read along part 4

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"The world is a big place," Arab Ruta said. "I have been north as far as the Uasin Gishu, farther south than Kericho, and I have walked on the slopes of Ol Donia Kenya. But everywhere a man goes there is still more of the world at his shoulder, or behind his back, or in front of his eyes, so that it is useless to go on. I have hunted buffalo and lion, and traded sheep near the place called Soyamu, and I have talked with other men in all these places. After such things a man comes back to his home, and he is not much wiser."

From "West with the Night" by Beryl Markham about her years in Africa.

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birds, birds, birds

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I will be at Mast General Store this afternoon with Janet Lee McKnight and other members of the Knoxville Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society (KTOS) to answer questions and talk about birds, birds, birds.

Please stop by and say hello!

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the journey

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On this date—September 3, 1907—anthropologist, science writer, ecologist and poet, Loren Eiseley was born.

Eiseley is best known for his poetic essays, often called “concealed essays.” He used his reader-friendly style to bring science to the general public.

His first book, “The Immense Journey” published in 1957, was a huge influence on me. Principally about the history of humanity, Eiseley’s lyric style flows. Here’s an excerpt:

"Perpetually, now, we search and bicker and disagree. The eternal form eludes us—the shape we conceive as ours. Perhaps the old road through the marsh should tell us. We are one if many appearances of the thing called Life; we are not its perfect image, for it has no image except Life, and life is multitudinous and emergent in the stream of time."

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