little Buddah

Maybe you've noticed that the term "weep" has been showing up a lot in my posts and thoughts over the past few days.

Saturday started typically. Up early, checking the surf reports and on-line cams. A low was pulling offshore and if I rushed, I thought I might catch the tail end of a swell.

When I got to my new "secret spot" it looked like I was too late. Just to cold to suit up for the "ankle biters" zipping along the shore. No worries though. I could just head into the town of Portsmouth, NH, settle into a coffee shop and chip away at a script I've been working on. It deals with all that's wrong in the world, and how we might make it right. Heavy stuff that's hard to find hope for.

Eight hours later I was distracted by some commotion outside and looked up from my computer to see the police putting up a baracade out front. The main street through town was being closed to make way for the annual Christmas Parade. It was cold outside and getting dark, and I was in a particularly somber mood, so I decided I'd stick around to watch. I'd just stroll around town to kill an hour or so.

In an uncharacteristic move, I ducked into a little curio gift shop called ganesh imports. It was mostly becuase it looked warm and interesting in there.

The first thing to catch my eye, was a little dish full of charms called "Weeping Buddahs".


When I picked one up, and looked at it closely, It hit me like a ton of bricks. I just knew exactly how that little guy was feeling. Look closely at it:

Maybe it's this script I'm working on. But that is how I felt. I bought one and left.

Walking around, i could not stop wondering why the little buddah was weeping. I went back to the store to ask. The girl behind the counter knew only that he was weeping for all that is wrong in the world. It made perfect sense.

So I bought another with the idea that i would give it to the first person who made me laugh.

As I watched the parade go by. I still felt very sad. That is until the antique car carrying Mrs. New Hampshire went by:

I'm not sure if you can tell by this cell phone photo, but snuggled up in the back seat of this car, Mrs. New Hampshire is waving to the crowd. but in the front seat, is a big boxer-type dog. I was laughing out loud as I took this photo (The yellow banner down below says "Mrs. New Hampshire".

Later that night, after the crowd had dispersed, I started to make my way back to my car. As I passed by the coffee shop, I noticed a boxer-type dog sitting on the sidewalk. I went up to say hello. As I looked up, there was Mrs. New Hampshire, inside sipping hot chocolate (along with a guy I assumed was Mr. New Hampshire). I went in to give her the little Buddah.

Mr. New Hampshire snapped this funny photo that still makes me laugh:

I never told her exactly why.

Carl Sagan Portal

Ann Druyan, is the peak of my pyramid of heroes.

Just noticed the newly-released Carl Sagan Portal page. Be prepared to read it and weep.

The Creepy Gene

In my last post, I used the last few seconds of a video clip to reveal what I thought to be the hidden motivations of a secular leader (Richard Dawkins).

Ok to be fair, I should probably do the same for a religious leader. This is a clip from a documentary shot a few months before the inner motivations of Ted Haggard became known.

Ted Haggard is (or was) a highly regarded preacher of the "New Life" mega-church in Colorado. To check out his latest exploits read the news or just Google Ted Haggard. I know, I know, an easy target - just couldn't resist.

The Weepy Gene

What would it take to make an atheist weep?

Sometimes even the most hard-core, objective scientists slip up and show some soul. When they do, perhaps it is the little things they say that reveal their inner motivations.

Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary ethologist who wrote "The Selfish Gene" and many other landmark science books. His latest book, "The God Delusion" has garnered him considerable critisicm from the religious right.

Visit the Richard Dawkins Website for more information.

More to come on this fascinating conference from The Science Network.

Happy Bearthday

Maybe you didn't know this, but today is the Earth's birthday.



So how old is it?

Well, after a careful and thorough accounting of biblical "begats" in 1650, the Archbishop James Ussher calculated that our planet was created on October 23, 4004 B.C. - making it 6,010 years old. Holy smokes that's old!

If you hold a geocentric view, you limit your universe to the moon. The Earth is about 4.6 billion years old.

Nature never fails…

It is now the closing hours of an unseasonably warm October day and I just got back from another mountaintop epiphany.

As I laid there on my favorite curved rock, soaking up the easy breeze, soft light, and the warbler’s sweet tweet, I drifted into a very clear, very intense, thought experiment.

I imagined I could see the flow of time. From out in the space above the lake, I could see a future moment condense into a discrete thing, and flow toward me. I could feel it reside in me for a moment and then pass by into the future and dissolve, never to be experienced again. Where it came from and where it went I don’t know, but for that moment, when it was within me, I had complete and personal ownership.

With a little concentration, I found that I could tick each moment off as it went streaming by. This little daydream was fun… but it soon became just an exercise in counting the moments.

That’s when it hit me. It was that little moment of personal ownership that mattered. What made each moment special was what I chose to do with it. I could waste it, or value it.

I turned my attention to the grass beside me. Suddenly I felt a great wave of connection. I felt I could see overwhelming beauty in the simplest of things. Little furry corkscrew seeds, intricate patterns, rich warm tan, sweet-smelling, like the hay-bales of my childhood. Truth is, I spend a lot of moments this way.

Then I tried tuning my thoughts toward love and meaning. And there they were, moments full of love and meaning. The best part is, I decided each moment could last for a second, a minute, an hour, or a lifetime.

Carl Sagan once said, “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” I think I may finally understand what this means. Moment by moment, each of us makes the Universe. So if your thoughts are devoid of meaning, the universe has no meaning. If you hate, the universe hates. But if you have compassion, the universe is full of love. If you see beauty, the universe is beautiful. It's an empowering idea.

I guess the big question is, what will you choose to do with your moments? What universe will you make?

Note: No drug or religion was used in the making of this post - just fresh air, autumn light, and an open mind.

things that go scribble in the night

My mind meanders manic - especially during the night. So I keep a pencil and little pad of paper within reach to jot down my big ideas and little dreams.

This morning I woke up to this:



Any idea what the heck this says?