Wonderful Water
We live in an amazing time. Paradoxical, seemingly contradictory, results of quantum physics experiments lead to the inescapable conclusion that mind and emotion somehow have a direct effect on matter at the subatomic level. The same physics that is behind the breathtaking sequence of new inventions we've come to expect nowadays is also telling us that there is more to reality than just the physical world.
The best of science is dancing us back to a more earthy spirituality. Hard-nosed researchers, with disciplined protocols to ensure objectivity, are coming up with some of the wildest conclusions. Some are making seemingly wacky statements like that the emotional state of a person has an effect on the water that person comes into contact with. And there is a long history of tests showing that meditation and prayer somehow change the characteristics of things such a crime rates. So somehow - though humanity at this time is enmeshed in an unfathomably complex interaction of changes (many of them human-caused) - we still can know that our individual efforts can have good effects on the future. Your mind and heart make a difference.
Water has always been associated with life; no wonder, as no life form can do without it. The more I learn about biodiversity the more enchanted I become with using a variety of living things working together to clean a flow of water by making use of its pollutants as nutrients. The concept of the "living machine" comes from the recognition that a controlled water flow traveling through numerous varieties of life can filter and biodegrade toxics - using toxics as nutrients to produce, for instance: fish; earthworms; watercress; algae for food and/or fuel and/or feed; oysters or clams; greenhouse plants. This combination of constructed wetland with organic waste recycling takes problems and turns them into products. By first running the polluted/nutrient-laden water through stones, then smaller and smaller mesh-sized gravel, then smaller and smaller sized sand, and maybe finally through clay (which is even smaller), the system filters and uses the filtrate as food for the plants, animals (mostly small like insects), and microbes living in the system.
One of the reasons Pittsburgh became a great city was the abundance of water here. Back in the day (I mean WAY back in the day, before any of us alive today were born, when forest covered most of the country), people got maybe a third of their protein from the rivers. De-industrialization in recent years has allowed some of the river life to come back. Because of the abundant rain, many plants and animals can live here that can't make it some other places. To the extent we have vegetated areas, the rain is slowed down on its journey to the rivers and then to the sea. As the living things - microbes, plants, bugs and larger animals - drink the water they hold it back. That's why planting trees, for instance, is a way to prevent the nutrients in the soil from being washed away. The trees brake and drink the water and then sweat it into the air. This even affects the weather, as more water vapor from vegetation makes for more clouds. By recognizing our dependence on our fellow creatures - plant, animal, and microbial - we can better assure our own future. So, paradoxically, simply by deepening our enjoyment and appreciation of the beauty of the life all around us we can be most productive.
Jim McCue
412-421-6496
The best of science is dancing us back to a more earthy spirituality. Hard-nosed researchers, with disciplined protocols to ensure objectivity, are coming up with some of the wildest conclusions. Some are making seemingly wacky statements like that the emotional state of a person has an effect on the water that person comes into contact with. And there is a long history of tests showing that meditation and prayer somehow change the characteristics of things such a crime rates. So somehow - though humanity at this time is enmeshed in an unfathomably complex interaction of changes (many of them human-caused) - we still can know that our individual efforts can have good effects on the future. Your mind and heart make a difference.
Water has always been associated with life; no wonder, as no life form can do without it. The more I learn about biodiversity the more enchanted I become with using a variety of living things working together to clean a flow of water by making use of its pollutants as nutrients. The concept of the "living machine" comes from the recognition that a controlled water flow traveling through numerous varieties of life can filter and biodegrade toxics - using toxics as nutrients to produce, for instance: fish; earthworms; watercress; algae for food and/or fuel and/or feed; oysters or clams; greenhouse plants. This combination of constructed wetland with organic waste recycling takes problems and turns them into products. By first running the polluted/nutrient-laden water through stones, then smaller and smaller mesh-sized gravel, then smaller and smaller sized sand, and maybe finally through clay (which is even smaller), the system filters and uses the filtrate as food for the plants, animals (mostly small like insects), and microbes living in the system.
One of the reasons Pittsburgh became a great city was the abundance of water here. Back in the day (I mean WAY back in the day, before any of us alive today were born, when forest covered most of the country), people got maybe a third of their protein from the rivers. De-industrialization in recent years has allowed some of the river life to come back. Because of the abundant rain, many plants and animals can live here that can't make it some other places. To the extent we have vegetated areas, the rain is slowed down on its journey to the rivers and then to the sea. As the living things - microbes, plants, bugs and larger animals - drink the water they hold it back. That's why planting trees, for instance, is a way to prevent the nutrients in the soil from being washed away. The trees brake and drink the water and then sweat it into the air. This even affects the weather, as more water vapor from vegetation makes for more clouds. By recognizing our dependence on our fellow creatures - plant, animal, and microbial - we can better assure our own future. So, paradoxically, simply by deepening our enjoyment and appreciation of the beauty of the life all around us we can be most productive.
Jim McCue
412-421-6496
posted by St. Jim the Composter at 12:57 PM
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