Happy Earth Day!
Rain, sunshine, rainbows
Lakes, rivers, oceans
Cranes, wrens, blackbirds
Elephants, horses, leopards
Willows, pines, maples
Hydrangeas, lilies, roses
Snails, caterpillars, worms
Dogs, cats, monkeys
Whales, manta rays, dumbo octopi
Kelp, seagrass, phytoplankton
Mountains, knolls, ridges
Valleys, trenches, canyons
Snow, sand, silt
Mud, marsh, quicksand
All blanketed in our beautiful atmosphere
We can either breathe it all in or not think of it at all
It isn’t a very good poem. But it made me think of something my friend once told me when I lamented the state of our beautiful Earth. “The Earth will be fine. The only question is whether we will be fine on Earth.”
Wise words from a wise soul.
Earth will be fine!
I thought of that the other day as the son & I meandered around the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. It really is a marvelous museum. We found ourselves going twice to the Oceans section – The Sant Ocean Hall. There was one particular exhibit showing the range and number of species prior to The Great Dying, and after it all.
I cannot imagine the work that went into designing an exhibit like that. The number of geologists, naturalists, biologists, scientists: and then, the scientific accuracy, the research papers, the peer review. But I stood there taking it in, and really did want to go back to the time before the Great Dying. To see the different kinds of life in the oceans, the sheer enormity of it all compared to what we have now.
To think we live in a time of less than 1/4 the diversity and abundance of life, and it is still so beautiful. I realize human-beings could not have been there – we needed to find our place in the evolutionary queue, and all that. But if there was a way to get a peek, I would take it. Even if just a simulation. How do you simulate more jellyfish varieties, more squid varieties.
Even The Most Imaginative
I remember one interview I watched of J K Rowling a while ago, in which she attempted to create a new mythical creature, and found after all her thinking, that the creature resembled our planet’s manta rays. Our human imagination, even from arguably one of the most imaginative person on the planet, is still limited. That is the vast expansive nature of the diversity on this Earth.
To think that Earth bounced back from an event like The Great Dying, and is thriving now, is remarkable. To think one species (us) is capable of wreaking havoc on a planet as resilient and marvelous as Earth is also something to think about.
https://ocean.si.edu/through-time/ocean-through-time
It is also amazing to realize that we are but a blip on the planet’s life. All our problems, our wars, our angsts – every thing that means so much to us, is but a blip. We rarely stop to think if what is bothering us now would be a problem for us next week, next year, next decade. Does Earth stop to think whether we will be a problem a few centuries from now, a few millennia, a few eras, a few eons?
It is our beautiful Earth Day, and I am grateful for the rainy day, the sun’s watery rays afterward, and the slowly forming into a sharp and exquisite rainbow.
Nourish-n-Cherish 