Dr. Jane Goodall

This week every day, I am going to share a little bit of what I left with after hearing Dr. Jane Goodall speak last week Thursday. I am mesmerized by people's hands, and especially the hands of people that have worked very hard using their hands and the hands of seniors.... I am mesmerized by the fragility of their fingers, their skin, their withered bones, the length of their palm, their fingers, and the manner in which they speak using their hands.... I am sure its just me, but that's the first thing I noticed about Dr. Jane. I can not describe in words the energy she brought to the auditorium, when she carefully, yet strongly carried herself to the podium. She lay the palm of her hands on the top of the podium, and you could see her knuckles raised and her long fingers delicately hang off the side off the podium as she greeted everyone in her so famous greeting style of a Chimp saying hello from afar. She started off by sharing her story of how Dr. Jane became, one day as a little girl only 18 months old her mother found her in bed with a hand full of earthworms. Her mother, she said, "instead of scolding me for this, simply said.... Jane, if you keep these earthworms here with you, they will die, they need soil to survive..." For a brief moment I was lost.... reflecting upon my own experience as a child when I was around 2-3 years of age, and I brought home a lady bug that I had found in school. I had him in a cup, and snuck him home, and at night I put the cup by my bed, thinking the lady bug would be in there when I woke up. My mum came to check on me before going to bed herself, and she noticed the cup... she knelt down by my bed and said, what is that... I remembered being really scared to tell her. I told her it was a lady bug I found in school... and I clearly remember her telling me, it looked really small to survive on its own. She told me the lady bug needed its mum and dad to survive as it was very young... kind of like me... and that I needed to take it back to its parents. I was so sad, and I cried so much because I felt so bad for being so selfish, I wanted to go that moment to take it back to its parents. The next day I release him back, exactly where I found him, and cried because his parents were nowhere to be found. I never picked up an bug or animal from that day on... I watched them from afar... until I was done and then left them at peace. Dr. Jane's message was simple. She said, her life could have been very different because of her family's financial circumstances. But, had it not been for her mother, who never got upset with her, and always helped her understand her curiosity, or share with her what she found that day... she would not be the scientist she is today. Her curiosity would have been killed, and she would not be as determined as she is to seek, learn and know. Curiosity is built in us, as children we are not seeking "yes" or "no" answers, we are seeking reasons. Many times its easier to hide, lie or avoid, but its ramifications are huge! We are raising a world that is disconnected from its heart... where brain and heart don't think hand in hand. Dr. Jane Goodall said "there is devastation when ones brain and heart are not connected."