Ever since Apollo astronauts sent back a picture of the blue earth hanging in space, it has been easy to imagine the earth as a drop of water in the emptiness: tiny, finite, and complete unto itself.

Earthrise, the First Photograph. Source.

Empty space, with the occasional big lump of stuff getting cratered up by other lumps of stuff, all of them knocking about and few and far between.

What if it’s not really like that? What if it’s like this?

Spider in its World

Arrow Leafed Balsam Root gone to seed, with occupant. This seed head is this spider’s universe. She drifted here on a thread of silk, carried on wind generated by the heat of the sun. Any space traveler that lands here, will be hunted down.

What if the earth were many worlds? What if it were actually a universe, in which worlds are continually generated, sink back into seed, and rise up again? What if some of these worlds were organic, some were the intersections between forms that humans call ecological niches? What if speculative fiction were not really speculative, but was a means of describing the world accurately, with about the same relationship to day-to-day life as any other novel, even the ones claiming to be realistic? Here’s a list of speculative fiction genres from that link above:

Taken all together, they pretty much describe the social world of contemporary humans. Now, what if this social world were embedded in a physical universe, that was alive, and that we call the earth? This, maybe?

Native Mint Growing Outside the Boundaries of a Human Magical Idea  …

…and doing its own minty thing.

What if we walked through this universe of worlds and stars? What would we find? Yeah, I know, cars, at speed, like the ones that dodged me as I knelt down to meet that mint creature above, and drivers who likely cursed as they dodged their mechanical beasts onto new geometrical curves. But what else? Well, space travellers…

Astronaut

Formerly called a raven.

… supernovae and starclusers …

Scented Stars

Formerly known as choke cherries in bloom

… and complex mathematical expressions of the intersections of universal energy given physical representation …

The New Math

Formerly known as a complex environment inhabiting rain and light shadows. Before that, a glacial lake bottom. Summerland.

Science and mathematics are methods of trying to make usable patterns out of what is already complete. As experience with computers so ably demonstrates, however, what you put in is what you get out. So, what if it is no longer necessary to leave the world of complete moments to create a science but is possible to create a complex language of complete relational patterns? Might we not find ourselves sharing our days with friends like this?

Wild Gin

No glass bottle needed.

Might we not find better words to describe the desert planetary system below than: family farm?

Death Star

Compacted soil, diverted water, cheatgrass, weedspray, and under the ground, some pesticide-coated, hybridized, likely genetically-modified first nations food stuff (corn seeds.) This is the social world of contemporary agriculture. This is often what the memory objects called “family farms” look like today.

Compare that to the 19th Century version that still chugs along doing its steampunk thing, even on the Internet. In the words of the government that claims jurisdiction over the Okanagan Okanogan:

The Thompson Okanagan region of British Columbia enjoys a growing climate of sunny days and dry heat, which yields glorious results at numerous farmers markets. Choose from freshly picked vegetables, delectable artisan foods, scrumptious free-range eggs, and tasty grass-fed meats… Alternatively, head to local farms to check out the on-site bounty, or pick up seasonal specialties at regional fruit stands brimming with boxes of fresh peaches, tomatoes, cherries and much more. Source. Note: the government of that distant administration labels this under “things to do.”

Things to ‘do’? Good gawd, it’s not a thing to do. It’s life and death. If it isn’t, then the words are wrong. I am taken by the idea that it might, just possibly, be within grasp to work towards new ways of speaking, which lead to new forms of energy transfer and liberated forms of society. That’s why I keep chipping away at this. Thanks for your support in this important work. Until tomorrow…

Choke Cherries, Blooming

Let’s remember what the poet Goethe pointed out: we see in the light, but we also see in the dark.