I note the tide getting higher, during leap tides, than it has been previously in front of my window. It jumps over my small bridge to the shore and lies there, smugly, annoyingly, blocking my access to the beach for a couple of hours. Twice a day. Twice a year.
Two times a year, spring tides, or leap tides, are exceptionally high, close to forty percent higher. This is due to a change in the moon's distance from us. The moon is actually 30,000 miles closer than usual, and as we've stated, the closer you are, the greater the gravitational force.Rising tides, global warming. Will one eventually swamp my house, set it free, floating, bobbing gently as it sweeps out into the broad Atlantic. Ireland will be underwater by then and so will England and who knows how many other countries. So where will we wind up, my house and I? On top of some mountain no doubt. Like Noah's ark.
I watch Jupiter nightly, it is so bright. Our nights here are star-studded, I imagine I can touch them.
I think how dare we, us paltry planet earth types, name these galaxies, these other planets, these stars. Ownership. As if. Who knows what these planets call themselves. And how can we say they are 'uninhabited'? Because our poor little eyes cannot see or our dismal ears hear or our limited intelligence understand?
Perhaps we are the lowliest species in space. Humanoids that are pitied for our inability to get along, to co-habit with each other in peace and harmony. Held up as the bad example of how awful the destruction of one tiny planet can be when rampant over-population and greed take over.
I know. Inside my mind is a dangerous neighbourhood and I should never go in there alone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajCYQL8ouqw
ReplyDeletePeering inside your mind may be dangerous, but oh the truth of it!
ReplyDeletePeering inside your mind gives us food for thought.
ReplyDeleteMaybe, WWW, this is how it has to be. This is how our human DNA's blueprint is configured, due to the elements within it that brought us to life. We can only change very minor aspects of our nature, never the overall pattern.
ReplyDeleteI take comfort in lines from Desiderata - it might be a wee bit cheesy but it's true!
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.....
May the best of us survive, whoever those will be.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is human nature to name things, part of the sense of self that divides the universe into 'me' and 'not me'.
ReplyDeleteAnd Jupiter, particularly, has a great potential for life, not necessarily on the planet itself (though you never know!), but on Europa and Ganymede.
http://opfm.jpl.nasa.gov/europajupitersystemmissionejsm/
I (this mission has been put on hold thanks to NASA's budget disappearing, but the ESA part of it is continuing in a separate mission.
http://futureplanets.blogspot.com/2011/11/juice-jupiter-ganymede-orbiter-revised.html)
I do not think we can call any planet for certainty uninhabited - life exists in such strange and unusual conditions here on Earth, that pretty much anywhere could harbour life.
:-)