You want a Physicist to speak at your funeral…

English: Hamdown Woodland Burial Ground. Hambledon Hill in the background (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly.”
~ Aaron Freeman

Quotes on Nature 3

“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.”
~ Hermann Hesse, “Wandering”

“We, all of us, are what happens when a primordial mixture of hydrogen and helium evolves for so long that it begins to ask where it came from.” 
~ Jill Tarter

“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” 
~ Edward O. Wilson

“Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world.” 
~ Louis Pasteur

“When the blood in your veins returns to the sea, and the earth in your bones returns to the ground, perhaps then you will remember that this land does not belong to you, it is you who belongs to this land.”
~ Native American quote

MY UNIVERSE
The universe is not heartless:
Millions of hearts are contained within.
The universe is not only cold:
There is warmth by a fire.
Tell me the universe does not think:
I point to a brain.
Tell me it does not care:
I say, some of us do.
O do not exclude what is part of the all
From its essence.
Do not see the lifeless and say
That nothing lives.
You are part of the universe too:
You are one of its features.
-Lance Jencks

“And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any.”
― Walt Whitman

 “My work is loving the world…which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.”
– Mary Oliver 

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early or too late, which is in due time for thee.”
~ Marcus Aurelius

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”
~ Aldo Leopold 

“Life comes from the earth and life returns to the earth.”
~ Chuang Tzu

“It is quite possible to leave your home for a walk in the early morning air and return a different person ~ beguiled, enchanted.”
~ Mary Ellen Chase

“We are learning finally that the forests and mountains and desert canyons are holier than our churches. Therefore let us behave accordingly.”
~ Edward Abbey

“When we are out in nature seeing the more-than-human world around us in all its beauty, we know intuitively that each biological species is a unique masterpiece as worthy of wonder and respect as the work of any human artistic genius.”
~ Stephan Harding

“The goal of life is living in agreement with Nature.”
~ Zeno

“Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.”
~ E. O. Wilson

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”
~ Albert Einstein

“This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”
~ attributed to Chief Seattle

The universal nature out of the universal substance, as if it were wax, now molds a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the material for a tree, then for a man, then for something else….Nature which governs the whole will soon change all things which you see, and out of their substance will make other things. and again other things…in order that the world may be ever new.”
~ Marcus Aurelius

“Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.”
~Edward O. Wilson

Quotes on Nature 2

“We are all connected; To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe, atomically.”

– Neil deGrasse Tyson

“I enter a swamp (or a forest, or a meadow, or a canyon) as a sacred place – a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow of Nature.”

– Henry David Thoreau

“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

– Mary Oliver

“Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy.”

– Carl Sagan

“There is no supernatural. The natural is super enough!”

– D. Dorroh

“We are part of the earth and it is part of us.”

– Chief Seattle

“My religion is nature. That’s what arouses the feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me.”

– Oliver Sacks

“Heaven is home. Utopia is here. Nirvana is now.”

– Edward Abbey

“Our story is the story of the universe. Every piece of everything, of everything you love and everything you hate, of the thing you hold most precious, was assembled by the forces of nature in the first few minutes of the life of the universe, transformed in the hearts of the stars or created in their fiery deaths.
And when you die, those pieces will be returned to the universe in the endless cycle of death and rebirth. What a wonderful thing it is to be part of that universe. What a story, what a majestic story.”

– Professor Brian Cox

“What I know in my bones is that I forgot to take time to remember what I know. The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.”

– Terry Tempest Williams

“The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need, if only we had eyes to see.”

– Edward Abbey

“But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.”

– Alan Watts

“Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons.”

– Henry David Thoreau

“Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones like them.”

– Marcus Aurelius

“Why should we not look on the Universe with piety? Is it not our substance? All our possibilities lie from eternity hidden in its bosom. Since it is the source of all our energies, the home of all our happiness, shall we not cling to it and praise it?”

– John Dewey

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”

– Albert Einstein

“The sun is my father, the earth is my mother and all men are my family.”

– John Toland

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

– Marcus Aurelius

Quotes on Nature

Here are some quotes I like about Nature…

Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth. To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter…to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring—these are some of the rewards of the simple life. The most precious things of life are near at hand, without money and without price. Each of you has the whole wealth of the universe at your very door. All that I ever had, and still have, may be yours by stretching forth your hand and taking it.

– John Burroughs

Conceive of God in terms of universal Nature—a nature God in whom we really live and move and have our being, with who our relation is as intimate and constant as that of the babe in its mother’s womb, or the apple upon the bough.  This is the God that science and reason reveal to us—the God we touch with our hands, see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and from whom there is no escape, who is, indeed, from everlasting to everlasting.

– John Burroughs

The word pantheism derives from the Greek words pan (=’all’) and theos (=’God’). Thus pantheism means ‘All is God’. In essence, pantheism holds that there is no divinity other than the universe and nature. Pantheism is a religious belief that reveres and cares for nature, a religion that joyously accepts this life as our only life, and this earth as our only paradise, if we look after it. Pantheism revels in the beauty of nature and the night sky, and is full of wonder at their mystery and power. Pantheism believes that all things are linked in profound unity … All things interconnected and interdependent. In life and in death we humans are an inseparable part of this unity, and in realising this we can find our joy and our peace.

– Paul Harrison

Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. 

– Rachel Carson

I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals.

– Mikhail Gorbachev

A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed
by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe
hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.

– Carl Sagan

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you. 

– Frank Lloyd Wright