PRESENCE & POSITION

Unexpectedly the afternoon rains have ended, drying things out and making it hotter. In mid afternoon sometimes a siesta inside the darkened hut's mosquito net feels pretty good. Lately, that's when I've been thinking about the Fifth Miracle of Nature. (There are six, outlined at http://www.backyardnature.net/j/6/.)

The Fifth Miracle is that in higher animals the mere presence and positions of certain atoms on DNA molecules somehow express abstract concepts that get brought into the "real world" by an animal acting instinctively.

For example, a bird instinctively builds its unique kind of nest even though that bird has never seen such a nest. The instinct to do so arises in information encoded on the bird's DNA molecules, and that encoding is in the form of the presence and position of certain atoms on the molecule.

Just what might be the nature of the thing that reaches into the quantum mechanics world of the DNA molecule, decodes various of the Universe's abstract urges, and translates them into things like birdnests? Whatever it is, at the end of heat-dazed half-dreaming and cogitation inside the sagging-with-humidity mosquito net, it always seems like a miracle to me.

The Mayas' Great Spirit structures reality as cycles within cycles, and is helped by such things as snakes who talk, and gnomelike aluxob who serve as guardians. However, the Maya just don't concern themselves with the question of how atomic presence and position on a DNA molecule can express an abstract concept, which is then instinctivly brought by an animal into the real world.

Still, being with the Maya has contributed to my thoughts about the Fifth Miracle, and it's been done in a way harmonious with the twisty realities of the DNA atoms' quantum physics, as well as with the Mayas' own mind-bending cosmology. Here's how that works:

By living day by day in the Mayas' rich, gorgeous, incomprehensible world, somehow what I do or do not believe has become less important than ever.

What's important is that I am here right now, keeping in mind the mystery of the Fifth Miracle of the Six Miracles of Nature as I submit more and more to the exquisite presence and position of everything around me.