Another time, perhaps

I have been fiddling with the "Folly," as I call it -- the quasi-greenhouse. 

 

I sprinkled a few seeds in a flat, to see what they might do. If the seedlings get any size to them, I may plant them in the upper bed, to see what winter is like in there. I understand I should give them a row cover, as the Colemans recommend, but I feel as though I've already used up my poly sheeting quotient for my lifetime, so to speak.

A courteous young man of our acquaintance dropped by to check on us. I showed him the Folly.

"What will you grow?"

"Tomatoes, peppers, melons, maybe ... ?"

"Mmnh." 

He knows indoor farming, and I could see wheels turning. He may have been thinking, you will get a lot of white flies. Also, it's going to get too hot in here. 

True. I don't mind trying, though. Who knows what we might come up with under pressure? The main thing is, if a problem interests you, give it a try. He's been quite successful in that way himself. This is a young man I very much admire.

Earlier in the morning, before his arrival, I dutifully set up the telescope to see if I might view the annular eclipse on a piece of paper, something I've done before, also with a transit of Mercury and sunspots. 

It was not to be.

Thick clouds rolled by, and rolled by, and rolled by. I sat by the scope, paper in hand, patiently not receiving the reward for my efforts.

It has usually been that way with comets as well. Sometimes clouds were not in the way, but when I hear from the astronomers: may be visible with binoculars or even to the naked eye, that's generally a nope: I don't have good night vision. 

If I'm peeking at Jupiter and I happen to know there are four moons tonight, all on the right-hand side, I look and at first I can't see them, but I know that if I look to the left of the big planet, I may see them "out of the corner of my eye."

This means I'm losing rods and cones. I'm 74, so it's to be expected. If you are a senior, and oddly enough, most of my friends now are, you may have noticed this effect.

So. Are we diminished? It's our habit to think of such things in such a way, but are we?

Think of an atom. Think of another atom. Place them side by side in your mental picture. Two oxygen atoms are surely "equal" in value to the universal reality. 

How about gold and oxygen? These two elements are valued one way in the economy, but in quite another to a drowning person. 

The universe very likely makes, and makes use of, gold and oxygen in disparate ways, but I suspect it has no scale of values. Gold's existence and oxygen's existence are equal within the moment.

I was not concerned about world events in 1948; there was no "me" in 1948. I weighed eight pounds in 1949. I weigh (ahem) quite a bit more than that now. Was I not all of me in 1949? If I stop breathing in, say, 2029, I will not then be concerned about world events in 2030. There will be no "me." 

Yet, the universe has weighed, weighs now, and will weigh the same in all my times and non-times.

"All are created equal" gets its start in physics, something authoritarians have missed. 

It's in this sense that many rationalists who have lost something -- teeth, hair, sight, a leg -- often are puzzled by condolence for the loss. They are all that they are. 

Like a universe.

The non-appearance (to me) of the eclipse is a matter over which I could produce emotions, but in that case they will be illusory, because I have sought a value that is not in the eclipse as it happened, but in my imagination of how it was going to happen, which was mistaken. 

My attachment, if I have that, to the imagined event can generate frustration, because I'm a portion of the universe but I am not behaving like the universe. Universes hold all things equal.

Buddhists describe this so: "as when the child cries because it cannot have the moon."

I detect that I am a little miffed that it was a cloudy morning. I'm detecting immaturity.

Set up the telescope. No eclipse? Take down the telescope. 

There ya go; maybe you're getting the hang of this.

Another time, perhaps.

There is nothing to transmit to you. -- Shunryu Suzuki