The SeaHouse

The SeaHouse

It was rather cheap. That was a plus. It had generally thirteen pelicans on the roof, sometimes less, sometimes more, depending on their needs and habits. They considered the roofline and the chimney tops their home. I liked that. The foundation was a bit wonky and half the house sat at a bit of an angle. No room for a garden at all with only seawater fore and aft, and barnacled rocks beneath and landward. I rather liked the place. It had character, and the only kind of neighbors I cared for: large-billed birds and slow-moving tidal life. It was cheap enough no insurance was required and neglected enough no inspector dared care.

I made my home in the top two floors as the bottom floor was generally awash during high tides, and yes, it was still a bit moist and drafty as well, but a bit of stuffing in the cracks and crevasses and corners here and there solved most of that, and a thick rug on the deck plus a fix to the fireplaces took care of the rest.

Being a writer I had no real need of people or conveniences, for I prefer pen and paper and I despise society and see it as a determent to living an honest life and one fully exposed to the real world. People are so egocentric and society so anthropocentric, everything is about them. They have even anthropomorphized God in their own image. Ah, but the world is full of stars! And seas! And life and light! Life is not just that which respires in and out, no! Just as light is not just the few wavelengths which we perceive! Light is everywhere. The universe is not dark. It is filled with light. Light is everywhere. It is how broadly you can see to define it. Life is universal. You shouldn’t define it by your own limits. Its not just about you.

And “Man’s” obsession with God? Their desire to find approval for themselves? No, God is not about you and your obsession with yourself, what you wish to call your salvation. God, if that is what you must label it, is so much more than that. You must see more broadly, beyond your own limits, to define that which is universal. You see, our perception of the world comes in its separateness, its pieces, but it is its connectedness which is its reality, not its pieces.

Ah, but I wander off on the beaten path of philosophy! Now its time to return to the here and now. I have lived in this house for two years now and weathered many a storm. One bangs at my footings and dashes at my door as I write. And a good one it is! The night is long and all the resident pelicans have abandoned me early on. The house groans a bit, rather much really, and the lower floor is awash as never before. It is a glorious feeling really, to be so alive, and a part of this tempest and hear the bones of this house complain and threaten to give way. One does love to be in the midst of something important whether it be battle or birth. A peak experience as they say. Man built this glorious old house and it shall surely fail be it tonight or on some tomorrow, but nature built the rocks below it and the mountains of the earth and they shall surely fail as well, just over a longer period of time. But their failure is their success as well, for they have done their purpose, fulfilled their mission, and lived its meaning! I as well, whether it be in this storm or some other, my coming failure will fulfill my intended meaning and I shall be awash in another purpose of no less importance. Just as the raging storm at my door is dynamic, so is existence.

The Cold Cold Squirrels of Winter

The Cold Cold Squirrels of Winter

Nestled in the boughs of winter
Cold icy snowy boughs of winter
He snuggles down into his own fur and leaf litter
Thinking of peanuts and suet cakes and corn.

Nestled in the boughs of winter
No thoughts of fall, of summer, or spring arise.
No thoughts of others or green grass or sun occur
Only peanuts and suet cakes and corn endure.

Nestled in the boughs of winter
The first light comes
The ice fog is here
The snow lightly there upon the ground
And on the railing four peanuts in their shell appear. 

Attachments area

Forgiveness

To be social is to be forgiving. Am I social? Only very slightly so.

I prefer an empty countryside to a gathering of most people. 

I find more civility there and certainly a more honest forgiveness in return.

How I can prove God exists, sort of.

How I can prove God exists, sort of.

Scientists have a problem called the cosmological constant. This is a reference (as I understand it, and this disclaimer applies to everything I say here) to the level of inherent energy in the vacuum of spacetime.  If lower, the stars and life could not form. If higher, all would fly apart and life would be impossible. I think I have that close to right. In any case, because the cosmological constant is balanced so perfectly, impossibly perfectly, they are troubled by this fact. Some have said this has to point to a higher intelligence, i.e. God, to have so many things so perfectly tuned for existence to work. 

The solution comes in the form of Multiverses , and the Many Worlds theory, which may be two perspectives of the same thing.  The Multiverse theory is that this is only one of an infinite number of universes, each with its own set of physical laws and circumstances. To make sense of our perfect situation, it is said that we just happen to be the one that worked among the infinite number of those that didn’t, at least the same way. In this scenario all possible (or should I say impossible) universes must exist. An infinite number, for us to have occurred. This means much the same as the Many Worlds theory puts forth. In that case, the timeline of your life is a constant selection of choices every instant, and a constantly new number of “yous” follow every possible choice path; an endless infinite branching of your timeline.

Now consider what this means, and what they say about this which may sound ridiculous. Every scenario you can possibly think of exists in one of these worlds. In one, you are Hitler. In another you are long dead, or never been born. In another we never became human, and another we are gods. Whatever.  So you see, this doesn’t sound sensible whatsoever, but the vast array of universes don’t care what we think sensible.

Now in one of these universes, there exists, beyond  any doubt, a god, in fact God, if all possible worlds exists. And this god is the God of all the timelines and all the multiverses. And so God exists. And if theses theories are as foolish as they sound, and wrong… what then? We are left with the conundrum that our set of circumstances are too, in fact, impossibly balanced. What then?

Here’s what I think, lowly as my educational and intellectual status might be. First of all, regarding infinite timelines and free will: The past is recorded and done. It existed but is now a static record that helped to establish the present. The future is potential, and its path, though there are many possibles, is not yet established. The future is potential, in the same regard as wave function in quantum mechanics. The present is dynamic, and is the current state of the universe as determined by the past state, and entropy and past choices. The present, along with the current state of the universe, and flow of entropy, is also dynamic with an infinite web of events and choices, which collapses the wave function and determines the next instant of the state of the universe. It is like a rolling wave or a turning wheel, where the present is where the wheel meets the ground.

And what of God? Well, personally, I think we have a problem. What IS God? I feel we have not truly defined what we even mean. Oh, we have this childish mythical figure we use in our minds, and that is forgivable because the concept of God is really, by “definition” well beyond our ability to comprehend. Here is what I think. In the old testament Moses ask God his name. God’s reply is something akin to “I Am.” And thus you have it. God Is existence.  The Mystery buried in existence, and there is nothing more difficult to understand then that.

My Night Began Like Ancient Men

My Night Began Like Ancient Men

My night began like ancient men,

Who close their eyes and wake again.

Those things that do disturb my sleep,

And cause most men like me to weep,

Are things in past I did not do,

Yes indeed, it is so true.

Life neglected is not regained,

That is the thing that’s most insane

About this life, the waste involved,

When not lived fully, and not resolved.

To live it bravely and without regret,

One must get up, not be beset

By seductive comfort, and simple ways

That fills one’s soul and kills one’s days.

An adventurous life need not die,

Because of age and death grows neigh.

Live your life as if it’s new,

Beauty, hope and love pursue.

Then go gently into that night,

Knowing  full well that all went right.

In a Moment

In a moment it comes back to you; the things you've forgotten to remember.

Country Cafe

Country Café

Nice high ceilings, big open windows, country kitchen chairs, and tables, wooden US flag on the wall, big preamble of the Constitution on the wall under glass, a man with wife sitting below it, he with an NRA tee shirt on. I want to tell him it’s not just his, it belongs to all of us! Glad to see they have not edited out the part that says ‘to promote the general welfare’. It belongs to and includes all of us, every one of us, even those you and I don’t like or agree with. I enjoy the space, the country feel, but the coffee is sub-par, and the hash browns tough and too crunchy and somehow flat. I’m reading a chapter entitled ‘Paganism’ from ‘Holy The Firm’ by Annie Dillard. Trains have been passing by. Now sitting out front on a porch bench writing, country songs suddenly switch to ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance’. When I paid my bill there was a stack of US Constitution booklets on the counter (the kind those so-called militia men were carrying around at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge), free for the taking. That’s fine. It’s the “Mine not yours” attitude I object to! Just like their so called version of Christianity. When you walk into someplace like this I love the country-friendly attitude you have here, but I fit in with my blue jeans and red ball cap. I worry that they’ve lost their soul, their Christianity has lost it’s soul, their country-friendly attitude has lost it’s soul once the “other” walks in, or I tell them I voted for Obama twice and love him, or that I read Annie Dillard.

Am I being unfair? Am I prejudging, judgmental? I hope so, I hope it’s just me, but I’ve been to the town of Connell, Wa. I’ve seen this before.

Zio and the Nightwind

Zio and the Nightwind In the golden afternoon, and in a fresh breeze, the Zio ran with the Nightwind, as companions will, side by side, keeping pace, out to live life’s pleasures of the moment. The airs spoke of a quietness, the simple splash of bow wake, the light singing of the zephyrs in the rigging, it was a time of joy of simply being.
In the distance cumulous clouds boiled up as high towers in the sky, billowy and bright. Below them the sea turned a steely gray, and around and behind where singular clouds of pinks and orange. And we …we were off, racing to nowhere, racing towards Eden.
I lay content in my state, against the wheelhouse boards, watching those distant cumulous clouds boil, thinking of what it would be like to live in those celestial chiefdoms, where mists do battle with turbulence, whose castle walls are ever changing. Heaven there or heaven here; what difference. Perhaps they should be viewed as sails, high riggings, with mainsails and spinnakers, …ships of state, a’ sail on higher seas then ours, and with perhaps a greater purpose. A fleet on the way, guided by a different compass rose, manned by a heavenly host.
Perhaps so. But if they peer down on us from their coign of vantage, surely they must think …”Oh, what a lovely sight! Man’s vessels under sail, enjoying such a fine afternoon. Look how they lay against the breezes, side by side, keeping pace. Companions. Lovers. Caressing life’s gift. Surely it must be The Zio and The Nightwind, together again. The most lovely of all Man’s ships.”
And so it surely is. And so it is.
~EraSeek

When I Have Grown Old and Body Weary

When I have grown old and body weary,
When mind and eyes are fading
And all my pleasures are past me,
When I breathe slow and heavy,
And my last steps are near,
Do this for me!

Take me to a grand trailhead!
One that I have loved or know not yet!
Replace my cane with a long and light ice axe,
Allow me a kiss and hug,
And prove your love for me!
Set me on my way!
Allow me my last freedom!

Chain me not to this society's answer
Of relinquished responsibility:
Sentenced to a bed I do not know!

Allow me my last breath among beauty!
No matter how harsh!
Of mountain and stream,
River and blizzard.
Driving rains,
And wind so strong I know it is God's own breath!

I release you your responsibilities,
Save this one:
Set me free on my final day!

What the Poet Says

What is it the poet says
when he says nothing much at all?

What is it the poet says
when the poem has no rhyme or reason?

What is it the poet says
when his sentence is broken here and there?

What is it the poet says
when all his words are seasons?

A Singular Line

It began as a line.
No, it began as a point from which the line proceeded.
No, it began as a stick from which the point was made and thus from which the line proceeded.
No, actually, it began with a thought. But it was not much of a thought, it was more of a simple action, the action of plucking up a stick and poking it into the ground. This created the point from which proceeded the line.

He drew the line in the earth with the simplest of thought, and the singular purpose that it would be straight. This was simple enough in that there was nothing about to interfere with this purpose, neither building nor home, track nor road, neither tree nor bush, person nor any place of name. A desert without bump nor lizard, hill nor snake, it being flat in all directions. An endless horizon. On he drew, without regard for time or treasure. On he drew in the noonday heat and the cool of night, always under an endless sky.

All lines have a beginning, that being a point in time and space, but must it have a purpose? Must it have an end? Some lines separate sides as a purpose; left from right, this from that, us from them. If this line ever had that as a purpose drawing up sides was the first casualty of its linear life. This line had come to care less about this or that! And on he drew his singular line...

Now as I have said all lines have a point of origin in time and space, and thus travel from somewhere to somewhere, but this line was not traveling to anywhere, at least in particular, and as a matter of fact could have cared less, nor even considered it. Thus, some cosmic destination was the second purposeful casualty in its linear life, if it ever existed at all.

The line was now well beyond the horizon, and the horizon grew further away, although it was never further away than it always had been. And on he drew. His feet were tired and his wrist was sore, his suit had become quite sweaty and he had developed a kink in his back, but he hardly noticed any of this. On he drew.

Lines are funny things when they travel great distances without great purpose, they begin to forget their beginnings. It fades from memory. And thus it was with this line. Thus the third casualty of this line's linear life; its beginnings.

And on it went. The longer he drew the line across the face of the earth, the less he or the line knew or cared about its own length. Its distance faded until nothing was of any concern but the point at which the stick touched the earth. The ever presence of the present. But wasn't that always the case?

He withdrew the stick from the face of the earth and the line, then and there, died as a living active thing. It had never defined anything, nor cared to.  Its own future never even considered. Its own past, faded from memory. Its present, now withdrawn.

As he uncrinked  his back, he stood up straight and turned to look back along the line's length, and for the first time in days was flush with a singular thought, and even a sense of pride: "Damned if that isn't one straight line!"

Couplings

In quantum mechanics there is a strange coupling of future and past. It suggests that the future determines the present and we in the present determines the history of what would only have been possibilities of the past.

The Tools we use in Life

We shape the tools which in turn shape us. But every tool does but one thing, it extends us out into that which is greater than ourselves.

The Truth Of It

 

 



It is the mystery. It is the beauty. It is the love.
That is God!
Not the belief. Not the theology. Not the doctrine.

The evolving complexity dysfunction

What is a Global Positioning System? Precision in timing, leading to accuracy in position, leading to display of location information, matching reality.



What is a map. A simplified scaled down representation of geographical reality. What if we scale it back up again? What have we gained? What have we lost? We have re-gained complexity, we have lost simplicity. We will have re-gained detail, and lost an easier to recognize lay of the land. The solution to this is found in a scalable map of lesser of greater detail on your GPS. But this evolving complexity dysfunction bleeds over into other tools we use. Take paper maps for instance. You may make the map of simple detail, or heavier detail, but they cannot be scalable, their nature being paper. The more detail they have, the less functional they are for the average citizen. Paper maps are loosing the evolutionary race to electronics. But electronics are more complex to use and maintain. Seniors are befuddled, the young enthralled. Heads-up displays are taking us closer to the complexity of reality by adding layers of information on top of reality. Is this truly helpful? Yes, to a point and for some purposes, but when does the tool overwhelm; when does the information become dysfunctional? Texting while driving is the first clue we have. Death by texting is a very real - reality. Overwhelming information can kill. We are reaching our limits to deal with it, in some areas. Perhaps a simple map of less detail works better in some cases than that which we have recently wrought.

I think in the area of evolving complexity dysfunction we will find other areas that fit into this scenario sooner rather than later. One that strikes me is the fragility of the general infrastructure. That, to me, is the greatest threat to civilization as we know it. We rely on it too much, necessarily so. There are things that can take it out, and we are not prepared. A perfect solar super-storm. An atmospheric nuclear blast. God knows what else. If any major part of our infrastructure is taken out for any length of time, recovery may not be possible. Forget the gun. I suggest you buy a case or two of pork and beans, a portable water filter, and a paper map.

Chasing Crows

A murder and a dying dog coyote in the woods~


Sometimes I am the greatest recipient of my own hides. Sometimes what things were when I was there rarely occur again. Sometimes the cachers who came did not do the same things to achieve the same results as I had hoped they might. But people vary. Things change. The world is a dynamic place. It is its nature.

This is a story of crows. It is also a story how a box alone is not the thing meant to be found. But boxes are easy. People have schedules to keep, jobs and families to care for. This is also a story of how different from us crows really are. I am no expert on crows or people but how we vary in how we go about life is obvious and stunning.

For several years I had noticed flights, gatherings, of crows over my house every evening as the day grew dim. I grew in curious fascination of this. I wished to learn where they were headed and why. I began to mark a waypoint every time I had my GPS with me and I saw a group of crows fly overhead. A pattern developed which was of course the same as what I visually observed. Southwest to northeast. But now I had some degree of mapping to plot out a general heading and possible destinations. I decided it was time for the chase.

Dusk began to draw near. I kept one eye on the crows above and one eye on my gps and it’s mapping. Up the hill out of Mill Creek I went. Out on Seattle Hill road I noticed the crows dropping out of their flight. Dipping and swooping, cartwheels and twists to the ground, so I pulled over. There was a pond in a construction area where they were putting in a new development. This unlikely place is where the crows were gathering. Now I notice crows are coming in from the southwest, the west, and the east. Most are simply standing around. Many are playing. All are cawing. Some are dive-bombing the few seagulls that are mixed in. I’m seeing a personality developing here. Crows are a swaggerly lot. Playful, verbose, macho, and the obvious, mischievous.

So I’m thinking “What gives? Surely this is not THE place where they go.” And it was not. What it was, was a primary staging area, much like others far to the North or East, where they gather to make an entrance in force to their nightly roost.

After about twenty minutes of flights arriving and increased chatter, some of them began to rise. And then more, and more. I went with the first group so as not to loose them. Down Seattle hill road, just as I suspected. And there, out into the farming flats of the Snohomish valley they went. Now you’ve all seen it. Farm fields converted to high yield cottonwood forests. These quick growing woods eventually become your toilet paper. They are trees but lack any strength and often do not make it through the first good blow of weather. Well, there is such a forest here in the valley. And this was to be the roost.
I drive out on a dirt farm road between fields and find the nearest spot to the forest. It is a gate, that says not to trespass and that it belongs to a hunting club or something.

The day grows dark. I am perhaps nearly a mile from any paved road. It has a very isolated feel to it. Black shadowy crows swarm over the tops of these trees. Some sit on their tops. Others dive-bomb the others. All are causing a great noisy ruckus. Great troops of northern tribe crows arrive, as well as some from the east and west. The numbers have grown into the thousands! It is an amazing thing to witness. It is nearly dark. These crows look like a multitude of shades from hell. Ah, but to add to the atmosphere there are coyotes in the nearby woods and they add their song to the chorus. It is spooky, but not nearly so much as the next night when I come again. I wanted to make sure this gathering occurred on a regular basis, and it certainly seemed to. But this night, replace the coyote’s song with a sound from hell itself. Whether coyote or dying dog, I don’t know. But such a thing made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I’ve never heard anything like it before. Certainly an anguished sound, almost as if something unnatural were in the throes of labor. If I had to guess, it is what Fen Dweller would sound like, but this was no fantasy and it was close.

So this is where I planted my cache. I called it A Murder Of Crows, an arcane term for a flock of crows. It is also the name of a story I wrote long ago. I came back several times afterwards, not always seeing the crows, but almost always hearing that thing in the woods. People found my cache, but very few if any bothered to find it at the right time, between dusk and night. Now the lives of crows have it that they roost in fall and winter but in spring they go into a nesting pattern and break from the grouping routine. Thus any cache finds then did not produce results as well.

 

So not all caches are for the cache hunters. Sometimes they hold much more meaning for those who plant them. Yes, it is a strange cache and a strange idea… to be out chasing crows. But that’s just me. I just wonder what that thing is out in the woods.

Immersion

Immersion

I don’t know how we could have known.  It is an immersion into the universe we seek. A return to knowledge we have never had as human beings. It draws us like fire. Like love. We know it, and yet we don’t. We wish it’s return, yet we know not what it is. But it is us, and it knows us.

It is a wondrous thing. Each time we find the answer that solves all the mysteries of the universe, it reveals more questions than the answer. Each time we stumble and fail, we progress further forward. Each time we are brave enough to fail, we succeed. Thus it is with the Higgs. A hint of success but not a complete success, and yet it seems it may reveal much more than we had ever dreamed it would. Imagine. The void is not empty. Space is full of potential. And more than that, space is tactile. We float in a dream dreaming a dream about a dream of reality. And what can one say about that? It is lovely!

Such is the place where men meet the gods. To achieve a level where we are not only aware of the universe, but we can now peer into its workings to such a point where we can see that not only is it profound, it is infinitely profound. Like Pi. It is infinitely ordered. It is a well of mystery which we can solve, and when we do it reveals an even deeper mystery. Is it teaching us? Leading us on by the hand to an ever greater level of understanding? I think that is the nature of existence. And our destiny as well.

And what of the gods? Some say there are none, some say there is but one. I say it is a question that means little due to our lack of understanding. But here it is, as best as I can put it as I understand it: Why is God invisible? Why doesn’t he pop up and say here I am? Why doesn’t he help everyone in need? 1. We don’t understand what we are talking about, and 2. A good parent teaches the child to be a man. What would you do if you didn’t have a father? Become the father you wish you had had. Become the ideal! What good is there in anything but that?

Ah but there I stray again into my own esoteric theology. Not what I was here to say. What I wish to say is celebrate! Science, religion, philosophy, divisions we create! They are all the same thing! Celebrate! We reach for the stars, the gods, the answers! And why? Why! I think inside each of us knows. We just don’t have the language to state it.

Editorial- What is God

Editorial- What is God.

Scientists- well, some of them anyway- argue there is no God. They feel they have shown there is no need for God, so there isn't one. They say the universe can generate, even must generate on it's own. I have a few arguments against some of that, but that is not my point here. How we define God is.

Atheists, a cynical lot, have taken up the religion of "no-god". Really more cultural and political than theological, but not always. Frankly I think agnosticism makes sense, but atheism...not so much. Agnosticism says "Not sure", atheism say "There isn't". You can't prove a negative so they must be claiming fact through belief.

Believers, are often the defensive flip-side of atheists for the most part, though not always. At least many believers these days seem to be living a religion of cultural defense. Hardly the religion I was brought up in. Really not a religion of faith at all. Just a cultural war. And frankly I never understood  why belief would make the difference of salvation anyway. Would God punish me for believing what I thought was true? Right or wrong He would love me anyway, would He not?

Me? I happen to think we have a weak, quite shallow definition of God. Put simply, we are wrong about what God is. And therein lies the problem. Am I right about my definition? Probably not. Much too simplistic. God is most likely far beyond whatever we can perceive. Hopefully I'm just a smidgen closer.

Is God The Creator? Yes, I suppose, but that is not what he "is".
Is "He" a correct way to refer to him? No, I don't think so, but we have limited language and limited minds. Forgivable.
Is God outside looking in? No, I think its more like we are inside looking outward.
Are there miracles? A profoundly stupid question. What isn't a miracle? I call the world a mundane miracle, not because it is mundane, but because people generally are. They are too blinded by their everyday life to see the miracle that lies beyond their doorstep.
Does he break his own laws, (in fact, break his miracle), to perform what we call a miracle? God, knows. I don't. I think there is something much more subtle here than we generally can perceive.
Does God actively engage in our lives? Again, I think we are thinking too anthropomorphically. I think the better way to view this is in terms of connections with the sacred. The greater we connect, the greater the connection; much the same as virtue is its own reward.

So what "is" God? Or rather what do I think the better definition of "God" might be? Well, "All". Everything. We live in God. Frankly I don't see how anything can exist outside of God. If God exists, existence can only be made up of his substance. How could it be otherwise?
Does this mean we are God? Hardly. Though we are made of the essence of God, just as we are and every element in our bodies are made of the essence of stars and novas and supernovas.
Are the scientists of a certain view wrong? Only in their limited range of vision. If you view God as something other, or outside, separate, no matter who or what you are, scientist or preacher, you've limited your options significantly, and limited God. You've made God in our image.
What if there is no God? Well, there is the question of can something come from nothing, or better put, can existence come from non-existence? Scientist say yes. But what if you operate from outside of space and time. A non-place of absolute non-existence. A profound nothing, nowhere, not! No energy, no laws, no quantum physics, no vacuum, no void. This may have in fact never existed. Perhaps it always was. In my mind a close definition of God.

Einstein is often slighted for his use of the word "God", and his views on cosmic religion. I think he referred to himself as a religious agnostic, or some such thing. I guess I'd refer to myself as a non-religious believer, but religious agnostic would work just as well. Einstein, and a few other scientists believe they see, not a god, but a profound sacredness in the cosmos. A beauty and elegance in the math. An impossibility in the physics. One that connects all things. One that has created (or is) a set of conditions whereby if one little inkling of a variant were introduced -in any number of things-, nothing could exist. If I were a good writer and took the time I would list a few of these things. Believe me, they are there and they are an amazement! If one factor were changed just the smallest bit stars never would have been created. If changed the other way, they would have lasted a very short time. How can conditions be so perfect? The physics so harmonious?

So yes, I think there is a God, and no because I think the term too limited and locked into our own image. He is much more than that. A profound inherent sacredness in the universe I think is closer to the truth. And this sacredness is the basis for all there is. This is what we can experience; that profound inherent sacredness. This is what we can and do connect with on occasion. Einstein did not believe in God, but he did recognize this profundity that he saw in much of his work, and realized that there was something there that was sacred at the most fundamental level of all existence. I recognize that too. That to me "is" God.

A World of Dust

A World of Dust

These are the days when angels whisper, “This is a world of dust.”

Here light and darkness consume each other; fade into each other; and drain into a hidden place. Here entropy rules the day; the great leveler, the third hand of Shiva, the destroyer of worlds. It has gripped our throats and slowly squeezes our life away like the dark night overthrows the day.

Order rules no more! The laws bit by bit break. Water and earth become brown, white and black – gray. The physics of the world eats its self. No more do the old bonds hold. Chaos takes center stage where ordered distinction once held court. How is it the universe comes apart?

First a frayed thread, then a seam, the garment falls into dust at our feet. Time is over-ruled, place looses meaning.

All the world, all the universe, see the coming of this dark night of death, this Passover where Lamb’s blood will save none. From one end to the other it comes, advancing on all there is. It is a lost brother, a twin, come to claim his place after a long and arduous Odyssey to strange and unknown lands. Dark matter returns.

The symmetry is breaking, no longer us and him, no longer a separate peace. Now only the peace of half-darkness, half-being , no being at all. It creeps across the galaxies, a plague, a cloud of dust, snuffing out their lights, their distinctions, their swirl of life. We see them blink into a smothering extinction, and it comes. It comes to choke us as well. We smell the first of it. The dark stench of nothingness.

We merge our differences, our pluses and minuses, our is’s and opposites, whatever that may be. The particle and lost anti-particle, the polar opposites, join to become…what? A dust of no distinction. The differences erased, distinctions now forever denied, the mundane miracle we knew and lived as life but too oft ignored, evaporates before our eyes. It is to be no more. Such a shame.

Dark matter creeps across space and time and we haven’t even known what it is, if it was even really there, but now we know. Now we fear.

Where have you been my dark brother? What things have you seen? Did you live as we did? A mundane miracle revealed? Once we were one, joined at the hip before our separate ways we went. Now we re-unite with no great love and become one again. Two joined brothers bound in a struggle to destroy the other and in doing so destroy themselves as well. Ahh, it was bound to be I suppose. Opposites attract. But for that while…, that brief while, that while of eons, it was a miracle! And God did rule in his proper place. Don’t you agree?

A Parliament of Winds, A Congress of Tides

The Skagit Delta is a place of dikes and river sloughs, farmer's fields and corn stalks, scrub, trees, muck, willows and catails, wind and rain, gray clouds and snow geese, herons, merlins, red-tail hawks and eagles, seagulls and seals and sapsuckers, duck-hunters and birders and game wardens, floods and ancient logs. It is a secret place where river meets saltwater, sand meets muck, land meets water, current meets tide, and it is difficult to tell here which of these are which, for they are so intermingled; one does not exist seperate from the other. It is like the world dance of chaos and order, they dance the same dance, at times they seem to unite, to blend, to throw off their distinctions and become one.

Scientists have long sought after the ghostly neutrino. Generated in the very heart of the sun it can pass through the Earth as easily as a beam of light through a pane of glass. The question has been: does it have zero mass or some infintesimally small degree of mass? The current thought is that it has phases or "species" of which there are three; two of no mass, one of mass.

It is a binary world of oft muddied waters. And so it is with our lives; we are the uncertain neutrino, uncertain of whether we matter or not, and what our purpose always is, we are the blend of chaos and order, a mingled identity, blown about by a parliament of winds, washed here and there by a congress of tides.