Dear Blog
What an unattractive name. May I call you Petunia?
Since I am expected to speak to you on a regular basis I thought it should be on a first name basis.
This week was the 39th anniversary of the “Wow” signal – that anomalous signal from somewhere near Sagittarius (maybe) picked up by the Big Ear radio telescope during the SETI program and named after Jerry Ehman’s hand written exclamation in the margin of the printout. In 2012 on the 35th anniversary we apparently sent a 3 minute burst of 10,000 tweets into the region of space we think the signal came from. Although we only ever heard the “Wow” once it is still the best evidence of a signal from aliens.
​
I think it’s good to reflect on things bigger than ourselves from time to time.
I think of you, Petunia, a little like the “Wow” – I don’t expect you to call back, but I know you are out there, somewhere.

I also think Frans Holtsmeyer who owns the flower shop on Mains Street is a little like you, from the flower perspective, and I have it on good authority that he owns a telescope. Not that I am insinuating that owning a telescope should in any way make him any more extraordinary than anyone else here in Suschewalden. Of course no one else owns a telescope. Or lives on a cliff-side house with a widow’s walk that overlooks the gorge. Or spends his nights on the walk with that huge telescope fixed up at the sky. But everyone should have a hobby, it keeps them out of mischief. I think he’s looking for comets. Well, one comet in particular. I do hope he doesn’t find it.
​

Dusk is falling across a flawless blue sky while distant magpies call their melancholy good nights. In some melancholy I too bid goodnight to the sun.

I wrote some few years ago during a warm mid-winter day about the simultaneous alarm and pleasure it gave me. Enjoying the balmy weather did nothing to settle the deep disquiet from knowing why we were having the warm spell. This year the experience is multiplied. The long stretch of warm days, and I do mean summer temperature warm, does nothing for my existential tummy butterflies.

Despite my firm belief in Utopian rather than Dystopian futures, I constantly seek evidence among the litter of human affairs of a greater mass pulling in the favour of the former rather than the latter. I can’t help but think if we spent far less time being  afraid of each other, we’d find better solutions to our problems and do it much quicker. No small part of my angst is fuelled by the grief caused by the galloping loss of our natural world. I had barely a nodding acquaintance with a fraction of it and some oaf has trampled it. By oaf I mean us of course. I guess if I could blame, say, an asteroid, I would feel better, but no, alas it is our own work.
Nature has made way for our need for swimming pools, mobile phones, stretch jeans and soup in a can. In short, civilisation.

So adjusting for personal preferences and the imperative to keep surviving I have no choice but to believe in an Utopian future, where humans harness technology responsibly and respect the natural planetary systems, realising they need both to survive. Hence solar punk. That’s punk without the dark.

The sun has gone down.
​
I am going to go and light a candle to burn alone in the darkness and let its quiet light solemnly mourn for our losses, a silent apology for the losses to come.