Yo! It's that time of year again, and I'm about to leave for TTITD (That Thing In The Desert), AKA Burning Man. In celebration of this epic event, I have written an epic poem about evolution which I will read at a couple of events on the Playa. For those not attending this event, below is a copy. If you're coming to Burning Man this year come and visit me and we can chat.

THE LIFE FORCE
     by Scot Bastian © 2015
     Camp Althing in Hushville at 5:15 and E.

I sit under the palm trees, breathing in the trade winds, as the cirrus clouds sweep by calling, calling, ever so quietly: come. Bring your dreams to the ocean, my friend. Come to the sea. My eyes open and the sun is falling and the fish jump to escape the sea lions and the sea lions flee the sharks. Come, come to me. Poseidon, my father, you are so deep. So blue. So kind. So limitless. With the foam hissing on the shore and the waves rising and falling. I ask why?
Never mind the why, just tell me when.

Such are my dreams. 

It is hard to imagine time.
From molten marble, to pale blue dot
the rumbling Earth awakens from its fiery past. It is also hard to imagine liquid rock.
To parse time into increments does it a disservice, for each moment is infinitely divisible.
Four and a half billion years.

Did I begin with a bang?
The crack of a lightning bolt
     striking a pond of dark ooze?
Or did I begin with a bubble
     clinging to the edge of a volcanic vent?
Perhaps I started elsewhere
     arriving on an ancient meteor originating from another planet.

I guess I’ll never know,
    but I wonder.

Molecules break apart, then recombine. 
Rare events that seem to defy entropy.
But the sun can reverse entropic chaos.
Patterns are formed. Order from disorder. Repeating units. Molecular arrays.
My life force traverses through millennia.
Adapting.
Becoming.

Then the sun goes and the sky blackens and my eyes close. I dream of mermaids and mermen skipping through the surf. Playing games of tag and singing songs. Joyous chortling and catching breaths. The sea never stops, you know, mermen and mermaids never die. They never stop cavorting through the waves. They also never eat, living in a continuous state of delight, giggling and guffawing forever. A mad loop of laughter and frantic swimming. Their favorite game is tag, but everyone wants to be “it.” They so love to chase. They never tire. They never cease.

Such are my dreams.

And here I swim at the edge of the sea
Not quite a land dweller, yet not a typical fish.
I am a mudskipper.

When the tide is low there are many things to see.
The bones of my mind are exposed.
I wish to crawl freely onto the land, but I am attached.
It will take many years until I can emerge freely.

Then she arises as Botticelli’s Venus from the clam shell. I, waiting like a child. Wanting. Wanting it so. And she smiles. Botticelli’s Venus, da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, and the countless Virgin Marys all bear the same smile. It is the smile of Earth-mother ever expecting. Let me lie in your arms Goddess-of-all. Gaia. Demeter. Diana, Goddess of the Moon. Can I just curl up in your arms? Can I be your child and feel the warmth of your breast. Caress me, not like a God, but hold me like a mother. Come Mother, and find me. And she does.

Such are my dreams.

In the tide pool, the sea stars have nowhere to go, nor do they want to. But I gulp spoons of warm sunshine, and gaze longingly at the shore. I break the surface with a rapid exhalation of breath. I crawl from my saltwater birthplace, carrying the salt within my veins. I cannot escape the sea—I carry it with me. I am newly-born. Emergent! I am cold mother. I walk the sand on the beach. Am I the child of the fish or the cousin of the mudskipper? The frog prince. My ventral sacs swell as I push out air. It is not a croak, it is a song. Others respond and we multiply. My skin hardens, as I breathe more freely. I walk slowly munching on the jungle. Now, so tall I can reach the canopy. Roaring with the gods! But, like the gods, I am arrogant, and thus fade. Fade away. Raging fires always blow out. Embers burn slowly, red hot, but inconspicuous, I live in the shadows of giants. Did my ancestors nibble on the eggs of the terrible lizards, contributing to their demise?

When I first escaped the ocean did I know that some my descendants would crawl back?

Are the dinosaurs the ghosts of birds? When the mighty fall I take wing. Soaring in the atmosphere, I look down not at the smallness of all things, but at the largeness of the expanse. The wind rushes through me. I am drawn again to the seashore. I light upon the cliff face and stuff bits of crab into my nestlings mouths. They are such beggars. They rustle their wings, nearly casting each other off the cliff side. I turn a gaze at the sea. The waves crash, exploding on the cliff.

My nose wiggles and my tail grows. I learn to scurry and then to run, launching onto my rear haunches I lean forward the wind whistling and then roaring through my hair. I plop down and survey the scene. Cycads and lichens abound. I gaze at the curl of the horizon and want more.

When the tide is low there are many things to see. When spirits are low and exposed, like driftwood washing onto the beach, my smooth, white, desires bake in the sun. The gulls call and drop from the sky, poking around, seeking bits of rotting fish and beached crabs. The air is rank and heavy, like a salty barnyard with fish-soaked silage. Stones and sand are interspersed with bits of glass rendered smooth by the waves grinding in the tumble of churning sand. The horizon curves into infinity, stretching in all directions. But I look to the sea. The sun shines, but it has no carefully circumscribed edge. I close my eyes again.

Such are my dreams.

My parents sort, and pair off, performing the love dance and the gene shuffle.
And I am conceived.
I dig into the wall of mother’s uterus, a spelunker in the primordial cave.
I dig deeper, releasing enzymes that allow me to burrow and implant.
Can I want, or do I only exist?
Can a fetus ask a question?
And now, I am man.
But what is man?
How far back do I go?
I am the sum of all my ancestors.
I am not the endpoint.
The journey is not over.
The life force continues to transform and grow.
How long will the journey last?
How can I know?
Perhaps, I will reach for the stars…Such are my dreams.

Oh, what fun! This week the New Horizons NASA Mission to flyby Pluto is coming to fruition. As I have said before, NASA is, by far, my favorite government agency. I am in continuous awe of what the NASA engineers can get done across the unbelievable expanse of space. And they often do it flawlessly. One of the things I learned this week, is how big that Charon, the moon of Pluto, compared to the planetoid. Check out this recent, false-color image of Pluto next to Charon (Note: The distance between the two is also false.)

Another striking fact, is that both Pluto and Charon are much smaller than Earth. Below is a depiction that I find striking. Note that this might be fractionally off, because now that we're in the neighborhood, it seems that Pluto is a little larger than we thought. It's still only about the size of the US.

One interesting speculation that I have, is I wonder if the flyby mission wasn't launched a few months before pluto was "demoted" from planet to planetoid, if this mission would have taken a different trajectory. No matter, Pluto is still the coolest dwarf planet I know. 

There are three Pluotopalooza Parties brewing locally that I know about, one is right here in West Seattle tonight at the library, another celebration by Astronomy On Tap, tomorrow, July 15th and yet another big celebration at the Museum of Flight on Sunday the 19th. Woo-Hoo, go get yer astrofix! 

   I find it surprising that, given the absence of antibiotics and modern anesthesia, that they had any success at all.
   Why would anyone want to have a hole bored in their head? One can imagine that ancient humans might have used the technique to try and treat headaches, dizziness, epilepsy, evil spirits, tumors, head injuries, hematomas, etc.--virtually anything that might be related to the head. But, widespread use of trepanation and the presence of as many as 4, 5 or even 7 holes, might suggest a ritual aspect of the surgery. With the advent of modern medicine, trepanning has largely, gone the way of blood letting and bulbing, as an archaic treatment. There are modern, defensible uses of trepanation, to treat hematomas and assorted brain surgeries, but, of course, the bone is generally replaced after the surgical procedure (Many docs play golf. I wonder if they mumble to themselves "Always replace your divots," at the close of surgery.)
   However, there are a few advocates of the surgery for its supposed psychological benefits. Bart Huges, sometimes spelled Hughes, saw trepanation as a "pathway to higher consciousness." A recurring theme that I see in advocates is that it is an attempt to increase blood flow to the brain in an attempt to recapture the plasticity and "happier and more energetic" state of mind in an infant. The rationale is that the flexible fontanel (soft spot) in a baby's cranium allows for more blood flow, which is restricted with hardening of the skull as we mature. The result of the surgery, as the "Trepanation Guide" expresses it, is that you are “…happier, more energetic and less prone to crippling bouts of ennui. You'll ascend to the child's plane of acute consciousness from which you disembarked to enter the lowly malaise of adulthood." 
   Hmm, to put it mildly, I have my doubts regarding the benefits.
   Joey Mellen wrote a book called Bore Hole, which described his experiments with trepanation. His first attempt was unsuccessful. Mellen ended up hospitalized and was recommended for "psychiatric evaluation." His second attempt, with the aid of his girlfriend Amanda Fielding, worked. As Mellen described it,

   Yeeesh, not something I would want to go through. Fielding later trepanned herself. Here is a link to an interview with Amanda Fielding, who founded the Beckley Foundation, which investigates consciousness and advocates drug reform, ran for office in the British Parliament in 1979 and 1983, although she described her candidacy as more of an "art project," intended to "try to get the medical profession to agree that [tepanation] is an interesting subject and is worthy of research,"rather than a serious attempt to get elected. Below is an interesting campaign poster. 


 There is an hour long documentary called "A Hole in the Head," which is available for purchase. I haven't seen the film, but it might be interesting. 
   If you want more info more on trepanation I recommend the Skeptic's dictionary and from this article from Charles D. Gross at Princeton. 
   Let me close with a couple videos. On the left is an interview with Bobby Lund, an advocate of trepanation, and on the right is a toe-tappin' light-hearted look at the process(along with some other interesting history of anatomy) from Zoochosis. 

This is likely my last blog entry before I take my annual journey into Black Rock Desert for the amazing festival known as Burning Man. I wrote an article that I submitted to the Black Rock Beacon, one of the more popular publications on the Playa. Below is the article submitted, but I have no way of knowing whether it will be accepted or modified.

A TRIBUTE TO MARTHA: THE LAST PASSENGER PIGEON

            By Scot Bastian

Lost in the turbulence of history, overshadowed by the beginning of the “Great War” known as World War I, was a momentous event in the chronicles of ecology: the extinction of the last known passenger pigeon, The last known individual of her kind, named Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo 100 years ago on September 1st 1914, exactly 100 years ago on the last day of this year’s Burning Man.
    Passenger Pigeons were a force majeure in the Eastern landscape. Once numbering in the billions, they were quite possibly the most numerous bird species in the world. When Europeans arrived in North America, population estimates ranged from 3 to 5 billion, approximately 25 to 40% of the total North American birds. They traveled in huge flocks, one of which was described as a mile wide and three hundred miles long, and taking 13 hours to pass overhead. The flocks were so dense in number that they were said to eclipse the sun. Passenger pigeons were named for the French word passenger, which translates as “passing by.” They were half again as large as their cousin the mourning dove, and resembled its Western relative, the band-tailed pigeon. The range of the passenger pigeon extended north into Canada and west to Eastern Texas and Eastern Montana. When these immense flocks roosted hundreds of millions of birds would leave a swath of destruction, scouring the landscape for food, and crushing trees with their collective weight. The largest recorded nesting colony was 850 square miles. In spite of their enormous numbers they are gone. Gone forever. Why did they disappear? The basic problem was that they were delicious. The young birds, called squabs, were particularly prized. Their undoing was the density of their flocks and their propensity for colony breeding. The density of the nesting communities made them easy prey—a discharge from a double-barreled shotgun blast could kill dozens of birds. They were collected by the thousands using nets.
    The last confirmed wild passenger pigeon was observed in Indiana in 1902. Martha, was named after the First Lady, Martha Washington. After the death of her cage companions (including George) a reward was offered for finding a potential mate—but none was ever found. Martha, the last of her kind, an endling, died of natural causes at the probable age of 29 years. Her remains are on display at the Smithsonian Museum.
    Other than the fortuitous date marking the centenary since the extinction of passenger pigeons, what does this have to do with Burning Man? I think that Burners have a special appreciation for the transience of all things. Our “roost” on the Playa can be compared to the crowded passenger pigeons that are now gone. Many do not realize that, for most species, extinction is the norm. Nearly 99% of all the species that ever lived are believed to be extinct. Humans are the most prolific primates on the planet, but as evidenced by the passing of the passenger pigeon and the dinosaurs, being multitudinous provides no guarantee for survival. Burners, like passenger pigeons, live a bold, noisy existence, thriving in groups, and like Martha and her kin, Burning Man will vanish without a trace. Let’s hope the same fate doesn’t await the human race. 


More information is available about Passenger pigeons and Martha from Wikipedia, and from Project Passenger Pigeon.  There is an excellent new monograph about the species A Feathered River Across the Sky, by Joel Greenberg.

A couple of vids for your enjoyment.

"Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. Pave paradise, and put up a parking lot" Joni Mitchell.