Green World

About humanity: "The Green world is his sacred center. In moments of sanity he must seek refuge there."
Loren Eiseley, The Invisible Pyramid


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Point Reyes National Seashore

Sir Francis Drake (1540?-1596) One of Elizabethan England's greatest seamen, who was the first European known to circumnavigate the earth in his own ship, visited Point Reyes National Seashore area in 1579.

Point Reyes National Seashore, California

Tanya and I liked exploring Point Reyes National Seashore near San Francisco.

You can get there by driving US 1 from San Francisco or following Sir Francis Drake Boulevard from US 101 (Just south of San Raphael.)

The National Seashore is a ten or twelve mile long sort of triangular piece of land which includes mountains, estuaries, rocky cliffs and some long, dramatic, tan sandy beaches.

The famous San Andres earthquake fault separates most of the parkland from the mainland of California---this fault zone is easily seen on maps of the area: Tomales Bay on the north becomes Bear Valley which then becomes Bolinas Lagoon in the south.

The workers at the National Seashore recommend that your tour begin at the Bear Valley Visitor Center and that is a good idea. There is a large parking lot and a really fine picnic area with beautifully maintained lawns and wonderful huge trees. There are also several well-marked walking trails from the Center which we sampled and enjoyed.

We like lighthouses and there is a fine one out on the cliffs about fifteen scenic miles across the park from the Bear Valley Center. Parking is limited to roadside areas and on a sunny weekend afternoon there may be none at all near the lighthouse, but there are several long sand beaches on the way with plenty of parking and which are attractive.

If you do get to the lighthouse, you can hike down (and back up!) the 300 concrete steps to the old light tower and tour the restored facility—though it is no longer a functioning warning light, it is very worthwhile for lighthouse buffs.

Don’t expect to be alone! There are scads of tourists speaking all the languages of the world—but that just shows their appreciation for this fine park—and also shows that the huge and always growing population of the Bay Area is just over the hill!

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Muir Woods

Muir Woods National Monument

12 Miles north of Golden Gate Bridge a few twisting 2-lane road miles from US 101.

John Muir emigrated with his parent’s family from Scotland to Wisconsin in 1848.

He called himself a graduate of “the University of the Wilderness” who wandered the forests and hills of his day. He came to believe that the relationship between humans and the rest of nature is that between equal forms of life—that all had the same inherent right to exist.

Muir was an influential early conservationist writer. This park honors his memory.

June 12, 2007: But getting to this most beautiful, quiet, cool redwood grove is a pain in the neck.

San Francisco Bay traffic, especially the ghastly San Raphael bottleneck, which has been a miserable squeeze of motorized mayhem my entire adult life—that is, for years and years—is as awful as it gets except for LA in the summer.

Big automated highway signs on US 101 will warn you if the Muir Woods parking lot is full—and if the highway sign says it is full—it is FULL. Don’t think “someone will soon leave and there’ll be a space for me because no one ever leaves! (I don’t know where they go.)

There are crowds of people walking the trails from opening at 8am until closing at sunset every day of the year—but fewer early and late on weekdays.

Many of the visitors are appreciative adults from foreign lands and most are impressed by the magnificent, immense redwood trees.

There is a pretty brook and some native birds and the calmness and peace of the place are healing to the spirit.

Go there.

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"The Plan"

The Great Plan is unfolding; I am sure, exactly on schedule and exactly as it should.

Pop’s Question

For some time in my life while I was pilgrimming, I was living very free.

I didn’t pay much attention to commerce or any money transactions.

Whatever I had or whatever I earned or what I was given was OK.

I didn’t question what would happen if I ran out of dough or if I would starve or if I would never get rich or anything like that.

For a while I even had the policy of giving whatever I had as far as money was concerned away every night so I could start every morning fresh and empty—you could say, “broke”—though I didn’t think of it that way at all. For me it was just kind of an experiment in living.

One afternoon when I was explaining this to my dad (we boys called him “Pop”) he asked me why I had lived that way.

“Well, you told us kids a long time ago we shouldn’t be concerned with money.” I said.

“Yeah.” He replied, “But I never thought you’d believe me!”

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Born Lucky

“In order to see famous hills and rivers, one must also have predestined luck; unless the appointed time has come, one has no time to see them even though they are situated within a dozen miles.”

Chang Ch’ao, China, mid 17^th century CE, Lin Yutang Translation

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Survival of the Wisest

Charles Darwin, the famous evolutionist, suggested that his theoretic concept, popularized as “the survival of the fittest”, was the most successful natural survival strategy for a species.

By “fittest”, Darwin implied that the strongest, healthiest, most intelligent and creative individuals of a species would be the ones to survive, breed and continue to exist for the requisite immense number of generations necessary for biological evolution to take place. Chance and good luck seemed also to play major roles in what Darwin suggested was nature’s method of evolution.

However, “The fittest”, in this classic sense, may not be enough now to ensure the continued survival of Homo sapiens as a species.

Lambert, etc., claims in the book “The Field Guide to Early Man” that for mankind, “extinction seems likelier than further evolution. Soaring human population depends on increasing food and energy production—and both of these processes encourage overexploitation of the planet’s resources. Overuse of soil brings erosion; fossil fuel depletion threatens energy supplies—which may worsen with climatic change. Overcrowded, underfed, under fueled, Homo sapiens might fizzle out in famine, war and pestilence. Homo sapiens is a dead end—without a future, as they presently exist. They must themselves control future evolution.” (My italics)

If Homo sapiens does not take charge of its own evolution immediately it may not survive as a species, and perhaps chance may now play a lesser role in our consciously directed evolutionary drama, though, as always, “good luck”, (sometimes called: “the Will of God”) will continue to be a major factor, and, of course, we must also create the planetary environment that favors our species’ survival.

Perhaps the survival of Homo sapiens will now depend on what may be called: “the survival of the wisest” rather than Darwin’s “fittest”, and this may depend more on conscious choices of survival strategies than the blind operations of biological selection.

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Last Laugh

I have just heard that the polar bear has just been placed on the "endangered species" list.

I am so sorry to hear this terrible news.

It seems that the polar ice is melting so fast now that the poor animals drown trying to swim from one iceberg to another as they have through the many ages of their species evolution.

And more terrible than this is the suspicion that this change in the world's climate is due to my own species' selfish acts.

Ourselves, the homo sapiens species, is probably also on some cosmic "endangered species" list since we seem to be responsible for so many biological disasters.

So here is my sad poem:

The Last Laugh Track

Ho, ho, ho, and hee, hee, hee!
One if by land and two if by sea!
Ha, ha, ha, and yuk, yuk, yuk!
If we’ve gotta run, let’s run amok!

Toes and heels, toes and heels!
Let’s slide on them banana peels!
Heels and toes, heels and toes,
Let’s put on glasses and a big, fake nose!

Chase us like the Keystone Kops!
Let’s us run until we drops!
We shakes our sacroiliacs!
We lives our lives like maniacs!

The bestest animal’s a giraffe!
The bestest medicine’s still a laff!
The wisest of us’s still a loon!
The greatest of us’s a baboon!

The bestest place that’s for a pie,
Is in my face and in your eye!
And if we gotta say goodbye,
Let’s us not say it with a sigh!

Let’s say it loud, let’s say it clear––
With dryfull eyes–– without a tear!
We lived and loved, we scrapped and fought,
We did just like we thought we ought!

We ran a good race tho’ we lost––
Our t’s are dotted and our i’s are crossed––
They can’t forget us if they try––
Fare well, so long, toodle-oo, goodbye!

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