Another rain laden evening, the trees outside still wet and sun going down in the horizon beyond them. I like the view of the trees and sky I have out of my window. E. O. Wilson, the ant man, calls this Biophilia, a natural affinity we all have for nature. If there are things I should be thankful for I am thankful for always having a tree or trees outside my window. It was a huge oak with a white swing before now it's a cove of trees full of birds in the evenings. Apparently the number of birds one might find in an urban landscape with enough trees or vegetation is much larger than one may find in any other ecosystem. Even though I have been meaning to take up ornithology as a hobby, I can't verify that statement for now. It doesn't manner anyway, I see enough birds to keep me happy. A few days ago I think I saw a monarch butterfly. Maybe it wasn't a monarch butterfly but it was pretty big and was colored blue, my favorite color. Also I know an interesting fact about monarch butterflies; apparently these butterflies fly to a certain forest in Mexico i.e. seasonally migrate to breed and at that time the whole forest is covered with butterflies. Imagine how crazy that would be, all these trees covered with butterflies and at the softest whisper all of them taking to air. Wow!

I was thinking as I was staring out of my window how Nature is the most subtle healer. There was a whole sequence of actions that went on before that, I was sitting in this room with my windows closed and a light on in the day! That means I was wasting energy along with not taking in the dance of the changing light and the trees. As an aside Joyce Kilmer wrote he saw nothing more lovely than a tree. Besides USA uses more energy per person in the world than any other country. I think the ratio of energy use between say a developing country like India and USA is around 1:15 or something like that! Now that is a shocking figure for me who grew up in India. But then things become clear when I see how I live here. First is the way I live here, half the buildings here have little or no source of natural light. I used to work in this monolithic building which had maybe 10% of it's surface area open to natural light. It's as if people here almost abhor sunlight, it's something to be kept away from!! So I was thinking boy when I get to build my own space it surely will have a hell lot of windows!

Anyway I see that this is boiling down into a rant so I will end this here. Yes switch off that light, open those windows, take a walk in the park and go hug a tree!