Lowly Liverworts

This morning I led a small group of Berkeley 6th graders on a Plant Evolution tour at the Botanical Garden.  I had been preparing for weeks and had the route mapped out in my head.  I'd been over and over the groups of plants I wanted to show them.  I had thought up questions to ask (docents are supposed to use the Inquiry Method of teaching).  I put on my black t-shirt with the picture of Charles Darwin on it.  I imagined the students eagerly on their knees peering at lowly liverworts, interested, even amazed at the unremarkable looking plants.  Liverworts are named for being liver shaped, while wort is Old English for plant.  They are green, flat, probably no more than 1/2 inch in diameter and only a few layers of cells thick.  These plucky little plants are descendants of the very first land plants ever.  We hurried  to the creek, where the liverworts grow.  I wanted to be first at the one place where I knew they grew.  Then we moved on to moss, then to club mosses, horsetails, ferns, cone-bearing plants and finally the flowering plants.  The students were wonderful, interested and full of curiosity and questions.  We ran through what I had planned and I let them choose what they wanted to see next.  We went to see the carnivorous plants and the sensitive plant that folds up when you touch it.  Finally I took them to the Cloud Forest to see the bright red and yellow "Monkey Hand Tree" flowers.  As we approached the meeting place, I asked each of them what they enjoyed the most in the hour and half tour and I must say I'm over the moon with happiness that 3 of the 5 named seeing the liverworts.  It is a real joy to take the students to some of my favorite places and to get them to see how wonderful a plant is when you know something about it.  

A Dinner in the City

Last night we went into San Francisco to have dinner with a friend of ours, a college classmate of Bob's who was briefly in town.   Going into the City is always a treat, but this was special as we got to see their lovely Marina condo.  He graciously showed us around it and shared a delicious Zinfandel wine with us.  Before we knew it was time for dinner.  He told us there are at least 30 restaurants within a 10 minute walk of their place.  Talking over dinner was wonderful, to share back and forth what we've done in the last year.  I was particularly struck by his telling of a conversation, he and another classmate of Bob's had in which they asked each other what the purpose of a spiritual life is.
One said "being present and acceptance of what is," while the other said "just acceptance is the key."   I thought about that and said, "for me, being kind is high on my list."  Going home on BART, we got onto the train car and Bob found a seat right away.  I didn't and moved to stand by Bob.  The fellow next to him, a quite scruffy looking skinny young guy with a skate board, saw me and immediately stood up and offered me his seat.  I profusely thanked him for being so gracious and he shrugged and said "of course."  As I watched him, I thought about how you just can't tell what a person is made of by how they look.  As the train went under the Bay, a woman walked up and down the aisle begging for money to get home.  We instinctively averted our eyes.  I noticed that the guy with the skate board was the only person who pulled out his wallet and gave her a dollar.  I thought for me the Golden Rule is the key to my spiritual practice:  "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  Humbled by my hardness of heart, I thought if everyone followed the Golden Rule, as the young man did, our world would surely be a better kinder place to live.