Quaker jellyfish

Hands up,
wrists together,
a jellyfish, a jellyfish, a jellyfishfish.

Sorry, but you just wouldn't understand.

Cancun and the Yucutan Peninsula

Known as a popular location for college
students to go for spring break, Cancun
(along with the areas of Cozumel and Isla
Mujeres) are destroyed at the wrath of
Hurricane Wilma. This is what occurs with
the increase of global warming and the
greenhouse effect.

The Meaning of Life

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
I can remember the first time I ever saw this quote,
from a Mary Oliver poem titled "The Summer Day". I was
a naive, shy, unaware and uneducated freshman in school at
Orono High.
Tamra Philbrook, a teacher in the English department
(my favorite place besides the library, my niche) had this
quote on her classroom wall, to the left as one walked in.
I am constantly challenged and provoked by this quote, trying
to figure out the meaning to my life and what I'm supposed to
do with what I have to work with. I think that I might have
had an epiphany, an ah-ha moment today while in the library
at school, and I don't even think that I realized it. I was
on one of the computers, looking up books. I wasn't doing
this as an ordinary task though. Usually, when I'm looking
for something to read, I do something that any average
Jane or John Doe wouldn't do. I type a topic or subject
into the database search box, intent on coming up with
several results. Today, for the heck of it (and also an
interest), I typed in Native Americans, and came up with 737
results; books, electronic books, microform, government
documents, and videos.
I now know what I'm supposed to do with my random library
book searches. I'm supposed to be doing humanitarian work
in life, and not necessarily just with one group such as
Native Americans, but many groups: Hispanics, Black
Americans, Asians, WASPs, and everyone else in the world.
I feel that I am directed more towards minorities rather
than greedy, over-priveleged, egotistical WASPs who tend
to not give a shit about the rest of the world, they just
pretend to.
This is how I can work my need for travel into having a
job. I could travel to remote villages around the world,
spreading humanitarianism and the faith of Quakers.
Somehow I always feel like the majority of my blogs are
like term papers or novels, they turn out to be really long.
That's okay, because it gives me even more practice with
articulation onto paper.

Flooding and heavy rains hit Central America and Mexico

Prior to the tragedy of the earthquake in south Asia
heavy rains and flooding ravaged in southern Mexico
and Central America. Landslides have occured in
various locations and towns are being declared as
mass graves for the dead. Over the weekend, when I
asked those from the World Gathering to pray and
hold in the Light those in south Asia (where we
have a few Quaker brothers and sisters), I also
asked them to pray for and hold in the Light those
victims in southern Mexico, and Central America,
where we have even more Quaker brothers and sisters
from the World Gathering. What saddens me is that in
many cases, whole families have been wiped out, all
dead as a result of the flooding and rains. There
are many families also still in existance that only
contain a few members now. On Sat. 8th October I
read a news article on the internet about one man
who buried his whole family. Yesterday (Tues. 11th Oct.),
I received an email asking what we thought about these
tragedies and whether we believe that they are acts of
God and some sort of punishment against humankind for
something. I replied back to her that I believed there are
both scientific and religious reasons to what caused these
said atrocities. The scientific piece involves excessive
stress on the environment, the air and the world as a whole,
excessive and prolonged air, water and land pollution, and
abuse of the environment (which was not included in my email).
It's like if you over pressurize a bottle of water,
eventually it will explode.
The religious reason that I came to the conclusion of is that
God doesn't like what's going on in the world: wars, global
warming, etc. so he decided to punish some of humankind. On
the other hand, I don't think that when he does this sort of
thing, he targets specific areas or populations of people.

Autumn is upon us

Autumn has arrived.
There is a cool crisp feeling in
the air. It gets dark at 7pm.
Leaves on the trees are changing colors,
as the result of the lack of chlorophyll.
It's cold in the morning, enough to
actually have to turn on the heat in my
car on the way to early morning work shifts.
One thing that I particularly enjoy about
this time of year is when it's cool outside,
but still warm enough to not be able to call
it late autumn, or winter yet. Sweatshirt
weather, but not quite jacket weather.
Temperatures in the 50's and 60's. The
look of the sun as it shines through
the transforming leaves. The light breeze
or blustery wind swirling around. Walking
through rustling leaves on the ground,
through the deep woods for hours at a time.