Poem Comparing Ant and Human Society

Cobweb on my Lawn (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Marc Latham’s latest Folding Mirror poem is about the ant world, and how it can seem like a smaller scale version of the human one.

On the Surface of it, Ants…

cobweb on dewdrop grass
obscuring the formicidae sky
might resemble hazy canopy to a soldier
wondering about life while

strolling earth’s surface

among the alien space
above its colony of queens and workers
hidden order of hymenoptera
subterranean maze has order

Marc Latham’s central site is the Greenygrey (http://www.greenygrey.co.uk)

Werewolf of Oz for Manic Readers

‘Many athletes win tournaments while believing in god; and perhaps that belief gives them an edge over their opponents. However, I doubt if any win through belief alone; without training.’
Martin ‘Werewolfie’ Adams

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - APRIL 11: Jacob French is welcomed as he completes his trek at the Sydney Children's Hostpital on April 4, 2012 in Sydney, Australia. French today completed the over 5,000 km trek from Perth to Sydney on foot, donning a full body stormtrooper costume he successfully raised over $100,000 for the Starlight Children's Foundation. Since July 2011, Jacob has walked 10 hours a day, Monday to Friday, lost over 12kg in weight, and gone through seven pairs of shoes. The Starlight Children's Foundation provides programs to help lift the spirits of sick children in hospitals accross Australia. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Hi, it’s Greenygrey here. We’re proud to say that Grey’s epic ramble around Oz is now up on Manic Readers. We’ve let our ghost-writer, Marc Latham, take the credit.

To celebrate, we have put the Werewolf of Oz big battle scene as a free doc on the home page of the Greenygrey website, while the arriving in Sydney poems are a free doc on the biography page.

Why Existence is Miracle Enough

We read a good article by Ben Gilliland in Monday’s Metro (May 21st, 2012), and thought we’d share some its wisdom with you; mainly because it had a kind of greenygrey theme.

Why Existence is Miracle Enough asked ‘Why do we need religion to see miracles in the world around us, or to find significance in our existence?’

We agree with this, and so does Marc Latham. It was the theme of one of his Folding Mirror poems in March 2011:

For God’s Sake

If there is a

god

it gave  you

life

for love of

god

is that not enough

While a belief in a personal or cultural monotheistic god can be a comfort, and a motivator, it can also create divisions, prejudices and war.

Theories of Humanity’s Place in the Grand Scheme of Things

Hubble Space Telescope (Photo credit: Abraxas3d)

Hi, it’s Andy Wolfhol. The Martin Rees quote about our place in the universe at the end of the previous blog: ‘We’re not directly aware of the big picture, any more than a plankton whose universe is a litre of water would be aware of the world’s topography and biosphere’ reminded us of Marc Latham’s ant theory of humanity, so we thought we’d bring you a few more theories about our place in the universe. It ends with a Buddhist theory from 2500 years ago, which is eerily similar to some of the most popular scientific theories of the present day.

Images of the spiral galaxy Messier_100 demonstrate the improvement in Hubble images after corrective optics were installed during Servicing Mission 1 in 1993. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Isaac Newton, Mathematician and Physicist, 1642-1727:

“I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist, 1879-1955:

“The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”

Alan Watts, Philosopher, 1915-1973:

"Imagine a multidimensional spider's web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image." --Alan Watts Alan Watts Podcast - Following the Middle Way #3 alanwattspodcast.com. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)