Long Walks On Leafy Streets

12/26/2013 Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC
I am writing this from my sister Jayashree's home in Derwood, MD. It is very peaceful here, even more so than in our own neighborhood near Takoma, DC. Very quiet. There is a little grassy area on one side and behind their home there are a few trees and bushes. It is often visited by deer and the deer eat all the vegetables in their garden. The sun is shining from the south-east. I enjoyed the rays of the sun seeping through the windows as I did my morning yoga. One of their neighbors has solar panels on their roof.
I am here to give company to my parents because Jayashree is away on vacation with her family. Yesterday Nicole dropped me off here. We came here with her mother and brother. They arrived in DC on Saturday and celebrated Christmas with us. Yesterday we attended the Holy Eucharist at the National Cathedral.
It was an absolutely gorgeous morning, with the sun shining and air back to normal winter cold after a few days of spring weather. The service and the music were very inspiring. This is our second year of attending Christmas Day service at the Cathedral. I have posted a picture of our Christmas tree on flickr. You can see them by clicking on the little photo at the top left of this page and then clicking on "Pictures."
Last Thursday Nicole and I went to see the movie "Gravity" starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock. I missed the first ten minutes of the movie because on our way to the theater I lost my credit card and so I was trying to call the bank and get the account closed. Nicole didn't enjoy the movie too much. She felt it was too melodramatic. I was glad she was there to watch it with me, though. Anyway all that put a little damper on it although the images of earth and the stars from space lingered in the mind. The realistic depiction of space travel also sends a thrill down the spine. It made me think about our life here on earth and how precious it is. For me the most touching scene from the movie was when Sandra Bullock finds herself washed up on the beach and feels the wet mud against her face and says "Thank You." It shows how unique our situation is here on this planet. Among all the billions of stars there is this little piece of rock, mud and water with these organisms living on it. The earth is literally our mother and we are like little children cradled in her bosom. Our bodies in their natural state cannot survive outside of this planet and its fragile atmosphere.
Last week also I came across a youtube video about three renowned Indian physicists: Bose, Raman and Saha. I watched the section about Bose. It made me proud to learn that an Indian physicist had discovered a fundamental feature of modern particle physics, namely the fact that an entire family of particles does not obey the normal statistics of quantum physics. So now there are two families of particles, one called Fermions and another Bosons.
I need to learn more about standard model of particle physics but from what little I know it seems to me that the mysteries are never-ending. Perhaps the more we probe it the more will be revealed. It is as if there is an entire universe within each atom, with its own laws and properties. Moreover, our own sensory perception is of little help in understanding them. I am sure there are more amazing properties to be revealed about the fundamental particles and forces of nature. We are always on a quest to understand everything in one grand scheme. Even physicists are looking for the unified theory of forces. Perhaps one day there will be a clear understanding of the fields of energy in this universe and the laws governing them as well as this amazing thing we call life and consciousness. My belief is that there will be one force, one law or one energy behind it all and it is the same as what we call as the universal spirit or God.

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