We slip into Tientai caves,
Home is a hole,
And a hole’s where nothing is.
We visit people unseen —
Chewing magic mushrooms,
Underneath tall pines.
We talk about the past and present,
And sigh at the world gone mad.
Shih Te (9th century)
Category: quotes
348 – Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer
“attentiveness alone can rival the most powerful magnifying lens.”
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Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. “Gathering Moss” is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites readers to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses.
In this series of linked personal essays, Robin Kimmerer leads general readers and scientists alike to an understanding of how mosses live and how their lives are intertwined with the lives of countless other beings. Kimmerer explains the biology of mosses clearly and artfully, while at the same time reflecting on what these fascinating organisms have to teach us.
Drawing on her experiences as a scientist, a mother, and a Native American, Kimmerer explains the stories of mosses in scientific terms as well as in the framework of indigenous ways of knowing. In her book, the natural history and cultural relationships of mosses become a powerful metaphor for ways of living in the world.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/87040.Gathering_Moss
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“the tiny pool of water held in a spoon-shaped leaf is the perfect resting place for a waterbear, as plump and gelatinous as a candy gummy bear. the moisture in a moss mat is as vital to the moss as it is to the waterbear. but, since mosses are non-vascular, their water content fluctuates with the amount of water in the environment. the moss leaves shrivel and contort as water evaporates, leaving them crisp and dry. the waterbears too, simply shrink when desiccated to as little as one-eight of their size forming barrel- shaped miniatures of themselves called tuns. metabolism is reduced to near zero and the tun can survive in this state for years. the tuns blow around in the dry winds like specks of dust, landing on new clumps of moss and dispersing farther than their short waterbear legs could ever carry them.”
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_body
Timeline – Bog Bodies on youtube
4000 Year Old Cold Case – The Body in the Bog
Carved idol from the Urals shatters expert views on birth of ritual art – “Only the freak conditions of the peat bog of Yekaterinburg permitted the idol’s survival.” read more
The oldest wooden statue in the world -4-must credit Ekaterina Osintseva-The Siberian Times,queries Will Stewart 007 985 998 94 00.jpg
342
“Better never means better for everyone… It always means worse, for some.”
334
“Cinderella’s transformation from “slutty maid” to “virtuous princess,” accomplished by the fairy godmother, was in part an exercise in fashion design. Perrault wanted to display what superior people should wear and how they should carry themselves.” Jack Zipes – Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion
329 – Contact (1997)
spacetime coordinates: 1990s New Mexico // Florida // Puerto Rico // Washington, D.C. // Wisconsin // Hokkaido
Contact is a 1997 American science fiction drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis. It is a film adaptation of Carl Sagan‘s 1985 novel of the same name; Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan wrote the story outline for the film.
Jodie Foster portrays the film’s protagonist, Dr. Eleanor “Ellie” Arroway, a SETI scientist who finds strong evidence of extraterrestrial life and is chosen to make first contact.
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What Happens If China Makes First Contact?
As America has turned away from searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, China has built the world’s largest radio dish for precisely that purpose. (read more)
“No civilization should ever announce its presence to the cosmos. Any other civilization that learns of its existence will perceive it as a threat to expand—as all civilizations do, eliminating their competitors until they encounter one with superior technology and are themselves eliminated. This grim cosmic outlook is called “dark-forest theory,” because it conceives of every civilization in the universe as a hunter hiding in a moonless woodland, listening for the first rustlings of a rival.”
313
0306 – Tracks (2013)
In 1977, Robyn Davidson travels from Alice Springs across 2,700 kilometers (1,700 miles) of Australian deserts to the Indian Ocean with her dog and four camels. National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan documents her journey.
Tracks is a 2013 Australian drama film directed by John Curran and starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver. It is an adaptation of Robyn Davidson‘s memoir of the same name.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2167266/
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“And there are new kinds of nomads, not people who are at home everywhere, but who are at home nowhere. I was one of them ”
TimeSpace Warps 