Laws

It is smarter to borrow from nature than to reinvent the wheel.


Philip Emeagwali
****************
Hello Val
****************
It's Autumn and the leaves will soon be changing color. I happened to remark about that to someone today who told me that the leaves around here are still fecund and green. I needed that information because where I live there are no trees. I have to walk several blocks in order to see a tree.

One afternoon years ago I was speaking with a young actor who was seeking my advice as one who he thought was wiser. That was a moot point, but I assayed to give him some of my observations.

I told him that all art is indissolubly tied to nature. I said that an artist of any discipline must be knowledgeable about the laws of nature and know how to obey them. Even an actor. Or most especially an actor. He replied that he didn't understand.

We were sitting at the edge of a tree lined field. It was October. The trees were ablaze with colors and the ground was covered with leaves. I picked up one particularly beautiful leaf, with streaks of red, yellow and amber and with a touch of green at the base. I showed it to him. I said "In order to be an artist you have to be able to create something as beautiful as this leaf, Nature does it by the gezillions every year and then just throws them away."

There are an infinite number of voices in nature for the artist to hear. The sights and sounds of the forests and meadows, the flight of a bird, the distant mountain peak, the energy of the waves as the tide comes in, the flutter of a moth, the path of the lightening bolt, the song of the cricket, the taste of an apple, the feel of the snow.

Those few examples are just the merest number of gifts nature has to fuel an artist's imagination whatever medium he works in. The older I get and the more I work the more I realize the riches of nature for me and everyone. Some of them have even prompted this journal entry..

Go ahead, reinvent the wheel if you want to. I will take the long walk to the tree.

D. Bate - Vagabond Journeys No. 1,893
Never Give Up
**************************

Cheer The Weed

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Lao Tzu
********************
Hello Sandy
********************
I was out walking yesterday and I noticed how small tufts of green were peeking up from the cracks in the side walk and parking lots. Give Nature a chance and it will find a way to flourish even in the midst of a concrete and asphalt world.

Next to the street at the last place I lived there was a tree. I loved that tree. It was very tall and healthy. Every Spring it got a bit taller, increased the size of its branches and put out some more twigs. I knew that once upon a time that tree was part of a forest. The forest had been leveled to make way for the town, but a few trees here and there were left standing. Those other trees were simply cut down and pulled up. Deep in the earth are the remnants of the relatives of my tree.

I pondered the fact that many of our manifestations of civilization, our roads, parking lots, buildings and bridges are intrusions on primeval landscape. And all that Nature wants to grow here is still underground waiting for the opportunity and the right conditions to begin the process. In fact those small patches of green, which we call "weeds," are the first hardy steps, (the advance guard you might say) of Nature's campaign to reclaim its own, original, slowly evolving design.

If this town was totally and permanently abandoned by all human life it may take hundreds, perhaps thousands of years but Nature would eventually break apart all the pavements, tear down all the buildings, swallow them all up and digest them. The grass would grow, the bushes would flourish, the meadows would stretch out and the forest would reappear.

So why the intrusion? Because there's another kind of Nature, called Human Nature. It is out nature to build shelter, to grow crops, to educate ourselves, to conduct commerce and transportation. And so we bend Nature to our will, leave a few trees and some bushes still standing, maybe we even plant a few, but the rest of it we tear down and replace with our roads. parking lots, buildings and bridges.

But the next time you see a small patch of green peeking up from a crack in the side walk admire its courage and brave but futile attempt to reclaim the world.

DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.
*********************

Remarkable Things

He who thoughtfully and with a searching eye investigates the laws of Nature in all their immense variety is stricken with astonishment when he stumbles upon a wisdom he was not aware of.

Immanuel Kant
**********************
Does the bee hover over the blossom to announce her arrival to the flower's vital parts?
If tortoises flip over on their backs can they turn over again without help?
I read in a nature magazine that squirrels who bury acorns for the winter forget where they buried some of them, and that's how Nature plants her oak trees. Isn't that a remarkable thing?

We recently had a total eclipse of the moon. Many people watched it including me. I was struck by the fact that the moon did nothing about it, but the globe I was standing on was casting its shadow over the moon. If an astronaut had been standing on the moon he would have seen the sun disappear. Isn't that a remarkable thing?

How do pigeons find their way back to their home cages even from hundreds of miles away?
Why does Nature sometimes create two headed snakes. Siamese snakes, imagine that.
In New England they observe where the spiders build their winter nests. The higher the webs the greater amount of snow there will be. Isn't that a remarkable thing?

How can a polar bear swim in water so cold that an average human being would not live in it for a minute?
Why must there be a dip, a harmonic arc, at the top of a harp?
A healthy bat can consume over a thousand mosquitos in one night. Isn't that a remarkable thing?

How can Nature gradually turn wood into stone?
Why do your household pets know more about you than you know about them?
The ocean tides come in and go out everyday without fail. Isn't that a remarkable thing?

I'm an artist. I don't want to be a scientist, but I'm delighted to learn some of the astonishing things that scientists know.

DB - The Vagabond
***********************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)

What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?

dbdacoba@aol.com

Only 7 responses so far. Winter is almost over. Get on board people.
DB
******************************

Nature's Call

We are the trees, we are the rocks, we are the water.

Donna House (Navajo)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"The lack of money is the root of all evil." (Shaw)

In among the Vagabond Jottings somewhere is the statement "We don't own the earth. The earth owns us." Nature gives us the forests, the mountains, the oceans and lets the sun shine in. The earth is a benevolent mother and is patient with us, but only up to a point.

Greed is a strange sin. It seems to be the only human error to be completely justified by human life. Since money, or some form of currency, runs civilization, feeds us, houses us and pays for our safety and security, the more we have of it the better. Right? Money is a good thing. So is a class of wine with dinner, or maybe two. But how close is that glass of wine to alcoholism. For most people, not at all. For others it leads directly into drunkenness and anti-social behavior.

Not so with money. The more you can accumulate the better. It enables you to have a good home, maybe two. You can send your kids to good colleges, take fancy vacations, maybe a pleasure boat for the family, or why not a yacht and a private jet. some day you may even get your own space ship. Then you'll be among "the orbiting set" and not just "the jet set." You are now considered one of "the super rich," "the important people" or what's even worse "blessed by the Lord." Eventually you'll have enough money to influence government decisions to protect your money and institute programs to suit you. Oh yes, you'll write fat checks to charities to let everyone know you're a good guy.

But have you stopped to consider where your money is coming from? Is it coming off the backs of slave laborers in Africa and Asia, from suffering animals, from the subtle plundering of the rest of us with exorbitant interest rates and over charging, from services paid for but not rendered, the rape of the earth's natural resources?

"We are the trees, we are the rocks, we are the water." As we destroy the forests, blow up the rocks and pollute the waters we are killing ourselves. There is no question about that. The universe could destroy all life on this planet in a cosmic flash if it was necessary. How many rain forests have to be burned down, how many explosions in mine shafts have to happen, how much oil and other garbage has to be dumped into our oceans killing innocent fish and wildlife before Nature says "THAT'S IT" kicks us out and starts cleaning up the mess?

And how many millions of years will it take for one primordial creature to meet some other primordial creature and start the process all over again?

DB
+++++++++++++++++++++++++

SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?

5 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
********************

Ghost Stories

Wilderness is not for sale.

Nick Rahall
**************
You probably aren't aware that you are surrounded by ghosts, are you? I don't mean the specter of some ancient personage who keeps appearing and disappearing or the creature in the white sheet that floats through the garden at night.

Wilderness is what it's name implies: wildness. Nature in it's intricacy and inexhaustible variety of design creates what to the human eye seems to be chaos. Scientists tell us that nature never repeats itself, no two butterfly wings are alike, no two snowflakes. I don't know how scientists can know that but I'll take their world for it.

Somewhere I have a quote which describes making a neighborhood as bull dozing down all the trees, building a street and then naming it after the trees: Oak Street, Maple Way, Elm Lane, for example. And yet if that neighborhood was completely abandoned and no one ever set up residence there again, nature would eventually reclaim it, the buildings would eventually collapse, the street would be broken and the oak trees would grow again. The seeds of the life that nature had designed for the place are still in the ground and those seeds are what determine what grows there. Those seeds and roots are the real life of the place. The oaks, maples and elms never left. You may say you have a nice two bedroom house with grassy front lawn, but Nature quietly and patiently says "No, that's where the pumpkin patch is."

An artist chooses colors from a vast spectrum of them and every color is there whether it appears on the canvas or not. If you mix all the colors you get a dark substance, indiscriminate and wild. A writer has a choice of words but his entire language is automatically implied in the words he didn't choose. There is a vast number of musical tones, many of them beyond the ability of the human ear. If they are all sounded together there is a kind of static sound called "white noise."

If you look and listen carefully you can see the implied colors and hear the accompanying tones. As you walk down your street stop at a tree, one that has been there since before your neighborhood was made, and know that it's brothers and sisters are but ghosts in the ground waiting to reappear.

DB = The Vagabond
*******************
May today be a good day
A beautiful day in every way.
*******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Summer is around the corner.

In your opinion what is the most amazing thing that could happen during this decade? Make it as outrageous as you want but keep it within the realm of what you consider a possibility.

15 responses so far.

Answers will be published the first day of Summer.

Thank you.

dbdacoba@aol.com

DB - The Vagabond

Look unto the hills.

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.

Saint Augustine
**************************
It’s amazing that the world didn’t end on New Years Eve 2000 as many had predicted. It also didn’t end on any of the other dates the false prophets were sure of. It’s not going to end next year, or in 2012, or 2020 as they are predicting now. No doubt there will be some apocalyptic changes as time goes by but they probably won’t be rapid. In fact they might be going on right now.

The earth may flip over again as some say once happened, making north south and south north. We may be growing crops for ourselves on some other planet, or growing crops here for some other planet. The natural cycles of existence may change forms but they are not going away.

It’s also amazing, considering the enormous amount of scientific exploration and examination that has gone on over the centuries how little we really know about things. I find that an encouraging and comforting thing. It means there is so much still to be learned and inquiring minds will still be busy learning it in centuries to come.

With each new advance and discovery in science the supernatural folds up another of its cherished gossamer fantasies. Ancients used to consider many things mysteries and miracles which we take for granted today because we now have explanations and principles for them.

Augustine lived in the 4th Century AD, a pagan who converted to Christianity. Even at that early time, when superstition ruled and the supernatural was esteemed, he was able to see that the great unknowns were simply that, unknowns, and not miracles. And yet, here we are 17 centuries later and there are otherwise intelligent people who still blame God instead of Nature for hurricanes and tornados, who believe in myths and call them human history.

I wonder what has brought the human race to such a recidivistic, spiritual blockade.

A person of Faith should be encouraged and comforted to know there is as much, if not more, to learn about their God as there is about Nature.

DB - The Vagabond
-----------------------------
Don't get into that egg nog too early now, you hear me?

Careful Creativity 5/30/09

Art is imitation, not of things, but of the nature of things.

Huntington Cairns
*******************
Hail, Important One.
-------------------------
Many people get to the door of art and the appreciation of art and stop. I don't know, maybe they assume it's locked, or something.

I remember some episodes in my later years when younger actors would ask me questions about acting. I frequently said that acting, like any other art, has to conform to natural law. When queried about that once I picked up a leaf off the ground. It was autumn. The leaf had a beautiful thrust of green coming from the stem up through the center, then fanned out to a passionate red and onto to a cheerful amber at the edges, with each color blending with the others. I said that in order to be an artist we have to come up with something as beautiful as that leaf. But nature creates them by the zillions every year and then just tosses them away.

Why do artists paint pictures of leaves and flowers? Why did Gustav Klimt paint The Sunflower? It sort of looks like a sunflower. But it is really the essence of that particular one of a kind sunflower. As a result it is a magical work of art.

Mimicry, which is different from mime, has its place in the entertainment world, but it does not describe the essence of what is being mimicked. I've known of people who have normal, not unpleasant speaking voices in real life, but give them a script and they immediately start sounding like Katherine Hepburn, Marlon Brando or John Wayne. It's a terrible habit because it leads right up to the closed door on creativity. It has nothing to do with art.

Here's a simple example of what I think, but it illustrates the point. The Little Black Box. It was a small plastic box with a toggle switch on the top. If you flicked the switch to "on" the lid slowly opened a crack, a small emaciated arm came out; switched it to "off" and fell back into the box which closed again. When I saw it I thought, This is great. It's a humorous design to illustrate the dedicatedly depressed mind. It says "Leave me alone. I'm content in the dark crypt of my hermitage." It tells the story with a laugh. It's going to be around for a while. Next time I'm in here, I'll buy it.

A few weeks later I came back and there was the little black box. Only now there was a slot for a coin. When you flicked the switch the arm came out and pushed the coin into the box. "Gee" some unenlightened person said "that would make a cute bank." Cute. But it said nothing. One was a humorous expression in art of the universal metaphysical essence of defeat, depression and avoidance of life. The other was a bank.

The next time you look at a beautiful painting or witness an excellent performance remind yourself that you are looking at a window.

DB The Vagabond
________________
Throw some joy around.
********************