Lesson: The Circle Of Life

Lesson: The Circle Of Life

Exploded View of the helical heart

Welcome to the lesson: The Circle of Life. This lesson is about the most misunderstood component of life: The role of Math and Science in everyday life. The circle of life is far more complex than it at first appears.

For example, did you know the human heart is a circular muscle? The heart is not just the neuro-muscular, electrochemical “blood pumping organ”. It is a wrapped circle, often called a Gordian Knot.

In this lesson we explore the human heart as a metaphor for a deeper understanding of nature itself. We all think we know what something “does” we understand it. There are deeper truths exposed when we examine the structure, purpose, and function and form to determine why nature evolves systems.

Not a Pump; Not a Machine; A Spiral Wave

When we reframe the what, why, how, when, where of any heart we are able to see nature and her precious sacred geometry in action. You like many people, probably imagine the heart as a very complex structure of rooms, like this:

The traditional understanding of the heart as a series of chambers

This system is accurate, but it’s proposed function is out of line with the way nature and the reality of life itself evolves and creates things. It is useful metaphor, but it requires a human way of thinking of things that is often not supportable by fact. What’s missing in this conception of the heart is the role of the SPIRAL.

Would it surprise you that the heart is a spiral? Further would it surprise you to learn that all blood vessels – arteries, veins and capillaries use ridges to cause blood flow to spiral? or that the very shape of the blood cell, flat, with rounded edges and a depressed middle area is optimized to spiral through the spiral of the blood stream?

Panta Rhei (Everything Spirals)

It is not always intuitive, but nature does love the spiral, and it appears everywhere in nature. Another misunderstood fact is that nature builds complexity from smaller forms, and the most common and dynamic form is a spiral – usually one of five or a combination of spiral forms:

  1. Phi – a transcendental number represented by the ratio 1:1.618 [The golden spiral]
  2. Pi – a transcendental number represented by the ratio 1:3.14 [What is Pi?]
  3. e – a transcendental number represented by the number 2.71828 [Exponential Growth]
  4. Fractals: [Link]
  5. Euler’s Identity: e^i π + 1 = 0

Euler’s Identity

Electromagnetic Waves

Transcendental Numbers

Why do transcendentals exist? We do not know, we only know they do – across time and cultures. Where we fail in our science is when we try to ignore them in the general application of science and technology.

Tell me right now, three places you see spirals in nature. I will challenge you to follow that to infinity.

Jim Bruner

We can find transcendentals in every field, INCLUDING math. Disease, sociology, psychology, materials science, astronomy, engineering, biology, civic design, aerodynamics, energy, field theory, forever. So what does all of this have to do with the heart?

Lesson Challenge: Make a Heart

The heart is a circle of life that is also defined as a knot; a gordian knot to be precise. A knot that wraps through and around itself and using electrical impulses and the structure of the knot to push, contract, propel and flatten it pulses so that the pressure of the BODY propels the heart, NOT the other way around.

Let’s explore where we see the five transcendental ideas above in the heart.

Materials

  • Computer
  • Wifi
  • Display
  • Speakers
  • Whiteboard
  • Ropes

Instructions

  1. Using the Links on this page start a discussion about how one thing can be reframed as another.
  2. For instance, the heart is not an empty organ, it is a muscle that has topography.
  3. Discuss topography and mathematics in general.
  4. Math is a language that nature uses to help us make sense of the way reality assembles itself.
  5. When you have introduced the Transcendentals and watched the videos begin building a heart.
  6. Have each team of students work with the thick rope.
  7. Challenge them to fasten it into a Gordian Knot that wraps into itself.
  8. Have them explain how the system brings in and expels the energy wave.
  9. Give them 10 Minutes to better understand this feature of maths, topology, and anatomy.
  10. Ask them to use one of the transcendental numbers to support their claim.

Learning Integration

Rarely in nature are things always as they appear. Larger ideas can always be broken down into smaller ideas that will generally relate back to discreet mathematical concepts. Review a simple object and ask students to break into the SIX simple Machines:

The Six Simple Machines

  1. Lever
  2. Fulcrum
  3. Pulley
  4. Screw
  5. Inclined Plane
  6. Wheel and Axle

Give them 10 minutes to do this exercise.

This integration of mechanics and Math is useful in problem solving and in identifying both problems and their solutions. This also gives students agency to recognize, reframe and react to problems on their own!


Ecosystems Exist in 3D, X, Y, and Z

Ecosystems Exist in 3D, X, Y, and Z

Zen and the art of Tree Maintenance:

Ecosystems Exist in 3D, X, Y, and Z
The London Plane tree at the bottom right corner of the image.

Ecosystems Exist in 3D, X, Y, and Z — there are 58 trees at Mezzacello. That sentence astounds me. I spend so much time working on the ground and the beds it never occurred to me that there would be life happening in the z-axis above the gardens as well.

I planted five of those trees in the back alley “Fruit Tree Zone” and we have three tress that we inherited for good or bad from the original property. The one I am focusing on today is the 24.3m (80 feet) tall London Plane that DOMINATES the southeastern corner of Mezzacello. I am aware that this tree provides copious amounts of shade (especially on a 30C (86F) summer day).

What I had NOT imagined before last year was how enormous the tree canopy is. I took a visual from Google Maps. I calculated the 22.8 m x 45.6m (75′ x 150′) grounds boundary and determined the diameter of the tree canopy to be 21m (74′). so that tree is oblong.

The trunk is 1/3 of the height below the canopy and the branches are dipping into the airspace of the  4.8m (4.8m*100=480cm , 480/2.54=189″, 180/12=15.9′) tall hornbeams in the allee. This is where the issue arise.

See a map of Mezzacello here.

Not a Small Tree

This is NOT a small tree. It is a significant tree. Probably planted in 1979-1980 in the side yard of the Greek Revival house that once stood on this property. Now this tree is eating up all the airspace AND the roots are pulling all the water out of the ground.

There is nothing to be done about the roots, but the branches MUST be managed. They are touching the hornbeams and causing crown rot. This is when a hornbeam senses danger so it stops growing. This is a stress response.

We have 38 hornbeams in the allee. Only 34 of them top the 4.8m height because the others have stunted growth. So in a mirror of the gardens below, we must manicure the garden in the sky; the tree canopy.

This is not an easy or inexpensive task. This will require an arborist or tree surgeon. Because in addition to the geometry of the tree fro ground to crown, we must also consider the geometry of the tree in its vertical environment.

It sits on a nondescript alley called “Avon Alley” right over one of the southeastern electrical lines that provides power to our entire neighborhood and a major hospital. No casual cuts can be involved here (You can just see the main lines at the bottom of the image above).

[media-credit id=”3″ align=”alignnone” width=”900″][/media-credit] The tree, the hornbeam allee, the alley, and the mains power lines running along the southern edge of Mezzacello.

So we need to regroup and determine how we are going to manicure the “plants of the air” above Mezzacello. We will be – of course – providing all the data. Until then, hug a tree. There is so much more to consider than a trunk some roots and leaves. Trees are the poets of the atmosphere and I am not angry with this tree for being fabulous, but I am its temporary steward.


Applied STEM, Not a Meth House

Applied STEM, Not a Meth Lab

The remains of the kitchen after I created “Bronzed” chain

Applied STEM is taking the knowledge you have and making things work in innovative ways. The applied part is as important as the STEM part. And failure is a data point and not a destination.

One STEM thing I learned very quickly that it is a really bad idea to put motor oil and stainless steel chain on a cookie sheet in a 260C (500F) oven. That’s the STEM part of this blog. It is also why I am no longer allowed in the kitchen at Mezzacello.

When we purchased Mezzacello it had good bones. 150+ years old but it had been abandoned for three years from 2009 to 2013. It sat vacant and sad on our street surrounded by single-family houses. So we moved into this old house with falling plaster and wonky foundations — and the oven worked!

in that first year while we were setting about redoing surfaces and creating a home from the shell of what we bought, I decided I was too cheap to buy bronze chain that Rick wanted for the picture rails in the reception rooms. Hence the experiment in metal finishing and you can see results below.

Rick trying to understand what has happened just as guests are about to arrive for dinner…

This is not a movie set. This is my kitchen. So now you now how I disastrously ruined poor Rick’s oven. What you can’t see from this photo or the next one when as poor Rick walked in to see what I had done.

The Unexpected Flames!

When I opened the oven door the flames went to the ceiling. So I closed the door and ran over to the window that faces onto the back porch where the ladies – incidentally which was a a halfway house for emotionally abused women — next door would sit all day and chain smoke cigarettes. It was the middle of winter and I thought the snow would be great to squelch the fire.

I putt on the heavy oven mitts, I took a deep breath (close to the floor where there was still fresh air) opened the mouth of hell, grabbed the pan (on FIRE) and ran screaming to the open window. I threw the pan out with the chain, the oil, and the fire into the snow and jump out after it. That’s when I heard the screams and the scampering.

The Meth House Rumor

That’s how the rumor that we were running a meth house got started. In the spring, I finally went out and collected that pan and the chain (still silvery stainless steel) and properly introduced myself to the women and house managers they were tepid at first. We soon became great neighbors.

What’s the craziest way you ever introduced yourself to a neighborhood? I am hoping for some fun comments.


Things Break, And You Must Replace Them

Living on an urban farm you learn three things real quick:

  1. If it can go wrong it will so have a backup plan
  2. The sun and the winter corrodes everything
  3. Things are not as important as ideas

I was out doing my morning chores and my Weather App was telling me it was 10C so it should be fine to use the nozzle on my trusty 1,000 L IBC (Intermediate Beverage Container) – I didn’t name these things – that also serves as my rain barrel in the livestock yard. I should have stopped when I felt resistance. But I kept pulling and SNAP! The Polypropylene handle for the nozzle just snapped clean off. Four years of steady reliability.

I was of course disappointed but not annoyed. I have seen so much oxidation and entropy here at Mezzacello I was hardly surprised. Rule number 1 – I knew this was going to happen. So I keep a spare IBC cube. Rule number 2 – I take a moment to count my blessings and marvel at the power of entropy. Staying grateful for what you have is important. Rule number 3 – I am wise enough to remember that an IBC with 270 L of water in the bottom is going to weigh 270Kg (595 lbs) so I pull out my handy dandy backup water pump. See Rule number 1 – always have a plan. Also it was a lot of work to convert 270 L to it’s constituent pound weight. Whereas 270 L AUTOMATICALLY weighs 270 Kg. Why don’t we use metric in America?


Sustainability and Renewal

Sustainability and Renewal

Sustainability and Renewal

Every year I strive to improve the infrastructure and systems, sustainability and renewal at Mezzacello. Being that there are five distinct zones of improvement and sustainability on this urban farm that’s a lot of work. This year I worked on systems in the garden.

This isn’t a yearly thing it’s a multi year program and I’m finally working on phase 2 of the lasagna garden.

Five enclosed ecosystems at Mezzacello

As a reminder for those who might be new to Mezzacello, The five zones are comprised of: the house where the humans live. The formal gardens. The potager gardens. The aquatic pond and it’s systems.  And the livestock area.

Sustainable and Enclosed Inter-depeendent Ecosystems

Each zone actually supports and extends every other system.  There is no frivolous or unsupported system or zone at Mezzacello. Everything has dual purpose.

A prime example of this are the chickens and the ducks. They serve as a food source, as a source of feathers, as a source of eggs, as a source of more chickens and ducks, a food waste management system,  a source of manure, and as biological rototillers and pest deterrent systems.

Ducks will eat all the tender shoots. It’s in their nature. Chickens eat everything regardless; Know your workforce.

Jim Bruner

As I go about setting new beds in the potager garden, all of my efforts are to model and build infrastructure for humans to grow, tend and harvest plants, and for chickens and ducks to work the soil pre-planting and for ducks to search for pests during the growing season after the initial tender starts have become bigger plants.

Ducks will eat all the tender shoots. It’s in their nature. Chickens eat everything regardless; Know your workforce.

in addition to building the structure to make getting to the plants easier for humans chickens, and ducks, this system also allows for comprehensive lasagna gardenning beds with slightly raised lips around each bed that allows for compost and carbon sources, manure and mulch to heap up and hold water better and more efficiently.

Lasagna Garden Beds Year One
Building out the “raised” lasagna garden beds.

There’s a price and a benefit to running a farm this way. It would be faster and cheaper to just use city water and oil-based fertilizer in the short term. But the motto at Mezzacello is twofold: poor boys have poor ways  and farming is gambling in Mother Nature and ‘s House And the house always wins.

To be sustainable your best bet is to play by her rules. You can try to cheat and use artificial systems to Make it easy but you’re going to pay for that in the end. Might as well get a system that Mother Nature approves of and find a way to live within those means.