Measuring the Distance Around the Earth

On Friday, we met with a few friends to do a math experiment to measure the distance around the Earth. Denise led the experiment. We just brought along a few supplies.

The explanation of the experiment & what we're measuring. 

Denise explaining the graphing. 

Marking and measuring the shadow. 

Preparing their graph paper. 

Marking the points. 

Marking the points. 

Marking the points. 

Marking the points. 

Time to calculate.

After the experiment we compared our totals to the actual distance and found out that our margin of error was less than 2%.

Last Day of Summer

I stuck my head out the door for a brief moment this afternoon and welcomed the warm breeze on my face. I, for a moment, thought it might be nice to hang out on the porch on our last day of truly summer temperatures. So, I got changed out of my PJ's and went outside. I grabbed my camera on the way out.

Once outside I swept the porch of the few dried leaves it's been collecting all week and cobwebs that have been left behind. I took a few shots of the one lone flower left on our property. Totally fitting that it should be a flower from a weed growing out of our junk pile. All of the other flowers have long since bloomed and gone.

I took a picture of the end-of-summer flower garden. It's Dancer's project and it always starts out the season well weeded and trimmed but by the end it's wild and over-grown. I really like the natural progression of it every year. Human's go through the same cycle's of being "well-weeded" and "trimmed" to wild and "over-grown." Why do we fight this cycle?

After all of that, I thought better of my desire to spend any more time outside. Even though it's quite breezy out today, it's still hot and I have too much housework to do inside.

Wild summer breeze
warms my core.
It is fleeting,
I know.
Seasons change,
time moves on.
I won't hold on too tightly,
I might miss all the new.
- L. J. Lowe

Autumnal Equinox, More on Balance

So I have learned that nothing is by chance. So it shouldn't surprise me that just yesterday I blogged about balance and that tomorrow is the autumnal equinox, the celebration of Mabon, a time of celestial balance of equal balance of darkness and light.

Here are two prayers to meditate on through this time of celestial balance as we move into this new fall season.

Equal hours of light and darkness
we celebrate the balance of Mabon,
and ask the gods to bless us.
For all that is bad, there is good.
For that which is despair, there is hope.
For the moments of pain, there are moments of love.
For all that falls, there is the chance to rise again.
May we find balance in our lives
as we find it in our hearts.

A balance of night and day, a balance of light and dark
Tonight I seek balance in my life
as it is found in the Universe.
A black candle for darkness and pain
and things I can eliminate from my life.
A white candle for the light, and for joy
and all the abundance I wish to bring forth.
At Mabon, the time of the equinox,
there is harmony and balance in the Universe,
and so there shall be in my life.

No matter what your religious or spiritual path.  I can see ways to change these prayers to fit where you are or you could always just make up your own.  There is much to be grateful for.  Count your blessings every day.

Maintaining Balance

"People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never."

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have struggled, for as long as I can remember, with maintaining balance in my daily life. I start out really gung-ho on a new project or a new lifestyle choice and then over time I get off-track. Usually something will happen to disrupt my new routine for a few weeks and I never can find my way back to the path I was on. This is very frustrating to me because I rarely finish anything that I start.

Yet, as I sit here typing this, I wonder if balance is ever attainable or even desirable. What is the driving force behind my desire for balance? I know I'd like to finish what I start, but why? Is it necessary to finish everything that we start? Maybe I'm not supposed to find my way back to that path I was on. Maybe I'm supposed to pick up and move on from where I find myself after life's disruptions.

I still haven't figured this out yet. Do you have any thoughts?

Are There Moral Absolutes?

Last month Dodger and I fell in-love with Dexter. It's a Showtime series about a serial killer who kills serial killers. We blew through all 4 past seasons in about 3 weeks time. One night in between shows we got to discussing moral absolutes. Is what Dexter is doing wrong? He hunts down serial killers and then kills them. Many of them are people that the justice system let slip away to kill again.

I don't think what he's doing is wrong. He is permanently removing people from society who do nothing but hurt innocent people. Dodger seemed a little conflicted and only had to say that what he was doing was against the law. I don't think that just because something is against the law that it is immoral. The law and morality are two different things.

According to Wikipedia, Moral Absolutism is the ethical view that certain actions are absolutely right or wrong, regardless of other contexts such as their consequences or the intentions behind them.

I don't really agree with that. I see things more from a Consequentialist viewpoint which Wikipedia explains as those moral theories which hold that the consequences of a particular action form the basis for any valid moral judgment about that action (or create a structure for judgment, see rule consequentialism). Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right action is one that produces a good outcome, or consequence. This view is often expressed as the aphorism "The ends justify the means".

Like the case of Robin Hood who stole from the rich to give to the poor. His reasons for stealing were valid.

My dad seems to carry my same viewpoint. I was having dinner with him one evening and mentioned Dexter and what the show was about. He said, "So, he's one of the good guys, like [the main character in the movie] Law Abiding Citizen?"

What do you think?