How on Earth?!

Is it possible to look at those clouds and to think nothing?  To not wonder "How on earth?"

I've come to believe that "how on earth?" is the most important question in our vocabulary, one that drives and feeds, saves and fills us, often all at once.

Today at 3, I'll be retracing my earlier steps from the Women's March, this time in support of science, a field of study birthed from the question "How on earth?"   That it's also Earth Day is probably no coincidence, even if the realization just occurred to me this morning.

Two celebrations--one for science, one for nature.  To borrow a word understood by both, it's a perfect confluence.  Science, after all, is the flashlight we humans shine on this universe.  And, ironically, the more shadows we cast out, the more as-yet-unnamed shapes emerge.  To me, it is an irresistible, unimaginably beautiful relationship these two have developed.

This morning's walk with Finn was peppered with "how on earths?"  As is often the case, the trees were the first to catch my attention.  Tracing their outlines, many now softened with newly unfolding leaves, I wondered where in their limbs lived the life-giving knowledge of shape.  How did each know just how best to grow in order to soak up the most sun possible?  And what ancient vibrations were their roots listening to today, so that they might map a new, thirst-quenching route for this upcoming season?

There are a thousand things--silly and serious--that I'd like to see in person someday, each fueled by my own "how on earth?" utterings.  Cashews in their natural state, for instance.  Where are they housed--a bush, a tree, the ground?  Sure, I could Google it and have my answer.  But I want to be there, to see it with my own eyes.  And then, afterwards, I want to stop by a ramshackle stand at the end of the grove (is that what they're called?) to pick up a few in their more familiar state--naked, roasted, lightly sprinkled with Himalayan sea salt, thankyouverymuch.

I also want to swim in a sea of bioluminescent creatures.  To lay on my back August 21st and look up at the moon's umbra (a scientific word for "umbrella!") as it snuffs out the sun for a minute or two.  I want to be engulfed in the bending light show of an aurora borealis. To ask a house wren how it learns its songs, and to see its throat vibrate as it calls forth a mate or chastises a neighbor's cat.  I want to know how my body--this radical community of things that have never bothered to introduce themselves to me--how this body moves, how the blood flows, how the synapses fire, how it fights the cancers that invade it and heals itself afterwards.

 How on earth could science ever be construed as anti-God?  I have no patience for people who are put off or threatened by the questioning.  Pity?  Yes.  But no patience.

There is no growth, no wonder, where the big questions go unasked.