Thursday, March 12, 2009

you'll always have the sky

A Nazca booby sits like a sentinel on EspaƱola Island, Galapagos archipelago. See my Galapagos photo gallery for more pics.
Copyright (c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp



Where has the week gone? I'm starting a new article on virgin birth in sharks, which is just incredibly cool and interesting. Have just started on my taxes... They're always a bear since I do them myself, and being self employed there are like 10,000 forms... (that might be a slight exaggeration). :)

I watched the movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona tonight while sorting out my receipts for taxes and the beauty of Barcelona and Spain ignited my wanderlust. Watching it made me want to travel and experience a different culture again, and to see the beauty that is there in Barcelona, or anywhere but the concrete jungle of Houston. One of my students in my writing class said that a Hopi woman once said to her, when she lamented living in a city, at least you have the sky.

The other night Doug and I went for a lovely walk around his neighborhood at dusk and the sky was just beautiful. The sky was a lovely pastel periwinkle blue with clouds illuminated by buttery sunshine. Then the full moon emerged, so large it looked four times it's normal size, peeking out behind a dark grey cloud. The contrast between the grey and the blue and yellow - it was just very luminescent. I only wish we had more stars here in the sky. All the lights of the city drown them out. I still imagine so clearly the absolute brilliance of the night sky in Costa Rica in December of 1999 when Discovery Channel sent me there to write about leatherback sea turtles (Love & Death on Turtle Beach). It was a new moon, and as I patrolled the beach looking for nesting sea turtles at night I was astounded, I mean truly astounded that I could see so many stars. Never in my life had I been in so much awe of the night sky. I've seen stars since but never like that. It was a magical time, a magical moment.

I also loved this quote from the movie. Juan Antonio is the main male character in the movie, and at one point Vicky and he visit his dad, who is a poet who writes beautiful poetry in Spanish but refuses to publish because he hates the world and the people of the world. Vicky asks Juan Antonio why, and he replies, "Because after thousands of years of civilization, they still haven't learned how to love." I thought that was very profound. I'm so tired of hate and prejudice and intolerance and judgment.

Tomorrow I hope to get started again on my book. I had to write that article on cyanobacteria which took time away from it, and am now getting back to my chapter on young earth creationism and my visit to the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose. I watched the movie Alice in Wonderland as "research" today for that chapter.

On a practical note I just announced the opening of a new session of my online writing class! It will begin April 11. If you're interested check out the writing page website, or email me. http://www.wendeeholtcamp.com/nature.htm

2 comments:

jess said...

But isn't hating people for being hateful kinda circular?

Unknown said...

Absolutely! What the father said is true in one sense, that it is sad that people still don't know how to love... but yet what causes his own suffering is his hate and his attachment to the thought (as Byron Katie would say) that people SHOULD love or know how to love. So here we are, and we don't know how to love. Let's start here, and teach people truth, love, joy. Or let's start with ourselves and teach ourselves truth, love and joy. That will be wonderful won't it? :)