The Oasis

An Eye on Nature

Get a real time look at sharks, penguins, otters and other fascinating animals at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This site has a variety of nature cams...live webcams set up in many of the exhibits so you can watch the animals real time.

Unlike the zoos and aquariums whose sole purpose is for human entertainment, the Monterey Aquarium is involved in a variety of conservation and research related activities that can help to save our declining oceans.

Other nature cams can be found at the National Park Service and the South Pole.

We are stardust...

Plunging through the atmosphere in a fiery re-entry over the Utah desert, the spacecraft made a perfect pre-dawn landing after seven years of traveling through the solar system on a 3 billion mile mission to collect particles from a comet.

Scientists are ecstatic over the safe return of the craft, as they believe that some of the particles gathered on the mission are older than the solar system itself, and that ultimately, the analysis of the particles will provide clues to the formation of the sun and the planets themselves. NASA spent a relatively low amount of money, approximately 200 million dollars, on the project.

Meanwhile, back here on Earth, as far as we know the only planet in our solar system with the ability to sustain life, frogs are dying as a result of global warming. A new study published in Nature, the British weekly journal of science, reports that climate change has wiped out two thirds of a unique species of frog that lives high in the cloud forests of Central America.

Scientists have long known that amphibians, such as frogs, can be seen as bell weather species for changing environmental conditions, as they depend on the integrity of their porous skin to survive.

Might not the 200 million dollars spent on collecting stardust have been put to better use? Our planet is in trouble and we still have our heads literally in the clouds.

Middle Earth Adventures

What would possess a middle aged woman, respectably employed as a university professor and by all outward appearances comfortably settled in life, to pack up her bags and move literally half way around the world to New Zealand?

That's exactly what a reporter from Time Magazine asked Jenn Wright, adventure coach extraordinaire, in May of last year, when she was featured in a cover article on women's mid-life crises.

As Jenn, a then divorced assistant professor of occupational therapy in Indianapolis, Indiana, explains, her breakthrough moment came several years ago at age 46. She was on a backbacking trip with her 21-year old son, hiking in the rugged backcountry of Nevada, when she suddenly realized that she had spent the majority of her life taking care of others. The confidence she took back home from that fateful trip with her son led her to give up her comfortable life and head for New Zealand.

From this land of simply awesome beauty, Jenn now leads women in mid-life adventures of their own.

This week, I had the honor to be invited to sit in on one of Jenn's free teleclasses, a virtual gathering of women in various stages of their mid-life journeys, as they explored with Jenn the idea of becoming their own mid-life heroines. As Jenn explains, mid-life can come at any any age: 40, 50, 60 or even 70. And for each woman, it's different.

But even though on the surface the journey is outward, along New Zealand's wildly scenic Banks Pennisula Track, Jenn emphasizes each woman's internal journey. "Women come here and step out of time. When they go home, they have changed their lives."

As Jenn asks, "Is your life on full but your Soul on empty? Are you longing to find your Wild Child? Do you stay awake at night wondering what's really next for you?"

If Jenn's questions speak to you, consider joining her in beautiful New Zealand this February for the Heroine's Journey, a 7 day adventure of a lifetime. For details go to MidLife Heroine.

Your life will be the better for it!

My Bioregion: Winter '06

What is happening in your corner of the world this Winter?

No, I'm not talking about the new mall that just opened or how you just got over the flu! I'm speaking about something so fundamental and something that was once so vital to all of humanity, that it's astounding to think that today, we have all but forgotten it.

I'm talking about what is it that's going on in the natural world outside your door? How exactly does the light slant over the trees in the late evening? What birds do you see flitting about in the shrubs? Do you have any idea, if you were to go outside tonight, what phase of the moon you would see?

Our ability to notice such natural detail...to really see...was once, not so very long ago, vital to our survival. Today, it doesn't seem to make much difference, except to aid us in our decision about what outerwear to choose for the day. And even then, most of us rely on TV or the internet to tell us the temperature.

Many of us literally spend our days traveling from our homes to our garages to our cars to our parking garages to our offices and back again without ever coming into contact with the natural world. Perhaps we have a plant or two in our homes or offices, but even those are lilkely to be artificial.

How did we get to this place...this place where we stand, seemingly so far apart from nature?

Our separation is, of course, only an illusion. And entirely self-created.

But this separation permeates our culture. I believe that it was Woody Allen who said, "Nature and I are two."

Someone else once said that if you feel separated from the natural world, just try holding your breath for a couple of minutes!

Our bodies literally take in the breath of the trees and other green plants, oxygen pouring from their leaves, an offering humbly given. We are, needless to say, totally dependent on these ancient Green Ones for our very lives. Perhaps we should be paying a little more attention.

Here, in the Southeast, just below Atlanta, on a Winter afternoon, the pine trees sway in the wind. Brown oak leaves, their leathery crinkled surfaces glinting in the late evening light, cling tenaciously to small oaks in the undergrowth. A couple of blue jays call racously from the shrubs, their color splashed bodies flashing as they dart about. An otherwise bare dogwood, so flamboyant in seasons past, sports a single bright red berry, a reminder of warm days to come.

What is happening in your world today? Look closely, for in those details you will see glimpses of Life itself.