I recently listened to a podcast about trees that were planted after a mission to the Moon in 1971. One astronaut took 500 seeds from a number of different species with him to the Moon. They orbited the Moon 34 times and saw the back of the Moon an equal number of times. When he returned, NASA worked with him in selecting places all across the US to plant these seeds. More than 400 sprouted and grew. Each tree was identified with a small plaque.

        NASA lost track of these trees, until a 3^rdgrader found one at her camp. The camp counselor wrote to NASA and tracked down information about the Moon trees. Since then, there has been a campaign to find and identify the locations of all the Moon trees. A map is online if you wish to find a Moon tree near you, only 100 or so have been identified. You can find more information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_tree  and here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20221205150448/https://rare.us/rare-life/moon-trees-nasa/

Miracles



Why, who makes much of a miracle?

As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,

Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,

Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,

Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge

of the water,

Or stand under trees in the woods,

Or talk by day with anyone I love, or sleep in the bed

at night with anyone I love,

Or sit at the table at dinner with the rest,

Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,

Or watch honeybees busy around the hive

of a summer forenoon,

Or animals feeding in the fields,

Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,

Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,

Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon

in spring:

These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,

The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,

Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,

Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread

with the same,

Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,

The fishes that swim – the rocks – the motion of the waves

– the ships with men in them,

What stranger miracles are there?

-Walt Whitman

The most important question seems to be: how do we wish to experience this world? What state will we court, invite, inhabit, in our lust for experience? This is the essential thing that shapes the world: this quantum mechanical particle that tunnels through the walls of discrete separations and makes light at once particle and ray. Our state determines our experience. It’s a choice.