the evolving mind

We’re in the midst of a cold snap here in Florida. Freezing temperatures overnight. When water turns to ice, it rips delicate plant cells apart (such as in the above banana leaf, pre-freeze). And so our yard is looking a bit sad this morning. And it’s only going to get worse.

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The growth of the oak trees in and around our Florida yard drastically slows during the winter months. For all I know, it may stop. The bulk of the leaves don’t drop until spring, when new growth pushes them off. It seems.

Here in Vermont, where I now sit and type, a blanket wrapped around my slippered feet to keep them warm, the deciduous trees have lost there leaves. Directly in front of me, through a window, is a species of tree related to the birch. (I can tell by the bark, but lack its name.) There is nothing on this tree’s branches but an inch-frosting of snow running along the topsides — where gravity can’t pull it off.

I wonder if people in cold climates age ever-so-slightly slower.

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Just an image. Was a photo. What would you call it now?

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On the eve before Christmas
some biologists gave to me –
A new bird species found in distant trees.

The ScienceDaily article tells it:

A diminutive, colorful bird living in the rocky forests of Laos and Vietnam has been discovered by a team of scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society, Lao PDR Department of Forestry, Swedish University of Agricultural Science, Swedish Museum of Natural History, BirdLife International and other groups.

Named the “limestone leaf warbler” because it breeds in Laos’s limestone karst environments — a region known for unusual wildlife — it is similar to other warblers in this area of Southeast Asia, except for its distinct vocalizations and slight morphological differences. [source]

I love it! For this bird-watcher, the discovery is waaaaay better than a six-pack of tube socks.

[photo by Peter Davidson]

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Shrimp plants (Justicia brandegeana) are currently blooming in our Florida yard. Or at least they were. I am now in the north country, where I will be spending my holidays. I just returned from a hike through snowy woods where I encountered not a single plant in bloom.

Why don’t flowers blossom in the snow (sure, there are probably a few tundra species that do). I imagine part of it has to do with what inner ice crystals would do to the fragile tissues of flowers. There are likely a number of sensible, biological reasons for the lack of blossoms in winter.

Are there any sensible, theological reasons why flowers don’t unfurl during blizzards and cold snaps? If a priest could find one in a “holy book”, or make one up, should it be taught alongside the biological reasons for things in school science classrooms?

Of course not.

Keep religion out of science. Because science it isn’t.

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While the above image began as a photograph, I can no longer call it one. After modifying it with Photoshop, what I now have is . . . an image? A doctored photograph? Were I to reduce the filtering degree by degree, what would be the point, I wonder, I could refer to it as a photograph, period? Seems to me that photo editing software has introduced a whole lot of grey area into what we present as reality.

Consider this NASA photo.

There is no mention at the source of image manipulation. We do learn what captured the image of cosmic reality: the “Wide Field Camera peering though the recently refurbished Hubble Space Telescope.”

But I sense some grey in the above. Not in color, but in the beautiful light diffraction of some of the stars. How much was the image doctored? Does it matter?

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It is winter in Central Florida. Which means that the verdant green landscape has turned browner. Not slate gray like in northern climates. But duller nonetheless.

As I look out my window, a few things tell me it isn’t summer.

- The neighbor’s dogwood tree is half naked. The remaining leaves are reddish/greenish/brownish. And limp.

- Similarly, the bald cypress tree in our yard has lost most of its soft needles. The remaining ones are a bleached green or a shade of brown.

- The birds at the feeder. Chipping sparrows and goldfinches come around only when their food up north runs scarce.

I wonder how changing seasons (thanks to a wobbly planet) have influenced human beliefs. How different would our metaphysics be if the temperature was a consistent 75 and trees held their leaves all year.

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Can something be beautiful and humorous at the same time? Excuse the armchair conjecture here, but it seems to me that humor involves, in part, viewing something non-seriously, while the perception of beauty relies upon a seriousness, albeit one with positive emotional hues.

Put another way, can you perceive something as beautiful while giggling?

Hmm. Maybe if two distinct parts of your brain are simultaneously active.

The above photo is of white crepe myrtle blossoms. Below, a news headline from the Onion.

Sumerians Look On In Confusion As God Creates World

Members of the earth’s earliest known civilization, the Sumerians, looked on in shock and confusion some 6,000 years ago as God, the Lord Almighty, created Heaven and Earth.

According to recently excavated clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform script, thousands of Sumerians—the first humans to establish systems of writing, agriculture, and government—were working on their sophisticated irrigation systems when the Father of All Creation reached down from the ether and blew the divine spirit of life into their thriving civilization.

Funny.

Beautifully humorous?

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The above flowering vine that freely grows in our yard isn’t edible. If it were, and tasty, I might add it to tossed salads. You can’t get more locally grown than that.

Those little yellow things? Insect eggs. They may be edible for all I know — in terms of the human digestive system. Were they more substantial in size, I might consider scrambling a few and frying the hodge-podge of destroyed potential life.

Ouch.

Yes, we survive by eating living or formerly living biological matter. Some of that matter has nerve cells, or will. Some doesn’t. Still, you rip a carrot from the earth before it flowers and passes on its genes. How cruel! For breakfast you may eat a pre-chicken, easy-over. How cruel!

Mind you, I’m not making fun of any particular position. I just think earthly existence is a strange thing. Full of gray shades.

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The bottlebrush tree, Callistemon rigidus, needs no patent.

Callistemon, by the way, means “beautiful stamen.”

Rigidus? You can guess.

We have a bottlebrush tree growing in our yard. Though at this stage in its life cycle it is more like a bottlebrush shrub. I will say, though, that the supporting limbs are quite rigid. Are the stamen rigid? Frankly, I don’t know. Though I’ve photographed the plant’s blossomings many times, I can’t recall, um, feeling it. Next time it flowers I certainly will.

Beautiful? Most definitely.

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