Mirror Scripting

Whether it's latrines or lotteries, ballgames or breast-feeding, I swear everyone on both sides has got exactly the same script: 

I'm right; you're wrong; therefore, you're a jerk and I'm a good person.

Well.

According to both sides, everyone's both a jerk and a good person.

The way I see it, that makes everyone pretty much the same so said everyone ought to maybe realize that the person they're bellyaching about is the exact same one they see in the mirror. 

That jerk!

Nah, that good person!!

Really.

We should all take to carrying little mirrors around with us - that way when somebody starts a tirade we can point the mirror at them and not have to say a word.

If they break the mirror, they get seven years of bad luck.

All of us are mirrors of the worlds we see around us; by the same token, the worlds we see around us are mirrors of our own selves. 

Think about that for a minute or two. If you need three minutes, that's okay too.

The world you live in affects you.

The world you see is but a mirror of you.

The way you see the world is the person you are.

The world has both 'jerk' and 'nice person' qualities to it.

When you look at your world, what you're going to see is you.

Now's a good time to reflect on that for a minute or two.

Because, you know, you're not the only one looking.

Your own world is looking right back at you.

What are you seeing in that mirror?

What is your world reflecting?

You reflect your world.

And it reflects you.

Good world?

That's you.

Or not.

Knobby Knees are a Pain

I'd like to say I have no idea why my left knee is torturing me but I know darned well what happened.

Night before last at work I rapped it a good one trying to get around a wheelchair in tight quarters. It didn't bother me much other than hurting like heck for a few minutes; until I finally got a chance to sit down - which was on my way home from work.

Now, I wish someone could tell me why it would be that as long as I'm up and moving, or sitting stationary it doesn't hurt all that much - but bending my leg to sit down or get back up or reposition when I'm trying to get comfortable enough to fall asleep really does hurt all that much. While I can easily and comfortably pull my right knee up to my chin, the left one flat objects to any such thing and will not go past halfway.

OUCH.

Yes I know my OSHA training about making sure your path is clear before you try to go anywhere. People make fun of me for it all the time (and then they're glad I took the trouble ahead of time). How ironic is it that I'm the one who nailed my knee on a wheelchair I put there my own self in preparation for it to accept someone in a hoyer transfer?!? What the heck.

In my own defense, there were but a few inches clearance within which to maneuver - but I'd have been fine if I didn't have such knobby knees.

*sigh*

I think I might be getting old.

Divine Thoughts

I've maintained, since I first started thinking about it, that there is no incompatibility between faith in God and faith in Science.

Because I'm a Christian does not mean that I fail to see and appreciate what Science brings to the table.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The harder we try to disprove the validity of one or the other, the closer we get to the realization that we're barking up the wrong tree. 

So it's a fun thing when I run across an article like THIS.

I'm not the only one, so there! 

That being a given, in my opinion (which I realize doesn't mean diddly squat to anyone but me), my thoughts turn to another Divine Question about incompatibility.

How, exactly, is it incompatible for the man we know of as Jesus to have been both wholly human and wholly Divine?

Wars have been fought over the question.

Is not our world a physical manifestation of God?

How then is there a question about the status of Jesus?

Just sayin'.

I'll likely write a whole great big long narrative about it one of these days when I haven't been up all night, but really ... I'm no scientist and I'm no theologian, but if I can figure it out so can pretty much everyone else.

Daughter Song

Cover Design Possibles for Parts Two and Three of CH&HW

Success Comes When Things Are Rough

A few days ago I wrote a little note to someone about success being when we as a team, at the end of a shift, can look at each other and say, 'Good shift, thank you!' I said something about working together to make things go the way they're supposed to go and how nice it is when everything does go smooth as silk (paraphrasing here).

What I didn't say is that the stronger success, the more meaningful thank-you, and the deeper sense of teamwork doesn't come during those smooth-as-silk shifts.

That stronger, more meaningful, teamwork shows itself during the rough shifts.

It shows up when the whole team is worn to a frazzle, inches away from burnout, working short (again), half a dozen sundowners are hitting their stride, supper is a mess, everyone has to go to the bathroom at the same time, and nobody wants to go to bed.

We know we've got a good team when everyone's still smiling - through it all - and at the end of the shift we can grin at each other and say, 'That was rough going for a while there but we did it! Good shift, thank you, see you tomorrow!' And come back to do it again, and again, and again ... together ... 

Making it through even the 'easy' shifts isn't always easy, but making it through the rough ones is always rough. That's when a team finds out what they're made of, and that's when true success comes. That's when being able to function as a cohesive team really matters.

Something Happened

Part One 

(Click)

Roughly 12,800 years ago, give or take a couple of thousand, Something Happened and life on Earth changed dramatically.

This is a book of fiction and not intended to be exactly a textbook about either ancient times or quantum physics.

But Something really did Happen right about that time, back in the long-ago days, and it was darned dramatic.

I almost stopped writing the book when I found out where all the inexplicable research I had been doing was leading me. I write fiction. I don't write 'actual stuff'. 

But our Characters ... well ... if you know them you know they generally have good reasons for what they get me into. And they're notorious for the phrase 'Never Give Up and Never Give In'. Arguing the point is a waste of time so I may as well just write the Story as it comes.

This particular one started just after I got Danann written almost a year and a half ago. In between the Younglings and a couple three books of short stories and poems, the research kept taking me in the totally wrong direction - back and back and back instead of ahead like it was supposed to go. I was too fascinated (and curious) to quit the Search.

There had to be a reason I was looking at really ancient stuff, so I started actively looking for something that had to do with ancient North America. 

Learned a lot, I did, as 'new' findings were coming to light even as my research was carrying me along that path. There were people here before there were supposed to be people here, did you know that? I hadn't either, except rumors. They were here a LONG time before our Native Tribes arrived across that Bering Land Bridge from Asia. In the days of the mammoth, not just at the tail end of those days. Some of our Tribes have ancient legends about the people who were here when they got here. Hadn't known that, either. 

And just exactly who were the Clovis people? About all we have left of them are some spear points - which are nothing like anything Asian or Native. The closest anyone has been able to come were a people they call the Solutreans, in France. 

Then comes the question: where did the Clovis people go? And what about the ones who were here before them, the really Old Folk?

See, the thing is that archaeologists and such have a fairly clear picture of the past few thousand years, and they have a pretty good idea about the Dinosaur Days and right up to when the large mammals like the mammoth and mastodon went extinct. 

But there's this thing in between the 'newer' days and the 'older' days. 

They call it 'The Black Mat' or 'Brady Soil' and it's a layer of compressed carbon that represents maybe a thousand years worth of carbon based life forms. In some places they've found bits of burnt bone embedded in that Black Mat - burnt at temperatures that indicate a heat source a whole lot hotter than a cook fire or a forest fire. 'Something Happened' back then.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences presents a pretty clear explanation of the Black Mat, Younger Dryas, etc. Here's a quote:

"Of the 70 sites in SI Table 2, 56 (80%) have skeletal elements of the Rancholabrean megafauna directly underlying the YD black mat (Table 1). Approximately 38.6% have mammoth remains, 37.1% bison, 8.6% horse, 7.1% camel, 2.9% mastodon, and 8.6% other extinct-species remains, all on the Clovis-age surface, and only bison remains appear in the overlying YD black mat."

Nature Geoscience has a bit about Brady Soil. Look it up; here's a quote:

"We identify high levels of black carbon, indicating extensive biomass burning. In addition, we found intact vascular plant lipids in soil organic matter with radiocarbon ages ranging from 10,500 to 12,400 cal yr BP, indicating decomposition was slowed by rapid burial at the start of the Holocene."

Again, 'Something Happened' - for example in southwestern Nebraska.

Loess is super-fine dirt, maybe ground to 'powder' by glacial movement, that's carried by winds and then falls and accumulates when the winds die down. It shows up mainly in the form of dunes. It brings to mind a horrifically more extensive version of the notoriously horrific dust storms the people who lived through the 'Dirty Thirties' (few and far between now, those folk) tell us about. Extrapolate from that to the tune of at least several hundred years, maybe a thousand. No wonder nobody can seem to find much of anything from right about then. There ain't nothin' left but burnt carbon in/under the loess.

Meanwhile, other scientists were developing better ways of obtaining and assessing things like core samples of ancient ice. Core samples are cylinders of ice (in this case) that go back a very long time; the deeper you drill, the older. They can date and test the ice samples to see what was going on in the world, a sort of timeline of temperatures and 'events' that left residue in the ice and such.They found some interesting stuff, including the fact that 'Something Happened' around about 12,800 years ago, give or take a couple thousand.

Erratics are rocks located sometimes far from their point of origination. 

North Dakota Geological Survey has a good description of erratics. They are deposited by glaciers - but (fictionally speaking for the moment) might also have been carried in a flood ... Something Happened to get them from where they were to where they are.

And I'm learning new stuff as we go along here. Bear with me or click out; I'm gonna see where this takes me.

GeorgiaBeforePeople is a WordPress blog mentioning the effect of Lake Agassiz's ice-melt on the east coast of North America.

While that's significant, for our purposes the southern 'outlet breach' is more so. 

Lake Agassiz was a glacial lake, forming at the foot of the glacier that covered pretty much everything north of it. The lake was bigger than all of the Great Lakes combined. 

Fictionally speaking for the moment, think of the effect of 1) breaching the southern shore of that lake, combined with 2) massive additions of glacial ice-melt triggered by unimaginably hot asteroids exploding into the glacier. The equivalent of an over-land tsunami would have been a not-good thing. The impact of that much water moving that fast would have been plenty, but there was stuff in that water besides H2O.

Our (fictional) city of Phi (which we've 'located' near Kearney Nebraska on the Platte River) would have been directly in the path of both the fire spreading from 1) asteroid impacts throwing burning debris and starting fires; and 2) the powerfully over-heated atmosphere itself igniting everything in a kind of spontaneous combustion - and that mega-tsunami flood from both the breaching of the southern outlet area of Agassiz and the ice-melt from the glacier.

Uffda.

Yes.

Uffda.

And I'm not even Norwegian unless from over a thousand years ago or so, that I know of.

Catastrophic Glacial Lake Outbursts are discussed by Kehew and Lord at a site about geomorphology.

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Figure 5. Exposure of coarse gravel deposited by glacial lake outburst flood. The deposit lacks bedding and large clasts are surrounded by sand-size matrix, suggesting hyperconcentrated flow conditions.

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• Catastrophic glacial-lake outburst spillways: form and process relationships.
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Just looking up all this stuff is enough to give a person chills.

I live in central North Dakota USA, although I might move to Minnesota one day, or Colorado. Right now I'm in North Dakota.

The Red River Valley was part of the lake bed of Agassiz - it's got maybe the richest darned dirt in the world, very deep and very black. Amazing stuff. Then there's us - breaking equipment every which way from Tuesday on Canadian rocks. One of these days I'll take a little road trip around our county and take photos of some of our rock piles. A lot of them have gone as rip-rap to protect the shores of our lakes and rivers, but ... you know ... there seem to always be more rocks. Now we know how they got there. Something Happened to put them there. On the positive side, we've got some great gravel pits.

Not to change the subject or anything, but I just found something I hadn't really paid attention to before, not being all that interested in SLOTHS to be honest. But the link has information that I find handy. Here's a quote:
"A well-preserved ungual of a pes documents the presence of Jefferson's ground sloth (Megalonyx jeffersonii) at the end of the Wisconsinan in North Dakota. This is the 1st report of M. jeffersonii in North Dakota, and one of few records from the upper Great Plains. An accelerator mass spectrometer radiocarbon age of 11,915 ± 40 years ago was obtained from the specimen, suggesting that the sloth resided in North Dakota during the Rancholabrean Land Mammal Age, just before extinction of the species. Palynological records from sites near the sloth occurrence and of the same age indicate that it resided in a cool, moist, spruce-dominated forest habitat in a riparian setting along the Missouri River. Its presence in that setting corroborates the notion that Jefferson's ground sloth was a browsing inhabitant of gallery forests associated with rivers. It is likely that M. jeffersonii used river valleys, such as the Missouri River valley, as migration routes. ...  Kihm (1987) noted the scarcity of Ice Age mammalian fossil records in North Dakota and listed mammoth, horse, stag-moose, and bison as being present in the North Dakota Ice Age megafauna. A recently discovered skull of the giant bison (Bison latifrons) from Mountrail County near New Town with an age of >47,500 years ago was reported by Hoganson (2003)."

And now we know, kind of, what it was like around here back in the day.

Kinda makes me want to dig a really deep hole in my back yard just to see what I can see.

To make a long story even longer, at the same time I was going back and back and back in time I was also studying quantum physics and learning about stuff like entanglement, and nano transistors, and particle vs wave vs both, and possibly inhabitable planets 'nearby', and the meaning of PHI (1.618...) and what shows up when you take a picture of two of the tiniest bits of 'matter' we can isolate whamming into each other at breakneck speed (phi) while our space vehicles are sending back photos of the immensity of our universes (shaped like spirals - phi again), and lunar/solar 'clocks' that are twice as old as any such thing is supposed to be (let alone where no such thing was supposed to have been possible), and that Canadian kid 'locating' an ancient site using logic and star maps and site maps, and the Progression of the Equinoxes, and yada yada.

It was both encouraging and kind of creepy to get scientific 'validation' for concepts I'd already written into our story lines but I'm getting used to that so I'm not quite as freaked out by it as I used to be.

Eventually the disparate lines of research came together, fictionally speaking. I first designed the city of Phi's physical lay-out, with its circles of out-lying Settlements and thought Hey that makes sense. Then I ran across Atlantis stuff and had to scrap that design as it had already been kind of taken - too close for me to want to use mine, that's for sure. 

I wasn't looking for Atlantis or even thinking about it, but when a person runs multiple searches for both ancient days and advanced technology type stuff ... eventually the two are going to meet if there's any kind of possible connection at all. So Atlantis popped up, along with a bunch of other weird stuff involving stone carvings and such that I might or might not use.

The point is that obviously I'm not the first one to think that there might have been 'advanced cultures' a long time before our own. The concept was well in place clear back in Plato's time for cryin' out loud. It's not a new thought by any means.

Neither is time travel. Neither is the colonization of other planets. Neither is blinking your eyes and being somewhere else, or sometime else. Neither are a lot of the things our Characters do. For me, the fact that I was getting 'new' scientific information that directly relates to that stuff is what almost made me just drop the whole thing.

Then I ran across another time that 'Something Happened' and I really wanted to just stop right there.

Apparently it wasn't enough that Alianora and Drustann had traveled back in time and found themselves in the ELE that took out the large mammals.

Noooooooo.

So I have to write the Story. COME  HELL AND HIGH WATER, I have to write it.

So be it.

What has been will again become; what now is has been already and will be again ... the wheel goes 'round and 'round ... and our world is founded, maintained, and progresses under the rule of PHI - the Spiral and the Perfect Balance.

Again I'll say it:

Uffda.

All because the next Keeper of the Faith was born.

Good grief.

Live on Kindle; Amazon in a day or two!

Introduction

About 12,800 years ago from our time, the technologically advanced Phi culture gets wiped from the face of Earth except for a few survivors who, once they get over being shell-shocked, make up their minds to share their Knowledge and give the remnants of humankind a kick-start in the rebuilding process. Carefully. Very carefully, as there are some who do not want their Knowledge and Wisdom preserved. You see, they won’t have it used for any purpose other than the good it was intended for.

Our own Alianora of Dunnottar in 500 CE is Keeper of the Faith. She and her husband Drustann intend to pass only the purest Faith to the next Keeper. To make sure, they enlist the aid of the Sidhe of the Ages in their quest to find the most ancient source. They want to go to that time and that place.

Looking forward to meeting the Son Himself in person, they are somewhat surprised to find themselves in a far more ancient world. Today it would have been 12,800 years ago (or so). For them, it would have been ‘only’ about 11,300 years in the past (or so). Either way, it’s a long time ago – for all of us.

The pair are totally unprepared for what they find when they get there. Earth is hit by one of the most devastating blows she has had to endure. If Alianora and Drustann have thought that the Keeping of the Faith has been difficult in their own time, they are in for an education about what the word ‘difficult’ really means.

The people of that ancient time must survive conditions which Earth has but rarely seen.

Centered in what is now the continent of North America, the culture of Phi has been let alone by the rest of Earth’s cultures for many millennia. Relatively isolated by geography, Phi has also isolated herself by choice. Her folk have, over the millennia, come from all over Earth. With none to either help them or hinder them, the Phi folk have had all those millennia in which to let their imaginations, skills, and Knowledge grow, flower, and fruit. The city of Phi, built only a few generations in their past, is the result. Phi is the heart, mind, and soul of the small but powerful culture which built it.

As Alianora and Drustann seek the foundation on which their Faith is built, the other side of Earth is in a world of trouble. And it’s coming their way.

Ancestors Mamm and Danann of Phi, together with a small band of other survivors, are making their way to the School at the Ring of Brodgar in Drustann’s childhood home of Orkney, which is where Alianora and Drustann have found themselves.

While the world around them is consumed by fire and flood, our ancient travelers must survive. Not only must they survive, they must see to the survival of their Faith, and salvage what they can of their culture.

Once Alianora and Drustann realize how very far back in time they have actually gone, they do not expect to find much that has anything to do with their Faith. Yet there they are, and the world is falling to pieces around them.

A Bit of Background

For those unfamiliar with They Are My Song, the books are a fictional account of one family’s struggle to do what they have to do when they have to do it. This family has been blessed by the Holy Trinity and given a sacred duty. By the grace of the Mother, they have been given also certain traits which aid them in their duty. They are of the race of Sidhe – human, but with an affinity to the Mother Herself which grants them gifts as needed.

Our family’s members tend to be long-lived unless killed in battle or by treachery. They have naturally phenomenal memories, enhanced by the ability to share them.

Backing them up are the Sidhe of the Ages. I suppose we might describe them as the Guardians of the Ages. Leashed by the Mother, they do Her Will, the Will of the Holy Trinity, in whatever way She sees fit. They do have individual freedom, but cannot – and would not if they could – oppose the Will of the Holies. They can and do come and go among the Ages of Humankind, pushing people into action and occasionally taking direct action themselves at the behest of the Mother.

The Stories of SONG have begun to skip about in time and place. The Mamm Books cover the centuries right around the fall of the Roman Empire. Danann takes us ahead in time to the year 3487 CE. Some of the Short Stories roam around in the rest of the Ages … this book will take us back further than we ever expected to go.

Alianora is the eldest of the Daughters of Dunnottar. Her sisters are Sass, Caileen, and Aine. Their children and the Kin Cousins, collectively the Younglings of Dunnottar, at the time of the beginning of this book, range in age from 12 to 24. They are coming into their adulthood. With the passing of Mamm of Dunnottar a few years back, the Sisters of Dunnottar and their husbands have accepted the mantles of leadership. They are at the height of their adult lives as Sidhe; leadership comes naturally to them as their birthright. The Sisters of Dunnottar are the daughters of Danann and Sidhelagh of Dunnottar, killed in battle and now among the Sidhe of the Ages, in Atonement for their defiance of the Mother’s Will. Their Voices remain to their family but not to each other; their words are spoken aloud by the Younglings Brann and Dothann so that Danann and Sidhelagh of Dunnottar can hear what the other has said.

This family is the Song of the Mother and their Voices Sing as follows:

Mamm is the Song of Choice; her Voice is passed to Merri, the eldest of the Younglings

Danann is the Song of the Spiral: Creation, Life, Death, Eternity

Sidhelagh is the Song of Peace

Alianora is the Song of Faith

Sass is the Song of Healing

Caileen is the Song of Hope and Future

Aine is the Song of Love

The Song of Unity is the Song of the Son and is Sung by the Voice of Ullin of Iona, usually together with the Queen Harp

As there are eight Voices of the SONG, so too are there eight basic notes in our musical octave. While the SONG has no words, the twining melody of rounds is the Music of PHI – what we know as the Golden Mean, the Golden Ratio, Fibonacci, Perfect Balance – 1.618…to infinity… – the basis of the Spiral of triangles which generates, defines, and perpetuates the world as we know it, from the tiniest sub-particles we can identify through the universes of infinity.

PHI is therefore the Realm of the Holy Trinity, and it is this Realm of which the Sidhe of the Ages and Ullin are Guardians. The Spiral Energy of PHI is the route by which our Alianora and Drustann make their way to where they are going.

Bound to Earth via the Spiral are several Dimensions. These are the homes of some of our Mythological Realms; for example Valhalla, Olympus, Atlantis, and others. Characters from these Dimensions pop into our Story Line now and then.

At any rate, the SONG of the Holy Trinity, together with the Circles of Dunnottar, is the Legacy this family lives, fights, and dies to protect and preserve.

The five interlocked Circles of Dunnottar represent Family, Friends, Freedom, and Future – these four are bound immutably by the center circle of Faith.

Ullin of Iona is a Character familiar to all in the family of these books, regardless of their time or place. He is friend, mentor, guide, and protector. His Power is unassailable; he wields the Staff of Authority. Nobody actually knows for sure who (or maybe what) Ullin is, but he is loved by our family and feared by any who would threaten them. It is also Ullin’s Destiny, and that of the Queen Harp his companion, to protect and preserve the Knowledge and Wisdom of the Ages as recorded in the books, scrolls, clay and stone tablets of the Libraries of Old.

The Gentle Ones, whose Realm lies inaccessible within Earth herself, aid Ullin and the Queen Harp. They also come in right handy to various family members now and again. Yet they are a Mystery and choose to remain so. Those who know of them will likely fear them; those who know them do not.

Aduan, on the other hand, is one feared by nobody – until it is too late. Seemingly as ageless and timeless as Ullin of Iona, one suspects an ancient enmity, although it is more likely that Aduan’s hatred is toward the Trinity than toward Ullin in particular. Which is puzzling because it is always by the Will of the Holies that Aduan is let go when caught. So we’re not sure what’s up with that and will probably never find out.

This part of SONG begins in the year 500 CE with a birthing: that of a daughter of the family holdings at Lairdubh in the vicinty of Perth of Albann (Albann is known by us today as Scotland). Lairdubh is early on known simply as the Perth holdings. The name Lairdubh means ‘dark mare’ and springs from both the black horses bred there and the Power of her dark-haired women, who will produce more than one ‘dark horse’ of History as the Ages unfold, though not all of them will have dark hair and eyes.

As the family spreads, their holdings multiply as well. Dunnottar is some twenty miles south of Aberdeen, a couple of miles from Stonehaven (then, and now). To the northwest lies our fictional Chattan of Fortriu, near to what is now Inverness. On the Continent are Tarnos in Gaul, Aquitaine, and Andorra which seems to have had a remarkable significance for this family from the get-go.

Iona, while not exactly a family holding, is nevertheless an important training centre. Tara of Eire likewise although to a lesser degree. There are such places scattered around Earth.

Over time, the family will follow where their Destinies lead them, all over Earth – and beyond, as the stars have always exerted a powerful influence.

When the Queen Calls ... Answer

The stately stand of aspen in the center of this photo is one organism. Because of the way aspen grows, what appear to be individual trees are actually connected clones of one original.

Be that as it may be, this photo is called Phantom Queen. She stands along the 'driveway' of my HOME home, which would be Phantom Canyon of the Colorado Rockies. It's been a good long while since I've been there, and will likely be another good long while before I will be there again - so I'm profoundly glad I took a lot of photos when I could, back in the day ... 

When it comes to the Queen, she Calls loud and clear at times. Not necessarily for me to 'Come HOME' because she's an understanding kind of Queen and doesn't expect the impossible of me. No, her Calls are mostly for me to get off my backside and do some artwork.

As soon as I get Part One of this book into print, I'll take some time to answer the Call of the Queen, see what she's wanting from me this time!

I Expect the Millennials to Be Superheroes

On my mind today are the Millennials. I was up with them all night last night, kinda sorta, and woke up with them today.

People attach all kinds of labels to this generation. I can't for the life of me figure out why they bother, except maybe that we Boomers are big on labels. I've seen a lot of the data, a lot of the 'studies', a lot of the analysis about this generation. The research has its place, and the labels happen for a reason ... even so, labels don't really do a whole lot of good. As my daughters tell me, 'It is what it is, Mom.'

Being as I'm a Boomer, I'm going to go ahead and use the 'Millennials' label, just because I want to.

The Millennials certainly don't care. I doubt they even realize that labels might be important to some people. From what I've seen, this batch of young people honestly doesn't even recognize the differences we Boomers look for when we're assigning our labels. I think Millennials might be color-blind, and gender-blind, and status-blind, and (thankfully, from my point of view) age-blind. A lot of the things that are so all-fired important to Boomers flat out do not matter to Millennials. Boomers look at that; they see it as a 'bad thing'. If Boomers acted the way Millennials do they would, by their own standards, be far off from the ideals they hold dear.

But Millennials do not really give a rat's hind end about the standards of the Boomers. They aren't bound by them. They aren't even really aware of them. The Boomers stand back shaking their heads, completely unaware that Millennials have their own set of standards. They do not have to do things the same way the Boomers did. They do not want to do things that way (it hasn't worked too well in a lot of ways anyhow, you have to admit). It's not quite a total lack of respect for an older generation; it's more like a confident respect for their own selves. Call it arrogance; that's okay. It's what we brought them up into, after all.

*smiling*

Millennials, so I hear, are 'late bloomers' - supposedly a lot of them are, anyway ... I myself haven't see that but if it is indeed true, so be it. Their peers will handle that problem when the time comes, I do believe.

At any rate, thinking about what we can expect from the Millennials is a good way to spend a hazy smoky dim-skied sort of day.

The day itself brings with it thoughts of the Millennials. The smoke is pouring down out of Canada from the raging Alberta forest fires. I expect the young folks I'm thinking about on this day will do something about what causes those fires.

Contrary to what some Boomers may believe, I don't think our Millennials are the least bit stupid. Nor do I consider them any more selfish than anyone else. Nor do I stick the 'entitled' label on them. They're ... how can I say this? ... seeing things from their own perspective just like everyone else.

And just what exactly are they seeing?

A lot of what they have to look at isn't all that pretty.

They don't like what they're seeing any more than the rest of us do.

The difference is that they're the ones who are going to have to change it.

And they will.

I do expect our Millennials to reverse a lot of the choices we as Boomers have made. Most of it I not only don't have a problem with but enthusiastically applaud. And no I don't expect them to care that I'm rooting for them. They don't need me, or anyone else, rooting for them. Millennials aren't going to even hear either our hoots or our applause. They've got other things on their minds, and are busy doing said things.

No, I'm not talking about taking selfies or lounging on their parents' couches.

I'm talking about the level of communication among them represented by those selfies. It is not the same sort of in person interpersonal communication we as Boomers so heartily approve of, but it is highly effective and efficient, which we tend to ignore while we're criticizing them for it.

When the time comes, they'll use those communication skills to make the changes they want for the world they're going to have to live in, and that their children will have to live in.

They'll use technology to protect and preserve, and to heal, their world - watch them. 

Because you know what? 

Millennials care. 

Deeply. 

Not necessarily in ways or about things Boomers can easily wrap their heads around, but you better believe that yes they do indeed care about their world.

At the moment it's the Canadian forest fires that come to mind. It will be the Millennials who figure out how to eliminate or minimize that threat - by whatever means their creative minds and strong selves can come up with. Maybe they'll ensure proper care-taking of the forests of the world. Maybe they'll be the ones who will see to the re-foresting of Earth. Maybe they'll figure out a way to be certain vulnerable areas have sufficient fire-fighting resources (water supplies, transportation, prevention, yada yada ... how am I supposed to know, I'm not a Millennial). Maybe they'll be the ones who will be able to produce rain when needed, who knows? They don't want the world they're going to give to their children to go up in smoke.

Because natural disasters are on my mind from the research I've been doing for a book, I expect the Millennials to safely vent volcanoes. I expect them to not only safely vent them but to put all that vented energy to a productive use. They don't want the world they live in and that their children will inherit covered with ash and poisonous fumes.

I expect them to come up with a way to relieve pressures within Earth herself so that the movement of the tectonic plates can happen without danger to anyone up top. Those plates have to be able to move and flex, but the Millennials aren't going to be having a lot of patience with earthquakes. An ounce of prevention, you know. They'll figure it out, watch them.

I expect them to explore the deepest reaches of the waters of Earth, to learn what's going on down there, to respect what they find, and to do their utmost to protect and preserve that too. Having the waters of Earth disturbed is not going to fit in with the plans they have for themselves and their children, if you're looking at it from the 'they're selfish' perspective, which I am not. They might want safe shores for personal reasons but they're also looking out for the welfare of the sea folk, the ecological balance of the whole of Earth.

I expect them to produce Sky Guards to protect themselves from threats coming from 'up there out there'. I also expect them to get their backsides, at least some of them, off of Earth and start pioneering 'out there up there'. 

I do not expect them to do any of this stuff out of any sense of true 'altruism', not at first. I suspect at least part of their motivation is likely to be rooted in anger at us Boomers, and a 'this is how you do it!' kind of attitude.  I don't care why they do it, so long as it gets done. They'll find their sense of others as they go along, even if said others are only each other. Says a Boomer, in a kind of snarky Boomer sort of voice. Millennials have already, I think, more of a sense of being truly connected to others than any of the rest of us.

If it's true what people say about them, they'll do what they do for purely selfish reasons. And the people who are saying that act like it's a bad thing, as though they themselves haven't created this situation (as a species, as a Boomer generation) out of pure selfishness themselves. Humankind is inherently self-oriented, folks. Cope as best you can. We don't do anything unless we're likely to get something good for our own selves out of it, even if it's only being able to say 'I told you so' or to pat ourselves on the back. 

Except, apparently, for the Millennials who could not possibly care less about telling anybody so or patting themselves on the back. 

They are a paradox, a conundrum to me as a Boomer. When I find myself thinking of, or referring to, them as 'thumbing their noses' at Boomers it's because that's what we would do. When I think they're angry at us, it's not because they are; it's because we deserve their anger. In reality, I doubt they bother being mad about much of anything.

I expect they'll look for and find alternatives that we the Boomers, and previous generations, have been ignoring for way too long. 

I expect they'll look for and find - and put to use - medical remedies we've long been bemoaning the 'absence' of. They'll look everywhere, not just in test tubes. They've got the technology to do whatever they put their minds to. The technology we gripe about dominating their lives is going to save their lives, and prolong them. If they look for answers because they ('selfishly') want to have longer and stronger lives, it's nothing but sour grapes on our part if we whine about it. They won't turn up their noses at things that work, no matter how 'old' they might be, or how 'experimental'.

I expect the American Millennials to take a good long hard look at every last law we've got on every last book in the United States. I expect them to bloody well study and know their own Constitution inside out, upside down, and every which way from Tuesday - and to take each and every one of our laws straight to the Constitution to make sure it fits the way it's supposed to. I expect them to eliminate the ones that do not fit. 

Yes. I do expect it. Not from all of them, of course, but Millennials are surprisingly picky about the strangest things. They'll get a bee in their bonnet and start doing this, on a Local level, then a State level, and then they'll tackle the Federal laws. Some will want to go straight for the Feds but they'll be reined in by their peers who are going to put their picky minds to good use and do things in a way that makes sense to them. 

Of course, not being a Millennial myself I can't vouch for the way their collective mind works, but that's the impression I've gotten from the generation at large. Some will want to strike hot and hard and fast and make a whole new thing; the majority will take their own sweet time getting around to bigger things while they unobtrusively tend to whatever they want. The sweet thing about this one is that it can all be done electronically - all the laws are public and so is the Constitution. 

The Boomers could have done this their own selves but most of us aren't nearly as adept with electronics and communication as the Millennials are. And we are set in our ways, generally speaking. We've all but given up hope of being able to make any constructive changes (which is just as well, considering some of the changes we've made haven't exactly been all that constructive). What the Millennials will just up and do for no good reason except that they feel like it, we'd debate to death.

I expect the Millennials to make the switch from fossil fuels to 'natural resources' any second now. They're only just getting started; we have to give them maybe five or six minutes here you know. Unless they get the atmosphere of Earth cleaned up they're going to have a long hard haul. So they'll likely start there, while they're developing stuff to maximize solar power, and the wind and water they've got to work with. From their perspective, they've got the chore of taking out the trash generated by others. When they ban the use of plastics for anything except the most vitally needed things until they can come up with viable replacements, I for one will celebrate.

At any rate, the Millennials have everything they need to make all of the above happen, plus a whole lot more. They've got time to learn and to plan and to implement - the rest of their lives are liable to be longer than any previous generation.

That they'll be building on what has been provided to them is a given they might not choose to recognize. And that's okay too.

The Millennials are an odd lot, from the perspective of the Boomers. They will save the world out of sheer want-to, and never think twice about it as they go along. If we wind up viewing them as the heroes they are, they'll look at us like they have no idea in this world what we're going on about.

On the other hand, there's another little oddity I've noticed about the Millennials. They like superheroes. They like the old-fashioned superheroes of comic books, for starters. It seems a strange proclivity for a generation who grew up on reality shows and who spend their lives electronically connected. There's something lurking in them that responds to 'bigger-than-life' heroes. 

That they themselves are the living embodiment of what the word 'superhero' means is nothing that would ever even cross their collective mind. They do not care how any of us view them. They just want what they want. As they come to the realization that they're going to have to do it themselves, they'll (maybe, IMO they should) whine and yap about how they shouldn't have to be the ones doing all this stuff, (maybe, IMO they should) give the Boomers dirty looks, and then they'll do what they have to do when they have to do it. Because somebody has to, you know. And the Millennials are going to soon realize that they themselves are the biggest and strongest 'somebody' around.

The Boomers will watch as the Millennials go about doing what needs doing in such a nonchalant lackadaisical way that they don't look like they're even doing anything at all, let alone saving the world. 

The Boomers will shake their collective head and grumble about what the world is coming to when they're expected to remember to take along their cloth bags when they go grocery shopping. What are they going to do when Millennial medical professionals give them a prescription that they have to take to the local grocery store instead of a pharmacy, and then take what they buy there on home to make their own medicine for a sinus infection or bronchitis - instead of giving them pharmaceuticals? They'll moan and groan and long for the good old days - and be totally shocked when the medicine they made themselves actually works, quickly, without nasty side effects except maybe garlic breath for a day or two. Feeling stressed? Can't sleep? Here's your prescription (weather dependent of course): open a window at dawn and at dusk so you can actually hear the birds singing out there. Sit and listen to them for a while. What! No sleeping pills?

I expect the Millennials will eventually migrate out from the cities and the suburbs. Yeah I know; that sounds really weird but I still expect it to happen. They'll move into dead little towns and revitalize them, create their own, or at the very least bring back a sense of community in their own neighborhoods.

Sounds bass-ackward from what we ought to expect from a generation linked electronically to their world, doesn't it? They don't exactly come across as community-oriented.

Don't they?

Have they not been creating their own variety of 'community' via electronics for the entirety of their lives? Don't tell me they don't want or need human interaction. That's what they're all about. Granted, the scale and style is a lot different from anything the Boomers can understand - but the Millennials are using their technology for what main purpose? Communication. Reaching out. Interacting with others. Connecting.

See the thing is - and this is for the Boomers - you don't give someone a gift and then try to tell them what they have to do with it. 

One of my daughters made that point to me just last week. Some years ago I had wanted to give her an antique dresser that she wanted, but told her she couldn't refinish it. So she didn't take it. When I offered it this time, and she told me it was going to get refinished, I didn't argue the point. I might be old but I can still learn a thing or two or three. Millennials don't particularly care a whole lot about whether or not something loses its original varnish or its 'value' as an antique resting in part on that 'distressed' look. Distress isn't a positive word in the vocabulary of Millennials. So off the antique dresser goes, to a new generation and a makeover that will likely do it a world of good.

She's a Millennial. I'm a Boomer. The more I don't expect her to see things from my perspective the more impressed I am with the way she sees things and the steps she takes to make her world better. The same goes for all four of my Millennial daughters. And they are not exceptions. The Millennials I've known from my work are the same. The friends and colleagues of my daughters are the same. The ones I know on line or from random meetings here and there and everywhere are the same. 

They don't see things the same way we Boomers see them - they live in a different world, almost a parallel world if you want to go with a science-fiction kind of thing. Our Boomer world is here, alive and kicking, but so is the world the Millennials live in ... and they're completely different worlds in a lot of ways. 

Here's another oddity about the Millennials. For a generation noted for electronics, the Millennials (at least the ones I know) are ardent about nature. 

They plant gardens, and trees, and flowers. They recycle. They go fishing and hope their cell phones don't fall in the lake. They bike and blade and run. They can be fanatics about what's going into their bodies. They are blending the two worlds they live in, taking the best of the old and putting it together with the best of the new. And they share it as they go along, because they can. They tend to try to take good care of themselves, if only because they are such public figures and want to look good for the camera.

Of the two, I'd have to say theirs, the one they're making, is better, stronger, healthier all the way around. We Boomers are quick to judge and to condemn anything that's 'different'. Millennials don't seem to recognize 'different' and are just as quick to make friends with Boomers as with everyone else, reserving judgement. Millennials, in general, are just plain flat out nice. Which we Boomers are not. They might be borderline 'too nice' - but I'm pretty sure there's steel in those backbones. If you've ever seen them dig their heels in, you won't doubt them ever again.

Their outlook is not the least bit wrong and I watch them quietly from the sidelines and smile. They have no idea of the magic they are creating. Not a clue.

They just do what they do, you see. They do what they want to do. Luckily for us, it seems what they want to do is what we've tried to instill in them from infancy on - they just process things differently than we expected them to, and go about doing what they do in their own way. 

That might or might not make any sense to us, but as they come into their adult years we're going to be seeing a lot more of them 'doing what they do'. If we disagree with them, they'll probably listen fairly politely to what we have to say and then just keep on doing what they do in their own way. Because that's what they do.

It's who they are, the Millennials.

Without making any kind of fuss about it, they are already changing their (and our) world for the better.

So, while some might be as 'bad' as people say they are, we'd be better off paying attention to what the Millennials as a generation are telling us without ever really saying a word about it. While they're busy checking their phones they're equally busy building communications networks that are going to pack a good solid punch when they're needed. 

The Millennials are also just taking care of business in their own imitable way ... I think our Millennials have a very long collective fuse is what I think. They don't seem to get too bent out of shape about too many things that Boomers have hissy fits about. 

On the other hand, injustice or abuse or a threat to what they want for themselves and their children are likely to kindle flames in their eyes. It might take a lot to make a Millennial mad, but ... really ... you don't want to go there. They are a force to be reckoned with even when they're just doing what they do. Their numbers alone assure that nobody's likely to underestimate the power they wield. That they're so easy-going about most things might make someone think they are unaware of their own power, or don't know how to wield it. Woe to such a person. I kid you not.

They can go from Clark Kent to Superman in the blink of an eye.