Octet Rule

I am not good at chemistry nor science and math. Most of my comprehension about the nature of reality appears to involve a world beyond physical objects. That is not to suggest that we are not real because we do feel. For me the right to claim existence is very important.

But whether or not “nature” and/or our concept of nature, responds to us, I don’t know. During a chemistry class the instructor was going over the “octet rule” [the theory that atoms tend to have eight electrons in their valence shell]. This must have been February 10, 1983.

I had already started and completed a sonnet with names of countries and people and was more or less finding out if the process had something to do with the octet rule. I started to write,  “Share on Share own Sharon Octet Rule.” (See “Thinking Earth Sonnet.”)

On February 11, 1983, the newspaper headlines announced that Israeli politician Ariel Sharon had resigned from a position. His name plays a part in the sonnet as well, in a “sharing of heaving and earth” theme.

But as if the physical reality were to mimic the same theme, later Sharon becomes a minister of construction and housings overseeing a comprehensive expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  This is an ironic twist in the “sharing” element.