ecoscience

i just realized that maybe i will have to go to grad school, but not for their science. for my science, and in my way, which means part-time, blended with social justice work, blended with meditation, yoga, and magic. what a life that would be, founded on the three cornerstones of body, breath, and mind. from that seat the charm of the bodhi heart serves as the egoless ground, out of which joyously rowdy and blissful life can resume.

i finally realize, fully and helplessly like a boy in love, why i must sit every morning. when i sit i ground deeply into my breath and body, and during the rest of my day i encounter people from that seat of stillness and balance. and i'm discovering that this point can bridge my magic and my everyday living, can bring my presence as a gift to ground others. when i do not sit, i feel short of breath and i breathe high into my chest. i spend most of the day trying to mentally center, draw it back down, and ground again. or sometimes i just forget completely.

what kind of science can i weave into this eco-tao thread? neuroscience or biochemistry? chemical engineering or green chemistry? maybe i can start this work by envisioning something very different from all of that.

what about the science of enlightenment, peace, ecology, and humanity? what about a science that was grounded, first and foremost, in the mutualism of human life and the biosome of this planet. rooted on the absolute inter-dependence, kinship, and responsibility we have towards the earth, toward both the land itself and the life that thrives on it.

one potential guideline for such a science could emphasize design with sustainable reverse-engineering of all products - nothing should be produced en masse that is not designed to fully re-integrate into the environment without lasting harm.

make no mistake, it's not merely the current toxicity of negligent manufacture that is threatening this planet, it's the collective effects of all our chemical creations that are slowly welling up in the metabolic pathways of life. (and also the atmosphere of course, but much is thankfully being made of the climate at last.)

it's called bioaccumulation, where lipophilic toxins (e.g. dioxins) collect in fatty tissues like dirt in a sponge. there are now detectable levels of pharmaceutical chemicals in the public water of many cities, and also in reservoirs, rivers, and lakes, much to the detriment of natural organisms.

now perhaps it's starting to make sense, why nature's pattern of decomposition remains so absolutely crucial. biology as a process must survive over long stretches of time (think geologic ages... remember, life was microscopic for three billion years on this earth) it is precisely through that incredibly gigantic course of time - by the stochastic shuffle of immensely complex systems and the drifting development of genetic libraries - that such a thing as human intelligence and consciousness have emerged. creation or evolution is irrelevant, they are simple stories of genesis or origin. we hold many, i have heard a few.

the remarkable and baffling and incredible part of all this, quite simply, is what will happen to us over another 100,000 years if we can manage to enter sustainable harmony with the earth, the oceans, and the atmosphere. but in order for that to happen we must, without hesitation, stand together against the bullshit of endless war, global pillage, environmental destruction, and all varieties of oppression. it's a big frekkin' mess, and we must mobilize. science, to the streets!