Hotcha!

Monday

• Noel Coward’s song “Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun” seems to apply to local joggers who grimly exercise as humid heat reaches into the nineties, with blazing sun piling on.  They assume they risk degradation and death to pursue dreams of fitness. Certainly to listen to self-qualified “experts” in such matters, mankind was never meant for such conditions.  We should be burrowing underground until weather becomes more favorable.  Or at least leave the heat to the leaves, and limit excursions to air-conditioned malls, cars, and _ in the words of Henry Miller _ nightmares.
• I grew up in a time when as I recall only movie theaters and a few larger supermarkets had cooling facilities.  The Delaware Valley is famous for nearly 100% humidity, stifling stillness, and blazing solar beams.  Farmers never cared, neither did we, and my friends and I played and worked outside shirtless without a care in the world.  Somehow,  apparently against all the odds, most of us are still alive.  Either we were exceptionally hardy or the experts are not quite so expert.

Tuesday

Dog days of summer settle

Named for rise of Sirius

Back when folks could still see stars.

Today seasonal tribute is less cosmic

We seal our boxes tightly

Flick a switch from Heat to Off to Cool.

Wednesday

• Thunderstorm sweeping by last night brought heavy downpour and colder Northern air, temperature is ten degrees cooler today, accompanied by a dry breeze.  Even in the midst of our most extreme seasons, we experience great variations.  It’s doubtful that the rest of nature notices _ it’s warm or not, there’s water or not, food or not, predators or not.  Life in instants has no time nor means to reflect on longer patterns.
• People, on the other hand, can attune themselves ridiculously.  Some think any variation beyond 72F _ give or take a degree or so _ is uncomfortable.  For them, 80 remains a heat wave, with danger at 90 or _ Heaven forbid! _ 100! Connoisseurs of climate.   Our individuality and worth seems too welded to acquired specialization.  I’m as guilty as anyone, as I stroll about thinking how grand I am.  We should cultivate contempt for any expert who becomes too obsessively expert.  We must experience narrow vivid instants, but also holistic perceptions which require no particular delicately encrusted expertise.

Thursday

Trying to prevent drips from my peanut butter sandwich at a Halesite picnic table.  Even in the shade, sweat dripping into my eyes makes the lovely water scene waver and sting.  I’m startled by Ed’s loud shout _ “Hot enough for you, young man?”

“Oh, hot enough, I guess.  Not really a roaster.” I sadly indicate my lunch. “This is just a mess because it was in the sun while I was walking here.”

“I think it’s about as hot as it should ever get!” declares Marie, bedecked in in wide-brim tan straw hat.

“I, on the other hand, still consider it slightly cool,” maintains Ed.

“Normal variations, I guess, we’re all different that way.”

“Well,” he looks around at boats large and small, “I know you’re right, but you’d never guess we knew that from reading or watching things lately.”

“What’s that got to do with heat?” demands Marie.

“Just this,” he continues.  “I’m sick of the grouping of people as if they were sacks of rocks.  ‘White college males think …’ for example.  People are complicated.  No two people think the same about any issue any more than we do about whether it is too hot or not.”

“But if you took a poll here,” I point out, “they’d all agree it was generally hot.”

“Well, OK,” he admits.  “But the politics today is on the tweaks.  I’ve never seen such lather over Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”

“Controlling nuclear arsenals is hardly tweaks,” starts Marie …

“Hey!  Hey!” I try to calm them down.  “I just want to eat my sandwich in a lovely spot on a perfectly fine afternoon _ without paying too much attention to exactly how fine it may be _ and enjoy this moment of being. “

“But don’t you think …” insists Ed.

“Nope.  Not now.  No opinion.  Undecided.”

“But …”

“Ed,” I say gently.  “Hate to tell you but nobody cares if you or Marie or I think it is too hot, just right, or not hot enough.  No more than what we think about the state of the state.  Would you like a grape?”

A loud horn sounds nearby and we pause to watch some private behemoth easing out from a nearby dock.  

Friday

• Optical illusions demonstrate how easily the mind slips from one conception to another when presented with visual evidence.  Similarly artists have woven illusions or abstractions to enlighten or confuse thoughts.  At first glance, this picture might well be a Monet water pond, or a Pollock abstract, or some meaningless scatter painted by an unknown.  A second look picks out reeds and reflections and makes sense of the photograph.
• We have only recently realized exactly how arbitrary and fragile our vision.  The eye may see what a camera lens does, but only an interpretive brain can produce “common accepted reality” or an artistic revelation or some internal Quixotic interpretation of the scene.  I enjoy unfocusing almost as much as deciphering the photons reflected into my retina.  The world is marvelous not only because it may be “just so”, but also because it may not be at all what we so confidently imagine.

Saturday

• Conventional wisdom claims we live in places that would be impossible without modern technology.  Florida and Arizona before air conditioning were terrible places to settle, at least for Europeans.  Without rapid transportation of bulk goods the vast grain farms of the Midwest and the cattle ranches on the parched plains of Texas would be impossible.  No matter where we look, we seem to be tied into a social and technological grid without which we could not survive more than a week.
• That is obviously true.  But it is not new.  Civilization has been like that since the taming of agriculture, which just about everywhere in the old and new world required bureaucratic government and irrigation.  Only disease and harsh conditions, which thinned populations dramatically, let some humans avoid that fate, but we could seriously question whether the nomadic and brutal life of native Americans and the short and uncertain lives of all other “primitive” peoples in places like Africa were better than the lash and the wheel. 
• Intellectual contemplations like those do not matter.  The fact is that generally people today, whether by choice or force, live or aspire to live with access to full consumer comforts.  Few parents would willingly consign their infants to aboriginal life with a tribe in the Amazon rain forest, or any other such “romantic” notion of going back to nature. 
• What we have, however, learned over the last few centuries, is that such “progress” has costs, many of them not immediately apparent but accumulating nearly fatally over time.  That is what we are dealing with today, in life, in outlook, in hopes, in politics, in every phase of life.  What will we trade for what, and what will we not?
• I think we have been living through a few years of grace, while these profound cultural questions sink in and various answers rebound not only by word but by entire lives.  When there is little more to strive for, as an example, is the only proper response a hermit-like lethargy, or a constant chatter of games and conversation and arts, or a drug-induced internal withdrawal, or an artificial fanaticism leading to active anti-social madness? 
• Hot times, for the mind as well as the body.  We wonder if this period is our summer, with decline to follow, and if so, how long the heat can last and how well the water will hold out.

Sunday

• “Heat Dome” seems to be as bad as predicted, although hard to tell how much of it is psychological.  No question sweat pops out with the slightest exertion in the shade, spontaneously in the sun.  Thick haze a constant reminder of bad air quality.  Fortunately, Huntington by the harbor has at least a steady light breeze, barely waving flags but cooled by evaporation.  From all accounts, it is one of the more fortunate areas of the country this weekend.
• Nevertheless, I stayed in yesterday, perhaps deciding to act my age, perhaps merely being lazy.  I only went out to do some necessary watering, or to read on the patio later in the afternoon until the mosquitoes arrived.  What surprises me is not how lethargic this lack of normal exercise made me feel, but rather how dull my mind became.  Stimulation through motion and exposure to nature seem to be necessary if I am ever to have a creative thought. 

Wonder & Worry

Monday

• Looking out the window, walking through a meadow, watching a brilliant sunset,  catching flashes of lightning bugs at night, and hearing the shrieks and melodies of birds all day long, this seems the most perfect of places in the most perfect of times.  Flowers bloom everywhere in this benign climate, entertaining storms pass quickly by, squirrels play.  Inside, the larder is always full, there are infinite wise books to be read, marvelous distractions available on media all the livelong day.  Yet we are warned not to be fooled, for all is falling apart.
• A favorite phrase of essayists these days is “the best of times, the worst of times.”  Global warming, falling test scores, increasing racial tension, defunct political consensus,  neonicotinoids,  GMO’s, the list is endless and increasing with each ever-more hysterical dawn.  I’m getting older and _ in the words of the old Kingston Trio “Merry Minuet” _ I don’t like anybody very much.  But I have come to accept that “best” in the present is worth a bunch of “worst” in the future.  An intellectual hedonism.  Perhaps I am condemned by such an attitude _ but perhaps pure appreciation also counts for something.

Tuesday

I wonder at this grand fine day

I worry of tomorrow

Wonder as we dance and play

Worry at our sorrow

Our universe is grand and free

Until it kicks our teeth

We carpe diem just to be

But may find no relief

I wonder who I am and why

I worry what to do

Wonder at the earth and sky

Worry if it’s through.

Wednesday

• Amazingly, in one of the most populated areas on Earth, it is possible to slip away to a few places where there are few signs of people.  Astoundingly, in spite of centuries of industrialization and pollution, the air still seems clearly scented with flowers, the water tangy with salt and little else.  Birds fly endless rounds, insects flit about the marsh, flowers bloom on the sand.  And most surprising of all, parts of this scene are wilder than they were a century or two ago.
• We have become increasingly urban.  Our own experiences are often of home after home, building after building, traffic on streets with no scrap of land visible.  Our essayists flit from megapolis to megapolis, in sealed aircraft, not noticing the “flyover” barrens below them.  Yet most of the world remains open land.  A few hours away even from here are vast tracts that _ if not untouched wilderness _ are nonetheless unused wildness, filled with decaying buildings and the rusting scraps of an older era.  Rural residences, farms, small towns are depopulating almost everywhere.  Perhaps, walking in empty fields and wetlands, I can yet preserve hope for the future while contemplating that fact.

Thursday

Jim and I exchanging banter during some demonstration or other at Hecksher Park.  The banner says something like “Save your shoes, save the Earth,” sponsored by Nike.  Almost a hundred folks of all ages are grimly striding around the lake, happily engaged in this godly duty of environmental repair through consumerism.

“More dystopian thoughts,” I venture.

“Oh, haven’t we had them during our lifetime?” muses Jim.  “Gee, I lived through the communist red menace, certain nuclear war …”

I add “irrecoverable river and air pollution, no birds or wildlife because of DDT, cities going up in flames, race riots, cultural disintegration from the sexual revolution.”

“Yeah,” smiles Jim, taking up the theme, “the end of oil, population explosion like locusts, nuclear meltdown,  Japan buying the world.”

“Starvation from a new ice age …”

“What?” he exclaims.

“I was reading an old book.  That was a common theme of the seventies _ we were about to move out of an interglacial warm spell and into cold desertification of our grain belts.”

“Oh, right, I forgot.  And then …”
“Don’t forget we were all going to die of AIDs, China buying everything, computers running amok,”

“Y2K!” we both laugh.

“The end of metals and all other commodities, autism plagues, social revolution redux, united Islam conquering a fractured West.”

“And here we are,” Jim waves at the crowd.  “Still worried, still hysterical, still inventing problems.”

“And solving them,” I interject.

“Well, or letting them solve themselves,” he notes.

“Here we are,” I say slowly, “Practically in utopia, and still inventing insoluble problems and certain death.”

“Well, it keeps life interesting.”

More people stream by, the sun shines, and swans glide majestically across the calm waters.

Friday

• Bindweed and morning glories now blooming _ surprise _ every morning, along with the chicory. Other summer flowers are following their genetic pattern.  Meadows are filled with daisies, butter-and-eggs line the roadways, hawkweed offers bright yellow spots and thistle and vetch provide patches of purple.  It is as if views have been orchestrated for pleasure.  Terns and swallows swoop, hawks and ospreys float in circles, sparrows and finches dash from bush to bush.  Ah, another fine mid-summer.
• People don’t conform to predetermined patterns, not even those of their parents.  Older folks know the younger generation is failing to measure up to their own lofty achievements.  For example, nobody under fifty can read maps and is hopelessly lost without a GPS nearby.  Such complaints, often humorous but with sarcastic bite, fill media.  The young, like the meadow flowers and larks, laugh it off, knowing that the world is theirs and will remain so until the next even more awful generation happens along.

Saturday

• The fascinating dichotomy of the times _ this so much better, that so much worse _ extends through science and technology into nature and human existence.  At no other period have we been so aware of the entire world, so deeply understanding of its underlying complexity.  Yet with that awareness and understanding has come the horrible realization of how rapidly much is vanishing and destroyed forever, and how fragile the rest remains.
• For those willing to make an effort, the complex intertwining of physics and life reverberates in a grand symphony back to the big bang itself.  For those open to marvels of our mind, the mysterious rapid evolution of the human species and its implications is an infinitely engrossing study.  We are on the verge of a true useful philosophy of being, even though it remains sadly out of reach at this moment.
• Technology, meanwhile, hands its marvels and curses as always.  For every wonderful advance _ miracles as trivial as being able to eat strawberries all year round or major triumphs over diseases like heart disease and cancer _ there seems to be some counterbalancing evil.  And yet, on the whole, which of us would willingly roll back the clock even a hundred or two hundred years, in terms of knowledge, technology, society, or any other part of our mostly happy and comfortable existence?
• I could make predictions, but like all predictions, they would be wrong.  I could wish for things, but since my time remaining is brief, my wishes tend to have a limit of decades rather than centuries.  I could fear much, but fearing that which one cannot control or affect leads only to madness. 
• So another day dawns.  I revel in new discoveries from my immediate environment, from my extended media, from my inner thoughts.  It appears I have another day of wonders before me, and that Is more than satisfying at this stage of my life.  Tomorrow, as always, will have to take care of itself. 

Sunday

• Above ground, this is a festival of peace and plenty.  Nothing is grabbing ground furiously, the only real struggle is finding enough water, but plants have evolved to handle that.  Everything has its place and is either preparing the next generation or storing resilience for the coming winter.  Inexorably, the sun provides less and less power for doing so each day.  Goslings and cygnets and all other cutely named baby birds are nearly full-grown, feasting on unlimited abundance.  Under the barely rippled surface of the water, however, a frightening Darwinian massacre continues as fish eat fish eat fish. 
• So it may look like peace and plenty, calm and stability, but struggle continues, and if species could worry they no doubt would do so.  We are blessed with imagination, so a lack of water signifies more than itself, high heat may mean global disaster, bright sun may even now be starting a later skin cancer.  And even if all is well nearby, the distant world certainly has problems.  I think such perspective is a trap.  Life is a gift _ it is always unstable, what matters most to you and me is what is local to you and me.  

Go Fourth!

Monday

• Fireworks have been exploding loudly in the evenings all weekend, three days of colored flashes and sudden bangs.  The wildlife seems to take it in stride _ what are those crazy humans up to this time?  Just about all the boats that have a prayer of being used this summer are now in the water, after frantic activity at the marinas and ramps.  Beaches have been jammed in spite of cool breezes and hazy sunshine.  Today will be filled with scents of burning meat from shortly before noon until after midnight.  And, of course, somewhere all day someone will be intoning how solemnly this day should be celebrated ….
• I’m actually as patriotic as the next guy.  This country has been good to me _ I’ve lived a life much more complete and pleasant than almost anything I have read about in history or travel.  Our United States and its ideals has been something special in the world, and I hope it will continue so.  The anger, moans, and groans of today may yet transmute into some interesting pathway into the future.  For if our country is anything, it is about experiment, and letting individuals together try different ways of thinking and living.  As for me _ well it’s unfortunately come down to less great thoughts and more grilled hamburgers and sunscreen.  Some of the fun in life is once in a while to have no deep thoughts at all.

Tuesday

This land was nothing under ice

Then glaciers left huge rocks and sand

As seas retreated from the land

Forests grew as seeds were spread

By wind, or birds, or human tread

This land was here before the strife

Of English, Dutch, German, French

Before disease and wars left stench

Of rotting corpses, blood and gore

From all who had lived here before

This land was here as it was torn

Cleared to graze or grow rich grain

Filled with farms again, again

Leveled, ploughed, dammed and worst

Waters polluted as if cursed.

This land was here when I was born

Although I did not know it then

I’ve heard fine tales of other when

Much has changed to elder eyes

While all lament lost paradise

This land is here while I sing song

Still glorious when sun shines bright

Luxuriant from storms at night

Stuffed with traffic, beaches, stores

Yet still the youngsters cry for more

This land will not be here for long

As water rises topping waves

Will overflow roads, houses, graves

And all will be as once had been

Perhaps pre-fated, from our sin

Wednesday

• Mathematical considerations and Newtonian mechanics split the year into 4 equal seasons, controlled by orbits and axial tilt.  But nowhere are seasons exactly equal, neither within a year nor between years.  Huntington is rather normalized, but spring sometimes ends abruptly somewhere in May, while winter may arrive in late October.  This year, the more shocking aspect is that signs of autumn have sprung forth because of drought almost before the flowers of spring began to transmute to seed and fruit.
• No matter, people ignore all that anyway.  Summer traditionally and narrowly unfolds between July 4 and September 7 or so.  For my childhood family and friends, this was our unique vacation _ nobody took a week or two off any other time of year to ski or fly south.  Happily, as promised and expected, full summer has finally brought high temperatures, humidity, lots of green and increasing insects.  Wonderful times for beach and sunsets _ even though earlier nightfall and these pesky reminders hanging on ailanthus trees murmur subconsciously that what seems endless time has not actually paused.

Thursday

A bunch of us were gathered outside the library, waiting for the parade to begin.  Ellen had been a teacher and was complaining “The young folks today don’t know any real history about the Founding Fathers or anything else.”

“What?” asked Jeff, eyebrows raised.  “They don’t remember George Washington leaps the broad Potomac in a single bound?”

“I forget,” said John, picking up the thread. “Was that before or after he single-handedly cleared a path through the Allegheny wilderness with a machete for Braddock’s troops?”

“Nah, that was after,” chimed in Mary.  “First thing, he killed a bear when he was only three.”

“Don’t forget about him blowing over his father’s cherry tree orchard with one mighty breath.”

“Ah, Washington, Washington,” Anita remarked disparagingly, “what a wimp.  The real hero in that bunch was Hamilton.  After all, who plowed the Erie Canal, straight as an arrow East to West, Albany to Niagara Falls?”

“With his mighty blue ox Babe!” shouted Tom.

“In just one day!” chirped Mary.

“Oh, yeah?  What about Jefferson?  He cleared the forests of Virginia for his friends, started the French Revolution, and wrote the Encyclopedia Britannica when he retired.”

“The kids,” Ellen interjected darkly, “have no idea what an encyclopedia is.”

“Then how will they ever find out that Franklin electrocuted Philadelphia while he was inventing the steamboat and automobile?”

“Me, I prefer my heroes a little more human,” mused Karin.  “Take John and Abigail Adams.  Forcing the British out of Boston with brilliant legal maneuvers in Faneuil Hall.”

“Happy Fourth of July anyway,” laughed Dave.  “And we should never forget the brave men who fell at Waterloo this day to keep our country safe from tyranny.”

Friday

• Hot, humid, occasional thunderstorms.  Wildlife seems not to notice, although there appears to be a shocking lack of insects this year.  Will swallows and terns starve?  People at the beach are grateful for less bites.  They remain afraid to swim because of declared high bacterial levels. 
• Bacteria, of course, rule our world, both in numbers and sheer biomass.  They are far more helpful companions in our biosphere than antagonists.  In any case, the harmful ones are largely kept in check by salt water.  These beachgoers are presumably the same people who worry about “chemicals” in their food, not realizing that all food and they themselves are nothing but chemicals.  I wonder if any of the sunbathers worry about no insects?  I’d like to believe it’s just a local phenomenon, but I fear that “local” is increasingly identical to everywhere else.

Saturday

• As Lincoln pointed out, the real American Revolution was not in establishing a constitutional republic, but in acting on and holding sacred human rights as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence.  Yes, such ideas were a common theme of eighteenth century intellectuals, but nowhere had a body of people acted on them as the reason for their nation and government.
• Why, exactly were the notions of “self evident,”  “all men created equal,” and “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness” so shocking in the context of rebellion and foundation of government?
• In spite of latter-day evangelists hanging on the word “Creator” with all their might, the very notion that anything could be “self-evident” is non-religious.  “Self-evident” implies lack of authority from experts or writ, each person as interpreter of the meaning of the world, the protestant idea run amok.  The notion that anyone can make up their own mind about meaning and righteousness continues to annoy and frighten rulers and the wealthy.
• Debunkers of the American Myth denounce the phrase “all men” as limiting.  What about women, slaves, the poor, the ugly?  But the key is in the selection of a huge group.  “All men” has a far different connotation than “all kings” or “all nobles” or “all priests.”  “Men” in this context is inclusive almost to the point of meaninglessness.  It invites expansion, and resists narrow definitions.
• That everyone must be granted equal self-determination is explosive fuel. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” sparks the ignition.  In spite of libertarian contradictions, this phrase is harnessed because all the others in society have the exact same rights _ no more and no less _ than anyone else, however certain they may be of their own ideals or however much temporal power they have accumulated.
• America has warts, as all societies do.  But its devotion to the spirit of the Declaration of Independence _ and not to any of the other dinky procedural claptrap in the Constitution and Bill of Rights _ is what made America great, and what continues to make it exceptional in the world.

Sunday

• An easy interim period for most plants, enough water, sun, warmth _ winners have won their struggle.  Animals, on the other hand, are having it harder.  Young birds, mammals, and fish are watching their companions being hit by cars, eaten by cats, devoured by bigger fish, and dying in countless other ways.  Older specimens are already beginning to lose the edge they need to survive the winter.  People may worry about faraway news and distant concerns, but for everything else in our environment survival is real, instant, and constant.
• Our natural companions are probably not attuned to our inner concerns and thoughts.  One of the most surprising things about us humans is that the more secure we become, the more neurotically we consider what might go wrong.  Evolution on Earth planet did not get this far by thinking ahead.  Sometimes, we might be better off paying attention to what is, and less engrossed in what might be.

Animism Light

Monday

• Animism is belief that spirits are everywhere _ trees, birds, puffs of wind.  At this time of year particularly, when there is still room for all bursting life and winners and losers are yet to be determined, animism is an easy faith.  I have a hidden spirit, why should a tree not have the same?  Certainly something unknown or unknowable makes each living organism grow and strive.
• There is a comfort in believing everything, no matter how small and insignificant, fits together meaningfully.  Why should not only mighty oaks, but even each leaf on the oak, each acorn, each rootlet have a genie shaping and protecting and guiding?  Why should not I have the same?  Science, at least modern clinical science stripped of its early poetry, fails dismally at grand explanations.  Animism in that sense is as good a religion as any other for celebrating our amazing existence and the consciousness with which we have been gifted.

Tuesday

An ocean of spirit, or spirits in each

Spirits we never can see

Tantalize dreams, just out of our reach

Wondering what might be

We do not know, we cannot

Today like tomorrow, and yesterday too

Our logic informs us that’s so

Always been like that, if memory is true

If false we’re unable to know

We do not know, we cannot

So here’s to fair dryads, nymphs, and such sprites

Thunder gods riding through rain

Fairies in daffodils, angel delights 

Perhaps just as real as your brain

I do not know, I cannot

Wednesday

• Birds _ dinosaur-descended distant cousins _ seem to possess intelligence and sense.  Flights of birds were interpreted by augers in Classical Rome to predict the future, in the belief that some cosmic spirit guided the flight’s patterns.  It is well-established that hunting peoples frequently performed ceremonies for their prey, both before and after capture or death.  The belief that the world and all it contains possesses spirit is universal.
• I rarely take pictures of birds, insects, fish, or mammalian roadkill.  That is not because I do not notice them, just as I do not ignore people as I amble about.  I simply prefer compositions of slightly more permanence, which means I am often engaged with flowers, leaves, and distant horizons.  As is often true, I find that deeply studying or contemplating one particular aspect of life inevitably leads me to a better appreciation of all the rest that it contains or that lies about it.

Thursday

Startled by a sudden splat, I glance at my companion whose arm now displays a smear of blood. “Why Steve,” I mockingly remonstrate, “don’t you know ‘You should never swat a fly’?”

“Got him!  What?” Steve exclaims in grand confusion.

“Old Jim Kweskin, Maria Muldaur jug band tune about insects having their own value ….”

“Don’t care about your ancient songs,” he states.  “Bible gave me dominion over anything that bothers me, you know.”

“Ah, but some Eastern religions believe …”

“Look, I’ll pick whichever damn songs or religious texts I want whenever I need them.  Besides, wasn’t a fly anyway, just a mosquito.”

“Same difference.  Your karma is damaged. Each living thing may possess ….”

“Nope, nope nope.  According to the most up to date modern scientific theories, my karma is all balanced out, thank you.”

My turn to be startled.  “What are you talking about?”

“Each moment,” he lectures smugly, “is an intersection of infinite possible worlds in some vast incomprehensible multiverse.  In some of them I hit the mosquito, in some of them I miss.  I suppose in some of them it gives me a deadly disease.  This particular me just happens to inhabit a universe time line where I was able to squash the pesky devil.”

“But …”  unfortunately at that moment I had to slap at my own bloodsucking annoyance, which rather definitively put an end to our philosophical conversation.

Friday

• The role of spirits when material manifestation is gone?  Who knows?  A flower looks alive in a water vase for a long time, but is its spirit still there, doomed to a short sterile existence?  What of a bloom perfectly preserved?  The special name for the invisible residuals of life is, of course, “ghost.”  Here at the Huntington historic cemetery should be many ghosts, but all that can be seen are quietly inert scribbled rocks and weeds.
• Ghosts of people are memories among the still living, and a few somewhat longer-existing objects such as tombstones, artifacts, and place names (Reverend Prime has a street named after him.)  In spite of speculation and elaborate attempts, no real contact has been made with folks once “departed.”  Why we would ever want more than memories, artifacts, and place names to haunt us is something I never quite understood.

Saturday

• True science depends on repeatable experiment with fully observable results in the “real world.”  True science would correctly claim that in such a sense nothing spiritual is “true” or “real.”  I yield to that argument and agree that spirit is not real and cannot be real as a scientific construct.
• A less provocative, but absolutely similar, problem arises as to whether “hope”, “love” and so forth are “real” or not.  Science will claim they are caused by hormones, learning, neurons, obscure brain networking, and what not.  But science cannot account for their reality in our experience.  Surely for me love and hope are just as real as a cup of coffee or the clear light of a bright morning.
• Some theoreticians now speculate that intelligence and consciousness is a result of networks, which need not be brains.  That network intelligence functions just as well for a colony of ants or an immune system as it does for dendritically connected neurons in our skull.  That perhaps there is an evolutionary intelligence guiding Gaia itself.  If so, we are part of it.  And, if so, perhaps hope, love, and the belief in spirits are essential parts of our existence itself.
• Who would live without hope or love?  And isn’t a belief that there is some kind of guidance and meaning in everything we encounter far more life-enhancing than a cold psychopathic dismissal of all there is as just differently scattered energetic particles? 
• But ignoring all the deeper, or perhaps more idiotic, thoughts, perhaps even if animism is simply a fine fairly tale, a myth to comfort us, surely that also has survival value.  There are metaphoric truths necessary for life that will never be proven in a test tube or on a survey form.  We reject them at our peril.

Sunday

• Humans inhabit an ecology of phantoms _ spirits and other concepts that are only with difficulty discussed and never adequately defined.  Happiness, meaning, love, beauty _ the list is endless and important.   Imagination _ what things mean, what the future may be, what happened in the past _ imagination is the lodestone of consciousness.  It creates magic from sensation.  Sometimes such thoughts are easily wrapped into unconscious metaphors, which is when sprites and dryads seem to play in meadows and trees.
• I think this is what we really are _ I know it is what I really am.  I reject any other definition of myself, for all such dry and objective evaluations are eventually false.  I love beauty, I seek understanding, I rejoice in empathy.  The only limit I am willing to accept in this spirit world is that my world is mine, and I would never force it on anyone else.  I can thus follow my superstitions and metaphors and imaginations wherever they may lead, accept whatever comforts they provide, hesitate only when I encounter another human in this vast cosmic mystery.