…and tilted. Disjointed? Like many a PlaidCamper post this past winter? Maybe. This one is all over the place – best keep it brief.
At school, we’ve been learning about the Solar System. Heads were spinning as students grappled with the idea that our Earth rotates on a 23.5 degree tilted axis. The fact that we live on a speeding ball, traveling at thousands of kilometres per hour had heads tilting in thought. Learning why we have seasons, why they are opposite in each hemisphere, and about the intricate celestial dance that stars and planets have been engaged in for many millennia has been a cosmic experience. More stars than there are grains of sand on a beach. Far out.
We’ve been measuring the increasing daylight hours, and slowly shedding some of the winter layers. Evidence that seasons are changing. It’s a long winter, and you take your fun where you can find it. Like watching in amusement as twenty-five students stumble around a murky cloakroom designed for fewer and smaller children. They bounce off the walls and each other in their attempts to pull on snow pants, snow boots, bulky coats and assorted knitwear. Gloves and mittens are dropped and lost underfoot. It’s a brave student that falls on hands and knees to try and find a missing mitt. It’s grim in there. They do this several times each day. I stand well back…
Studying the sky puts things in perspective. Grains of sand, and all that. Maybe you feel that the world is off balance, tilted somehow, especially since the turn of the year and all the dreary noise and nonsense. All that extra unpleasant hot air and bloated nastiness emanating from the DC area. Still, maybe we’re only experiencing a bit of a blip, if you take the longer view. Yes, the air will be less clean, and harder to breathe. Water will be more contaminated. There will be fewer trees and more greenhouse gases. People will be marginalized, discriminated against, and freedoms and environmental protections will be curtailed.
It is bad, yet it helps to remember the planet really is tilted, and that part is ok. The sun does come up and go down each day. The real dance has been going on for many years, and will continue past the next four (or eight – heaven help us) years of irritating sideshow, and then far, far, beyond. Our young people are truly interested in the big picture, and their small part in taking collective responsibility for the speeding ball they inhabit. The students I’m teaching this year are (amongst other things) Canadian, First Nation, Somali, Indian, Lebanese, Russian, Pakistani, Tibetan, Haitian, Afghan and Ethiopian. These little Earthlings love to look up at the sky. And even if they drop a mitten and are looking down, they can be tremendously resilient and good natured. After all, how many of us could emerge unscathed and happy after nearly six winter months of the cloakroom dressing challenge? They are stellar.
A tilted and disjointed piece this week, and an attempt to recognize disequilibrium is in fact part of a greater pattern. Groovy.
Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful weekend!
OldPlaidCamper 
Yes, things will be alright or not, and ti’s hard to remember but we must enjoy the ride on this little ball in a big solar system.
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Thanks, Mike – yup, we should enjoy the ride!
Hope your week is off to a good start.
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Groovy indeed 😉 love the photos!!!
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Thanks, Margaret – a little groovy goes a long way!
Glad you enjoyed this one, and I hope your week is off to a fine start!
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Wonderful post, pc, embracing the big picture and the smaller one too. Taking a walk in nature, or teaching the immensity of the solar system, watching the kids successfully clamber through a crowded cloakroom — it’s all beautiful. And during these politically-charged times it is helpful to stay focused on the beauties, knowing that we will get through this too. I’ve been thinking of you and Mrs. PC this week because the bright green wildflowers (oxyalis) are blooming here again, just like last March when you visited SF. Cheers to the cycles, my friend!
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Your nature writing and Athena’s photography combine to remind us of the wonders of the big picture!
We were just reminiscing about our trip last spring – much as we love our winter delights, wouldn’t mind a visit to SF and around. Sadly, the coffers are low, but we have great memories from before!
Have a lovely week, and enjoy the blooms…
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I love that first photo. Yes, oddly enough I was with a few people last night discussing science and religion really, environmentalism. Your students must have been intrigued with the recent “discovery” of a few new plants. So much to discuss in the classroom and from so many perspectives. Sounds richly encouraging. They are a lucky class , probably getting outdoors on short or even longer field trips in the great outdoors where their passions will be stirred for our tilted planet and the universe it revolves around. And funny, it is not just all about “us”.
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Thanks, Jane! Yup, the students I teach are a lively bunch, to say the least, but they are receptive to learning, and new ideas. If they can grow up and hang on to the idea there is more than just “us” then they’ll thrive.
Have a wonderful week!
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What’s really tilted or disjointed here on Earth is the way that certain powers-that-be (such as the new/old view of things that radiates out of D.C.) express their selfish demands on the people of this planet. What’s perfectly in-synch with the eternal aspects of this life is the eye that sees the beauty of these winter mountains and the skill of educators like yourself who teach the young and the inquisitive about the bigger picture that includes us all as well as all those stellar sands of grain! Overly optimistic? Nope, just siding with the wisdom of the ages.
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Thank goodness for the young and inquisitive! Here’s hoping they grow and maintain an inquiring disposition, and do all they can to uncover and add to the wisdom of the ages…
Thanks, Walt, and have a wonderful week!
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Beautiful photos and great reminder that there is hope for the future, because you are right that some days things seem quite dreary and off balance when you watch the news. Enjoyed reading about your stellar students and the groovy ending. Have a great weekend!
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Those stellar students keep us grounded, yet eternally optimistic that the next generations do a little better than we are currently.
Here’s hoping you have a great week (and that the news cycle is less dreary…) Thanks!
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You should write a book Adam? Would be a great challenge for you down the road.Keep a journal.
Explain to your students how looking at the Stars is like looking back in time & that the Star may not actually be there.
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Thanks, Wayne!
That whole idea about the light we see today coming from a dead star always brings me up short – our little life cycle isn’t even a blink of an eye in cosmic terms. Best enjoy what we do have!
Hope your week is off to a dry(ish?) start…
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we got snow last night…again! Loved it!
Ya funny how you could be seeing something that technically isn’t there!
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Our planet, and solar system is fascinating indeed. One of my daughter’s current fascinations. I loved the photos!
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Curious children seem to love stars and planets – really fires their imagination and creates questions!
Have a great week!
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