A rich opportunity…the Ark story, retold, thousands of years old, revisited as a base of dialogue among scientists and people of faith.

All of life sampled in one ship. One ship, with no apparent means of moving about. No sails. No engine. Only its own surface area, being pushed around by wind and water. All of life aboard, including humanity. Each trying to protect itself, carve out a niche. Some stronger than others. Some louder. Some more persistent. Others more patient. Some visible. Most not.

We focus on this ship. Why was it built? What runs it? Where has it come from? Where is it going? Can a steady course be steered long enough to avoid the common shoals ahead? Or is it there that we will rest, while the water recedes, life jumps ship, and we wait for the seas to rise again?

Considering the workings of dialogue among those people who work with the new biology and those of faith, while preparing the soil for this season’s family vegetable garden. Last year, a blight took out the tomato crop. This year I imagine the sungolds from years past.

I will be screening clips and speaking about this work-in-progress BEHOLD THE EARTH on Sunday at 2:45pm, at the Baird Auditorium of the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History. Please come if you are in the Washington area this weekend and curious to learn what the production is all about.

The talk and screening is part of the US Environmental Film Festival, in its 18th year. For those of you who are enthusiasts for films about the people/nature connection, there are 155 diverse films screening between March 16th and 28th. Special programs exist for children and are marked by a family-friendly symbol in the festival program.

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?

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.