The Inland Sea and other mysteries...

The Inland Sea

Josef is a precocious eleven year old grandson, not over the top garrulous but stiletto sharp quick.

Sitting chewing over his french toast with cinnamon and maple syrup laboriously loved over for the making of a beautiful breakfast the other day we sat contemplating the deeper things of life that satisfying food, holidays, a spectacular view and good coffee brings on.

Random facts bounced between the new and the old, insight was gained, truth reinforced, doubts dispelled and rekindled,  questions hung in the air like fog clinging to a mountain side. Connection though is often not in the noise but in the quiet of shared reflection this was our  experience for some fleeting minutes. Two issues we chewed, gnawed on and mulled overland have stuck with me though over the preceding days.

The mystery of the creation of life within the female of the species! Perhaps this was spurred on by my fourth daughters coming delivery? Josef gets the man women thing I would not could not condescend him by some obvious banalities or trivializing of this issue. No, rather he was mystified by what happens within the womb of a women? Obviously I am no expert but my insight is that a women creates an inland sea within her womb which relates back to when our dawn of time ancestors developing in the primeval ocean and then this creation effort was carried onto the land within the female. In effect  women nurtures her developing embryo in an inland sea just as a billion years ago our ancestors developed in a primeval sea.

We mulled over this for some time exploring the problems of oxygen and nutrient supply and growth to the growing baby. Breathing in the air when birth occurred was another area we explored as was the transition from inland sea to hostile land.

As we looked out I asked him what he saw? His answer trees. But what are trees? Are they not a miracle of nature are they not the only thing that sustains life (and their plant cousins) are they the organism that can take light, add minerals, water and make matter. Are they not turning energy into something solid? Are they not almost magical? The mystery and magic of nature we agreed was not to be taken for granted but was to be savoured and wondered about every time we look out on our world.

Did I have an answer to his questions? Well yes, were they the the right answers? Who knows but the reality and insight is in the question not perhaps in the answer.

Thanks Josef for awakening the child and wonder within.