Petra

As a parent, and hopefully, a good teacher, one tries to find information relevant to your own childs learning experience.

Tom and I sit here at least a few minutes every night going over something new. I don't watch TV. It's been a long while since I watched a program regularly. The online world is, well... what you make of it.... to me... simply an amazing place that I wish I could share always... TV... not my favorite place and well.. I often think... "kill your tv" is a good moto. I could be wrong.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, the boy and his class were studying Ancient Egypt... and from that... I found this:

Amazing when you think about it how long it took to carve this. What would cause a man, a society of men, a country to put so much effort into this???



http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/petra/

Shakespeare. Then the day be known....

Act 5 Scene I.

When I was in high school, I read a version of Julius Caesar. I cheated back then, reading cliff notes. I hated it.... The story line was kind of difficult to keep up with and besides, girls were more important then school. I remember reading the last few pages after we were to have finished and finding myself amazed by one scene....it stuck out and, well I memorized it.

When you think about each day that we have, it's really a gift or an opportunity to take advantage of. My kids and their imagination remind me of this every day.... to be someone new... to pretend.. to imagine. You never know when its all going to be over...

Anyway, here's the line that I memorized... as best as I can remember it some twenty years later...


"If man were to know the end of this days business, there it come,
would it suffice him to know that this day will end?
Then the day be known. For if we meet again,
then we will smile.
If we do not, then our parting was well made.".

Webecoist...

I discovered Webecoist via StumbleUpon. Truly amazing photos and information:






http://webecoist.com/2009/02/08/amazing-natural-formations-phenomena/

Nusrat - Qawwali

The following video is of a very famous man of Islam, known as Nusrat. He and the members of his band sing with such intensity. To be honest and not to be crass, but I have a good idea of what they are saying, but frankly, I really don't care what it's meaning is.

Someone convinced me long ago, too much of anything is not good. I believe it's true of booze (and other mind altering alternatives), love, religion, work, or play. I'd say that's true of their message; however, the sound and intensity is amazing.

Somewhere in this life, we all have loss, and most often, more then once. It sucks. When this guy sings, it sounds like the period of your life when you have been stung in the soul worse then anything you ever have known; a greater magnitude of pain, delirium, and loss than you ever thought possible.

I had a friend who lived in Kenya for 25 years. He once said to me of the desert: "it's no place for man, son. It's the worse place you could ever imagine, a place you don't want to be". These singers have spent too much time in it.
Part I takes some time to get moving, so watch the 2nd first:

Memento Mori , by McErlean

My kids, often amaze me at how wonderfully observant they are and how much they remember.
Tonight, my 11 year old son was reading aloud, his evenings reading requirement, Greek Mythology. I still can't believe they teach this in 6th grade. The boy was observant enough to notice the similarities between the Underworld in C.S. Lewis' book, the Silver Chair and Hell as described in his school text. He said, there was a river in the Underworld, just like the Styx and Hades was like the Witch of the Underworld.

I hope I remember these days of seeing their brilliance.

Anyway, the whole subject is a bit macabre... or carpe diem... or Memento Mori like.

It lead me to start searching for a book of poems called Momento Mori, by Richard McErlean.

From page 33,
A SONG FOR MY CHILDREN
by, Richard McErlean

How will you remember me?
What stories will you tell?
What images will stay with you?
What words of mine will make your own?
What walks we took and laughs we shared
will you keep in your heart?

Once I'm gone, or once you're gone,
someday we'll go away;
I wish I could hold you forever like this,
like I can today.
Life is what happens between goodbyes,
it's love that brings us back.
I'll worry about that tomorrow.
I still have you here today.

I don't feel like a daddy,
I just feel like me,
like I've always felt
but to you, I know
how important I must be.
So I try to be so many things:
storyteller, teacher, friend,
listener, learner, and
you are so pure and innocent.
I never want to see that go.
But all these things will fly away
and this is true, I know...

Once I'm gone, or once you're gone,
someday we'll go away;
I wish I could hold you forever like this,
like I can today.
Life is what happens between goodbyes,
it's love that brings us back.
I'll worry about that tomorrow,
I still have your love today.

This morning I picked you up
and held you in my arms.
I saw us in the mirror
heart to heart and eye to eye.
Like this, we dance,
but this time your feet,
they tapped against my knees.
It won't be long, I thought,
she'll soon be leaving me.

The force of life that sent you here
will be the force that pulls us apart.
There is no goodbye without heartbreak
but no heartbreak without a heart.

Once I'm gone, or once you're gone,
someday we'll go away;
I wish I could hold you forever like this,
like I can today.
Life is what happens between goodbyes,
it's love that brings us back.
I'll worry about that tomorrow,
I still have your love today.

How will I survive all of those goodbyes?
What will you remember, when you turn the page?
I'll worry about it tomorrow.
I still have you here today.

Re-engineering us.

There's a very interesting Gene Therapy Study that started yesterday on HIV. The article in Wired Science is written by Aaron Rowe.

Are we finally at point where we may begin genetically modify who are to lengthen and strengthen our very existence?

How soon will it be that patterns in our genetic makeup are identified that help prevent breast cancer, heart disease, and other deadly diseases?

Life always finds a way to live, so I am sure when we get to this point, life is going to do what it wants to and we must live with those consequences.