Category Archives: earth

*good planets.

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good planets are hard to find

 

on earth day 2023

photo credit: earthtalk

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listen, earth sings.

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May be an image of flower, nature and body of water
 Claude Monet’s gardens in Giverny, France
 “Spring has returned again.
The Earth is like a child
that knows poems by heart;
so many poems, so many verses,
patient toil winning her prizes at last.
Strict, the old teacher.
We loved the whiteness in the old
gentleman’s beard,
its bright snow.
Now when we ask what the green,
what the blue is,
Earth knows the answer,
has learned it.
She knows.
Earth, you’re on holiday,
lucky one: play now!
Play with us children!
We’ll try to catch you.
Glad, joyous Earth!
The gladdest must win.
Every lesson the old teacher
taught her,
all that is printed in roots
and laborious stems:
now she sings it!
Listen, Earth sings.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
“The inspiration for this sonnet came from
a visit to Ronda, in southern Spain, in the
winter of 1912-13. Rilke had overheard a
group of schoolchildren singing in the Convent
of Santo Domingo, accompanied only by a
triangle and tambourine. He didn’t know what
their song meant, but the light-hearted
animation of their singing is reflected in the
cadences of the second and third stanzas.”
on international poetry day

essence of life.

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 picture from a past solstice celebration

every year

one of my favorite things to teach and share with my class

is the story and traditions of the winter solstice

i get to play the sun

the children play the tilting earth and the seasons

who spin and dance and throw snow

as the season changes

the sun stays in the middle

offering extra light

to the other side of the earth now tilting toward it

knowing it will always return to them

even as our days grow shorter

they quietly rest on the ground

waiting, waiting

only to emerge

when the time is right

  happy to dance once more

in the light of the warm spring sun.

*notes: here is my recipe for the winter solstice, and many thanks to all for your low-tech special effects support of this performance: torn paper snowflakes made by the children, many smiles, a bit of dizziness, a sun doing an interpretive dance, a person to turn off and on the classroom lights at just the right moment, a flashlight, a yellow paper sun, a dj to play the music (‘carol of the bells’ by george winston, and ‘here comes the sun’ by the beatles) at just the right time, and a class full of kinder/whirling twirling planets throwing snow, lying down, and awakening as emerging new life in the spring when the sun returns. somehow it all falls into place, each year a bit differently, as is the way of the world. 

“spiritually, life is a festival, a celebration. joy is the essence of life.”

-agnivesh

“if you see me, cry.”

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Hunger Stone :

Recent droughts in Europe once again made visible the “Hunger Stones” in some Czech and German rivers.

These stones were used to mark desperately low river levels that would forecast famines.

This one, in the Elbe river, is from 1616 and says: “If you see me, cry.”

“when the well is dry, we will know the worth of water.”

-benjamin franklin

 

 

credits: history review

“no mow,” said the bee.

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bee kind

“for this,
let gardens grow, where beelines end,
sighing in roses, saffron blooms, buddleia;
where bees pray on their knees, sing, praise
in pear trees, plum trees; bees
are the batteries of orchards, gardens, guard them.”
Carol Ann Duffy, The Bees

on earth day, and every day.

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kinder in their natural habitat capturing the ever-elusive giant stick

 

“live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink,

taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the Earth.”

-henry david thoreau

who are the dinos in your neighborhood?

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is this midtown manhattan?
amazing interactive map shows you would dinosaurs roamed your neighborhood millions of years ago
facebook While most of us know that all sorts of prehistoric creatures once inhabited Earth, you might not realize which ones used to wander around your particular city. Thanks to this interactive map, you can easily find out. Type in your city name, and you’ll see it plotted on the globe, along with a list of species whose fossils have been discovered nearby. If you click on the name of a species, a new webpage will open with details, images, and a map that shows where else that species lived.
Omaha, Nebraska, for example, was once home to the pteranodon, the trinacromerum, and the mosasaurus  Those last two are both marine reptiles, meaning that Nebraska used to be underwater—which the globe will show you, too.

In addition to searching by city, you can also see what Earth looked like during a specific time period by choosing an option from the dropdown menu at the top. Choices range from 750 million years ago—the Cryogenian period, when glaciers abounded—to 0 million years ago, which is Earth as we know it today. Using a different dropdown menu on the right, you can view Earth during its many notable “firsts,” including “first land plants,” “first dinosaurs,” “first primates,” and more.

As CNN reports, the map was created by California-based paleontologist Ian Webster, who added to an existing model that mapped plate tectonics and used additional data from GPlates, another piece of plate tectonics software.

“It is meant to spark fascination and hopefully respect for the scientists that work every day to better understand our world and its past,” Webster told CNN. “It also contains fun surprises. For example: how the U.S. used to be split by a shallow sea, the Appalachians used to be very tall mountains comparable to the Himalayas, and that Florida used to be submerged.”

You can find other fun surprises by exploring the map yourself here. For the best experience, you’ll want to access the site from a desktop computer or tablet versus a smartphone.

 “observation: i can’t see a thing. conclusion: dinosaurs.”

-carl sagan

 

 

credits: cnn, mental floss, ellen gutosky, orla, getty images

raised from the earth.

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 happy discoveries

we found our way in and out of the corn maze

by following the grandies through the rows and fields

then found hot air balloons

followed their colors

past the moon and the trees

saw their beautiful flight and landing

 all on an afternoon spent among things raised from the earth.

 

“imagination is to love what gas is to the balloon-that which raises it from earth.”

– letitia elizabeth landon