Author: Erik Lokensgard

Two questions to ask yourself, your students, and your friends every day

My friend Kyle has a contagious delight in the natural world. For instance, when he described how bumble bees co-evolved with daffodils, I shared his wonder. The bumble bees’ wing vibrations cause the daffodil to tremble, and their whole bodies get dusted with pollen when they enter the flower.

He asked two questions of his students at the end of each day:

1. What did you learn today?

2. What was your favorite part of the day?

Today, I learned that the maple tree in my backyard has buds exceeding one and half inches in height. I predict that the leaves unfolding from the larger-than-expected buds will be larger than I would have expected prior to seeing the buds.

My favorite part of today is right now. All of the moments of the day are coming together as I reflect on the moments: a thoughtful sermon by Linda Simmons about the anthropic principle and a story of how she heard of another pronoun for an animal, “kin” instead of “it”, and how instead of her friend looking at her like she was crazy, the friend got it; walks with friends (the first walk with friends in person, another on the phone); enjoying a glass of red wine, and sitting down to write.

This poem was sent to me today by Harry Haines, a man I never met but whose wife I met in a library in Errol, New Hampshire. I overheard her talking about poetry, we started talking, and she told me that her husband sends out a poem a day. I’ve been enjoying daily poetry ever since that fortuitous encounter in 2010. It’ll be five years this summer.

Swallows
by Leonora Speyer

They dip their wings in the sunset,
They dash against the air
As if to break themselves upon its stillness:
In every movement, too swift to count,
Is a revelry of indecision,
A furtive delight in trees they do not desire
And in grasses that shall not know their weight.

They hover and lean toward the meadow
With little edged cries;
And then,
As if frightened at the earth’s nearness,
They seek the high austerity of evening sky
And swirl into its depth.

 

I love this poem because it is inaccurate. Or rather, accurate in its inaccuracies. “A furtive delight in trees they do not desire/ And in grasses that shall not know their weight.” Basically, they are flying about, enjoying flight itself. Do the trees and grasses desire to get closer to the swallows, to know their weight? Of course not. They are trees and grasses. Nevertheless, I can’t help thinking of unrequited love. Watching people falling into something they love joyfully with their whole being, it’s easy to fall in love.

Together

What can we do better together than I can do alone?

Finding shared dreams, we might make them happen. Share your dreams, please. Thanks for reading.

Here’s one dream:

Preempting the need for expensive health care years down the line by sharing healthy ways of living, moving your body/mind, and interacting as a team early on.

Another: teaching kids mathematics and the scientific method to look beyond the superficial layers of what we can detect with our senses in the moment to cycles at greater and smaller time scales.

Stories are how things stick.

“Stories are how things stick.” – Forest Bell

Do you still remember the stories your teachers told you in grade school? Do you still know the words for a song that helped you remember something? Do you remember the stories your parents told you growing up? Have you read a book and lost yourself in time, and looked up an hour later remembering where you are?

What did you see today that you want to remember? What can you tell us about it? E. O. Wilson said that scientists are telling stories too, repeating in a different form the paleolithic ritual of hunting, dragging a carcass back to the group, and telling a story about it. (See Coyote’s Guide). How there are conventions and prizes awarded, and how the careers of the scientists depend on telling an accurate and compelling story.