What’s It To Yuh?

 If everything made sense we wouldn’t ask as many questions. At least that’s what I thought. Now it’s more about what we don’t know and how much we are supposed to which provokes a conversation. I can tell you about why the keyboard is not alphabetized, (if you care, ask me in the comments). I can tell you about plants, the California native ones, and their functions. I can describe taxonomy to you and some historical facts. I can talk a little bit of music with you but don’t get too technical. We can talk about the feelings it evokes. I can talk about art, making art, being an artist, and fine art. I can talk about a lot of random things that sometimes make no sense. I can talk about the way the planets move and how stars form, and tides, and random literature. I know a lot of weird science facts, like about mountain goats and sea otters, and gorillas and death. There are endless things I can talk about.

I know plants have senses, not in an anthropomorphic way, but in a plant equivalent way. Plants can see based on these photoreceptors in their leaves which can distinguish between red and blue light which allows them to develop and bloom in time with the changing seasons and early moons. They were tested with flashes of blue and red light, and which ever light it saw last, even if for the briefest moment, would determine whether the bud of the flower would bloom or not. This is how we get carnations every year on Mother’s Day despite them not being the flower of the season.

Plants can smell, they excrete a hormone, ethylene, found in medicine like vapor rub or hot and cold packs, which encourage its own neighboring branches fruits to ripen. This is the reason putting a banana in a brown paper bag with an avocado will cause it to ripen. Or the reason the Egyptians would slice open a few figs within a batch in order to cause the whole basket to mature. The same goes for Chinese and pears within the wine cellar. This hormone will alert its neighboring branches of infection or danger (i.e. A broken branch, aphids and infestation, etc). This causes the warned branches to excrete another hormone, methylene, which acts as a defense against insects or animals that may be consuming it or brushing up against the plant. 

I know that hops, which is in beer, is in the cannabis family. The bacteria which ferments beer, yeast, is just a giant blob of gooey living organisms. I know that the fruit which we consider a strawberry is not actually the berry but in fact it is the receptacle and what we call the seeds are the true fruit called achenes. I learned once that aspens are the largest living organism in the world. This is due to the fact that they spread via rhizome. Basically, every stem shares a collective root system and every root system is about 80,000 years old (making them the oldest organisms in the world as well). This is the reason all the Aspen trees in Colorado or Utah change their colors all at once, because they are one…

I learned that spiritual growth does plateau if you do not continue to practice it. I learned that coyotes live on Bernal hill. I learned that Jupiter can only be seen from Earth every 100 years. I learned that Am is my favorite chord. That when you put Am F#m C and E7 together it makes the prettiest song. I learned that you can only make art you’re proud of when your heart is in it. When there isn’t a cloak weighing you down stifling your voice, that’s when the real artist shines through. In the words of Sheila Heti:

“An artist knows [themselves] to be an artist because of how [they] relate to [their] own sincerity”

No one wants to enjoy phony art, no one wants to read something because it is digestible, not because there is some inherent rule against doing so, but because something unshielded has more flavor. Something that provokes thought is what makes a piece historical…worth talking about. Our failures, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities serve as a connection to the world (as in the people within it). They signal to it: “I need you because I can’t do this by myself”. The shame and embarrassment we feel is the glue that binds us all together. It is within that experience that we can connect to everyone else. My mentor and best friend said to me today: “We are the universe as long as we don’t stop being true.” Whether or not we choose to recognize the serendipity and synchronicity within the universe, it remains there for the looking eye, for the seeing eye. I learned how to look. I learned how to spy…

I learned what Spain looks like. The way it feels to see a familiar face after days of being on a plane and in stuffy airport air. The feeling of summer was evident. I know how it feels to leave your heart at the threshold. I know what the German countryside looks like. I learned that the houses look like gingerbread houses and the forests are the healthiest shade of green. I know what silence sounds like. I know what being held feels like. I know how love feels.

I learned that Earth may have a consciousness, and that it hums at a frequency of 8 hertz, and that scientists can hear it from space. They call this the Schumann resonance. We live inside a ringing bell with two electrically charged heartbeats. Lightning clouds shoulder unreleased energy which somehow suggests that whatever goes down also must come up. Every sprite, lighting strike, and thunderstorm equally receives the same amount of energy it produces. This energy sits at the base of the ionosphere (where electrons and ions flow freely within a layer of our atmosphere). Earth has evolved, almost as though it were conscious, to produce a negative charge on land so as to balance the positive charge coming down from within a thunderstorm. Similarly, lightning occurs when the pressure and energy of hot condensation from the ground precipitates and rises to the top of a cloud compressing it against the cool ice crystals that exist there. This friction, like static, strips the molecules leaving the positive charged ions to float up and the negative charged ions to move down. Eventually, the pressure builds so much that it cracks with an intense energy, zinging with bright electricity, followed by the loud delayed boom of thunder. A bolt of blue. I know that lighting can hit the same spot more than once, for example, the Empire State Building gets struck 23 times a year.

I know that three major regions of the world help create the energy hum which can be heard from space. Those locations are: the America’s , Africa, and the Maritime Pacific (a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean), and the thunderstorms which occur are the cause for the 8 hertz resonance. It’s a natural thing.

I know that Alaska has a four to six month period of 23 hour darkness. The reason being its placement on the earth’s axis. This is the same reason why in the winter we get less sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere as opposed to summer days which are longer. Based on the Earth’s tilt we can measure the time of year by daylight length. Winter solstice is the celebration, or indication, that Earth is at its maximum tilt away from the sun, making it the shortest day of the year. The opposite event is the summer solstice, where we experience the shortest night of the year. Each (Summer and Winter) equinox indicates that the Earth is equal parts in both hemispheres which in succession, slowly leads to either longer or shorter days.

I know about longitude and latitude. How the Y axis is Longitudinal, beginning at the prime meridian (located in the UK, Europe, Algeria, Mali, Burkina, Faso, Tongo, and Ghana) separated by the East and West hemisphere measured from 0^-180^ E/W. The X axis, being Latitude, begins at the equator (located in various equatorial countries) separated by Northern and Southern Hemispheres from 0^-180^ N/S. These angular measurements not only allow us to navigate and travel to pinpointed locations on the surface of the Earth, but measure temperature. When we consider the latitudinal points of the globe we see equatorial/tropical regions (N: Tropic of Cancer, S: Tropic of Capricorn) which are measured from 0^ at the equator to approximately 23.5^ N/S. Subtropical regions follow from about 20^-40^ N/S (temperature is paralleled on both hemispheres). Succeeding these are the temperate regions 40^-60^ from the equator and lastly, the Arctic climates which begin at 60^ and end at each pole of the planet.

Each climactic region has its own characteristics, but I will nutshell them all.

Equatorial/Tropical regions: where the sun hits the longest and strongest. Eternal summer, never dropping below 64^

Tropic of Cancer/Tropic of Capricorn regions: temperate and subtropical, characterized by hot humid summers and mild chilly winters. (The US South West to the Mexican Plateau lie within these parameters).

Polar/Arctic: long cold winters and short cool summers. There is a large variability in climate across the Arctic, but all regions experience extremes of solar radiation in both summer and winter.

Somehow all of these things connect as we go about our lives, but we hardly spend our time consciously thinking about them. A good grounding technique might be to consider something outside of yourself and try to understand it. In my case, it helps to understand how much space my life truly takes up within the entire world. Once I gain perspective and understand that my internal monologue is not the most pressing matter in the universe I can slowly begin to quiet my mind. Of course there are days that this is more difficult than others, but lately, completing work that does not directly benefit me, and rather aids something or someone else, helps fulfill a sense of purpose from within which we all need in order to survive. As primates, we share 98% DNA with gorillas and therefore have primal urges. Therefore, as conscious beings we are unable to navigate our own biology, we interpret our instinctual need for fulfillment as anxiety and stress. Fulfillment comes from having a pack, a community, and working for the people within it to create strong ties and relationships with longevity. (These are the words of a self help book I read a year ago). Fulfillment comes from having a purpose, and a purpose can be found by having values and opinions and therefore enacting these beliefs by choosing a path that aligns with them. This is up to you reader, with introspection you will find the things which bring you passion. Start somewhere, and go.

I know that when I wake up I will have to blink one eye slowly open and then the other, assessing the feeling in my belly. Are the butterflies here today? Are my feet restless? Sometimes I wake up with few endorphins, and other days I wake up with all the endorphins I need. On the days I don’t have the tools I need to operate my body, I have to make some. Physical exercise helps boost serotonin, reward systems help as well, and finally affirmations and grounding techniques. An example of one is assessing the environment and all of my senses: what can I hear? What can I see? What can I feel? What can I hear? Once I go through each of these I go through again and again, paying close attention to what my body is physically doing at the present moment, and only in the present moment. Breathing in I know I am breathing in. Breathing out I know I am breathing out. Repeat this to yourself and do not control your breath. I know how to find the gratitude flow. List things you are grateful for aloud, then continue to list things, different things, with your eyes closed, and do that for a while until it comes easier and faster. Right before you think of something you are grateful for—stop. Allow that anticipation of positivity and gratitude to envelop you. This is the permanent state in which we want to remain.

I know that in order to understand you have to lend an ear to listen first. I know that Fernet is used as a bartenders secret liqueur for two reasons: it doesn’t leave an odor on the breath, and prohibition. Firstly, Fernet is not a brand of spirit, it is actually the way amaro is aged, Some Fernet’s are similar to mouth wash and others like a woody mint. Back during the prohibition era the Branca brothers had an idea to create an alcoholic beverage which could be used medicinally, like Jagermeister, and which contained many poignant herbs and spices, so as to be considered a digestif. Therefore, the Branca brothers set out to the pharmacies near and far, promoting their product as one that could be taken after meals to promote digestive fluidity.

So what? So what I know all these things? That’s just it. I know these things, more even, and yet I continue to tell myself I don’t know shit. Still, I can achieve what I want, what I think will fulfill that empty space, but my achievements will not make me happy if they’re only meant to fill a void. To fill a void created during childhood, or adulthood, but a dark shadow that nonetheless lives within me, within us all. Don’t fret! Shadows are a good thing, every day we must see them in the hallway and nod good morning, tip the brim of our hats to them, and remember that they are there…because they are apart of us. If they get suppressed they will be angry. When the shadow is angry it will come out during greatly inappropriate times. Someone may set off an unintentional trigger and anger may arise, but coooool it man and fall apart in my backyard. Our emotions are created by our brains in order to assign meaning to bodily sensations based on past experiences. When feeling offended ask yourself: Is this about me? Or is this just being spoken to me?

So it doesn’t matter how much you know, and maybe instead, within recognizing that there is more to learn we can finally find the beauty which comes with accepting that we may never know it all.