There Is No Regeneration Without Degeneration

I recently read a lovely little poetry collection called How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, ed. by James Crews. My "review" was short and simple:

It works. Whenever I read from this I felt joyful and grateful. A really nice selection.

I want to share a few of my favorites. When I could find them online, I've linked to them; otherwise they are directly from the book.

I'm not entirely sure what the author intended by that image or what it means--as I can see a couple of different interpretations--but even with a vague meaning it resonates. I, too, often find my thoughts are a circus parade.

by Danusha Lameris

Improvement

The optometrist says my eyes

are getting better each year.

Soon he’ll have to lower my prescription.

What’s next? The light step I had at six?

All the gray hairs back to brown?

Skin taut as a drum?

My improved eyes and I

walked around town and celebrated.

We took in the letters

of the marquee, the individual leaves

filling out the branches of the sycamore,

an early moon.

So much goes downhill: our joints

wearing out with every mile,

the delicate folds of the eardrum

exhausted from years of listening.

I’m grateful for small victories.

The way the heart still beats time

in the cathedral of the ribs.

And the mind, watching its parade of thoughts

enter and leave, begins to see them

for what they are: jugglers, fire swallowers, acrobats

tossing their batons in the air.

Aside from the image I highlighted from the final stanza, I find the entire poem speaks to me about the process of aging.

In The Remedy Is Boundless Compassion I featured the book Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price. I find these two pair nicely with it.

by William Stafford

Any Morning

Just lying on the couch and being happy.

Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.

Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has

so much to do in the world.

People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can't

monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.

When dawn flows over the hedge you can

get up and act busy.

Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven

left lying around, can be picked up and saved.

People won't even see that you have them,

they are so light and easy to hide.

Later in the day you can act like the others.

You can shake your head. You can frown.

I'm much more mentally and emotionally healthy when I can find little pieces of Heaven in each day.

And sunlight.

by Tony Hoagland

The Word

Down near the bottom

of the crossed-out list

of things you have to do today,

between "green thread"

and "broccoli," you find

that you have penciled "sunlight."

Resting on the page, the word

is beautiful. It touches you

as if you had a friend

and sunlight were a present

he had sent from someplace distant

as this morning—to cheer you up,

and to remind you that,

among your duties, pleasure

is a thing

that also needs accomplishing.

Do you remember?

that time and light are kinds

of love, and love

is no less practical

than a coffee grinder

or a safe spare tire?

Tomorrow you may be utterly

without a clue,

but today you get a telegram

from the heart in exile,

proclaiming that the kingdom

still exists,

the king and queen alive,

still speaking to their children,

—to any one among them

who can find the time

to sit out in the sun and listen.

Among your duties, pleasure is a thing that also needs accomplishing.

This seems almost too simple and trite, yet it so effectively captures the cyclical nature of moods, energy, and emotions.

by Katherine Williams

The Dog Body of My Soul

Some days I feel

like a retriever

racing

back and forth

fetching the tired

old balls

the universe

tosses me.

Some days

I'm on a leash

following

someone else's

route,

sensing

I'm supposed

to be grateful.

Some days

I'm waiting

in a darkened

house

bladder insistent

not knowing

when my people

will return.

But some days

I hurl myself

into the sweet

stinging surf,

race wildly back

and roll

in the sand's

warm welcome.

Change is a constant, even if in only that.

That's all from How to Love the World. I don't have many words of my own to add today, but I do have some from others I've recently encountered.

My heart fills with a kind of emotion I've warned myself not to feel. It's dangerous to feel too much, whether it is hope or despair. I wish I could reach into my chest, wrap my hand around that pulsing thing, and calm it.

That's from We Are Not From Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez. More about the book:

A heartbreaking journey into the Central American immigrant experience. Three teens in Guatemala are desperate to escape their kill or be killed situations, so they make the long, dangerous, horrifying trip into and through Mexico in hopes of finding asylum in the U.S.

Padre Gilberto tells us that we are standing next to those who will die along the way. People turn ever so slightly, looking at one another. And those of us who are lucky enough to survive will carry injuries and trauma that will last a lifetime.

The book tells a gripping story that humanizes headlines and brings home the amount of tragedy behind them. It is a hard one to read at the same time that it's hard to put down. Effective and affecting.

So I just became aware this book exists, but was disappointed to find out it's a fiction story. I'd love someone to use that title for a book for managers, parents, police, and others with authority.

Treat Us Like Dogs and We Will Become Wolves

A comment from a friend: it definitely needs to go on a protest sign or something. agreed: disappointing it's a fiction

It's seems we're learning more all the time about plants and fungi--and about how life is so completely intertwined and connected.

The Earth’s Secret Miracle Worker Is Not a Plant or an Animal: It’s Fungi

Fungi are responsible for almost all our food production, and most of our processed materials. They are also to be thanked for many of the important medical breakthroughs in human history that treat both physical and mental ailments, for naturally sequestering and slowly releasing carbon, for optimizing industrial processes, and so much more.

When most people think about fungi, they tend to associate them with decay. Many people mistakenly believe fungi are plants. However, fungi are neither plants nor animals but rather organisms that form their own kingdom of life. . . . 

Now to the central question: what would happen in a world without fungi? Most plants can’t live outside water and rely on fungi to survive. There would be no forests for you to hike in or any agriculture to feed you. Herbivores such as cows can’t break down grass without the fungi in their gut. Fermentation is possible only because of yeasts, which, going back to our dinner table, means that no fungi would mean no bread, no chocolate, no soy sauce, no beer or wine. Hence our gratitude for fungi at dinner.

Moreover, without moulds like koji many ancient civilizations could not have preserved food, other than using salt or smoking (imagine that for a second). For decades we have extracted enzymes from fungi to clean clothes in cold water (yes, it’s fungi that do that in your detergent), have bioengineered natural pesticides with entomopathogenic fungi that eliminate the toxic burden of synthetic pesticides, and have learned to use some species to maximize the amount of metal extracted from rocks in mining processes.

We have also discovered the cholesterol-lowering statins in fungi, life-saving antibiotics like penicillin, the medicines that allow for organ transplants to be successful, and we are now finally accepting and legalizing medicinal compounds made by fungi to treat urgent and life-threatening mental health ailments such as PTSD and depression.

As if that weren’t impressive enough, our ancestral and traditional ways of ritually reaching the celestial from the terrestrial almost all include fungi – from the ritual beverage Soma in Vedic cultures to communion with bread and wine in Roman Catholic cultures. Fungi matter – a lot. . . . 

Decomposition, or decay, is the very beginning of a fundamental natural process that enables life. There is no regeneration without degeneration of organic compounds, because energy is not lost, it is transformed – and it is the fungi that are heavily responsible for this vital transformation. For example, if we look at a fallen tree in the forest and imagine it is composed of building blocks, we can understand how decomposition works: fungi weave their way through the blocks, loosening them until they are “free” and ready to “rebuild” in another form. . . . 

The science is clear: fungi are essential to maintaining a stable climate system (given their role in sequestering carbon in soil) and preserving ecosystemic health. Legislation, however, has not caught up. Across many environmental and conservation policies, fungi have been overlooked or undervalued. This oversight has consequences: when fungi are put at risk – endangering the ecosystems that depend on them – we miss opportunities to advance solutions to serious environmental problems like climate change and land degradation. . . . 

All mushrooms are magic. Take it from me, as someone who studies them. It’s time to say their name by acknowledging them all around - from the dinner table to international conservation policies - and including them in our conception of ecosystems that need to be cherished and protected. Say it with me: the world is inhabited by fauna, flora and funga.

Without fungi, the world as we know it would not exist.

New life depends upon the decay of old life, and it is funga that completes the cycle. Fascinating.

I want to repeat this paragraph because it is such a revelation.

Decomposition, or decay, is the very beginning of a fundamental natural process that enables life. There is no regeneration without degeneration of organic compounds, because energy is not lost, it is transformed – and it is the fungi that are heavily responsible for this vital transformation. For example, if we look at a fallen tree in the forest and imagine it is composed of building blocks, we can understand how decomposition works: fungi weave their way through the blocks, loosening them until they are “free” and ready to “rebuild” in another form. . . . 

Memory relies on forgetting. Comprehension relies on filtering perception. Life relies on decay.

This is news out of England so it doesn't speak for everyone everywhere, but it is nevertheless a positive step.

Lobsters, Octopus and Crabs Recognised as Sentient Beings

The scope of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill has today been extended to recognise lobsters, octopus and crabs and all other decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs as sentient beings.

The move follows the findings of a government-commissioned independent review by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) which concluded there is strong scientific evidence decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs are sentient.

The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill already recognises all animals with a backbone (vertebrates) as sentient beings. However, unlike some other invertebrates (animals without a backbone ), decapod crustaceans and cephalopods have complex central nervous systems, one of the key hallmarks of sentience.

I'm hoping it spreads.

This advance seems momentous.

Team Builds First Living Robots—That Can Reproduce

The same team that built the first living robots (“Xenobots,” assembled from frog cells—reported in 2020) has discovered that these computer-designed and hand-assembled organisms can swim out into their tiny dish, find single cells, gather hundreds of them together, and assemble “baby” Xenobots inside their Pac-Man-shaped “mouth”—that, a few days later, become new Xenobots that look and move just like themselves.

And then these new Xenobots can go out, find cells, and build copies of themselves. Again and again.

And potentially scary. All kinds of potential.

Interesting information for parents.

Even Tiger and Mozart Weren't Tiger and Mozart

The research is unequivocal that delaying hyperspecialization is the typical path for elite athletes, there is still a tremendous amount of individual variability. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, which shouldn’t be a huge surprise with something as complex and multifaceted as human development. . . . 

So here’s the important point I was getting at: In both cases — Tiger and Mozart — the child demonstrated extremely unusual interest and prowess at a very young age in a highly structured activity; only after that did the father facilitate huge amounts of focused practice.

There is no evidence that parents can simply manufacture what psychologist and prodigy-expert Ellen Winner calls the “rage to master” that was evident in Tiger and Mozart. . . . 

Playing golf and classical music are not really good models for most other things people want to learn, so we should be careful about extrapolating from them in the first place. That said, even if our goal as a society were to create as many Tigers and Mozarts as humanly possible, I think the research suggests that our best approach wouldn’t be to specialize everyone out of the womb, but rather to provide a sampling period and see if anything lights a kid’s fire the way golf did for Tiger and music did for Mozart.

Here’s how I think about it as a parent: my role is to expose my kid to a variety of interesting options (and of course, these will always be limited by what’s available to me). Then I help him reflect on the experiences and learn as much as he can from each opportunity, including about his own interests, abilities, and options.

My hope, ultimately, would be that he learns something valuable from each thing he tries, and also starts the lifelong journey toward high match quality — i.e. the degree of fit between who a person is and what they do. (Systematic reflection during learning, or metacognition, by the way, is a hallmark of “self-regulatory learning.” An important topic that I’m sure I’ll write about before long!)

I love getting to be a generalist and not having to hyperspecialize.

Also for parents and on the topic of not having any of my own thoughts to add today.

Ellen Kimmel

THIS IS THE MOST I’VE HAD TO SAY ALL WEEK

I’m up late at night

watching Dragnet on Nick at Night

with no sound.

The light keeps me company.

Harold fell asleep early waiting

for me to put Rachel to sleep.

We were going to love each other.

Instead I watch toothbrushes

have conversations with each other

and an elephant swim across

an ocean to steal a can of Coke

from a woman sunning on a raft

in the middle of nowhere

not sure where we are

if we’ve gone anywhere

since we decided we needed

to go someplace.

Now Superman’s on and he’s just

turned back into an ordinary man.

This is the most I’ve had to say

all week.

—from Rattle #1, 1995

Some days, it really resonates.