So many perspectives, so little time left.

       Bette Davis warned me many years ago, with her monicker..."Old age is not for sissies."

     That old Who am i ? question keeps popping up...this image was me some 30 years ago while on the road somewhere journalling and gaping worlds so unlike the one here in America...worlds of Muslims in Morocco, or Hindus in India, or Bhuddists in Nepal, and a mix of both in Indonesia, and there were tribes free from all that, and of course Greek Orthodox, and Lutherans, and Catholics from land to land.

      But I didn't get the feeling that any of those labels really mattered, because they were mostly good people with good motives and civil respect for me, and helpful, friendly, courteous, and many became a friend for a few hours to talk.

       I find it tragic that people like the Klu Klux Klan, or ISIL, or Boko Haram, or some White Nazi Group feel they have a right to call themselves any religion...unless psychopathic

sadistic hatred mongering obsessive compulsive fanatics can be related to anyone's savior.

      It's hard not to break down and weep when we see the state of the human condition today.

Mother's tying bombs to themselves to blow up innocents from another clan.

       Educated men from middle class families willing to be barbarians and hack off the heads of innocent well meaning people just to stage and grab attention.

        An economic system that is virtually sterilizing the planet and creating artificial luxury at the cost of extinction of countless life forms, many we don't know, and won't because they're already extinct.

        Having to accept that our leaders are corrupt, and we have virtually no say about humanity's future because our government has become a grand stage auction of the wealthiest.

        

And yet, even I am more comfortable with a home, a garden, heat, food, sewers, water, transportation, recreation, in short all the 'needs' have been met, and add internet, lights, microwaves, hot water, mobile phones, any food in season somewhere on the planet, stoves, refrigerators, and my grandparents, even my parents would feel overwhelmed with so much luxury.

         Meanwhile, bee hives have shrunk to 30% of their population since 2007.  1000 year drought is hitting one of our most agricultural regions.

Everywhere soil is blowing away because the microrhizal layers have disappeared and nothing is holding the dirt together, or helping plants bond, or retaining moisture and nutrients.  

         I feel a debilitating helplessness watching us destroy our planet that could be overtake my attitude of awe that comes from exploring and learning about our universe, the miracles of life & consciousness, geology, chemistry, hormones, DNA, and all the other ingredients of reality which we're just now beginning to understand..

           

     We recently bought a Celestron microscope which takes pictures of what you see, and then those pictures 5 mp can be manipulated to bring out what I see...a decayed leaf, a lettuce seed, and some 'salt cubes'.  Life at this scale is fresh to me, and the deeper we now look into the structure of matter and life, from string theory in space to our DNA and its continual evolution are so astounding, and mind boggling, that I can focus on a level of reality within my range, and over which I still have some control and where there is still so much to be learned.

      Keeping the mind active, leaving the cybernetwork to be outside, hands in dirt, planting seed, pulling weeds, smelling my hands with that odor dogs roll in with bliss.

Again the moon rises, a whole sterile planet just ten times length around the earth away from us.

What opportunist plants and animals will be able to survive an increasingly unpredictable climate with extremes and huge portions of the agricultural world newly formed desert?

Will we write and even more gruesome "Grapes of Wrath".

 

   
Yes, emigrants and immigrants are the same people, but they are separate roles of the same soul.

Oh the blessings of being an immigrant,
to live in a country with so much natural scenery, mountains, rivers, valleys, space to live...'lebensraum' as Germans call it.  My father had the dream after being in the Merchant Marine of Holland and seeing Seattle and Vancouver he was lured, postwar, to escape all the Re-occuring ethnic divides, 'nationalities and principalities fighting for power, wars after wars...and for what. I was 8 when I left,
     Now, even 62 years later, I still manage to utter that Dutch in a way that my family and friends can understand me...?

Oh the sadness of being an emigrant.  To lose your extended families, have all your values constantly challenged, treated like an outsider and leaving grief behind when you see your grandmother for the last time.  Here 6 decades later, my nostalgia for the reflecting canals of Amsterdam on my way to school will always be missed...and the sense of community, the feeling of being safe as a kid on the street, with everyone looking out for one another.  I miss the history, the lapses of time, the stories of the past, the respect for the architecture...the parks where I played, the food that we ate, my grandparents. In short, emigration is a sort of inner ethnic cleansing...storing the past, and creating a new life.