The Sun, The Moon, and The Earth
Solstice and Big Time
“Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death! Now come on, and live!”
- Rosalyn Russell, as “Auntie Mame.”
I am enjoying that I have a cadence going now on Things to Realize. I hope you are finding my ramblings and thoughts interesting. The world is fascinating and brilliant and wonderful, and there are so many things I think you all will enjoy, and so I write. What to write is never an issue for me - I have a queue of topics that are interesting to me and I’m thinking, to you too. Rather it’s doing the writing. Since I have been doing my Morning Pages now for over 320 days in a row, I just decided that I can do this once per week. It’s early, but so far so good. Please let me know what you think and I’d be honored if you subscribed. The movie “Auntie Mame,” by the way, is one of my favorite movies. My late wife Jenny and I quoted from it all the time: “It was just about yogurt time,” and “She stepped on the ball! Why, it was ghastly, just ghastly!” This latter quote was used for a gag in the movie “Trading Places.” The quote I used to open this edition is one of my favorite quotes of all time, and I have to say that as much as Life can throw us curve balls, life is a banquet. We are alive! Rejoice and to hell with sorrow!
This December, I decided to be present on Earth, and to feel my oneness with this beautiful orb. This week is the winter solstice and the new moon. Here in Oregon the days are short, and so the solstice really does mark the return of the sun. The new moon makes the dark night even darker, and I plan on enjoying the shimmering cold of the night. After this week, it is only getting brighter and warmer. This is something to celebrate.
I. Tom Lehrer
In November, Tom Lehrer put all his works into the public domain, and they are available on his website.
There is a certain type of person who understands and loves Tom Leher: countercultural nerds. Kids who rejoiced in finding something both funny and intellectual, the ones who liked “Dr. Demento,” but not too much, and who, by the way, never really grew up. The kids who tested well in school but who may or may not have done all their homework. I’m definitely in that camp.
The first Tom Lehrer song I heard could have been "Be Prepared," or "The Vatican Rag," or "Fight Fiercely Harvard,” or “New Math.” I was one of the kids who could actually do new math, so when I heard the song, I thought, "what's the big deal? I mean, base 8, duh!"
But no, my first Tom Lehrer song was none of those. In writing this, I remembered that it was “Pollution.” I was nine years old, and believe it or not, our progressive teacher had the class sing it as part of the first Earth Day celebration at our school. I have to think he changed some of the lyrics, but I can’t remember.
Lehrer’s songs are part of the foundation of my life. These songs are written in my soul.
I’m celebrating his generosity and his music. Enjoy.
II. Blue Basin and Big Time
A few weeks ago, my friends and I went out to Blue Basin in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument to take photos and have fun. Eruptions around 28-31 million years ago spewed ash in layers, and those layers turned into rock, which eroded into the blue-green badlands that make up Blue Basin. It’s a beautiful site, great for photos, but what captured my imagination were the fossils.
There are three or four exhibits of fossils on the trail into the basin. Mammals and other animals were running around this area 20-30 million years ago. I hadn’t thought of fossils in years, and when you are a kid, time spans like these don’t really mean much. Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, small horses ran in the steppes of Russia millions of years ago, ho hum.
But I’d been thinking about Earth. We have people who actually think that the way humankind will be saved from climate change and pollution and overcrowding is to colonize Mars. Somehow, we expect to build rocket ships like they have in Star Wars and Star Trek and head not only to Mars, but flit from galaxy to galaxy like we flit from rock to rock over a stream. I hate to break it to you: that ain’t going to happen.
In the summer of ‘21, we had a pandemic of billionaires riding their rockets into space. At the same time, I read an article in The Atlantic called “You’re Showering Too Much,” about our skin biome and how it keeps our skin and us healthy. Too many showers strips our skin of these beneficial bacteria, bacteria we get just by living on Earth. None of these bacteria are on Mars. We have beneficial bacteria in our gut, and now we have beneficial bacteria on our skin.
Earth is alive. To make sourdough starter all you need is wild yeast. Where in the world can you get wild yeast? Everywhere in the world. You mix flour and water, and wait. The yeast will find it because it is in the air. Ice worms live in glaciers. There are blind fish in caves miles underground. There are sea creatures that live at the bottom of the ocean. Earth is alive.
Earth wants us to live. We are made to live on earth. Astronomer Carl Sagan famously said we are made of “star stuff.” Yes, sure, but right now? We are made of Earth stuff. As I wrote in November, we are not just residents of Earth, we are Earth. And we are not just Earth, full stop, we are Earth in a cycle, where just by dint of living, we are exchanging ourselves with this planet. Our souls may or may not change, but it is a fact that our bodies are changing and morphing every minute, eventually recycling all 20 trillion cells in our body with 20 trillion new cells. And what do we exchange them with? Earth.
Space, on the other hand, wants us to die. Underneath our thin little atmosphere, Earth is teaming with life, all over the place. Outside our thin little atmosphere? Death. Forever. For as far as we can conceive. Farther than the farthest galaxy.
Life on Mars? Give me a break. Any human living on Mars will break down. Radiation, weaker gravity, no air, no walking outside, no dirt, no sand, no sea, no yeast, no sourdough, no beer. The only people who would go to Mars and live are weirdos and prisoners. Mars is not an option. The Moon isn’t either.
So, these are the things I ponder, and as we walked up into Blue Basin and I saw these exhibits, it hit me: 20-30 million years ago, mammals were strolling around Earth, munching on prehistoric grass (or each other), and living their lives. Just like cows and pronghorns and deer do now. Some of the unlucky were captured as fossils during volcanic eruptions, to be found and pored over by paleontologists (and ourselves) 20-30 million years later.
Humans, as humans, have been around for a much shorter period, about 300,000 years. That is only 1% of the time between when these now-fossilized mammals roamed Oregon and now. 1/100 of the time.
In those 300,000 years, we only recently became industrialized: just in the last 200 years. The gasoline engine and massive use of fossil fuels (I know, ironic) only came along in the last 100 years.
Earth has been in existence for billions of years. Life has been on Earth for almost four of those billions. Earth will be around for billions more years, until the sun burns out. Life has existed for billions of years, and life will continue to exist for billions of years.
But:
These are the things I know:
We are inextricably tied to Earth. We are Earth.
We are overloading the atmosphere with carbon and pollutants, affecting our climate.
And we have nuclear bombs and unstable people.
Our actions are creating conditions on earth that will kill a lot of humans and other life forms.
But Earth? It will survive. Millions of years are nothing to Gaia. She will shake us off and be back to pristine in no time.
When we talk about climate change and saving the earth, we are really talking about saving us and our children. That is what we are saving. Earth will be fine. A few millions of years from now, who knows what will pop up to try again at “intelligent life?”
It became clear to me that Earth is our only home, and our only option. I know we can prolong our time here. But there is no plan B (or Planet B, for that matter).
This is why I am celebrating the solstice and the new moon and the new year this frosty December. I am celebrating our home. The only home we will ever have.
Oh, and one more thing - we achieved ignition on nuclear fusion last week. This is the stuff that will eventually save us.