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‘Going to leave you with a photo from this year’s first trip out on the water...’

___Heather Cox Richardson

“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” — Loren Eiseley

“Water is the driving force of all nature.” — Leonardo da Vinci

“We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.” — Jacques Yves Cousteau

“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.” — Isak Dinesen

“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.” — W. H. Auden

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Very cool, Fern!

Can you educate me as to who Loren Eiseley is/was?

I had never seen that particular Auden quote previously. Magnificent.

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past"

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Daniel, your request will make more of us happy to be so informed.

Loren Eiseley, in full Loren Corey Eiseley, (born September 3, 1907, Lincoln, Nebraska, U.S.—died July 9, 1977, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), American anthropologist, educator, and author who wrote about anthropology for the lay person in eloquent, poetic style.

Eiseley was educated at the University of Nebraska (B.A., 1933) and the University of Pennsylvania (M.A., 1935; Ph.D., 1937) and began his academic career at the University of Kansas (1937–44) and Oberlin College (1944–47). In his long association with the University of Pennsylvania he served as professor of anthropology (1947–61), curator of early man at the University Museum (1947–77), provost of the university (1959–61), and professor of anthropology and the history of science (1961–77). He also served as a consultant to museums, foundations, and the U.S. government and was the host–narrator of the television series Animal Secrets (1966–67). He received numerous honours, including membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Eiseley’s scientific research centred on the dating of index fossils of the Pleistocene Epoch and the extinction of Ice Age fauna. His writings, however, covered the wide range of the question of evolution and its implications for humanity. He published more than a dozen books, including The Immense Journey (1957), Darwin’s Century (1958), The Firmament of Time (1960; reprinted 1970), The Unexpected Universe (1969), and The Night Country (1971). He also published an autobiography, All the Strange Hours (1975), and a collection of poetry, Another Kind of Autumn (1977). A collection of his poems and selected essays, The Star Thrower, was published in 1979.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen. (Britannica)

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Thanks much, Fern!

Sounds like a wonderfully learned scholar, and an interesting dude. I will have to check him out.

Take care!

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Thank you for those wonderful quotes.

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I've read a few of his books, but probably around 40 years ago.

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Eisley was an anthropologist. A wisdom keeper about Nature and how we are connect to HER. His book are on Amazon

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Thanks, Fern! Isak Dinesen, (Karen Blixen), Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke gets my vote for quotes today.

“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.”

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My favorite!

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Fern,

That collection of complete intuition left me both calm and terrified.

I wish all our young people were able to learn in this powerful way.

Listening to wise and artistic minds.

Learning by doing... walking with nature. Turning every stone over to learn how life begins and ends. Being protected and contained by knowledge of the most important kind.

That is how our young can become more protective of their futures.

When I was 3-4 I would accompany my Father while he “planted fish”. He ran state Fish and Game hatcheries . He taught me all about raising fish from eggs to fingerlings. Then we would place the fingerlings in big fish planting trucks, drive into wilderness and pour gallons of water with fingerlings into the heads of rivers and streams. From the Canadian border to southern lakes and rivers. All this while he quietly taught me about turtles, frogs, tadpoles , snakes, and that whatever we put into the earth we would drink one day... I absorbed like a giant paper towel. Loved nature, my Dad and being part of life. Water was clear and pure..... until?????

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Jean, thank you for sharing the scenes from your childhood, your father's teachings and yours. The words expressed by Eiseley, Cousteau, Dinesen and Auden are the expressions of what they have learned and treasured; their observations, discoveries and study, in addition to intuition

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I had never heard of W.H. Auden until reading one of his erotic poems in Avant Garde magazine in 1970. It was an expression of what he treasured and caused me to embrace it as well.

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Marvelous quotes.

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There'd be no life without water.

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W.H. Auden was right - all life needs water to survive.

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Arizona has finally recognized that and is restricting subdivisions in the Phoenix area. With thanks to Heather for this week's serenity photo and to all of for the excellent quotes.

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Years ago, perhaps many, many years ago, there was some talk about redirecting some of the northwest water (Columbia River, etc.) from flowing westward into the Pacific down through the western states and into the Gulf of Mexico. I think that with the growing population and climate change, we're facing a potential near-term disaster.

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I remember that. And yes, we are facing disaster. I would say in many places, it is already here. We have water problems here in Oregon. Have a good snow pack this year which is good because we and many farmers are already irrigating and watering like crazy. In NE Oregon, the water is polluted with nitrates. In our own neighborhood, some have private pumps and so use water like there is no tomorrow. It is stealing in my opinion. We are on city water for all our uses and our water bill in the summer always goes up.

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The out-of-control exponential growth of the human population and our propensity to destroy habitat while exhausting and polluting natural resources will someday exact its revenge upon us. It could be that this dismal prospect for the future is why some among us (particularly the highly educated) are choosing to forego having children.

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Old, well educated, no children describes us.

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Absolutely! Science tells us that we contain over 70% of water, and so does planet Earth.

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Thank you again Fern, for this loveliness to contemplate. 💕💕💕

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Sweet dreams Professor and all who walk the bridge to Truth and Justice. Today’s image, a stone bridge over still water, reminds me of working together, collaboration. Martin Luther King: “Let’s build bridges, not walls.” Isn’t that what we witnessed with the debt ceiling agreement? President Biden is the shining star of bridge building. He may be criticized for an imperfect agreement, too much, not enough, not standing up, or standing too long. He knows the process. President Biden, Oval Office, June 2, 2023: “Look, the only way American Democracy can function is through compromise and consensus, and that’s what I worked to do as your President- you know, to forge a bipartisan agreement where it’s possible and where it’s needed.”

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Irenie, so well-stated! Nobody is perfect but but Biden stands for the preservation of our democracy and doing the things to help this country move forward in a functional V dysfunctional way. He was/is the person we needed for this moment in American history.

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Irenie you summed it up beautifully. Thank you.

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I am from Carbondale,Pa. just a few miles east of Scranton.That area has a mix of people from many different ethnic and religious backgrounds and politics was an active and not always pleasant sport. Yet the neighborhoods ,for a while, found a way to make it all work .Our community benefited .My friends were first to be born in the USA. Having a Lebanese Catholic father who was born in Scranton and a German Presbyterian mother born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens meant that my brothers and I were different as most all of our friends from the neighborhood and grade school were either Irish Catholic or Italian Catholic on both sides of their families. Also many Jewish and Eastern European. And yet I felt such kindness and love and acceptance.

I know Joe Biden left Scranton when he was 13. But by that age your community pretty much makes its mark on who you are. Active compromise and fellowship gets things done to benefit the general community. Biden is a fighter and sometimes full of malarkey but he is a decent man and skilled politician.

Coming from the hard coal region of northeastern Pa. I hang on to what I can be proud of. Joe Biden is on that list along with Jason Miller, The Bouys and of course Edith Bunker’s cousin and Dunder Mifflin(sp?)

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"Biden is a fighter and sometimes full of malarkey but he is a decent man and skilled politician." Thanks, GJay. This is just what I was thinking. Must be Irish malarky coming from him - he's so proud of that heritage. I'm really impressed with how he has almost eliminated his smartalec remarks but still let's his humor show in other ways. He's got control of his faculties, regardless of what the opposition likes to broadcast.

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🟥⬜🟦❤️🤍💙

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Thank you for all you do and for sharing such beautiful relaxing photos of a world so peaceful.

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Glad our author can take some respectful weekly rest that comes so deeply recommended.

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I just love how you write to us each night, and how you stay connected when you're off. Thanks for this piece of beauty and for sharing your spirit.

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Wow Bonnie; so well put. Thx ~

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Sleep well, total stranger who feels like my friend.

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We are a community of those ... strangers gathering enlightenment instead of patent ideology ... and a chinwag or two along the way.

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On Thursday, I had my first day of the year on the river in my kayak. It was very cathartic to be on the water with no other people or traffic! The resident bald eagle was perched high in a tree on its nest, three pair of swans with little cygnets were making the rounds, a few geese with goslings, and a blue heron was perfectly camouflaged in some branches not moving while others could not hold still and were suddenly in flight. Typically, there are a lot of turtles sunning themselves on downed trees in the water, but there were none this time. That was a bit unusual.

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Beautiful! I happen to have tomorrow off and am looking forward to sleeping in and also catching up on sleep. 💖 glad to hear you are taking a well-deserved break! Sleep well!

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Magnificent Spring pic, on the eve of Summer.

Rest well, Heather. Thank you for your work and for the community that you have forged between so many of us that read and comment here.

I wonder if this particular setting just two months ago with ever so slightly variant weather could serve as a stand in for the opening of one of the great New England poems---

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood, their flags to April's wind unfurled,

there the embattled farmers stood, and fired the shot heard round the world"

To all of my fellow HCRites, I wish you good night, and a peaceful tomorrow.

DANNY

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Sping used to linger here in NJ but no more.

The garden has baked above 90F for the second stretch of days already this year.

The deer have completely disappeared, just bones near the brook from Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease carried by enormous swarms of midges. I used to love to watch for the new twin fawns gamboling on the lawn twith their friends, shepherded by their skittish mothers in spring, and the young bucks and noble stags in the fall. They helped me start my day.

The woods are dominated by the skeletons of giant dead ash trees, killed by invading emerald ash borers, reaching broken supplicating hands to the sky.

Sitting on my porch for an hour I only saw a single robin and one butterfly.

Crabapple blossoms lasted two days before being wiped out by a torrential rain storm. Wild wisteria blooms lasted just a few days as well, but the vines are advancing relentlessly, stealthy underground creepers choking out everything in their path, I used to remember them at June graduations in Princeton, garlanding the gothic buildings in celebration.

Lilacs now bloom in mid May. I remember bringing them to my teachers at the end of the school year in late June 65 years ago.

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This is a heartbreaking and eye opening view into what I expected our future to look like with climate change...that future is now. 😞 Why is it our politicians still fight against necessary regulation of the fossil fuel industry. Don’t they realize you can’t spend all that money they are lining their pockets with when civilization, as we know it, ends?

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Georgia, your description of Climate Change, is a reminder that we all can see and feel this phenomenon of Mother Nature. This Change caused by humans. It’s not subtle. It’s heartbreaking.

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Dear Georgia, Every American needs to read this letter. It is the sad poetry of climate change - climate change made visible. Thank you.

Is there anyone out there who could be moved to action by reading this?

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Thanks for reminding us of encroaching realities. A day of rest can give us moments to plan how to tend our responsibilities.

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Georgia,

I also live in N. Central NJ and have definitely noticed the changes. We barely have a Spring anymore and being a gardener makes the beginning of planting a real challenge. I'll put out an indoor plant to soak up the sun and forget to bring it in at night and realize the temperature killed it overnight. It's hard to figure out how to dress in the morning with such a wide range of temps thruout the day. The pollen keeps getting worse every year and I don't see nearly the amount of animals I used to. And the wind! The wind actually knocked over my grill twice. Every new day is a challenge.

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This is true here in Michigan too. No rain for almost a month with scorching temperatures. So sad for all of nature.

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What a beautiful place to kayak to and appreciate a moment of peace and reflection. And how nice we all get to share this! Thank you.

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Beautifully Soothing! Thank You! Here and all over northern Michigan our windows are shut against the smoke drifting from the 3,000 acre fire in Grayling. We are on Red Flag Alert: no campfires, no discarded cigarettes. Stay safe and do a rain dance for us. Thanks.

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MaryPat, wishing you and all in the path of this fire, safety. My heart is with you. All of you. I understand your experience. We all need that empathy to make changes. I live in the high foothills of the Sierras on the way to Lake Tahoe. In our area, we were mostly spared the physical damage of the 2021 Caldor Fire, in the El Dorado National Forest, 222,000 acres in the El Dorado National Forest, except the weeks of choking smoke and air quality for miles and miles. Months to contain. And PG&E outages. And great fear. And the closure of main highways, traffic, sheltering those who lost everything they owned or lived, humans and wild animals. Like you, every season we live with the damage and the fear and loss. And skyrocketing required insurance. Last week 2023, my son, who grew up here, but now lives in Bay Area with its own challenges, and I drove the hour up Highway 50 to hike at Horsetail Falls, in the Desolation Wilderness. All along the highway the trees are blackened and bare. But... Stunning Falls and pristine, rapid Pyramid Creek on our hike. Giant granite boulders. It’s only a four mile hike but rock scrambling and rough trails. Not for the faint of heart. The trees are blackened and leafless, new growth is starting its struggle. Wildflowers are peaking up and Mother Nature is crying. Gratitude to California and USA land management for protecting the land for us for now and the future. And to Nature Conservancies. We need the Bureaus of Land Manager and the EPA more than ever.

Be safe.

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Hugs! I can't begin to fathom how you coped through all that. Wishing us all more of Mother's Nature's tears.

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Thank you, MaryPat. Just like you in your state far from California, Climate Change now gives us no choice. The threats are worldwide. Deep sadness for the children and the future. Still our votes and our activism might help, so let us keep working, let us never give up.

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And Thank You Irenie.

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Thank you MaryPat, for starting the conversation that should be a national priority. Climate Change is beyond its early stages. While our government remains bipartisan, and legislation and EPA are weakened by repubs, our grandchildren and children are most at risk. Wishing we could do more than cry. We must convince citizens to care.

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Dancing for you Mary Pat. ☔️

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Sorry MaryPat. I used to hike in the woods around Grayling. There was much left out there circa 1930’s. The terrain while grown up again from logging looks like it is good for firefighters. Bet a dollar to a donut they catch it pretty fast.

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Awful early in the spring for fires to sweep the woodlands of Michigan and Nova Scotia burning is unheard of. We were buried here in Idaho from Canadian wildfires which is uncommon in these latitudes. This is when we expect fires in the far north of Canada and Alaska due to the sunlight hours. This is peculiarly unprecedented along with fires this early along roadways in Oregon. Our snowpack and moisture levels are above average here on the continental divide. Years like this make an old firefighter uneasy.

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Real uneasy, and so sad. I have a dear friend who spends a month in Alaska each summer, and the stories he has told about the changes in the environment over the past 15 years are so heartbreaking. Here in northern Michigan and the U.P. we continue to fight to have our oil company owned U.S. Representative, Jack Bergman, replaced with an envionmentally compassionate one (Dr. Bob Lorinser is running again!). I think you are right though, from what you remember of the area, about probably being able to catch the fire fast. The smoke here has abated significantly since morning. And, as you happily know, Grayling has so many lakes and rivers in and surrounding it that fire engines and planes were able to replenish water supplies consistently all night. But then, what did that do to our lakes and rivers? Somehow it all comes back to HCR's Letters - we thoughtful citizens have to "take up oxygen" in politics, and make a difference for democracy and Earth. Thanks.

https://www.votedrbob.com/

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MaryPat you can monitor the fire situation by accessing the Sit Report, which is the national fire situational daily fire report. Or you can access Inciweb And include state. Inciweb Idaho, for instance. You also get a fire weather forecast with the sit report.

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🙏🏻

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P.S. Last I heard Hartwick Pines State Park is safe.

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Take care, MaryPat. Wishing you a lovely Sunday.

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Thanks Fern.

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Hot and dry all month in SE Michigan too.

It seems to be the pattern. Rain in early spring only. Droughts in May- August. Terrible for nature.😞

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You deserve it Professor. Thank you. .

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Perfect!

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You are the best at illuminating the history that has led to what we refer to as current events. And the tone you use, while you name all of the darkness in this Repub vs the Dems political bifurcation-allows we the readers to read disappointing world and national events without drama and hype.

Thank you for a daily education!

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“current events.”

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Heather, sweet dreams! What a lovely spring image. Thank you!

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I think you may have posted on this little bridge before... what is the story about this bridge?

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