change
December 2008 
What kind of leadership does the world need now?
Posted on Mar 30th, 2008
by 
synonym for light
synonym for light
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for March 30, 2008:
yay! another QAR that meshes with the letter I just sent Jordan. :-)
“The only really valuable thing is intuition.”
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Albert Einstein
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Buckminster Fuller
Hi Jordan,
I read that it might snow where you are today. It's Sunday. Ozzy it barking at me as I type this because Velvet took his bone again. Adam is making me some Yerba Mate tea. It's cold and grey here.
I just finished reading a book that I would LOVE to share with you. It's called "The Creation, An Appeal To Save Life On Earth" by E.O. Wilson. Edward O Wilson is a world famous biologist who has written 20 + books and has been a Harvard professor of Biology for almost 50 years. He still goes out on field research trips to find out about the natural world. He LOVES our planet and every little tiny thing on it. He says that current science knows only a small percent about the species of everything on our planet and instead of trying to explore outer space we should be working to understand more about our miraculous home, planet earth. This, his latest, book is a letter to a Southern Baptist Pastor asking for Religion and Science to look past their differences and find a common ground of stewardship of the planet. In it he suggests the best way to begin to teach biology in our schools and to foster the love of nature in our children. Of course I was thinking of you the whole time I was reading the book--- parents can't really do anything without thinking about how it will affect their children. A parent's whole world view is naturally influenced by underlying thoughts of their children. So anyway-- Mr. Wilson believes that the world, Nature, the Creation is already perfect, perfect, perfect and so miraculous that it's completely beyond any human capacity to understand how it was made-- because if we could understand that, we could create life and ecosystems and we can't do that yet. He doesn't rule out the possibility of God or a higher consciousness, but he doesn't buy the literalist interpretation of the Bible that the world is only 6000 years old which is what SOME southern baptists believe. Mr Wilson believes that humans went out of the figurative Garden of Eden when they started thinking they could improve upon nature-- basically when we stopped being hunter gatherers and started becoming an agricultural society and creating towns and villages. There are so many things that I'd like to share with you from this book and discuss with you and hear your ideas about. Maybe you'll read this book someday and we can talk about it. Mr Wilson has some very concrete ideas about what we, each individually and collectively, can do to "Save Life On Earth". The chapters about why we need to save life on earth were the hardest for me to read, because, let's face it, it's hard, hard, hard to hear AGAIN about all the hundred's of species of plant, animal, bacterial and other life forms that are going extinct everyday and now at an unprecedented rate, due to global warming, overpopulation, overconsumption, pollution, invasive species being transported on human modes of travel, destruction of habitat and ecosystems to build any manner of human habitats, burning of forests and grasslands for agriculture, basically because of humanity's disregard for the miracle of Nature, but I did read those chapters and felt my heart ache while reading them and i went on to the next chapters hoping to find a suggestion there for how things can get better or rather, go back to perfect. :-) Anyway, I'd really love to discuss all this with you someday. Some of those suggestions are things we could work on together--- like becoming "citizen biologists" and by contributing our time and resources to conservation efforts and sharing our love of nature with others.
I love you so much Jordan. You were my little miracle when you were born-- so perfect-- all ten fingers, all ten toes, 2 eyes, 2 ears and all of it perfectly functioning with no instruction manual provided. I was a little bit terrified that I wouldn't do the whole mom thing right-- I mean-- there is so much differing advice thrown at new parents about how to do the whole parent thing right and I didn't really know who to listen to, so I followed the wisdom of my heart and mixed it up with some logic and hoped for the best. I'm still doing that now. There are still so many differing opinions about child rearing and especially so much dissonance about how to raise teens. Having you at Outback is very hard, but also feels deeply like the right path, because I know you are having time and space to really investigate yourself and some of the natural world while you are there. This is important work. If you don't know yourself, how can you ever begin to know someone else? (oh and by the way-- Mr Wilson's book taught me that the human body, if separated into actual human cells and bacterial cells and weighed, is made up of more weight of bacteria than human cells. so-- we're all walking, talking ecosystems. Kind of cool if you think about it. we aren't and can never be separate from nature because we ARE nature and when we destroy Nature we destroy ourselves - but you knew that already didn't you? :-) You are still a miracle, though not quite as little anymore. :-) When you find out more and more about it, the human being is just amazingly miraculous. I mean-- how does the eye alone work? the ear? the heart and lungs and all those systems working together in perfect harmony without any real conscious thought about it on our part. how can our brain focus entirely on reading a book and at the same time keep us alive? crazy!!
So, I'll ask you to consider this, do you think it is wise to try alter or improve that "god given" or "nature given" miracle of body and consciousness that you possess? I ask you to treasure it. It is such a gift. All the wisdom that humanity collectively possesses cannot reproduce it.
I love you, you huge miracle of a young man. I love you so much.
-Mom
=======
thank you Sun-1 for the quotes and the food for thought.
happy sunday everyone-- I'm off to see the wizard now, not sure when I'll be back to the computer. xox - d
“The only really valuable thing is intuition.”
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Albert Einstein
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Buckminster Fuller
Hi Jordan,
I read that it might snow where you are today. It's Sunday. Ozzy it barking at me as I type this because Velvet took his bone again. Adam is making me some Yerba Mate tea. It's cold and grey here.
I just finished reading a book that I would LOVE to share with you. It's called "The Creation, An Appeal To Save Life On Earth" by E.O. Wilson. Edward O Wilson is a world famous biologist who has written 20 + books and has been a Harvard professor of Biology for almost 50 years. He still goes out on field research trips to find out about the natural world. He LOVES our planet and every little tiny thing on it. He says that current science knows only a small percent about the species of everything on our planet and instead of trying to explore outer space we should be working to understand more about our miraculous home, planet earth. This, his latest, book is a letter to a Southern Baptist Pastor asking for Religion and Science to look past their differences and find a common ground of stewardship of the planet. In it he suggests the best way to begin to teach biology in our schools and to foster the love of nature in our children. Of course I was thinking of you the whole time I was reading the book--- parents can't really do anything without thinking about how it will affect their children. A parent's whole world view is naturally influenced by underlying thoughts of their children. So anyway-- Mr. Wilson believes that the world, Nature, the Creation is already perfect, perfect, perfect and so miraculous that it's completely beyond any human capacity to understand how it was made-- because if we could understand that, we could create life and ecosystems and we can't do that yet. He doesn't rule out the possibility of God or a higher consciousness, but he doesn't buy the literalist interpretation of the Bible that the world is only 6000 years old which is what SOME southern baptists believe. Mr Wilson believes that humans went out of the figurative Garden of Eden when they started thinking they could improve upon nature-- basically when we stopped being hunter gatherers and started becoming an agricultural society and creating towns and villages. There are so many things that I'd like to share with you from this book and discuss with you and hear your ideas about. Maybe you'll read this book someday and we can talk about it. Mr Wilson has some very concrete ideas about what we, each individually and collectively, can do to "Save Life On Earth". The chapters about why we need to save life on earth were the hardest for me to read, because, let's face it, it's hard, hard, hard to hear AGAIN about all the hundred's of species of plant, animal, bacterial and other life forms that are going extinct everyday and now at an unprecedented rate, due to global warming, overpopulation, overconsumption, pollution, invasive species being transported on human modes of travel, destruction of habitat and ecosystems to build any manner of human habitats, burning of forests and grasslands for agriculture, basically because of humanity's disregard for the miracle of Nature, but I did read those chapters and felt my heart ache while reading them and i went on to the next chapters hoping to find a suggestion there for how things can get better or rather, go back to perfect. :-) Anyway, I'd really love to discuss all this with you someday. Some of those suggestions are things we could work on together--- like becoming "citizen biologists" and by contributing our time and resources to conservation efforts and sharing our love of nature with others.
I love you so much Jordan. You were my little miracle when you were born-- so perfect-- all ten fingers, all ten toes, 2 eyes, 2 ears and all of it perfectly functioning with no instruction manual provided. I was a little bit terrified that I wouldn't do the whole mom thing right-- I mean-- there is so much differing advice thrown at new parents about how to do the whole parent thing right and I didn't really know who to listen to, so I followed the wisdom of my heart and mixed it up with some logic and hoped for the best. I'm still doing that now. There are still so many differing opinions about child rearing and especially so much dissonance about how to raise teens. Having you at Outback is very hard, but also feels deeply like the right path, because I know you are having time and space to really investigate yourself and some of the natural world while you are there. This is important work. If you don't know yourself, how can you ever begin to know someone else? (oh and by the way-- Mr Wilson's book taught me that the human body, if separated into actual human cells and bacterial cells and weighed, is made up of more weight of bacteria than human cells. so-- we're all walking, talking ecosystems. Kind of cool if you think about it. we aren't and can never be separate from nature because we ARE nature and when we destroy Nature we destroy ourselves - but you knew that already didn't you? :-) You are still a miracle, though not quite as little anymore. :-) When you find out more and more about it, the human being is just amazingly miraculous. I mean-- how does the eye alone work? the ear? the heart and lungs and all those systems working together in perfect harmony without any real conscious thought about it on our part. how can our brain focus entirely on reading a book and at the same time keep us alive? crazy!!
So, I'll ask you to consider this, do you think it is wise to try alter or improve that "god given" or "nature given" miracle of body and consciousness that you possess? I ask you to treasure it. It is such a gift. All the wisdom that humanity collectively possesses cannot reproduce it.
I love you, you huge miracle of a young man. I love you so much.
-Mom
=======
thank you Sun-1 for the quotes and the food for thought.
happy sunday everyone-- I'm off to see the wizard now, not sure when I'll be back to the computer. xox - d
Access: Public
This is wonderful Dawn. Jordan is so lucky to have you as his mom. And Wilson is a hero of mine - have you ever read his book Consilience? I recommend it.
Dawn!! What a beatiful letter!! You just put into motion a chain of thoughts that have led to a decision: when I become a Mom, I'm going to write letters to my kids every week (or more often)… irrespective of where they are. :)
I thought about all the things my Mum and I are never able to say to each other (don't ask!)… and I realised that this is such a perfect medium to build back (and build from scratch) relationships! It brought to mind incidents when Mum and I fought, and I wrote her a letter as it was so much easier to say what you needed to say without digression or interruption in a letter… and a number of times she responded in a letter… for the same reasons. Infact, I'm going to try writing to her every week - 'try' because its hard… but I will anyway, even if I miss a week here and there, I'll write.
Thank you. Somehow, no matter what you write about, it almost always connects with either something I've been thinking about, or something I need to be thinking about. Thank you so much.
Thank you Dawn. You are more than a talker… you are a Writer and a Mom( Jordan is so blessed to have you) and best kind of Friend).
You guys all — thanks for the support and encouragement. It means a great deal to me.
Albert – I mean, Mr Science, Mr All?– I mean Albert— I will check out that book sometime. I plan to read more of EO Wilson. I have Farland to thank for pointing out Creation at the bookstore and telling me a little about the author.
Shriyansi— Now you have inspired me to keep writing letters to Jordan, even when he's back home again. I already write to my mom and my sister and my husband now and then and I definitely email several friends and my brother a few times a year. I hardly ever send those forwarded emails on, but sometimes I write a personal letter back to the person that has forwarded me something, to let them know I am thinking of them.
Speaking of letters. I am going to write another to Jordan now. This week I am hoping to write him at least one a day, short bits.
Gotta love ya… my yoga buddies and I have this little saying - to truly experience yoga, you've got to be like a lump of love..!
you, are an absolutely HUGE lump of love! :D :D
awe shucks. thanks. I think you are too. :D
me thinks lumpy mashed potatoes are the loveliest mashers. :-)
The best thing about being a sensitive soul is we can relate to the pain of others, because we have forged that understanding by facing our own shadows. Sometimes I wonder why I was born this way, but when, as you have done in this letter, put love and hope and appreciation into words - the suffering makes sense. You possess the ability to heal, because the well dug by your past experiences is filled with Love. You are both healing each other through this process. Thank you for posting this letter. That healing energy ripples out to touch others this way.