A Chaotic Utopia

With a click of your mouse, you find yourself in a chaotic utopia.

That click sent an electrical signal inside your computer,
passing through circuits, joined by a contact made of gold.

The gold, you may find, was mined from a mafic vein,
deep within the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by Precambrian gneiss.

The gneiss, disguised by the mountains for billions of years,
lays exposed to the north in a shaded canyon.

The canyon, still being carved by the creek below,
crumbles with age, loosening a piece of milky quartz.

The quartz, lured by gravity, tumbles from the canyon wall,
and lands with a splash in the turbulent water.

The water, dissolving dust from the broken stone,
flows from the creek to the plains, and into a sparkling lake.

The lake, teeming with life, boasts a shore,
lined with stately cottonwood trees, drinking with outstretched roots.

The roots, drawing mineral-rich water from the earth,
to the tips of the tallest branches, nourish the growing catkins.

The catkins, shaken by an eastward-blowing breeze,
fill the skies with a flurry of tufted seeds and invisible pollen.

The pollen drifts, rising and floating on warm drafts,
and eventually passes underneath the nose of a child, who sneezes.

The sneeze startles a lady beetle, who, in panic, takes flight,
across the neighborhood, until it lands upon a garden stone.

The stone, (a lump of quartz-filled gneiss from the nearby mountains,)
Lady-beetle and landing are all observed by a curious writer.

The writer (yours truly) is a student of complex connections,
Fascinated by the patterns in nature, rather inclined to ponder.

The pondering of bugs, stones, seeds, sky and patterns leads to the inevitable--

I blog.

Being new here at Science Blogs, I figured it was customary to introduce myself. If that didn't help, allow me to try the traditional way: Welcome to Chaotic Utopia, a blog focusing the connections and coincidences, which cause diversity and strangeness in our universe. I originally opened chaoticutopia.com in 2004 as a storage dump for various essays and stories I had lying around. Last winter, because everyone else was doing it, I converted the site into a blog. I kept posting my essays--which have ranged from subjects as new and obscure as the origins of Deinococcus radiodurans, to the oldest existential questions, such as: Is anything real? Or why should we bother, if it is just going to change? I also continued to share my slightly twisted short stories and poems.

Sometimes, I've mused about chaos, adaptation and time. Other times, I've blogged about the latest news or the occasional distraction--especially if they involve chaos theory or general weirdness. Strange symbols and myths have also captured my fascination, as have rocks, robots and AI.

Finally, each week, I match a pattern, typically a nature photograph, to a computer-generated fractal. These Friday fractals are an attempt to highlight the beauty of a world teetering on the edge of chaos. I see that edge everywhere I look--why battle it? Instead, let's ride the waves, and see what happens.