In the early 1960s I was in grade school, and my mother let me stay home to watch NASA's Mercury and Gemini spacecraft launches on TV. We'd follow the whole exciting run-up and count-down, and cheer for blast-off, willing the fiery ship up, up and away into space. This gave me my life-long love of space travel …
A Whole New Life
I've been posting here less often for a very good reason: after five years of under-employment, I landed a job. Dream Job I've gone to work for a company called Earth Resources Technology, a prime contractor for NOAA. The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration is under the Department of Commerce. That's because the agency's sections, oceans and …
Pluto and the Texture of the Infinite
In ancient times, (or when I was in grade school) the planets were very smooth, like billiard balls. We had no detailed images, only descriptions of what they might be. Images of the galaxies and nebulas were quaintly fuzzy. Over the past 40 years we humans have sharpened our focus. The Hubble Space Telescope and …
New Year, New Themes
Last year I wrote for Blogging for Mental Health 2014, and other themes emerged, capturing my interest. For 2015 I'm declaring a more specific intention: to honor my title: Art•Spirit•Nature more specifically, in the following ways: ART: I really want to feature profiles of the amazing creative people I know. And, show you the creative work I'm doing. So …
Universe, Part 3: A Bearable Vastness
Part 3 Lately I've heard a number of interviews with Natalie Batahla, planetary astronomer and poet. She works with NASA's Kepler Mission, a search for earthlike planets. Natalie has a beautiful optimism about the ability of science to reveal mysteries and nourish the human mind. "I have a great reverence for the mysteries of the cosmos... …
Opening to the Universe, part 1
I owe you all a post or three from my recent travels in the Golden State. So here's just one of the many highlights. Josephine, my dear friend and east-to-west migrant got tickets for a planetarium show, and I thought, "Cool! I haven't been to a Planetarium for decades!" I had no idea just how …