and then took a big bite out of it. My mouth watered. I’m used to the stock of vegetables we get at the market nowadays and I know how much difference there is between that and vine-fresh. It’s staggering. But my nieces had an entirely different take. One of them said, “Ew, gross!” And at that point there was exclaiming and proclamations on the wrongness of it all. What became clear to me in that moment was this: If something truly awful happened, and society collapsed, the human animal as it has evolved would be in a lot of trouble. Because a vegetable plucked off the vine is considered dirty, gross. That tomato was probably the cleanest, most pristinely perfect tomato those girls had ever seen, but since it wasn’t displayed in a bin at the grocer, because it was so close to soil and sky and life and segregated from any form of disinfectant by a good hundred yards, it was gross. Kids, it’s time to refresh your relationship with the Earth. Stop primping for a moment and watch the sunrise, let the rain fall on your face, stop fretting and just be.

Photo by bucklava.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

It’s an Alabama kind of night. The Flower Moon is full as full can be, and I heard the season’s first whippoorwills right after sunset. The magnolia tree in my yard is in full bloom, and somewhere Jimmy Buffett is wondering where his salt shaker is.  Tonight I’m pondering whippoorwills and an old jazz standard.

Stars Fell on Alabama was written originally in 1934 and refers to the spectacular Leonid meteor shower of 1833. It’s been performed by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holliday and Alabama’s own Jimmy Buffett, among many, many others (the Buffett version is the local favorite, but sadly I can’t find a copy of it anywhere on the ‘net to share with you). The lyrics of that song have never felt more right than they feel tonight:

A feather from the Whippoorwill
That everlasting—sings!
Whose galleries—are Sunrise—
Whose Opera—the Springs—
Whose Emerald Nest the Ages spin
Of mellow—murmuring thread—
Whose Beryl Egg, what Schoolboys hunt
In “Recess”—Overhead!
           - Emily Dickinson

Many songs have been written about whippoorwills. They’re a melancholy set, a type of nightjar, rarely ever seen even when the season’s right. Some say they are the harbingers of death; the Iriquois believed they’d turned a frog into the moon. Here’s a YouTube video of the distinctive whippoorwill song:

There’s a reason people come here and stay, because in spite of its troubled past, it’s still a wonderful, beautiful place to live. Sometimes it’s downright magical.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

Two things I find very interesting this morning. First, the Neptune Society, from Matt Staggs:

A Florida company is offering a unique memorial service for your earthly remains. For a fee, the people at the Neptune Society will mix your cremated remains with concrete, which is then molded into a sculpture and placed with others in a giant artificial reef a little over a mile off the coast of Key Biscayne, Florida. The reef then provides a new habitat for marine life and a destination for recreational divers and researchers. It’s apparently all ecologically sound, too. At first blush, I really like this idea. I’m certain that I want my remains cremated, and as much as I love the ocean this would be a perfect way to rest for eternity.

Also of interest today, from Curtis Palmer: Birmingham is gaining a new 1100 acre park in the Oxmoor/Ishkooda area. The park is bigger than New York’s Central Park and is going to have tons of amenities–hiking trails, 20 acre lake, softball and soccer fields, etc. I live in Montevallo, but I work in Birmingham, so this new park will be good for day trips. Oak Mountain State Park is closer and I’ve always loved it (it’s a refuge in an urban area, almost 10,000 acres). I go there often, but I love me a new park, yes I do. Especially interesting in this is that this park will make Birmingham the #1 U.S. city in terms of greenspace per capita. Birmingham catches a lot of grief around the country and is regularly noted as one of the worst places to live in America, so it’s nice to see the “Magic City” making inroads to be something better than it is. If only we could somehow craft a governing body that wasn’t corrupt and driving the city to bankruptcy.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

Earth has a low-frequency hum that is inaudible to human ears. Although some residents of Taos, New Mexico have reported hearing a low hum for years. Earth is mum on the cause of the hum. But this story’s brought something else to mind for me:

Following the devastating Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of 2004, reports surfaced of a remote island indigenous people who survived the event by leaving their coastal homes and hiking up into the hills and mountains of the area. The entire tribe survived. No one else had any warning of the monster tsunami, but somehow these remote people presaged what was happening and ran for higher ground. According the the AP:

[the Jarawas of South Andaman Island] used their observations of wind movement, the changing sea and the birds flying inland as a prompt for their relocation to the mountains, which saved every member of the tribe according to government officials in India.

So they followed the animals, but how did the animals know to leave? It’s been speculated on broadly. Some say they have a sixth sense, providing them with barometric sensitivity. But maybe it’s more easily explained than that: suppose the Earth’s hum changes in the event of environmental distress? We already know animals have sharper senses than us, that their hearing is more acute. Suppose that Earth hum is something they can tune to, or hear constantly. If that hum intensifies or changes fundamentally then it would be simple to assume the animals who detect it might instinctively know how to react.

But what about storms, wildfires? Animals are also amazingly adept at evading both, but those are surface or atmospheric events, could they affect the Earth hum like an earthquake or tsunami? Possibly, since scientists have speculated that the hum could be an effect caused by atmospheric waves (gravity waves?). But they’ve also speculated that the hum could be caused by the oceans, atmospheric pressure, or even the sun. Perhaps it’s caused in part by all of these, and perhaps it responds in varying degrees according to which phenomena is impacting it. If so, an animal could react in accordance to the nature of the hum, heading to higher ground in a flood, lower ground in a storm, etc.

It also occurs to me that Jupiter makes a sound as well. Science explains that it is caused by the gas giant’s massive magnetic field. But I haven’t read anywhere that Earth’s magnetic field might be causing its own hum. Maybe that’s an oversight, or maybe the magnetic field is just one more contributor to the hum, which would just increase its potential for predicting events. Perhaps the hum can somehow respond to any event on Earth. That would explain a lot.

For further information on infrasound.

And more, on Earth’s hum and how animals might respond to it.

Originally published at Unabashed. You can comment here or there.

True story: I was working one night at a remote cell phone tower, carrying my equipment into the shelter from my truck. A motion caught my eye under the arc and electric hum of a security light above the shelter. I watched for a few moments as a big something–at first I thought it was a bat–kept flying up in a circle and then would smash back into the ground. I walked over, head cocked to the side, trying to figure out what it was and why it kept bashing its head into the ground over and over with big meaty-sounding thumps. I finally saw that it was a big luna moth, as big as my hand, and in the next few minutes as I watched and it continued its cycle of circle, whomp, circle, whomp, I felt a stirring of something like pity in my gut. I felt like this moth was fresh from its cocoon and learning to fly and just wasn’t getting the hang of it. I watched and waited, silently cheering the little fella along, but although it would stop and sit on the ground for a minute or two it eventually would hop into the air again. It was really disheartening.

I know a lot of people would tell me to keep out of nature’s affairs, to let the little moth learn on its own merit, but it was damn hard for me, a bona fide softy at heart, to keep watching it smack into the ground again and again. So I tried to do something about it. I wanted to help. Besides, I wasn’t going to get any work done that night so long as I knew that helpless little moth was out there banging away at the gravel.

When it took a break I reached down and picked it up as gently as I could. It didn’t make any fuss, which made me think it must be utterly exhausted. I remember it felt like I’d picked up a silk feather. It tickled a little, but it was as gentle and weightless as air in my hand. My plan was to simply hold it up as high as I could, so when he decided he could just take off from there (I’m 6′3″, so I gave him a pretty good launching pad). Soon enough, he took off, and went up about three feet with me cheering and hooting below him, and then he dove straight back to the ground. He just sat there and I thought, “Oh my God I’ve killed it.” I picked it up again and it fluttered a touch, just a touch, and so I held him up once again, praying–praying–that he would find the skill he needed to fly, to live.

That last time was magical. I was cheering for him as he launched off my hand. He flew up into the glow of the security light, up and up so high I could barely see him, just a faint little will-o-the-wisp against the night sky, floating back and forth, back and forth. And then he came back down like a flash, so that I thought he was going to hit the ground again, but just as he reached head height to me, he looped back up and at that moment I knew, I just knew, he would be gone in a flash, never to be seen by human eyes again, and I smiled. For just a moment, the thought popped into my head that this little moth was thankful for my help, and that he was flying down to let me know he appreciated it, that he couldn’t have done it without me, and that he was going to be all right now.

And then a bat ate him. Right out of the air. Swooped in like a black bullet and gulped him down like a little green burrito. I stood there for a few minutes, staring up at the spot where I’d last seen him, and I could see the bats now, flying around the light, just outside of its limits, swimming through the night like sharks waiting for a newborn to drop into the inky blackness of their ocean.

Is there a secret redneck agenda against natural monuments and attractions? Of course there is. We all know about deforestation and oil-hungry politicians itching to rape the natural world. Here's a pair of stories that might not have made the headlines on World News Tonight, but prove unequivocally that rednecks will not stop until everything is dead or paved.

From the Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society:
The Ténéré wastelands of northeastern Niger were once populated by a forest of trees. By the 20th century, desertification had wiped out all but one solitary acacia. The Tree of Ténéré, as it came to be called, had no companions for 400 km in every direction. Its roots reached nearly 40 m deep into the sand. In 1973, the tree was knocked over by a drunken Libyan truck driver. It has been replaced by a simple metal sculpture.

From Lonely Planet: It's the landscape that makes an impression in Niger. There's black volcanic mountains towering over green oases, cascading waterfalls, desert cities with wide tree-lined boulevards, camels, and the dramatic, if lonely, beauty of the desert.

This story reminds me of a park I visited with my wife in 2001 near Gulf Shores, Alabama. The park was built around an oak tree they called "Inspiration Oak." In 1990 the tree was girdled by a chainsaw-wielding redneck and died soon after. In 2002 the park was closed and the tree cut into little pieces. The redneck remains at large.