a few thoughts on belief

a list of things I believe in. wool, because of the smell and the idea that it was meant to be worn in the first place. honey, because it is probably the miracle of all miracles (I mean really. think what a bee does and with what) and if we aren't too dim-witted and forgetful we might just screw things up enough that the bees can't do their bee thing anymore and one day when people look around and say what happened to blueberries, I used to love blueberries and someone else says oh how I'd love a nice avocado and then some scientist finally thrusts his paper through the tangles of tape and lo and behold, there was something amazing in bee pollen it wasn't the earth mothers just ranting, well there we'll have it.

I also believe in santa claus and no not just because my 9 year-old does, is already composing the list and writing his requests in the dew fogged windows of our car on the way to school, to see how the items look one two three, to think, imagine what it would be like to wake up on christmas day and voila, be the owner of a new whatever. no, I believe in mr. santa because the possibility has never ceased for me even when I am tiptoeing at 2am and filling my son's stocking, dad's with a bottle of some fancy ale in the bottom and new undies, the cats their obligatory catnip mice. I think the idea for me is that what the hey do I know, really? could I, on my own, imagine the orbit of planets, the song of a wood thrush, the honeybees dance and toil? so I have always thought there is much to be known and things ever unknown and that once in a long while a small voice peeps up amidst all us yakkers and has something to say (I am thinking Rudolph Steiner here) oh but if it's not on wikipedia or cnn has not yet smirked a sentence or two or npr a witty and engaging story, no. not real, no possibility. Santa is one of those cultural icons we keep around maybe only because he ties in so neatly with a marketing scheme, no one actually stopping to ask maybe or what if or who knew?

the line between science and religion has had a long and gnarled past, and now throw in politics and the notion of a simple life is something to believe in, the petals of the buttercup reflecting a sheen, the daisy a countdown, the white tuft of seed on the wind a fairy aloft, a long way from bottom lines and brookings institute policy and data and microchips but the truth is this: the bee does not do its thing because of or in fact of our cognizance of it, nor the germ in the petri dish, the virus on the doorknob, the wave sleeping off shore, the slight wobble of our planet upon an axis. It makes no sense to me to believe in a small white tablet called "aspirin" but not be able to conjure a belief in something as amazing and powerful and let's face it people, necessary, as the tooth fairy or the troll lurking beneath the bridge.