Taking stock (12/29/2016)

On January 3, 2016 I posted a New Year’s resolution on this blog.  I decided to bring more culture in my life.  Well, I can report that although I am bookending 2016 with museum visits, I failed miserably.  But then 2016 failed me miserably, as well. 

First my latest museum visit.  I had the pleasure to go to the Richmond Fine Arts Museum and visited the “Jasper Johns and Edvard Munch: Love, Loss and the Cycle of Life” exhibition.  It was an impressive exhibit, an eye opener that show the interconnectedness that we all have; whether it is conscious or subconscious, as we later discovered.  For example my wife is a painter and as a 16 year-old she visited the Munch museum in Oslo.  Now finally, more than 45 years later looking again at Munch’s work does she and I realize his influence on her work, very much like Munch’s strong influence on Johns’ work.  But then there is no way of living in a bubble and escaping extraneous impressions we gather throughout our lives. 

I am sure I have all kinds of extraneous influences that have guided me through my adult life and are still guiding me.  It probably ranges from what I saw at home and what I saw around me as a child and teenager, to the things I experienced later on in my life, but in particular when living and working in Uganda.

I do not think that this why I failed my resolution of 2016.  But I do think these things are part of the reason why I write this blog and the philosophy I try to put down in words.  I want to bet that my love for nature was formed by my wandering in the kunuku or the bush almost every day after school when I was a kid.  I was observing and looking at things; the cacti that were blooming, the lizards, the humming birds flying from tree to tree, the troupial birds calling out, you name it.  When I was not there, I was either sailing or snorkeling at the beach.  I can still vividly remember the angry protest demonstrators (black minimum wage laborers) marching by our high school on their way downtown and later that day watching the smoke rising from above town when it was burning, set aflame by the rioters.  The island was under marshal law for a week and the whites were panic stricken.  We were among a group of white settlers who eventually left the island, remembering what happened in Congo (the country of my birth) a few years earlier.  It never happened on the island and from what I hear it is still pleasant there.  I did not understand the fear of my parents, it fascinated me and I resented them for having to leave the island.  It all made me who I am today and the one I'll be tomorrow, not only as a person, but my hobbies, my interests and my passions. 

So what was 2016 like?  I visited the two museums, but for the rest I did not do much more culturally.  I went to one opera and two classical concerts.  As I mention in a previous blog, I try to read, but that is difficult after a hard day’s work, after a commute, with tired eyes and tired mind, and a slight case of dyslexia.  I did finish one masterpiece of literature: Hemingway’s: The Old Man and the Sea, and boy that was a thick book (just kidding), but a masterpiece none-the-less!

At least that is what I can remember of my great cultural effort of 2016.  To me a walk in nature, being one with nature, soothing my nature deficit disorder, that is what I needed most in 2016.  Yes, it can be the same old trail every day, that does not matter. 

This gate symbolizes the entry to 2017 which I am going to enter with great apprehension and with the promise to myself to work more on myself and my personal projects.  To read more, be more cultured, work more on bettering the world and less on just sitting on my ass and being passionless.

This past year failed me as well.  Promises were given and broken.  They ranged from raises; to oh, we would never get this person as president, and now we going to be stuck with him for four years.  It is a year which is showcasing the great divide more than ever.  We have been made more aware that there still is a divide between rich and poor, black and white, and that black lives matter; it is almost becoming increasingly dangerous to admit to be educated or cultured.  This schism in our country and culture is unbelievable, but it feels like the middle ground is lost; it is nothing this blog can solve.  Maybe it is time for me to keep going on my cultural quest and read Huxley’s “Brave New World” again, or some other great novel on how to react or deal with what we have right now.  I am taking suggestions!

A walk in the woods, the naturalists have it (Yorktown, 12/22/2016)

I have been reading a lot about nature.  In fact , as a biologist I consider myself a naturalist, or maybe an amateur naturalist.  I write a lot about nature in my blogs; it often revolves around the interaction between us humans and nature, or what I have started calling “nature deficit disorder.”  It is a term I stole as most of my readers are aware (there are now 30 posts on this blog where I talk about it).  

In the distant past I have wanted to become a naturalist writer.  But I am not sure if I have the quality to be one or to become one, so this blog will have to do, at least for now.  Among my favorite naturalist writers are John McPhee, Gretel Ehrlich, Sue Hubbell, and Edward Hoagland, among others.  Naturally, I devoured writings by Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold. 

The last quick read I had was Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.”  A friend of mine tried to convince me that it was Hemingway’s way of telling us that a man can be defeated but not be destroyed, or as he said, maybe that it is a metaphor for Apostle Paul’s writing when he describes that outwardly a man can waste away but inwardly he is being renewed.  Santiago was reborn as a legitimate fisherman; the book ends in him regaining respect from his colleagues and of course having respect in him self.  Hemingway himself claimed there was no symbolism in the story.  I mostly read the story because it is on a list of the top 100 books, as a lover of the water, a sailor, for entertainment, and as a naturalist (I used to fish when I was a teenager).

I have so many unfinished books.  That is not because I don’t like them, but it is partially because of my varied interest and because the only time that I can read is in the evening after work when I am tired.  I usually do not read novels, but read, you guessed it, naturalist and non-fiction books.  Right now I am trying to concentrate on a book on human psychology (Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow by Daniel Kahneman) hopefully it fits in with my study of humans and the idea of nature deficit disorder.

To me nature is very important for the human psyche; whether it is that freshly fallen sassafras leaf in the fall; the timing of the pine pollen in spring (mostly on my Instagram Pictures); my frequent walks along the New River Trail in far Western Virginia (7 entries); being out on the water in my kayak or my sailboat (too many to count); or examining a pine tree that apparently snapped in a recent storm (during my latest walk).  I like it all and I need it!  I like to take my time and enjoy taking it all in; the sights and sounds; the feeling of just being immersed in nature, being one with it.

Sunrise on the trail in the woods behind our home.

Take this past Sunday.  It promised to be one of those rare early winter days when the temperature was going to be above 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  We decided that there was no better way to get our spirituality that day then to get out in nature and we went for a two hour hike in the woods behind our house (no church for us).  We went off the beaten track on a trail that is not traveled on by many people.  

The trail leads from our home by some ephemeral ponds that so often write about.  This time of the year they are not as full other years.  They were fuller a month ago, and the water level has slowly been dropping.  These ponds are groundwater fed, meaning the water level in the ponds are as high as the groundwater and we've had a dry month and a half.  Groundwater levels usually rise in the winter and reach their highest level around the middle of February.  All trees are dormant at this time and throughout the winter.  There is little transpiration from plants and the evaporation is at its lowest as well.  By early April the groundwater levels and the levels in the ponds start dropping and the ponds dry up completely by mid to late June.  By that time the water level has dropped almost 6 feet.

Examining a pine tree that must have snapped during a recent storm this past Sunday.  This was on the trail.

The rest of the walk takes us by very young pine forests where the woods were cleared in 2003 after Hurricane Isabel devastated a certain area, through a shallow stream valley, back up to what is my favorite area: a wooded section with huge tulip popular trees.  I would estimate that these trees are close to 300 feet tall and probably more than 100 years old.  After that the trail descends into a mixed forested wetland that is often difficult to cross.  It is wide, dark and wet and often has shallow running water in it.  After passing through the wetland it becomes a fun trail and passes by a heron rookery that appears to have been abandoned in the past two years, and a large swamps where we love to watch redheaded woodpeckers and all kinds of ducks.  Eventually the trail end up in the Battlefield National Historic Park and from there the hiking and biking choices are limitless, but well defined.

A piece of broken off bark covered with lichen that I found lying on the forest floor.  I just loved the color contrast between the bright green and the leaves.  I want to bet it was knocked off by a woodpecker of some kind.

It was a great day for a hike!  Walking around you find all kinds of treasures, large and small, up high and down low.  Getting back from the hike I had my daily 10,000 steps, but the exercise was not the most important.  I felt mentally and spiritually recharged.   

Try it yourself, get out.  It is not scary out there; if you have not done it in a while, start in small doses or just go for a walk in your neighborhood and observe people's yards, the plants, trees and birds.  Take it all in.  Cure your Nature Deficit Disorder!

Just standing still and looking up in the woods is nice!

Having flow, I can fake it with the best! (12/12/2016)

Last week I experienced flow again.  It was a crazy couple of days.  I was on the road for six days, two three day stretches, with a Friday and Saturday of relative rest (home chores) in between.  I put over 1000 miles on the vehicle that I got from our motor pool that week (thank goodness it was not my own car).  

When I was a young kid, driving large distances really did not bother me, I remember that day that we drove from just outside Little Rock, Arkansas to Wilmington Delaware (1,100+ miles) in one day, and the next day we went for a large hike.  This last time, I had to drive back at night in the dark in the pouring rain; at times I had zero visibility.  The day after, I was sitting in the office feeling like a zombie; it was an almost completely unproductive day.

You would think that after driving to the location where I teach, followed by a rotten (first) night in a different bed (motel room), I would be out of it.  I might feel like it, but the moment I step into the classroom, it is like a switch is being flipped. 

Ready to start my day of teaching this past Monday 12/5/2016.  Boy, I have never used that many selfies in my blog!  But you can see, I was kind of out of it, not yet ready to get going, but it changed once I opened my mouth. This picture was manipulated with a small program called Prisma; I used the Mosaic option.

I have this ritual when I teach and it really helps me get my stuff together.  I can be in the crappiest mood, or tired; drag myself out of my motel bed and into the room where I will be teaching, but when I get in there, I forget about it all.  I can literally solo teach for six or seven hours; be on; be engaging; feel great; and simply do not let on what’s the matter with me.  I give it my everything!  Oh yes, I can fake it with the best!  But when when the class is done and the last person leaves the room, I am done for, I am exhausted.  As a fellow teacher of mine and I once compared: "Good teaching is like good sex, you are exhausted after that."  Hopefully I am teaching a second day and I can go back to my motel room and go for a nap.  Having to drive back to the office and then back home is tortuous at times.  

No, I am trying to show off or complaining.  I am just sharing my technique; my way of doing it.  I probably take it too far and exhaust myself too much, but I made a promise to myself to never give a boring class.

My morning ritual is really simple.  I get to the room where I teach about a half hour early, set up, put out the sign-in sheet, and then I try to make small talk.  I talk with people (I think) I know.  I ask them about their life, make small talk, and I am personable.  It is a one on one link that I establish with a few that helps me teach, it allows me to search them out later and make eye contact.  Being an introvert, this is my way of drawing me out of my shell, and getting me in that mindset of putting myself out there and teach; of focusing of the task at hand.  I learned this a long time ago; I need to socialize to get the juices flowing.  Even during the breaks I give people; I don’t even get to go to the restroom, but I am in front of the class answering questions and talking to people.  Usually I am on all the time, with just enough time for lunch.  That is often the only time when I don't mind being on my own, that is my time to recharge for the afternoon session.

For me it is all about being in the zone, having flow.  As I mentioned in my post on how sailing meditates me, flow is important.  When you have flow you forget the bad things that surround you.  You forget that you are tired, you live on adrenaline, you are in the zone.  You fake it with the best!  Or do you really?  Maybe it is genuine; I really genuinely care about what I teach and I care about my students; otherwise I would go through the motions and not achieve flow.

So how do you achieve flow?  To each his or her own, but as I mentioned, I have somewhat of a ritual.  Owen Schaffer mentioned that there are seven conditions for getting, being and staying in flow:

• High perceived challenges
• High perceived skills
• Knowing what to do
• Knowing how to do it
• Knowing how well you are doing
• Knowing where to go (where navigation is involved ... or maybe my ritual)
• Freedom from distractions

This is how I am when I sail, teach, kayak, bike, work on my bonsais, and when I go for a nice walk in nature.  Interesting isn't it?  To think that I am not even that good at some of these things or really do not know what I am doing, I get to that state of flow.  Enemies to flow are boredom, apathy and anxiety.  Flow keeps you alive, boredom, apathy and anxiety are killers.

Nothing better than a morning hike through the woods, exploring life and death around you.  Here is where I experience flow, forget about it all and take photographs to document nature's beauty, even a dead tree that is slowly decaying.