when I was young, maybe four or five I remember visiting my best friend Jessie's house. it had a balcony and a back patio with a maple tree.

the tree had tiny delicate red seeds, each with a wing about a centimeter long and they would spin as they fell.

so Jessie and her older sister Sarah and I gathered a bowl, like, a big metal mixing bowl of these seeds. they were delicate and tiny and had to be picked up carefully, one at a time.

we took them up to the balcony and poured them over the railing in a cascade of whirling wings.

when they all landed, they formed a halo like a sun. I was about a meter across, and every seed had landed with its wing pointing outward.

we were astonished

somehow, the seeds communicated with each other through the air. passing through the air they created vortices that influenced each other.

this seemed clearly possible, but what baffled us was: how did they know where the ground was? they were all spinning. how did they have their wings out the moment they landed?

we did this more than once. it was repeatable. we were doing science!

we told the grown-ups about it, but they didn't really seem to appreciate this phenomenon.

they didn't understand why it was so important to us.

this is what an angel is like