We Are All Related
Spider monkeys, fruit flies, banana trees
As you may have realized by now, I am avid about Substack … both as an author and as a reader. There are so many fresh voices here … wisdom that doesn’t come in a package pre-authorized, face-washed, and sanitized by a publisher who may or may not truly care about the message. Here I find wondrous, wandering souls who pour their ideas and experiences onto the page every week and invite us into conversation.
For the rest of the year, I want to give you a glimpse of some of the Substack authors who’ve made my year more than it might have been. Last week, you met
who writes and illustrates Great Things; this week you get a glimpse from Andrew Smith, alias . I love the breadth and depth of Andrew’s curiosity and a recent post tickled my fancy for ancient civilizations when he took us to Göbekli Tepe, an archaeological find that changed our thinking about the ancient past. Here’s just a taste:Underneath the seemingly mundane hill, Göbekli Tepe revealed its secrets, layer by layer.
Massive stone pillars, some towering at heights of up to 20 feet and weighing several tons, are arranged in circular formations. While their size alone is impressive—remember, this was built some 12,000 years ago, six millennia before Stonehenge—these pillars are not just remarkable for their size but also for their intricate carvings of animals and abstract symbols.
Substackers who have shifted my thinking:
Introducing a handful of unique Substackers worth reading IMHO … although far from a comprehensive list, these folks will launch you beyond the BIG Names and into the “WOW, I’m glad I found you” stands. Each author will be the focus on the date referenced … but just in case you want to skip ahead (or back) or subscribe now rather than later, here’s what’s highlighted in the last 7 weeks of 2023.
11/18/23
writing in Create Me Free about mental health and art.11/25/23
writing in The New Now about the power of manifestos.12/2/23
writes about Great Things with humor and illustrations.12/9/23 Goatfury Writesby Andrew Smith writing about anything that crosses his curious and unique mind.
12/16/23
writes Stunning Sentences. If you’re a writer, you may never look at (or write) sentences in the same way.12/23/23
writes Cosmographia, a map-based travel adventure like no other.12/30/23
by Kimberly Warner presented me with a life lesson I’m still chewing on.Mexico add on: 12/8/2023 — Vallescondido, a ranch, a story waiting to be told, and an upgrade to “seasoned traveller.”
Becoming a “seasoned traveler” happens when you get to explore the medical system of your “not-home country.”
This rather dramatic looking image comes from a dog bite that happened on the stunning ranch we were staying on. A young, blue heeler who didn’t like me wandering across his territory, struck my heels from behind, leaving me a bit bloody with a broken sandal (they were on their last journey so I didn’t mind losing them, but it added to the hobble.)
Fortunately, there were people around with alcohol and bandages at hand but it was 3 days before I could be gently taken to a “hospital.” (A nondescript office with a young man sitting at an aged wooden desk.) There were no clues that this was a medical office … but after our now-off-duty tour guide carefully led me to the office and handled all the translation duties, he took my blood pressure, temperature, height and weight. Then we were led into an even smaller and just as nondescript room where a young woman doctor looked at my foot, asked more questions and told us that unless we could come up with a vaccination certificate for the dog, I would have to have 5 tetanus shots … spread over 5 days.
Fortunately, that certificate was soon in place and the doctor cleaned and bandaged the wound, prescribed 10 days of antibiotics and sent us off to a pharmacy.
Cost for the doctor visit … where I was immediately seen … about $20. Cost for the antibiotics, bacterial spray, gauzes, tapes and something to calm my stomach in case the antibiotics upset it … another $30. (Which the dog owner is going to pay for, of course.)
I know one example does not make a system; however, I can only imagine the differences between what I experienced here and what it would have been at home. I highly doubt that my experience at home would been better and definitely not cheaper.
The more interesting story to come is about the owner of the ranch who has played an interesting role in the important but lesser known archaeological site of Piedras Negras… and makes a mean tequila.
"we... Began as bits of stardust, single cells"
The salt in my blood
Talks to me in soft
Rhythmic syllables
Reminding me pulse on pulse
Of the long low low dream
Rememberings of sunning in the shallows
With flashes of silver
Deflecting the slow descent
Of sunlight
Settling below the warm
Wash of shorebound waves
That far away memory
Stored in my cells
Of diving in the deeps
Beyond coral crowns
Beyond the shelf
Guarding the coastline
That far eventual
Frontier
We crossed with tentative flips
Eons later
Where
We learned
Gasping
To catch
A breath
Out of water.
It is so interesting how connected we all are genetically. And then there's the collective unconscious. Sometimes I wonder if our fascination with whales and dolphins, or even that wild primitive feel of wolves or coyotes howling, stem from that, a lost ancestral memory stored in our DNA or collective consciousness.