Riding the Cycle

Wheels within wheels...inside and out. Balance is key, but we seem to have lost our sense and are wobbling out of control...a spinning top losing momentum. At the same time the natural cycle swings into play showing the colors of spring and the quick flush of green. It is as though the world is bipolar...oh yeah, it is. So this week I've been thinking about the difficulty of balancing the joy and beauty of the natural cycle with the horror of human activity. The Assange arrest hit me harder than I thought. I really expected something like this, but none the less feel stunned. Another disappointment was "Pompous" declaring Iran's army to be a terrorist organization as Bibi (the real terrorist along with the family Saud) wins another term. The speed of our climate collapse is accelerating faster than models predict. So weeks like these I try to spend time outside with the trees, despite the pollen blast. The chestnuts we planted have leafed out. We've been harvesting lettuce and eating fresh salad most days. The blueberries have a strong bloom. All is not doom and disaster...we each have to find our balance on the cycle of life.

Round and Round We Go

Deja Vu All Over Again

This week I want to focus on the myriad of cycles in which we live and interact. When I first thought of this topic, my idea was the cycle of seasons, the carbon cycle and its balance of photosynthesis and respiration, the slow geologic gyre of the rock cycle and soil formation, the phase changes of the water cycle, the chemical cycles like nitrogen which orchestrate a dance between the atmosphere, soils, and biosphere, and so on...all natural processes on which we depend for stability of the ecosystem. However, as the week progressed I couldn't help but think back to my youth and the Vietnam war. I fear our immanent invasion of Venezuela will be like multiplying the Vietnam and Iraq fiascos...and then squaring it. With the appointment of Elliot Abrams it really is deja vu all over again.