Editorial - Chaos

Hello, Dear Reader, and welcome to Issue 21 of Consilience.

This issue is devoted to exploring the theme of waves.

Waves are ubiquitous in nature, in life. From the spectrum of electromagnetic waves to global Rossby waves in the atmosphere, from waves in the ocean to gravitational waves traversing the universe, we are surrounded by and immersed in waves.

As usual, our contributors from all over the world have interpreted waves in a myriad of ways, from waves in the cycles of life to waves in the life of a city. The contributors represent every region of the globe, but it is not surprising that islands, such as Australia, England, Ireland, New Zealand, and Scotland, and coastal regions are prominently present, especially southwestern Canada, the Pacific Northwest of the USA, and coastal areas of Europe.

From the wonderful cover photograph, “Mutable Surface”, by Laura Perry to the “excerpt from Variations on the Strait of Juan de Fuca”, a segment of an epic poem in progress by Zoe Dickinson, the submissions covered the spectrum (pun intended). Most of the poems used ocean waves, from Dickinson’s poem on the interactions of tides, waves, and the shore, to oceans for healing (“First Aid”), water waves internalized (“Gathering Water-Wave Theory”), sound in water (“Parsing Ocean”, “Oval Window”, “The Space for which I travel”), climate change (“The Oar Intervenes”), and ocean waves in general (“The Great Wave”, “Wave Energy”, “Whales”). Biological and social waves also feature, like the rhythms of a city (“Drift Theory”), the rhythms of growth (“Backbone”), and the cycles of grief (“My Father as Wave”, “Particle of Wave, a Quantum Theory of Grief”). Topographic tectonic waves (“Waves in Stone”), waves in light (“Tyrannical Light”, “Solar Maxima”), and chemical structures as waves (“Such Tiny”) round out the poetic side of this Waves issue.

The art works similarly range from water waves (Perry’s cover photograph) to brain waves (appropriately titled), light waves (“Harvesting Light”), topographic waves (“Relief as Light”), and of course music as waves and symbolism (“Wave in First Person”).

We hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as we did reading the submissions and putting it all together. Come ride the waves of change, life, and grief with us..

The Consilience Team