Peter Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is an Emmy Award-winning composer, NY Times best-selling author and noted philanthropist. Currently, he is releasing socially-conscious music and touring his "Concert & Conversation" series in support of his book Life Is What You Make It .
 
 

Well, it finally happened. I really couldn’t come up with anything to write when the time came to write it. So, with permission, I’m posting something that a friend wrote to his colleagues over the holidays because I certainly couldn’t have said it better. This was written by Martin Ping from Hawthorne Valley Farm:

Strange is our situation here on earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other. —Albert Einstein

The concept that we are separate is a worn and tired idea that resides at the root of many, if not all, of our modern crises. The Cartesian split has played itself out. A new consciousness is waiting to be born to replace the foundational thinking on which our systems are built. Reductionism must give way to context again. Mechanization must be reimagined as biomimicry. An opaque financial system based on anonymous transaction must transition to a true economy based on relationship and caring. The dichotomies of man and nature, mind and body, spirit and matter must be made whole in order that we may remember ourselves in the universe. Collectively, humanity will co-author the new narrative that imbues all life with meaning, purpose, and integrity.

This is the great work of our time. It is work best undertaken as a community. Wendell Berry notes that “a proper community answers the needs, practical as well as social and spiritual, of all its members–including the need to be needed.” We are here for the sake of each other. Learning forgiveness is part of what community is for, inviting seeds of peace to be sown for the future. The season’s festivals inspire us to have courage and ignite our inner light against the darkness. Courage derives from the French cour, meaning heart. May we take heart and have the courage to inform our thinking, guide our feeling, and direct our willing with the light of love.

What do you think? Share your story at changeourstory.com . Visit www.peterbuffett.com to learn more and Change Our Story to join the conversation on how we all can become active participants in shaping our future.   

Image courtesy of Hawthorne Valley Farm Greenmarket Blog  

Peter Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is an Emmy Award-winning composer, NY Times best-selling author and noted philanthropist. Currently, he is releasing socially-conscious music and touring his "Concert & Conversation" series in support of his book Life Is What You Make It .
 
 

As I thought about a Thanksgiving themed blog, I was sort of overwhelmed with various places to start the conversation. Personally, I have many things to be thankful for, but we all know that there are lives filled with such pain and complexity that it’s hard to tick off all the things to be thankful for without some sense of survivor’s guilt.

But is there one thing that we can all be thankful for? The obvious answer: the sun.

And then I started thinking about how hard it works every day. Massive interchanges of energy without a single thought of how important it is. It has no sense of whether we’re “entitled” to its output; no judgment about how deserving we are of its hard work. Of course, it’s not hard work—it just comes naturally.

It’s being perfectly the sun. It’s not trying to outdo other stars, or wishing it could cool off so we would visit.

You may be thinking at this point that I’ve lost a little bit of my mind. But I think if we could all remind ourselves—and be humbled by—the significance of this event that is ongoing in the sky that allows us to live our lives. And how this star is also a lesson in how we can become our best selves. It might bring us all back down to earth a little and remind us that the very best lessons are all around us in the natural world.

We will be reminded if we stray too far off the path that keeps us connected to the natural world around us. And the sun may just be the first in a series of these reminders. Yes, the climate is changing. And there’s no reason to think that the fifth major ice age was the last one. But the sun just has to burp a little to deliver the knock out punch that brings us back to, say, a few hundred years ago—before electricity was king.

So this Thanksgiving, when you’re listing off the things you’re grateful for. Remember old reliable—the sun. And remember that just like it, being fully you—fully present in your humanity and your connection to the world around you—is all you really need to be.

And you might want to keep an eye on this website: http://spaceweather.com/ 

What do you think? Share your story at changeourstory.com . Visit www.peterbuffett.com to learn more and Change Our Story to join the conversation on how we all can become active participants in shaping our future.   

Image courtesy of NASA Goddard Photo and Video, licensed under Creative Commons. 

America’s Other Audubon
By Joy M. Kiser
Published in 2012 and available through Princeton Architectural Press

For bird lovers, the exquisite paintings of John James Audubon’s Birds of America stand not only as beautiful art, but as valuable references of ornithology from early America. Undoubtedly, Audubon’s work has influenced countless artists and naturalists alike to produce their own memorable work or research, but perhaps none more so than the book produced by one ambitious young woman and her family.

It’s unlikely you’ve heard of Genevieve Jones’ Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio, published in 1886. Limited to a print run of only 100, the book has only been known to natural history museum librarians and rare book collectors. But for one librarian, Joy M. Kiser, the few known details of its author and the circumstances surrounding the book’s creation were tantalizing and demanded further research. Furthermore, it seemed to her that a book that rivals the beauty and scientific value of Audubon’s work should be made more accessible to the public. The result is a story within a story—America’s Other Audubon—which combines the original panels produced by Jones and her family with Kiser’s own research into a tragic but inspiring family story.

  

Upon viewing Audubon’s color plates in an exhibition at the 1876 World’s Fair in Philadelphia, Jones was inspired to take his work a step further. Where Audubon focused on the beauty and characteristics of the birds themselves, Jones realized that no one had focused on the various nests and eggs of birds—information she recognized as being even more valuable in the pursuit of identification than Audubon’s work. Having collected bird nests and eggs with her father since childhood, Jones realized it’d be up to her to create that reference book, and her family and friends enthusiastically supported the endeavor. An indicator of her incredible ambition, Jones’ original plan was to illustrate the nests and eggs of all 320 known bird species in America at that time, but was talked down by her father to focus on a more reasonable goal of illustration the 130 known species of Ohio. Despite Jones’ lack of formal art training, the initial paintings were met with an enthusiastic reception, and orders for the hand painted book exceeded expectations. Good fortune wasn’t to last, though, as Jones succumbed to typhoid fever in 1879 at the age of 32, the book just barely begun. While most families would have grieved and moved on, Kiser’s research revealed a family galvanized in the effort to see Genevieve’s book completed. They grieved by continuing her work, enduring further setbacks and difficulties to finish the book seven years later.

Kiser’s success in reprinting Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio is reason enough to check out America’s Other Audubon. Whether you’re a bird lover or not, it’s hard not to appreciate nature’s beauty illustrated in the color plates. But Kiser’s research puts the Jones’ work in context, and makes the color panels that follow her account of the family’s story even more beautiful and special. Altogether, it’s a moving tribute to one woman’s love for birds, and her family’s love for her.  

World governments may be militarizing biology and other life sciences to make strange and disturbing weapons. A 2007 report by the British Medical Association warned of a “slippery slope” in using drugs as weapons that could lead to “intentional manipulation of peoples' emotions, memories, immune responses or even fertility.”

Biologists are allowing this militarization to happen, according to Malcolm Dando in Nature, through an alarming lack of engagement. For example, research into the hormone oxytocin—which has been shown to increase people’s trust when taken in a nasal spray—could easily be co-opted by the military. Existing chemical weapons treaties are inadequate, according to Dando, and biologists need to step up and make sure their research isn’t used to harm.

Source: Nature 

I believe that God, once finished creating the heavens and the earth and the fish of the sea, created nature documentarian David Attenborough’s voice to chronicle it all. The veteran BBC nature lover has filmed much of the world in more than twenty series since his start in 1954. In a pleasant-minded ramble, Laurie Taylor of the New Humanist chats with the oft-decorated Brit about the source of his popularity, why some scientists find him too soft, and the reasons why his shows support evolution. You can also watch a clip from the BBC documentary Life in the Freezer, below.

—Brendan Mackie