…the
Moon’s gravity tugs on the ocean enough to make a small bulge form in the sea
below the 
Moon. As Earth turns, ocean shores pass through the bulge, and we
observe tides. – Bill Nye, scientist. (click on photo at left to see tide advance & recede)
It’s sort of a strange thing that we don’t have to know things to live them. We drive cars without knowing how they run, live in bodies without knowing how they work, live in the world unconscious of the fact that the surface we stand on is orbiting at a thousand miles per hour. And we love without ever understanding all the reasons. If we did, it wouldn’t be love, but some logical process disconnected from true feeling.
I grew up a few miles from the Pacific and also spent several years living in sight of the Atlantic. Like you, I’ve watched the ocean tides advance and recede never knowing, until a couple days ago, that the Moon’s energy actually pulls the ocean enough enough to create "a small bulge."…
I’ve always been enchanted by the moon and the stars and the ebb and flow of the ocean. Scientific facts don’t drain away that magic for me, they enhance it.
The more we understand the mechanics of the human body and the more we fiddle with the idea of cloning, stem cell research and the artificial replacement of various organs, the more clear it becomes that the most miraculous part of our lives is the human spirit. Every physical part of us is now actually, or theoretically, replaceable. Isn’t that, in a way, the most astonishing fact of all?
Technology now enables the replacement of every limb and every bit of skin. Artificial hearts have been available for a long time. And that fact makes it clear that every organ will one day be replaceable. 
Interestingly, in the wake of recent face transplants, surgeons announced that they will soon be able to modify or replace bones beneath the face. A person of the future will be able to design his or her own appearance!
Of course, there’s the issue of the human brain. If tiny computers can already analyze and calculate many things substantially better than any person, isn’t it likely that this aspect of our uniqueness will also fade? If this seems unlikely, we need only imagine the way adults of just a century ago would have reacted to the idea of artificial hearts and cell phones not to mention a man landing on the moon.
What is left? The personality, that volatile thing that triggers our daily behavior, has always been vulnerable to external manipulation by a variety of drugs and experiences that impact brain chemistry.
My mother-in-law was one of the kindest people I ever met. As I watched her descend into the valley of Alzheimer’s, I wondered who any of us truly are?
Our thoughts and behavior are stunningly vulnerable to influence. Indeed, perhaps the old myth about the moon affecting our personalities is true after all. If the moon can make the sea swell, why wouldn’t it’s near passage to earth nudge our personalities at least once a month, making some of us act like lunatics?
As science fiction becomes science fact, we may revel in our new knowledge, in the sophistication of our training as caregivers and in the advances of science. And it is critical that we step back to marvel at the mysterious power of our ability to love. As science continues to shrink the island of the 
known, we may imagine that the most astonishing facts of all may be those still hidden from us.
Meanwhile, I will never again be able to watch the tides advance and recede without sensing the presence of the moon, the sun, and the force that shaped it all.
-Erie Chapman
Today’s Poem
Swimmer, your body is pure as the water;
cook, your blood is quick as the soil.
Everything you do is full of flowers, rich with the earth.
Your eyes go out toward the water, and the waves rise;
your hands go out to the earth and the seeds swell;
you know the deep essence of water and the earth,
conjoined in you like a formula for clay.
Naiad: cut your body into turquoise pieces,
they will bloom resurrected in the kitchen.
This is how you become everything that lives.
And so at last, you sleep, in the circle of my arms
that push back the shadows so that you can rest–
vegetables, seaweed, herbs: the foam of your dreams.
Journal of Sacred Work 
Leave a comment