Eye on Nature
My monthly email messages to the staff and faculty of Mt. Hood
Community College. Enjoy! Archive
1 November 2005
"daylight savings edition"
True to our nature we seek to make time linear. We record our lives
with events between birth and death. We count years of service,
days before holidays, hours
of work. Observation of the seasons tells us another story, however—time
is circular. Leaves fall each autumn. Birds sing each spring.
Yet watching the water level of the campus marsh ebb and flow from
day to day, I cannot help but think that circular is no closer
to the truth than linear.
Indeed, time is relative--not E=mc^2, but time lived fast and slow, repeated
yet unique. For the salamander, time measured in cellular activity must wax and
wane with the whim of clouds revealing and concealing sun. For the tree frog,
whose brain essentially shuts down when nothing moves in his field of vision,
does time start and stop as well? The metronome for the dragonfly clicks at double
time as it darts across the emergent vegetation and the measure of time for the
one-day life of a mayfly is unimaginable.
And time stretches eternal as well. Deep in the genetic inheritance
of this year’s
progeny lie copies of instructions faithfully passed on since the beginning
of life on earth.
Bill Walks
"Bill Walks" is a gift from the kids to Bill/Dad on the
occasion of his retirement. Rather than give gifts to the "man
who has everything" we have created a fundraiser for a non-profit
of his choice. Friends, family and colleagues have pledged to contribute
based on the number of miles Bill and Nancy walk on their autumn
tour of Vermont with Country Walkers tours (See
Details...)
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