celebrating a world class contrarian

Our wonder | wander | world pick of the week is the latest bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell's "Revenge of the Tipping Point." Building on a familiar idea from his books, he continues doing what he does best - poking the bear. 

You may think you know how the world works, but you're wrong! The provocative Gladwell talks with correspondent David Pogue about why he's refused to change his approach, his work ethic, or his contrarianism. 

the latest release

Malcolm Gladwell is revisiting the book that made him famous. "The Tipping Point" was a huge bestseller in 2000. 

Its title proclaimed an alluring idea - a social trend or behavior might spread slowly until a tipping point, when it reaches just enough people, and then suddenly it's everywhere, like an epidemic. 

Malcolm Gladwell, "Revenge of the Tipping Point"

Businesses and activists loved this, even as critics questioned some of Gladwell's findings. Recently, he started an update to that book and decided instead on a total rewrite. 

"The job of a journalist is to go and talk to people who know something specific that the rest of the world needs to know about and to translate what they say in a way that makes sense to a broad audience. That is the job description. I'm like, yes. Of course. That's why I wake up in the morning, to do exactly that." ~ Malcolm Gladwell 

week pick | intending with Dorothea Lucaci

Equinox has arrived, 22nd September. It marks the entry into a new season and chapter of life. 

Dorothea Lucaci image

Equinox is a day of balance, and when we come into stillness, to deep listen and align to the natural laws that govern the orbit of the earth around the sun, the orbit of the sun around the galaxy, the orbit of the galaxy around the universe, the orbit of our protons, neutrons and electrons around the nucleus. 

We begin to see lasting change.

When we are in flow we are no longer swimming against the currents.

Connect to the rhythm of life, meet yourself in your natural state.

Return to balance. ~ Dorothea Lucaci

color our world

Colors have been used to stand for major human traits of love, purity, innocence - as well as death, destruction, and loss by artists, poets, and authors throughout the ages. 

seven & twelve color circles - 1708, attributed to Claude Boutet

These are basically similar to the original symbolism of colors, like red stands for love, yellow stands for energy, green for a new life as well as jealousy, blue for beauty, and purple for royalty.

nebulae

It is meteor shower season and summer skies are ablaze in their glory - where it's clear of thunderstorms, that is. 

The final, infinite frontier of space has captured the imagination of humanity since the days of prehistory, and it seems the more we learn about the universe, the more we realize just how little we actually understand it. 

the expanding universe - NASA image

From black holes to giant stars to distant planets, there are innumerable celestial objects out there for us to study, probe, and marvel at. Certainly, the most visually beautiful and awe-inspiring of all, are nebulae. 

Summer Solstice 2024

In 2020 when COVID-19 was so new to many of us wonder | wonder | world heard an episode on The Shaman’s Cave centered on summer solstice. 

In a wind journey that wound us back to the previous solstice in September, Renee Baribeau discussed the change in season and led us to reflect on our lives from the solstice in September to the solstice in June. 

tropical arrangement from our backyard

Sandra Ingerman led us on a ceremony to honor the Earth and reflect on regaining our space in life to stay in balance - providing some tools to navigate the upcoming changes. 

HERstory vs HIStory

Maybe they did get it wrong. The men who told the stories that went down as recorded historical fact. The conquering hordes that erased our true history. The prevalent thought of those times that perpetuated their brand of bullshit. 

". . . .focus on her-story as opposed to the traditional his-tory - the thousands of years of recopying and retelling the stories from the male viewpoint. And that these assumptions are based on no original sources, such as the ancient Roman Jewish female epitaphs inscribed in ancient Greek with symbols of authority - just opinion and self-preservation of a patriarchal dominated society." ~ Bernadette Brooten 

singing in the rain - bird on a wire & a restive Mt. Kanla-on

 
An age-old unoriginal propaganda for many a tyrant and demagogue - yet it never grows old and too many are still sipping their Kool-Aid. 

wild wide world

“I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.” ~ Anaïs Nin. 

We are born of water - its salt and brine are in our blood and veins. The tides work their constant ebb and flow on us. The waves wash over us - carrying us to distant shores from our island home through rough or calm oceans of great depths and vast expanse.

Annette Kellerman in Queen of the Sea, 1918

Our equatorial seas are warm and salty. clear and overflowing in bounty. Our fisher folk are sturdy, sinewy mortals steeped in the mysteries and myths of the first and oldest drop of water on earth. They traded and travelled the world back since continents were crossed by land bridges.

It is no wonder that we are daughters of the seas - wild and untamed, willful and free. We wander in wonder - exploring what the world has to offer, delighting in our own self discovery. We plumb the currents of countless coasts, we slither sleek and smooth through dreamtime, daydreams, and visions.

It is no wonder our power animal is a mermaid, at least one of them. These sirens of the sea - half-human, half-fish - legendary sea creatures chronicled in maritime cultures, ancient and ageless. 

Although no evidence of aquatic humanoids has been found belief persists that we swam in oceans before we ever found a foothold on land. 

The belief in mermaids may have arisen at the very dawn of our species. Magical female figures first appear in cave paintings in the late Paleolithic (Stone Age) period some 30,000 years ago - when modern humans gained dominion over the land and presumably began to sail the seas.

Atlantis, Lemuria, Mauritia, Thule - these lost lands still have their hold in our veins and lively imagination. Why, then, do they occupy the collective unconscious of nearly all seafaring peoples? 

A question best left to historians, philosophers, and anthropologists? Or one best answered by questers, seekers, and dreamers? Who is to say? We can all dream up whatever we desire.