A remarkable story caught my attention this morning on the radio, having to do with a child’s vision and the American withdrawal from nature that has occurred over the last 30 years. Not vision in the “visionary” sort of context, but literally how human eyesight is formed during childhood. Over the past 30 years, nearsightedness has increased 66% for Americans between the age of 12 and 54. Increased amounts of near-work activities like watching TV and playing video games would appear to be the culprit. But no. Apparently we are more nearsighted because children spend less time outdoors. To have vision, a child must spent time outdoors. Why? The best working hypothesis by Dr. Don Mutti (of the College of Optometry at the Ohio State University) is that there is something about directly experiencing outdoor light as a child that is critical to the health of human eyesight. Intriguing! For more check out a research article by Susan Vitale and others in last month’s Archives of Opthamology

Posted on January 11th, 2010 in

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Beholding the earth in November and early December has become a chilly task here on the Maine coast.

Especially for my son Will. He stuck his fingers deep into the soil of the garden and successfully dug out this spectacular parsnip for the Thanksgiving table.

Passed my local dragonfly consultant Bob Grobe on November 23rd in the market parking lot. He reported a sighting -on the previous day- of a male Autumn Meadowhawk (Sympetrum vicinum) dragonfly basking in the sun along the Megunticook River, despite the 48 degrees Fahrenheit temperature. It may be a record for the last living dragon in these parts!

November is a restless month. I often recall that this is the month that inspired Melville’s Ishmael to leave the farm in the late 1800’s and head to sea.

Posted on December 4th, 2009 in Environmentalists, Parents, Scientists

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Lately, I’ve found myself noticing the “layers” of the outdoors. Like the accumulated rippling form of a tree fungus in my photograph below. Or a sea shell’s calcifications. Or the rings of a recently cut white pine tree trunk. Ring around ring. Leaf by leaf. Layered like pages of a book. I never really thought about reading the natural world -literally and figuratively- like a book, until I spoke with Cal DeWitt. His two-books theology refers to his two most significant books. One is the Bible. The other is what he calls “the book of Creation.” He spoke to me of the peat that lies at the base of his marsh. Layers upon layers of peat, like pages of a book stretching back in time, recording the stories of history. Each page to be read and studied in much the same way he studies the bible, chapter and verse. Unlike Cal, for me the pages of Creation are not directly connected to the pages of the Bible other than through the people who have discovered, considered, and sustained rich meaning in both. I want to learn more about this meaning, an integral part of American identity with layers all of its own. How is it part of our divorce -and our connection- with the outdoors in the past, present, and future?

Posted on November 11th, 2009 in Christians, Environmentalists, Scientists

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This is my last post about dragonflies, I promise! But this morning I felt I could not move on from commenting on our film’s dragonfly sequence without describing how it first entered the picture. The source was Cal DeWitt. He spoke about the in-flight capture of mosquitos in the marsh behind his house, excerpted in the clip below. This is pure Cal, celebrating his sense of wonder.

Posted on October 30th, 2009 in

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We achieved decent results with the RED camera, and its maximum frame record rate of 120/ sec. I am looking to bump this frame up to 1,000 or more, when we have access to dragonflies again. At this latitude, we are well past that point. Our next dragonfly shoot will be with a PHANTOM camera and lots of sun. We now know our subject. More from Cal DeWitt on the dragonflies of his marsh in the next post.

Posted on October 28th, 2009 in Christians, Environmentalists, Indie Film, Scientists

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