I once asked my good friend Martin Pribble (@MartinPribble), a rock climber and a fellow atheist, the following question through his blog:

“I assume you’ve seen interesting strata up-close in your climbing.  Have they ever generated an insight about evolution?  Other more emotional reactions, such as enormous respect for, or humility in the face of, the age and history of the planet?”

While I did not have this song in mind when I asked the question, Eddie Vedder, a surfer and a fellow atheist, wrote a song about his insights about evolution, and his emotional reactions to the age and history of the planet, while surfing.  And while he may have taken liberties with the evolutionary tree for the sake of a rhyme scheme, I still love these lyrics.

Big Wave

I used to be crustacean
In an underwater nation
And I surf in celebration
Of a billion adaptations

Got me a big wave, ride me a big wave, got me a big wave!
Got me a big wave, ride me a big wave, got me a big wave!

I feel the need planted in me
Millions of years ago
Can’t you see the ocean’s size,
Defining time and tide?
Arising up, arms laid upon me,
Being so kind to let me ride!

I scream in affirmation
Of connecting dislocations
And exceeding limitations
By achieving levitation

Got me a big wave, ride me a big wave, got me a big wave!
Got me a big wave, ride me a big wave, got me a big wave!

I feel the need planted in me
Millions of years ago
Can’t you see the ocean’s size,
Defining time and tide?
Arising up, arms laid upon me,
Being so kind to let me ride!

Got me a ride!
I’ve got me a ride!

I’ve listened to this song for years.  It was just a song on Backspacer for me.  It … didn’t suck.  But that’s it.

Today it came on shuffle, and I fell in love with it, and started crying.  This is now one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs.  Amazing how life events can change these things.

Force of Nature

Understand she’s a force of nature
Contraband hiding deep inside her soul
Exercising her will to lose control
She lets go

A common man, he don’t stand a chance, no
Wonderland pulling Alice in the hole
No way to save someone who won’t take the rope
And just lets go

One man stands at the edge of the ocean
A beacon on dry land
Eyes upon the horizon
In the dark before the dawn

Hurricane has the trade winds blowing
A gale force shaking windows in the storm
Shipwreck on the rock that he calls home
With one light on

Somewhere there’s a siren singing
A song only he hears
All the strength that you might think
Would disappear — resolving!

One man stands alone, awaiting
For her to come home
Eyes upon the horizon
In the dark before the darkness meets the dawn

Makes me ache, makes me shake
Is it so wrong to think that love can keep us safe?

Last I saw, he was out there waiting
A silhouette in the black light; full moon glow –
In the sand there he stands upon the shore, forevermore

Somewhere there’s a siren singing
A song only he hears
All the strength that you might think
Would disappear — resolving!

One man stands alone, awaiting
For her to come home
Eyes are closed. You cannot know –
But his heart don’t seem to roam

I was mathematically talented as a child and teen. One time, growing up, I was gushing to my father about how much I loved music.

“Of course you like music!” he replied. “Music is math!”

I immediately corrected him. “No, Dad,” I said. “Math is music.”

Hey, Dad? I was right.

I asked my brother for a recommendation for Vedder Tuesday again.  Right now I’m relating very well to his choice.  Thanks, Dave!

Oceans

Hold on to the thread
The currents will shift
And glide me towards you
You know something’s left,
And we’re all allowed
To dream of the next –
Oh, the next time we touch

You don’t have to stray
Two oceans away
Waves roll in my thoughts
Hold tight the ring
The sea will rise
Please stand by the shore
Oh, I will be –
I will be there once more…

“What an astonishing thing a book is.  It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles.  But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years.  Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you.  Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs.  Books break the shackles of time.  A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”
– Carl Sagan

Early in our relationship, Monica proposed the metaphor of a “bottomless drawer”.

When there is an issue of concern … or a fear … or a suspicion, instead of stacking it into a teetering pile known to only one of us, it is brought into the open.  We look at the concern, fear, or suspicion together; we talk about it; we resolve it to mutual satisfaction; and then we “put it in the drawer”.

What is the drawer?  The drawer is a phantom place in a bureau, the sort of drawer that might hold unpaid bills or aging photographs or unwanted heirlooms in a normal home.  But this drawer has no bottom.  This drawer falls to infinity.

We talk about the worry.  We place it in the drawer.  The worry flutters away into the abyss, and we never have to worry about it, ever again.

She and I also have a tradition of toasting celebrations.  This predates our intimacy, and we each admire the other’s toasts immensely.  After a night of multiple stressors, we listed four items and tossed them into the void.  We opened a much-appreciated bottle of saké, and I took the toast for the evening.

“To bottomless drawers,” I said.  “They defy real physics but define real relationships.”  She approved.

I love you, Penguie.  Here’s to bottomless drawers.

One of my favorite words is “syncretism”.  It means the amalgamation, or attempted amalgamation, of different religions or schools of thought — especially when the merger is incomplete.  One sees this at numerous points in the Christian ecclesiastical calendar, but never more apparently than with Easter.

So what’s with Easter?

To the pagan Norse, “Eostre” was the name of a goddess of the dawn.  In north-western Europe, where there are bitter winters, the “Festival of Eostre” would be held in the springtime to celebrate the annual rebirth of the world.  That which had lain dormant for months was coming back to life: animals were being born; trees and flowers were starting to grow again; the days were getting ever longer.  Totems of birth — eggs and rabbits for their symbolism of fertility and fecundity — were celebrated.

Cultural traditions and rituals are very hard to change.  It’s tough to get people to give up their rituals.  It’s easier to get them to substitute one object of their worship for another, but keep the trimmings.  And this happened with Easter.

Christianity came in as a massively successful Mediterranean Mystery Religion with a god-man who is killed and reborn.  His resurrection was a deeply important part of the religion’s memeplex.  So, the Christians got the Western Europeans to start celebrating it, with a couple of minor changes.  For instance, instead of celebrating it on the first full moon after the vernal equinox, they started celebrating it on the first Sunday after the … first full moon following the vernal equinox.  That’s the calculation of Easter to this day, based on sun-worship and a lunar calendar, and explains why Jesus dies and is reborn on a different date each year.

They made some other changes.  For instance, they decided to ditch the bunnies and the eggs, because using symbols of sex in a liturgical holiday was unseemly.  Also, they changed the name: you can’t really have the name of a pagan goddess for your celebration.  Third, they totally played down the symbolism of the rebirth of their man-god being the rebirth of the world itself.

Actually, I may be entirely wrong about that last paragraph.  They may have made none of those changes.

Perhaps Eddie Izzard said it best, in the role of the Holy Ghost, criticizing Jesus for dying and rising at Easter: “If people don’t figure out that’s pagan, I’m just going to eat my hat!”

Happy Stolen-Pagan-Fertility-Festival.  And have courage, little bunnies.  You may yet escape.

FedEx shows a package having been delivered to me, at work, over the weekend.  Monday, I go looking for it.  I start by asking Amy if she’s seen my FedEx package:

Amy:  “No, but ask Kimberly.”

Me (after walking):  “Kimberly, have you seen my FedEx package?”

Kimberly:  “No, but ask Liz.”

Me (after walking):  “Liz, have you seen my FedEx package?”

Liz:  “No, but ask Alex.”

Me (after walking):  “Alex, have you seen my FedEx package?”

Alex:  “No, but ask Catherine.”

Me (after walking):  “Catherine, have you seen my FedEx package?”

Catherine:  “Yes!  I left it on your desk!  You didn’t see it?!”

I … hadn’t seen it.  It was on my desk.