Enthusiasm was contagious. Typically, each Biodesign class session began with a lesson plan. However, students were encouraged to bring in photos, articles, quotes, or questions, all of which could send us off on a merry chase looking for truth, beauty and goodness. Here is an example. I wrote the piece on enthusiasm several weeks … [Read more…]
The Sky People “The story of The Garden of Eden is a greater allegory than man has ever guessed…Time and darkness, knowledge of good and evil have walked with him ever since. Loren Eiseley. Eisely is not necessarily (if even) referring to a religious construct. He is suggesting that if we are … [Read more…]
Windows—Walls—Bridges Whether BOFAW-Fb viewers have noticed or not, we have been engaged in a delightful game of “spiritual ping-pong†with NatureIsUs. We serve up our best photo, poem or quotation to pique or excite their love of Nature and they respond with a dazzling photo worth 10,000 words. It is a heavenly game because … [Read more…]
Consciousness, Free Will and Values “One of the great unresolved paradoxes of science involves consciousness, free will and values, three long-standing thorns in the hide of science. Materialist science couldn’t cope with any of them, even in principle. It’s not just that they’re difficult. They’re in direct conflict with basic models. Science has … [Read more…]
Turtles Teens and Sasha The Potter: A Cautionary Tale “Opening clay is like opening up to others; you never know what you are going to find, either in you or them.†Sasha. As the clay turned obediently in Sasha’s firm and knowing grip, his mind was spinning tales involving prose, poems and metaphors … [Read more…]
Flower Power The weight of a petal has changed the face of the world and made it ours. Loren Eiseley. The “Hippies†or “Flower Children†had legitimate concerns about the spiritually corrupting influence of material worship. “Wheels,†for them, were often a cheap form of transportation. They could also be, however, a sarcastic … [Read more…]
Prayer, Work & Carnival Readers of BOFAW learned that I probably would not have included “Wayne,†were it not for a story about very mysterious “dancing frogs,†that appeared in Loern Eiseley’s, “The Star Thrower.â€Â The thoughtful, although challenging, introduction was written by poet laureate, W.H. Auden. “A satisfactory … [Read more…]
Aaron and Reiko both broached a subject that came up every year in the Biodesign Class. No study of biology can go far without considering the “complementary yet opposite†dilemma of life and death. Yosemite commonly raised student hopes, dreams and visions to a higher elevation. Grand Canyon often evoked feelings of such immensity … [Read more…]
Reiko The dinner team had served a wonderful dinner of spaghetti, green salad, grilled garlic French-bread and “Decadent Brownies.â€Â Most of the students were down at the beach playing Frisbee, beach football or relaxing. I went to my tent to retrieve my guitar, song books, and notes for the evening campfire meeting.  Reiko, an … [Read more…]
Aaron Being a teenager is hard. Â Growing up at Lake Berryessa and going to school in St. Helena sometimes seemed like looking through a window at another world that I was neither familiar with nor part of. Â The daily life of someone that lived in St. Helena was so much different than mine that I … [Read more…]