Big History

Samhain                                                         Waning Thanksgiving Moon

The temperature has stayed above freezing so we’re having a significant rain event, but little snow.  I found a snow removal guy yesterday.  Prices varied wildly from $25 a time to $50.  All the same snow.  Not sure what the deal is.  We went with $25.

The Medtronic event went by rapidly with only one hour available for folks to mill around and look.  As often happens, though, we docents had the same hour when the guests arrived, had cocktails and mingled.  As with any group, they checked in with each other, took the temperature of the room and few wandered.  With the exception of CEO Bill Hawkins who remembered the singularity of the T’ang Dynasty blue horse ming ch’i (spirit object).   We discussed it and the meaning of tomb objects in general.  Other than a brief conversation about Ming dynasty blue and white ceramics, that was my evening.

On the way in I started a fascinating new lecture series from the Teaching Company called Big History.  This takes history’s starting point as the big bang and moves in increments from there:  birth of suns, creation of elements, creation of earth and the solar system, the origin of life, humans, agriculture, the modern revolution.  The guy who’s teaching this course happens to be the guy who conceived of Big History as a discipline, basing it, as I suspected on Braudel’s notion of the longue duree, seeing history from longer and longer durations of time.

Tomorrow and Wednesday will consist largely of interviews at the Sierra Club.  We’re hiring a policy staff person.