‘You think these raindrops are random?’ his uncle had
asked. And Leaphorn had been surprised. He’d said of
course they were random. Didn’t his uncle think they
were random?
‘The stars,’ Haskie Jim said. ‘We have a legend about
how First Man and First Woman, over by Huerfano
Mesa, had the stars in their blanket and were placing
them carefully in the sky. And then Coyote grabbed
the blanket and whirled it around and flung them into
the darkness and that is how the Milky Way was
formed. Thus order in the sky became chaos. Random.
But even then . . . Even then, what Coyote did was evil,
but was there not a pattern, too, in the evil deed?’
That had not been the time in Leaphorn’s life when
he had patience for the old metaphysics. He remembered telling Haskie Jim about modern astronomy and
the cosmic mechanics of gravity and velocity.
Leaphorn had said something like ‘Even so, you
couldn’t expect to find anything except randomness
in the way the rain fell.’ And Haskie Jim had watched
the rain awhile, silently. And then he had said, and Joe
Leaphorn still remembered not just the words but the
old man’s face when he said them: ‘I think from where
we stand the rain seems random. If we could stand
somewhere else, we would see the order in it.’
(Hillerman, 1990, pp. 213–14.)
Chapter 2
Structural mapping techniques and tools
Structural geologists use a GPS receiver to determine the
UTM coordinates of the point under their feet on this
outcrop of Aztec sandstone in the Valley of Fire, NV.
Photograph by D. D. Pollard.
asked. And Leaphorn had been surprised. He’d said of
course they were random. Didn’t his uncle think they
were random?
‘The stars,’ Haskie Jim said. ‘We have a legend about
how First Man and First Woman, over by Huerfano
Mesa, had the stars in their blanket and were placing
them carefully in the sky. And then Coyote grabbed
the blanket and whirled it around and flung them into
the darkness and that is how the Milky Way was
formed. Thus order in the sky became chaos. Random.
But even then . . . Even then, what Coyote did was evil,
but was there not a pattern, too, in the evil deed?’
That had not been the time in Leaphorn’s life when
he had patience for the old metaphysics. He remembered telling Haskie Jim about modern astronomy and
the cosmic mechanics of gravity and velocity.
Leaphorn had said something like ‘Even so, you
couldn’t expect to find anything except randomness
in the way the rain fell.’ And Haskie Jim had watched
the rain awhile, silently. And then he had said, and Joe
Leaphorn still remembered not just the words but the
old man’s face when he said them: ‘I think from where
we stand the rain seems random. If we could stand
somewhere else, we would see the order in it.’
(Hillerman, 1990, pp. 213–14.)
Chapter 2
Structural mapping techniques and tools
Structural geologists use a GPS receiver to determine the
UTM coordinates of the point under their feet on this
outcrop of Aztec sandstone in the Valley of Fire, NV.
Photograph by D. D. Pollard.