Thursday, November 15, 2007

They know where they have to go

Click here to view the real size.
 
Have you ever seen birds flying in a flock in the sky? Did you ask yourself, "Where are they coming from, and where are they going?" In a certain season they look so coming out into our area. They land on the farm fields or lakes. And when the seasong is ended, they are gone to another places far away they know. They will come back again in the next same season after their long journey. Maybe they have stories from another sides of this planet earth.
 
Walt Disney could make films about them. Of course they have stories about their journey: how to get food for the colony, how to survive from enemies' attacks, how to find a right place to land and make their nests, how to teach their new generations to fly, etc. And above all: how to know the seasons!
 
Mother nature gives them everything to survive. I just imagine how they have "faith" about this! And look, lakes become lively with their chatter. The sky becomes so beauty not only with its blue, clouds, sunshine, but also with their flights. It's so beautiful when they are dancing in a formation in the sky, isn't it? We can see the mother nature provides an entertaining performance presented by the birds and their fellows in a proper season.
 
What do they do? I just think about a celebration of being creature and part of the harmony! ***

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Manusia dan Alam Semesta

Ketika saya kembali ke judul blog ini - Natural Wisdom - seolah ada satu hal yang masih mengganjal dalam hati, sesuatu yang secara lugas harus saya pertanyakan sendiri: Bagaimana mungkin alam semesta mempunyai kebijaksanaan? Maka saya ingin mensharingkan kerangka pikir di balik proses permenungan dari setiap entry blog ini.

"Natural Wisdom", "kebijaksanaan alam" adalah hasil dari pengolahan akal budi atas pengalaman manusiawi bersama alam sekitar.

Alam semesta (universe) adalah suatu entitas mahaluas (enormous) dan menyimpan misteri yang selalu imanen sekaligus transenden bagi sosok manusia, makhluk berakal budi. Bagaimana persepsi manusia tentang alam ini akan menentukan bagaimana manusia berinteraksi dengannya.
Tetapi saya berpikir, semenjak manusia ada di alam semesta ini, semenjak itulah alam semesta bersifat human! Tentu saja itu sejauh alam semesta ini berada dalam jangkauan akal budi manusia.

Atas dasar pemikiran inilah, manusia mampu menangkap dan menterjemahkan nilai-nilai kehidupan yang dia jumpai (encountering) dalam kesehariannya bersama alam. Dari situlah istilah "kebijaksanaan" muncul dan berkembang. Bahkan kemudian "kebijaksanaan" yang dimengerti oleh manusia itu dalam perkembangannya membimbing manusia kepada sosok pribadi, personifikasi dari "kebijaksanaan tertinggi" - "the ultimate wisdom" yang merangkum (bahkan mengatasi) semua kebijaksanaan yang dikenal akal budi manusia.

Paradigma tentang alam semesta bergeser. Semesta yang semula dimengerti secara terpisah (bahkan infrahuman semata) menjadi semesta yang menginklusikan keberadaan manusia di dalamnya. De facto manusia adalah bagian dari semesta bersama makhluk-makhluk lain. Dalam arti tertentu ada "kesejajaran" antara manusia dengan makhluk-makhluk lain itu. Secara logis kesejajaran ini memungkinkan manusia "berdialog" dengan mereka. Dengan cara itu pula manusia berakal budi ini semakin mengenali dirinya di hadapan dan dalam rengkuhan semesta yang mempribadi.

Dalam paradigma inilah kita mengerti bahwa semesta "memancarkan" kebijaksanaannya yang dalam blog ini diterjemahkan dalam istilah "Natural Wisdom". Manusia bisa bercermin dari pancaran "kebijaksanaan" itu. ***

Saturday, September 08, 2007

My little shoots, looking for the light!

Solution is already potentially within our being!

Well… I think everybody knows that sunlight is very vital for every living thing even every being on this planet earth. Who can imagine there is no sunlight? Darkness! Moonlight might be the second hero. Ok! But the moon has its light from the sun, and it only reflects the sunlight. The sun is still the super hero!

What I will share here now is not the scientific knowledge about the sun or the moon. But I’m talking about the light which is very essential for our living. When we are in darkness, we need light! We long for the light! No light, no living! The rest is a question: Is light the solution while the sun is still shining upon the earth?

I’ve got a lesson from my little shoots.

I like gardening. It sounds funny as I am living in a paying house with no landscape or space to grow plants like in a common garden. So I’m going with my little pots. The plants I attend are just popular ones. Some are so easy to grow, one of them is philodendron.

Several days ago I slipped of sticks of philodendron into my pots, two sticks in every pot. Each one of them had just two internodes with one leaf left. No real root they had except nodules at their internodes. Done! I gave them water, and place them on the floor in my veranda. Days went by, until I found something happening. There were small shoots breaking out of their leaves’ armpit! Of course they were still small leaves.

Now, they look like the picture shown above. You see, they are going to crawl, as if they’d want to reach something to hold on. And the growing is about to a certain direction. Yes! They are going to the direction of the sunlight! (I toke the picture in the morning at about 09.00 AM). Do you see anything special on my little philodendron? What about this one: the closer to the sunlight has grown longer than others! There are more leaves at that part. Why?

You can give me a scientific explanation on this phenomen. In simple words I would say that my philodendron needs the light for its growing. It has photo-sensory cells to detect the lights. As the cells get the light intensively they are stimulated to multiply themselves faster than others. As an individu the philodendron mobilizes supporting elements of its growing in great quantities to them shaping new branches and leaves. The results of the photosynthesis done by the cells will be spread to all parts of the plant. The cells grow extensively as they multiply themselves faster, while the others grow more intensively, they become thicker and stronger.

That’s a common and natural fact.

By the nature, plants need light “to grow well”. By the nature, the plants have all elements and potentiality “to grow”. I say so with quotation-marks on the two phrases “to grow” and “to grow well”. It means, when the plants get no enough light, they are still capable to grow, even with no light at all they still grow though it’s going hardly to mention easy to die. They will grow pale, and will be burnt as soon as you place them under the sunlight immediately. What I would like to say is that the light is just a catalystic factor more than a basic element of the plants.

When my philodendron is growing extensively to the direction of the sunlight, it seems like a process of looking for a solution! The sunlight is supposed to be the solution. In fact, it’s just a process of cells consentration. And it’s just a bio-chemical process as plants have no neural structure – like those of animals – to enable a kind of decission making. But, as I have to get the lesson from this process, I would like to say: to concentrate the supporting elements in great quantities to the lightened shoots is the exact and actual decission – and so the solution – my philodendron can make to grow better than before! My philodendron makes the potentiality actual as soon as the sunlight shines intensively upon it!

Human being is higher than vegetative beings. We have emotions, intelligence, and – don’t forget – spiritual-religious view. Even we have all dimensions of all beings including physical and vegetative ones. So, the experience with my philodendron looking for the sunlight above might give us insights to take. Some would be as follow:

  • Inherently plants have sensitive photo-sensoric cells to detect the light source direction. (We have intelligence and capabilities to know better about our basic needs to be real human! Recognize your own talents!)
  • Light is just a stimulus as well as catalyst factor for the proses of growing, not the basic element. Even in the darkness plants are still capable to grow! Sunlight is the best one among the others that will stimulate and catalize the process. (What is the most dream of your life? What is the goal of your life? Remember, it’s not the solution but the best direction you can go!)
  • When they get the sunlight, the plants concentrate the supporting elements in greater quantities to the intensively-lightened-cells shaping shoots and leaves extensively. That’s a kind of exact decission, movement-for-solution, and actualization of potentiality which has existed in every vegetative being by the nature. (When you get the direction, and so believe in it, then go for it with all of your talents and energy! You have them already! Make them actual, and fulfil them in your move now! That’s the solution!)

I would like to recite a brief song from the “Sister Act II” soundtrack movie to end this post:

“If you wanna be somebody,
if you wanna go somewhere,
you better wake up and pay attention!”

Thank you, and God bless you all! *** (",)

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