Mourning dove

close up shot of a dove
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The mourning dove

Ambles along

Unhindered by the knotted cares of

A world run astray.

Only the wind

Speaks to her

And the great sky

Above,

Where the blue dove

Smiles,

Wreathed in bells of sunlight,

Their light

Falls on ancient stone sundials,

That foretell

The times that are

And yet to be.

Then only the earth-lit rains follow after

That sing

Their song

Of lilting laughter,

That drizzle down quiet afternoons.

Only the peace

Of the presence of Eternity.

The unraveling mystery of the runes.

Overhead fly the geese

Of spring

And the white butterfly

Who flits, twinkling,

Among the sage brush dancing

Gently in the wind,

Their stems still gray

From the length

Of the snowing days

Of winter.

Out of emptiness climbs

Strength,

While the tall cliff anchors time

And in the creek below,

The minnow

Flits on by,

Silver-finned.

The dove takes flight,

Wings whistling

Into the unknown,

Alone, yet not alone,

With her crowds of brothers and sisters,

Where the juniper trees gather

Under the wings of spring,

In the brave winds –

Singing.

© Copyright Sharon St Joan, 2023

Wasteland Wakened~ —

The Sonoran Desert in Southern California, is bursting in bloom! Rains continue into May in the desert which is unheard of. Note the people midway up the mountain to give you perspective on the scope of of the superbloom which cover many mountains. Blooming Brittlebush carpet the foothills in vibrant yellow blankets. This bloom in…

Wasteland Wakened~ —

The far-glimmering hill

silhouette of tree under half moon
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India

Forest,

Rock stone lake,

Red cliff flowers on the road to the moon;

Tracks run into the curled sea of Malta,

Where the wind songs break.

Back then

There were many obelisks, all

Bright and speaking –

Not like today

When

The smoke whispers only

Sad tales of decrepitude,

And there are no beings singing

In the clouds,

Only shrouds

Of emptiness.

When

Will the gray

Seagulls return

On wings of yesteryear,

On dreams not yet forgotten?

When will the spirits, imbued

With magic, fly up through

The night mists –

Rain-hissed?

Having slept,

The cobra

Rocked from side to side,

Friend of Narayana,

From the sea-green tide,

Alert, considering

Where to slither next,

Ancient being,

The one

Who used to ride among the stars,

Ancestor of many,

Who writes his text

On sandbars,

Ocean-swept.

Long ago

Then

Legends lived of hero

And saint

And those wiser than us by far.

There

Were crowds

Of bumblebees who count the stars.

Even now, doorways go

From the cavern

In the lake

To the mystic palaces of the tall

Wandering beings

Who still hear

The tales of centuries long slipped away,

Their shadow-light faint

Beyond the sea.

When will the time come then?

Soon

After the smoke of the fire has spewed

Down the valley

Will there arise

At last the moment of

Wildflowers, wandering moths, butterflies,

And little ones

With deep black eyes

And strange smiles of kindness?

There

Where

The wind sighs

Still

In the tall pines

And the bright moon

Shines

High

Above

The far-glimmering

Hill.

© Copyright Sharon St Joan 2023

How beavers are reviving wetlands — Exposing the Big Game

Published9 hours ago Share https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64502365 Related Topics Climate change By Navin Singh Khadka Environment correspondent, BBC World Service We are losing wetlands three times faster than forests, according to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. When it comes to restoring them to their natural state there is one hero with remarkable powers – the beaver. Wetlands […]

How beavers are reviving wetlands — Exposing the Big Game

Winter Waterfowl Migration — Jet Eliot

Northern California is in quite a storm stir this week and last, as many of you have probably seen on the news. Here’s a look at the winter bird migration before the storms began. Snow Geese and snow-topped mtns, CA In mid-December we visited two wildlife refuges in the Sacramento Valley and it was fantastic, […]

Winter Waterfowl Migration — Jet Eliot

What is a voice?

aerial photo of river between green mountain
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Forest Voices of India, a 501 C 3 organization, helps charities in India – primarily environmental charities.

What is a voice? A voice is an expression of the spirit.

The voice of the whale calls to other whales. The voice of the forest gives expression to the thoughts of the trees.

The voice of the mountain lion calls to her young.

The voice is an expression of life, of existence, consciousness, awareness.  The earth herself has a voice, a presence – as does each rock, each mountain – as do the rains, the wind, and even the heat of the desert at noon.

All is alive and all is a spirit – including the stars overhead, the comets, the moons of the planets that turn round and round.

Nothing has died and all is alive. This is the truth that encompasses the sacred – sacred plants, sacred rivers, the sacred essence of each living species and also the earth and the oceans.

When we imagine that only human beings – or perhaps only human beings and those animals that are somewhat like us – have awareness and a life essence, we have misunderstood the nature of the universe – both the material universe and also the spiritual universe.

In doing so, we have limited and greatly reduced our own life.

In reality, all has life, vitality, and consciousness. All is One. This is one of the core understandings of truth that arose many thousands of years ago on the Indian subcontinent.

To get to know more about Forest Voices of India, visit

http://forestvoicesofindia.com

This is not an official statement by FV of India. It represents only my own perspective. Others who are part of Forest Voices of India, may have differing  – or complementary – views and insights. – Sharon St Joan

Where is yesterday in quantum physics?

majestic snowcapped mountains
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Authors Robert Lanza and Matej Pavsic (with Bob Berman) have written a book, The Grand Biocentric Design (How life creates reality). It is a sequel to other books. It is both horrifying and enlightening. Particularly, it is horrifying when one considers the implications of what he is saying. Otherwise, it might just be enlightening.

To give Robert Lanza credit, (since his name comes first, I assume his input is responsible for a large part of the book), he sounds like a very pleasant fellow. He makes every effort to explain things clearly, in a light and cheerful manner. He is kind enough to put all the mathematical equations in a separate section at the end (for the sake of simpletons like me) – and, best of all, he seems to love animals. He devotes a chapter to them and writes about animals with affection. He even includes them as “observers” – which, as sentient beings, they clearly are. He even mentions plants too.

However, generally speaking, the concepts of quantum physics – just like the theories of Einstein — have left many of us scratching our heads.

Most of us, I imagine, are familiar with the concept in quantum physics that the “observer” is a necessary part of reality. When studying tiny sub-atomic particles, one cannot pinpoint exactly where they are or what form they are in without the presence of the observer. When the observer is present, a beam of light exists as a particle, in a particular place, at a particular time.

Absent the observer, there is no way to pinpoint the location or the time of the light. It exists only as a probability that might or might not be anywhere. It is a wave, or a photon, not a particle, and it has no precise, defined existence.

Robert Lanza expands on this concept by concluding that probably there is no definite past at all. I’m leaving out the explanations, but the end result is that yesterday may have existed or maybe it didn’t. Time, as Einstein told us, is relative. As it turns out, it’s really, really relative. There may not be any clear, definite past at all – just a present – and a present only when there is an observer.

Robert Lanza does graciously acknowledge that animals can also be observers.  When the chipmunk hears the fall of the famous tree in the forest, then, surely, the tree actually fell and made a sound – just as if a human had heard it. That’s all well and good.

Is there a yesterday?

To get back to the existence of yesterday – it could be perceived by most of us as just a tiny bit alarming if there were no well-defined yesterday.

Consider this: Let’s say you celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday – along with all your relatives, including the uncle that you always argue with. Now looking back on this, it might be awkward to have to ask yourself if those people who sat around the table really were all your real relatives. Maybe in years past, you had completely different relatives? 

Or you tuck your child into bed at night and in the morning you wake her up. You would like to be confident that this is indeed your child – the same one who was your child yesterday.

You grew up in a small town in the Midwest – but wait, maybe not, maybe instead, you grew up in New York City, in a bustling urban neighborhood.  Who knows?

There is no definite past.

If you took any of this seriously, it might be genuinely disturbing.

A walk in the woods

This afternoon I took a short walk and sat down on the low branch of a juniper tree. Across the way, on the next tree was a very communicative raven – making a whole repertory of sounds – calls, warbles, and clicks.

I looked at the tree branch I was sitting on and thought about the concept of yesterday not being fixed in time at all.

Trees exist on nutrients that come to them though chemical actions caused by the passing of sunlight through their leaves – or in the case of the juniper, their needles. Through their roots buried in the earth they drink in water.

Now this becomes a problem if there was no yesterday – because how was this nourishment and drinking accomplished if the tree did not exist yesterday – or in the years and months prior to yesterday?  How exactly did the tree come to be, in its current form with a thick, sturdy trunk and lots of branches – without having received any nourishment, which would have required time in the past?

This is a problem because there was no observer of the tree eating and drinking. Even the perceptive raven in the other tree would not have noticed any eating or drinking done by the tree.

Perhaps the tree observed itself eating and drinking?  This would make the most sense, and there have been scientific experiments, and books published, that document the apparent awareness – or consciousness — of trees.  I certainly have no problem at all with the idea of trees being aware, sentient beings.

This still, however, doesn’t get rid of the problem of yesterday – and any other aspect of the past not having a fixed, definite form or existence.

For the tree to be eating and drinking – time is required – yesterday – or in the summertime – or whenever — there must be a precise, actually existing time when the tree received nourishment and water. Otherwise, it would not be alive. Without a certain past, there is no present.

Then there’s another problem – if plants and animals can be observers – and I would totally agree that that can happen, then what about the observer status of beings that are not biologically alive?  What about rocks, mountains, the stars, the moon?

What about the mountains and the moon?

If you are an astronomer, and you find the moon at a certain location along its trajectory around the earth – then the moon must have traveled to get there.  If the moon is to be found at location x, then it must have traveled in the past in order to arrive at the location where it is today.

So, is the moon conscious, and is it its own observer? The ancients – virtually all ancestors of modern humans – would have answered a resounding, “Yes, of course”!

But we feel we are so much wiser today – not superstitious or ignorant.

The simplest possible answer to all these perplexities is the very simple concept that everything and everyone is someone – from the tiniest microorganism to the biggest star – from the great mountain worshipped by native people to the old truck that you have fondly given a name to.

Furthermore, just to go one step further – one could suppose that all beings have a soul – and that that soul is one and the same Soul who is also the Creator and the Essence of the known Universe – and all that may lie beyond the universe – otherwise known as God.

(Oh dear, I guess we have just left behind virtually everyone who steadfastly identifies with the modern time in which we live.)

To go back to Robert Lanza for a moment, he, on several occasions, laughs at the concept of God by referring to “a belief in God, ghosts and spirits.” “Spirits,” I think, was what he mentioned along with God and ghosts.

We are expected these days to all belong to a club – the great club of modernity – which is educated – generally western – materialist – which values science above all and which, with greater conviction, with every passing day – is the Great Club of modern truth – with no longer any need to even condescend to consider – the values, beliefs, perceptions of those billions of souls who came before us – nevermind their art, their inspiration, their music, their mysticism, their vision and their profound awareness.

Our own meager modern glimmer of reality is supposed to be the final truth – and it diminishes in scope day by day.  Our ticket to this Club of Modernity is our denial of anything spiritual, alive, or true – until such time as this yuga ends and the light of the next yuga shines over the horizon.

So, we shall see, as time goes along…

(If this was, in any way, hard to follow, I’m sorry. Not to worry – these are just my thoughts. You’re welcome to your own. And, if you are blessed – as many people are – even in these dim days – with a vision and a connection with All that lies beyond, then God bless you and be well. If not, may the Light be with you.)

© Copyright Sharon St Joan, 2022

In Nenmeli, life begins all over again — Forest Voices of India

By Sriya Narayanan Once a sparkling village bustling with biodiversity and economic activity, Nenmeli in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu, had watched its green cover fade over the years. The village lands deteriorated over time A grueling water scarcity issue followed. Young residents were forced to migrate to cities to look for work and the elderly stayed…

In Nenmeli, life begins all over again — Forest Voices of India