Natchez Ghost

Here in the forest along a rocky stream on the Natchez Trace Trail, I stand pondering who might have passed here. How many might have stopped and rested as I am now? Herds of Buffalo might have drank from the crystal waters here on their journey to greener pastures long before humans arrived on this continent. And the Chickasaw people who resided in this land for thousands of years might have camped along this stream on a hunting expedition.

Blotches of lichen and moss cover the sandstone layers of rock jutting out of the banks at oblique angles, rocks that were formed layer upon layer on sandy shores for millions of years, 400 million years ago. And as the land masses came together in the super continent of Pangaea, the sand layers that were compacted into stone buckled and broke to form these jagged upheavals of rock that now line the banks of this stream.

I stand alone here, alone as I have been most of my life, seeking a fleeting peace that seems ever out of reach. It's not that no others are around and interact with me, it's only that I can't seem to share my inner most thoughts and feelings with anyone. I was naive in my youth, thought all saw as I saw. Maybe for a brief period of time, I shared the same vision with a few, but the connection faded with time, like cataracts cloud the eyes.

Now, here in this moment, I feel the presence of a soul who passed this way once before me. One who left their spirit sandwiched in these layers of stone, an old soul full of love and wisdom that sees the beauty in all that surrounds us, one who shines bright rays of hope through this dense forest canopy, rays that now glisten in this gentle stream. Oh how I long to share this fleeting moment with that beautiful soul now, and in the flesh. But alas, it is not my fate, and I will just have to take what comfort I can in this ghostly visit.

The Ultimate Atom

Democritus, a Greek philosopher before Socrates, was the first to suggest the existence of the atom about 2,400 years ago. He thought that everything was composed of "atoms", which were the invisible components of the Universe (Universe then was thought to be Earth centered and smaller than it is now). These atoms were indestructible, consisted of all kinds of different shapes and sizes, and there was an infinite number of them. In between atoms there was supposedly an empty space of nothingness, (a Void if you will). He thought atoms have always been and would always be in motion. Regarding mass, which he would have equated to weight, Democritus said, "The more any indivisible exceeds, the heavier it is", meaning that the more there is to an indivisible atom, the heavier it is.

Democritus was no doubt a genius to envision such a thing in his age of existence. It was said that he was a jolly man, kidding and poking fun, and more interested in finding out about our physical existence than anything else. He was pretty much ignored by his fellow philosophers in Athens, and Plato disliked Democritus' philosophies so much that he wanted all of his books burned.

It is amazing to see how much of what he believed is still relevant now! Even though the first modern interpretation of atoms, the Bohr model, was found to be composed of even smaller parts (electrons, protons, neutrons, etc.) and atoms were “divisible”, Democritus' atoms still persisted as the subatomic components of the elemental atoms. And his ideas of mass in physical objects containing “indivisible exceeds” relates to the quantity of subatomic particles within an atom. He also said there was a 3D empty space in which all of this “stuff” could move around, and this stuff was continually moving around in it.

Now there has been and still is, a big debate about what space is. Some have argued that if space exists, it is something and cannot consist of nothing. If it can be measured, then it has to be something. Others have thought differently. During the 20^th century, great advancements have been made in understanding space. With Einstein’s theory of general relativity, we see that there is a connection between space and time, and that there is really a forth dimension to our 3D space, and we now call it space-time instead of just space. But, even though we know that there is a connection between space and time, and gravity, and the speed of light, and we know that mass and energy are connected with the speed of light, and we can predict the behavior of these things very well with mathematics, we still do not know why and how these things are connected.

Now, I am an old man well into my senior years, and I am a retired engineer with an average intelligence and meager mathematics degree, one who could spend what few years I have left soaking up sun on a southern beach somewhere. I have worked hard all of my life to provide and support my family, and I have managed to save up enough money and assets to modestly get by for a while. I'm not interested at this stage of my life in becoming rich or famous. So with this sentiment, I want to humbly present what I believe to be answers to some of the scientific questions that still remain unanswered.

The key to understanding goes back to what Democritus was thinking. We want to think there is ultimately simplicity and order in what we see in our physical world. We would like to think there is a theory that would encompass all of the physical behavior that we see, and one that could be basically understood by most everyone, not just a handful of mathematicians and scientists. As Stephen Hawking said in his book “A Brief History of Time” “.. if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists.”

Democritus talked about matter and space. He and some present day scientists still think of these as two separate things. But what if space and matter is the same “stuff” in different forms? What if matter is just compacted space, and it is only through this compaction that we can see it? What if the components of space exist as invisible physical objects, and those elemental objects that Democritus would call atoms are all that the Universe consist of ? All of space, all matter, and anything associated with our Universe would consist solely of these invisible objects. There would be nothing else in the Universe, not even an empty void of nothingness anywhere (or nowhere if you like). This is exactly what I propose! Everything in the Universe consists of “space bubbles”. Then you might say, what about energy, and time, and gravity, and inertia, and the speed of light, all of the properties of the Universe? Well, there is an invisible forth dimension to our Universe as well, that is the source of all the properties and actions of the Universe! It is invisible space expansion. Each space bubble has a creative source within it that creates new Universe space. This is space that has never existed in the Universe before and comes from something outside of our Universe. The expansion of these bubbles and their interaction with each other competing for room to expand, is what causes our physical reality. Time passes because of this, exhibition of energy exists because of this, gravity and inertia exist because of this, electromagnetic forces exist because of this, and the speed of light limitation exists because this is the rate of bubble expansion.

So there you are in a nut shell. One type of thing causes all that we see as our Universe. If the source of the expansion within each bubble “runs out” all existence will cease! There will be no time nor even a history that the Universe ever existed! Every second is brand new and will never occur again. Be thankful for our existence and humbly coexist with all of it!

I have written a little book about this called “Are We Just Bubbles? An Alternate View of Existence” and there is more detail in how this all works if you are interested. They are available on Amazon or Lulu publishers on demand.  Here is a link https://www.amazon.com/Just-Bubbles-Alternate-View-Existence/dp/1329590414/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1463563351&sr=1-3&keywords=Are+We+Just+Bubbles 

What Time is It?

What Time is It?

Universe visible contents and all of its space consists solely of a fixed and finite amount of “Space Bubbles”. Each one has its unique brand of space that cannot be shared with another. The space in the Space Bubbles is invisible to us because all exhibitions of physical actions in the Universe require its expansion to exist.

One of the properties of the Universe is time. The passing of time is a result of the linear expansion of Universe space into an infinite invisible Void of non-universe space. The space expansion comes from within each of the space bubbles, and is the only independent action causing the Universe to exist. More of the Bubble's unique space is created within it from an unknown source outside of our Universe. This creative expansion comes in incremental steps that are random to each bubble. The time that we experience is an average expansion of many Space Bubbles in a volume of space where the observance is made.

Time seems continuous to us because it is averaged over a large viewing volume and the expansion of space is also required for all other properties of the Universe to be exhibited. But, on a very small scale, one down on the Space Bubble level, time as we think of it does not exist. Because individual space bubble expansion comes in discrete steps, Universe time for that bubble does not exist during the non expanding phase. (This is the reason for the quantum mechanics quandary of Heisenburg's uncertainty principle when trying to observe very small objects in a short period of time).

So, is it possible that there is another Universe this bubble is in during its non-expansion phase in our Universe? More than that, is an entire Universe existing that is invisible to us during the non-expansion phase of our Space Bubbles?   

More about this in my book that is available here:  

www.amazon.com/Just-Bubbles-Alternate-View-Existence

Misty Moon

As I sat alone on the edge of my bed

Contemplating events of the day before slumber,

I saw the misty halo of a rising moon … the Flower Moon.

Through my window it looked entangled,

Caught in the branches of a budding Maple,

Tender leaves gently stroking, pushing it along the way.

I wondered if you were watching it too,

As lovers often do.

I wondered if you saw the misty halo too.

Thoughts filled my head as I drifted to sleep,

As I prayed the Lord my soul to keep.

But sleep didn't last.

Vapory dreams living in the past

of a Flower Moon from long ago.

Our love was budding and started to grow.

No branches in its path, no encouragement required.

No mist in the air, our hearts were on fire.

The sky was clear,

No halo from my tear.

Marriage and Family Values

The Lunch

The Harvest

The paintings “The Lunch” and “The Harvest”, by French painter Julien Dupre, capture the essence of marriage and family life in the mid nineteenth century. Most of the people at that time lived a life of simple means with the bare necessities. The husband and father provided for the family by farming or through a trade requiring strength and hard physical labor. There was no indoor plumbing in their homes, no electricity, no air conditioning, or even a refrigerator. The wife and mother cooked over a fireplace, or on a wood or coal fired stove, and the laundry was done in a tub and hand scrubbed on a washboard. And usually, since there were no birth control options except for abstinence, there were several children “hanging on to her apron strings” while she was multitasking. All members of the family would work together to get the necessary things done. During the fall harvest as the days were getting shorter, the work day would last from daylight to dark in the fields, and the Harvest Moon would light the night to continue working if necessary. The wife would bring the lunch meal to the field to save time, and the women folk would even help in the fields at this critical time. This was the life of my great grandfather and grandmother who were born around the same time as Julien in 1851. This way of life, the family values, and the expectations of an individual in the working class society had been passed down for generations so that their grandparents wisdom and knowledge was relevant for them in their lives.

My grandfather was born in 1885, and he was brought up at the start of the machine age. During his life, he saw the transition from hand tools and crude horse drawn tools, to the first gasoline and steam powered machinery for farm use. He witnessed the sinking of the Titanic, the first automobiles, the first airplanes, the first radios, the first flicker silent movies, the first TVs, WWI, and WWII. But he brought up his children, including my father, with the same family values that he was brought up with. That is, it's not necessarily how wealthy you are, or how much surplus amenities over the necessities you provide that counts, it is more about how hard you work, and how much you are willing to give of yourself for your family.

Elaine and I were brought up in an environment where the husband and wife roles in a marriage and family were predefined as in the old ways. The husband and father was the sole provider and protector for the physical needs of his family, and his love for them was measured mostly by his success in achieving that. The wife and mother was the full time nurturer and homemaker, the “cradle rocker” whose loving hands wiped away tears, changed diapers, washed clothes, cooked meals, and kept a clean house. These things were understood and were the culmination of a tradition that had developed over many centuries in order for our ancestors to survive frontier life, political and religious oppression, wars, floods, famine, diseases, and the like. It was what had worked for our survival in Western society for thousands of years. When I was growing up in the fifties, our mothers and fathers lived these roles and instilled these values in us. Early in the fifties when national TV became available, shows like “Lassie”, “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” idealized the roles and reenforced them in my generation. This is the way it was “supposed to be” as portrayed in my preteen childhood, and we didn't question it.

My dad was primarily a sustenance farmer, and being the oldest son, I helped a great deal in the farming operation as was expected at that time. Our house was hand built before the Civil War by a traveling carpenter who went out into the woods and cut trees down, split rails, hand hewed 12”x12”x20' Chestnut sills, and gathered sandstones to make the foundation. There was no sawmill wood in the house. He made the windows and doors and all of it with hand tools from the trees he cut in the forest. It took the carpenter a year to build the house and he lived with the family during the construction. Dad bricked up the fireplace and grates and installed coal stoves for heat. It was my job to keep the coal and kindling stocked for them. We also had a coal fired cook stove in the kitchen that I would have to tend to in the summer. It was my job to milk the cow every morning before I left for school and every night after I got home. And I spent a lot of time in the tobacco patch, hay fields, picking corn for the cows, and tending gardens. Didn't really have much free time, and I relished any that I got.

Maybe it was because my only friend in my isolated preschool rural upbringing was my eleven months younger sister, but I always preferred the girls as friends over the boys, even though I was extremely shy around them. I had a crush on Janet Lennon of Lawrence Welk's Lennon sisters act, and once, even wrote her a letter that she responded to. I did not have a driver's license until after I graduated from high school, and so I could never ask a girl out for a date while in school. I was able to go to the high school dances and dance with some of my classmates though. And I would sit with some of my girl friends on the school bus on the way to school. I always believed and hoped that someday I would meet my Damsel Soul Mate, and we would live “happily ever after”.

Elaine is the middle child daughter of a sustenance farmer family of eight. She worked in the garden and the tobacco patch with all the rest of them, learned how to cook and can vegetables, and do all of the things that farm girls were “supposed” to do. She loved animals of all kinds, had a Siamese cat named “Sid” when I met her. She loved to ride horses, and would ride with her friend Debbie in the summer. She loved spending time alone, gardening and tending to her flowers, and loved to read paperback fiction novels. She was not extremely interested in boys, but did have quite a few chasing after her during her high school years (she is pretty and has a very pleasing and cheerful personality). She did go out on some dates, but never got very serious with any of them. She was pretty much content doing the things she liked, but like most of the young ladies of the time, she was waiting for her “Prince Charming” to ride in on his white horse and rescue her from the farm life drudgery, and they would live “happily ever after” with each other in a world of horses, cats & dogs, flowers, and maybe even Unicorns.

Even though we lived a mile apart (neighbors by rural country standards), we only saw each other once during our school years. This was because she lived in a different county than me, and went to different schools. Also, she was Baptist and I was Catholic, and we went to different churches. So, I really didn't take notice of her until after I returned from Army service in March of 1968 (I was drafted at the age of 19). I was working in my dad's grocery store in our little community of Gatewood right after I got out. Elaine and her friend Debbie came into the store while I was in the back slicing cheese one Sunday morning. She came back to see me, and she took my breath away! I was falling all over myself and I dropped the brick of cheese on the floor … made a complete fool of myself. It was love at first sight!

I had saved enough money while in the service to make a down payment on a new 1968 Camaro, and the first thing I did was to ask Elaine out. Well my Camaro was not a white horse, but it was close enough for her. We dated all summer and fall in a turbocharged romance, and we got married on December 28, 1968 after eight months of dating. I had found my Damsel Soul Mate and she had found her Prince Charming, or so we had thought.

But the 70's were changing times, and our “happily ever after” part was not what we had expected or was led to believe when growing up. With the post war infrastructure developments in transportation and interstate highway systems in the fifties, the explosion in communication technology, and the mechanization of manufacturing and agriculture, it became necessary to learn new skills to survive. The traditional husband and wife roles in a marriage were changing. In the early adulthood years, my generation saw that the old ways weren't going to be sufficient for the changing times. The skills and trades that my father learned from his father and grandfather, and had served them well, was not going to work for my generation. And so I chose a vocation in the “new” technology of electronics and computers. I was fascinated by radios and TV, mechanical calculators (before electronic ones became practical), and all types of electromechanical devices. I thought that if I could master the workings of these devices, I would be “set for life” in a job that I liked, and one that would provide very well for me and my family. I didn't envision that the developments would continue exponentially. I didn't know that I would spend my life in a perpetual education mode just to keep up with the technology in order to maintain a job. And so I went to all kinds of technical schools to learn the “newest” equipment and software in order to maintain them. At first, these devices were expensive and required a lot of technical support to keep them running, and this kept me in a job. But as the devices advanced technologically, they became cheaper and the “disposable” philosophy became prevalent, leaving me out of a job. The equipment outlasted the changing software and features, and my education and job became archaic.

All the while I was struggling to provide for our family and find a lasting profession, Elaine was quietly and patiently minding the “home business” with our six children. She never complained, although I know her dreams of “Prince Charming” and “happily ever after” were destroyed after our first child was born. She must have felt enslaved and longed to be free from all of the motherly responsibilities for a while. I was going to a paid full-time school in Dayton OH for months at a time, and only coming home on the weekends. We would try to have some “quality time” together with the kids as a family, but there is only so much you can do on a weekend. The coup de grace was when my neighbor had to take Elaine to the hospital to deliver our fourth son late one Friday evening. I was on my way back from Dayton OH, it was in January, and it was snowing when I came home to find my sister-in-law watching the other three children. She broke the news to me. I vowed then to find another job so that I could be with them every day, and never leave them vulnerable again. At this point I went to work for GE and started to college taking night classes to get degrees in Engineering and Applied Mathematics so that I could become an engineer. I was still gone from home a lot, but at least I came home every night, and was there if they needed me.

And so, with the help of my employer, I was successful in graduating from college with degrees that allowed me to become an engineer. I was almost forty years old, and my oldest son was a junior in high school. I couldn't have done this if Elaine hadn't been such a strong mother and wasn't supporting me through all of this. In the old tradition, she sacrificed much of her life for the sake of our family. It wasn't until our youngest child started to school that she began to have some freedom to do the things she wanted. She obtained a part time job at the school cafeteria, and we got her a new car. We started to go on vacation trips and have fun together. We never had a honeymoon vacation, or was able to have any “fun time” as a family until then. Mostly it was just a struggle to “keep the wheels on the wagon” before that.

Now, forty eight years after our vows were taken, sixteen years into the twenty first century, and eight years after my retirement, I sit here at my desk and wonder where the time went. Memories of my life seem like a dream at times. I ask myself, would I have made the same decisions in life if I had known what I know now about my future? What advice can I give young folks that would help them in their future life in these changing times?

Well, as a grandpa trying to give advice to my grandchildren and Millennials, I must say that even though the technology has allowed us to advance in communication, transportation, and the like, we have lost sight of the really important things in our society. There is too much greed, materialism, and selfishness now, and not enough real love. Even though we have an iphone with access to world information, and can communicate practically with anyone, family members don't work together as a team anymore and they feel isolated.

Elaine and I didn't have an inkling of what was ahead when we made our marriage vows. We were naive and believed in “happily ever after” then. But when the children came along and the times got hard, reality struck and the romantic fantasy vaporized. It is then that you are tried with the test of real love. Because if you really love your spouse and your children, you will be more concerned for them than you are for yourself. You won't be happy unless they are happy. If you love them, you will do the things you must do, even if you don't like to do them. And this has to be a team effort as it was in the old tradition, or the marriage won't work. There has to be willingness on both parts, and some give and take. Nothing worthwhile is ever obtained or appreciated without work. The traditional roles might have to be tailored to suit your marriage and situation in these changing times.

In the old tradition divorce was not really considered an option. Your marriage vows were “until death do you part, through good and bad ... ” . When you took the plunge, it was permanent and a life time commitment, regardless of how your spouse turned out. There was no “trying it out” beforehand either. To share intimacy and live together without being married was considered an abomination socially. The no divorce idea is not all bad because it does force the two to put in an effort to make the marriage work. But in other ways it forced dysfunctional families to stay together, ones in which abuse and neglect were prevalent. These situations were destructive for everyone involved, and it would have been better if they were divorced.

These days just about anything goes in our 21^st century society. It is now acceptable to have children out of wedlock, to live together and share intimacy with another person without being married, to get married and divorced multiple times … This is the new tradition we are developing for our time now. This is how we have adapted to the changing life styles we have experienced in the last seventy five years. Times are still changing and we will go through more social changes. Our religious philosophies may even change in light of new knowledge about our existence. Ultimately though, we will have to trust our hearts, not our minds, to know love and to find happiness. The main thing is we have to love … it is crucial to our survival … it is our purpose for being.  

Truth

TRUTH

I believe that at the very fundamental level, the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart are one and the same truth! We seek the knowledge of our existence ... Why are we here, or what is our purpose? How did we get here? What are we? We basically are still searching for answers to these questions. This restless quest has driven all of our "advancements" in science and has been responsible for growth of religion and philosophy. Seeing beauty in art and nature, experiencing love and understanding, somewhat gives us a reason for existence. Anytime we see a glimmer of an answer to one of the basic questions, it warms our heart. Science addresses only the physical part of our being and the rules of behavior of the physical part. If you look deeper into the physical, and ask why are there rules of behavior and what controls them, then you have to address the real "what" it is we are, and our purpose for existence. If we can ever truly understand the answers to those basic questions of How, Why, and What, we will have transcended into a higher reality of existence.

Dan Bowlds

Passion

Passion

I was lost, drifting aimlessly without cause,

In the night fog of a dead calm sea!

Until I saw a beacon, flames flaring out and reaching,

From your burning heart, shining brightly for me!

Love is a delicate shoot, constantly seeking light from another soul in order to grow. It drinks its nourishment through roots firmly anchored in the soil of unconditional acceptance of what it is. It is a vine that changes direction and willingly caresses the soul of another without the choking and clinging poisonous tendrils of possession and control. Love, always growing from the tip, is sensitive and ever new. It never ages, does not grow a crusty bark or thorns, nor does it hide its own light from others. It is not angry or hateful; these are its mortal enemies. Left in a nurturing environment, Love will flourish and produce the most beautiful and fragrant blossoms for all to experience. But hidden from light it will wither and die, leaving only a thorny stem for others to prick their fingers on.

Dan Bowlds 3/25/16