Peaceful Earth
In the midst of all the war-mongering and depressing news, the images of our beautiful Earth sent from the Artemis missions has been such a joy. Yes – we have all seen photographs of Earth before -a fact that we seem to so easily take for granted. A hundred years ago, round Earth was a concept for people, not something with photographic evidence. The fact that the Earth is round may be something that whales and migratory birds know innately, but they have never seen the picture of their home beamed to them showing all the beautiful colors it is made up of.
– This image or video was catalogued by Johnson Space Center of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under Photo ID: art002e000192.
In contrast, I saw a documentary with pictures of the storms on Saturns. The video zoomed into the rings that look so beautiful, and explained the violence that created them in the first place. Jupiter’s storms are bigger than our planet, forever raging, forever swirling.
Why Saturn is The Scariest Planet (It’s Not Peaceful)
Then, we see Earth – its storms metaphorically Saturnian and Jupiterian thanks to political systems the world over, but peaceful looking otherwise. A reminder for what we need to persevere for, and preserve.
The Demons Within
I remember the son & I chatting about space travel in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. We had been there after the Holocaust Museum, and I was feeling philosophical: “How could the very species capable of such cruelty also be capable of discovering exoplanets, and work towards energy conservation initiatives such as solar and hydrogen powered solar systems?”
The son looked thoughtful. “You know – sometimes these things are not just in a species – it is in one person. There was this person called Werner von Braun. He was on the team that built the Saturn 5 spacecraft. He was a Nazi and he was not given punishment for his war crimes if he could do this – help NASA build the spacecraft. Did he feel bad? I don’t know.”
I was intrigued. So, I came home and looked him up.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/chasing-moon-wernher-von-braun-and-nazis/
Of course, he tried to distance himself from the Nazis claiming to simply be a scientist who would have worked for anyone willing to let him work on machines and space probes. But it wasn’t so. He was an active member of the SS, and when he made references to the concentration camps, it was in vague terms – so he could feign if not ignorance, at least only faint knowledge. But this too was wrong.
His reputation did not exactly come out till after his death when another SS officer decided to pull him down too.
The Moralities of our Lives
The moralities of our lives are shaped early but constantly being questioned. Most of us lead lives of modest impact, and our ability to act, or the failure thereof, usually has impact on few people. However, in dystopian times, both the desire to act and the restraint from acting can both have disastrous consequences, and are somehow more impactful.
We are living in strange times- I hope it is not as dire as the ones that led to the World Wars, but the technology and warfare we have at our disposal now makes the impact multifold.
What will the judgement be when history looks back at this period in American and World History? I can almost hear the professorial tones in the books: “This was the beautiful planet they had. They let it slide and be destroyed …”
This Beautiful Earth
All I can think of is, there is a reason the images of our beautiful Earth are being beamed back to us and are surfacing in our public consciousness at this point in time. It is a reminder that we have a duty to perform. Protect a planet from us.
– This image or video was catalogued by Johnson Space Center of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under Photo ID: art002e000192.
So, what do we say ‘Yes’ to? What do we say ‘No’ to? Finally, how to make it matter?
Nourish-n-Cherish 