Earthrise, Earthset

It is all about- always about- perspective. Our opportunities to see our world, our universe, in a more expansive way than our ancestors did, is a precious gift. For many, it causes an uncomfortable and precarious walk on the narrowing path between mythology and reality.

But that is not to say that mythology is not true! Mythology is always the human response to explaining that which is a Mystery in ways that are comprehensible. We need to make some sense of a thing before we can step toward it. And the tools we have to make sense of anything change over time. It does not mean our eyeballs and imagination were lying to us and the rest of the world when humans comprehended the Earth as a Woman, into which seeds were placed, which grew. That image served its purpose for millennia and  gave rise to the agronomy and biological sciences which feed the world today.

This video of Earth, from the view of a flyover of the Moon, reminds us how easy it would be, living on the Moon, to have a Moon-centric view of the universe, and to regard ourselves, as Moon dwellers, as the center of that universe. That would of course give us a skewed view of Mother Moon and Sister Earth, and cause us to walk sideways and uncertainly into a future which demands that we see ourselves as a “part” of the whole, rather than “on top of” everything else.

(She really is a wonderful world, isn’t She? Oh, yeah.)

Moon and Sea

 George Dmitriev, oil on canvas, 20″X28″, 2005

Since those first moments when human consciousness intersected with having the time necessary to contemplate such questions, “Why are we here?” has been among the first and most frequent questions asked. The question has led to the development of philosophical, religious, and cultural foundations upon which social systems have evolved, educational institutions were begun, and religious wars are still being fought.

It is the question which forms in some combination of metaphoric yearning among sixth graders on their first camp out under the open sky, and at bars and coffee shops in Oxford and Princeton. Theologians search their scriptures for the answer, shamans cast their runes, and scientists by the hundreds are dedicated to its pursuit.. But the question is always new, always a vital part of each person’s cognitive abilities to think abstractly. We ask the question, each of us, in an attempt to discern meaning beyond our own physicality and temporality.

So..Why are we here?

My answer is not a complete answer, but only a tiny part of the Great Musings represented by all of the above-mentioned seekers. My part of the answer is this:

We are here to paint paintings like this one.

Not all of us, of course; not all humans have the talent of Dmitriev, or training in use of the proper materials, or even the particular vision with which to behold such a scene. But each of us, by virtue of our consciousness and our ability to study, reflect, and record our thoughts; each of us are on an assignment from the Universe to do something that has never been done before in our 13.6 billion year history: that is, we must speak for the Universe.

We- humans- are the first ones during the entire existence of the Universe, who have been able to see beyond our immediate environment and ask “Why?” We are the only beings to have had the physiological development, and eventually the inclination, to ask “How?” We are able to wonder, and to communicate that wonder to new generations, and to record in the myriad of ways humans have been able to keep records, of what we are seeing, what we think it might mean, and how we are connected to all of it.

Dmitriev does it that way. I do it this way. Each of us has the gift, the responsibility, to do it some way. Because in doing so, we begin to find ourselves.

 

Beach

“Why do people all over the world flock to the sandy shore? I think it is because the instant they touch the sand, the moment they hear the surf, the evil spirits flee and they feel at home in the world.” (Richard Bode, Beachcombing at Miramar)

The beach calls to the edges of our temporality. It makes blurry those events we call our birth and death. The beach confuses us, and pleasantly so, about what we believe, how we came to believe it, and how those beliefs are determining the ways we live.

This morning’s kelp, after all, has been rolling onto this shore for millennia before there was any human here to perceive it. The gulls have been busy at their finding and eating of sand fleas long, long before there were names for either of them. And the very ground, now between our toes, is a billion year old artifact of volcanic eruptions and the always-rewritten record of teeming shell life beyond our sight.

“Who am I?” becomes one of the questions drawn from us by the beach’s eternal dialogue.

“Who cares?” is one of the liberating answers, if we are listening.

And that answer is not to negate any of us who are clinging to our individualities for definition and meaning. It is, rather, an answer that allows us to begin to transcend ourselves- to see and start to understand our lives in the context of eternity, rather than the prison of time. All that we are seeing at the beach is part of something that came before. It is all still there. The ocean waves of a thousand years ago are no longer seen, but their substance laps at our feet. The shells of 200 million year old ammonites and other crustaceans have been ground into a luxurious, hundred foot pile carpet for us to walk upon, and for the sand fleas to hide within. The wind, born of the ocean and the moon, again and again and again, is the same wind which lifted pterodactyls yesterday, and gulls and pelicans and terns this day.

Watch the piles of kelp over several days, and you’ll see the thin black history of the Earth’s Carboniferous Period leaking into the sand strata beneath them.

It is possible, sitting here at the edge of Life’s beginnings, to- for moments- forget even our names. It is possible, breathing here the salt air of Creation, to feel absolute freedom from our selves.

Sunset

We, looking westward, our backs against the silent wind of the Earth’s 800 mile per hour rotation, see our view of the Sun fading. Through our atmosphere’s fullness, the Sun’s Light is absorbed, reflected, and diffused by all that is dependent on that Light. We watch the Sun, as we spin away from it into darkness, delighted by the visual beauty we behold, perhaps grateful for soon-coming coolness, and readying ourselves, in million year old learned and intrinsic attitudes, to move into the Night.

Yet, even now, beyond that horizon, there is a continuous line of people, standing at the edges of dawn. The Night becomes Day and the Earth is again bathed in Sun’s Light. Everything- every thing that is alive, is renewed by that source of our Life. We will be nourished because of that eight minute journey across space of photons to our food sources, warmth to our world, and light to our living spaces.

It is not merely the Sun “out there;” the Sun is in us. We are of the Sun, children of the Sun in every physical, chemical, and biological nuance of that phrase. We are estuaries of the Sun, each of us- each tree, each leaf of grass, each person, each creature- is a depository of the Sun’s riches, a transformer of those riches into an always new, always sunlit Creation.

Moon

“Because what is simple in the moonlight, by the morning never is..” Bright Eyes, “Lua”

In moonlight, lovers make promises and con men ply their trade. The ancients made sense of the moon’s phases with stories of hungry dragons, and the moon defines almost everything we take for granted about our calendars.

The Moon is our nearest universal neighbor. It is out there- 240,000 miles away; but its presence is deeply, intrinsically a part of each of us, too. Resulting from a cataclysmic crash of an asteroid with the Earth four billion years ago, the gravitational pull of the Moon’s daily revolution around the Earth affects every drop of water on earth. We mechanically speak of and measure the oceans tides; we know their high and low times in any given location. In reality, the movement of the oceans is continuous- a never ending wave that endlessly circles the Earth.

Seas, lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, and even water puddles are also being affected. The movement within smaller bodies of water may seem negligible from a human point of view, yet that movement has affected every part of our genetic being, just as water itself has. The moon is not merely out there; it is wound around us, tied to each cell of our bodies and of every living being.

Even without knowing the physical and genetic hold of the Moon on humans, St.Francis of Assisi properly spoke of and understood intuitively the intimate nature of the Earth-Moon-Life relationship:

“Praised be You my Lord with all Your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
Who is the day through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor,
Of You Most High, he bears the likeness.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.”

Much of the million-year holy, evening-lit relationship between humans and the Moon has been lost within mechanistic worldviews that treat universal bodies as interesting but personally irrelevant parts of some thing outside ourselves. But, be quiet and hear the Moon’s real voice in our heartbeats. Feel the Moon’s allure as our own desires are drawn from us in the soft reflected glow of the Sun’s light from its surface.

The attractions between us and the Moon are real. They are not only the stuff of poetry; they are part of the Universe’s rhythmic symphony within us. And we must, must begin to learn again that we are the choir..

Leave it to The Onion !

The Onion always manages to make a point so well..

Our Grandmother (as a little girl)

 

She looks north, across an African plain, toward the hills which her family will ascend together over the coming weeks.

She waits, by a garden near the Tigris River, as her mother stirs corn soup.

She watches her father’s boat returning through the surf of southeast Asian seas.

She looks back, across the Mediterranean, remembering the place her band once lived.

She sees the faraway bear in the valley near Lascaux.

She watches the sacred fire rise into the Australian sky.

She is our grandmother. She is in us all. Watching still.

“`

photo by Bart Nino, photo.net

Ants, A.D.D., a Chisel, and a Palette

“It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do.” ~Henry David Thoreau

It is almost never about what we are seeing; it is about how we are seeing it. It is always some aspect of our egos which colors that which has stimulated our imaginations.

I cannot pass an ant mound; why does almost no one ever want to squat with me and watch, too? I gave waiting up long ago, and I am no longer disappointed that nobody wants to watch the ants, or the 10,000 wasp maggots in the compost heap chewing through yesterday’s garbage. I used to think my desire to sit and watch diversions like those was an affliction, an ADDled ability to concentrate. That self perception of myself as never-endingly immature and unable to focus was reinforced a hundred times by teachers, K through 12, from whom I heard the refrains, “Dave, stop talking,” or “David, stop drawing pictures and listen,” or “Mr. Weber, would you please share with the class what it is that you find so interesting outside?” And the answer would always have to be a moving tree limb, or a bird, or the clouds, so I would inevitably answer, “Nothing, sorry.”

Had I been able to concentrate while geometry was being taught or while titration levels (whatever those are!) were being established in chemistry class, I might have moved on with some of those socio-economically identical classmates who became doctors, builders, and bankers. Instead, I became a guy who, at the age of 50, was still watching tree limbs and wasp maggots, and feeling guilty about it.

Within the context of another psychological crisis, I was blessed with a counselor who, when I whined to her about being different and disappointed in being so, had the insight to answer, “So what?”

“If you were punished by a teacher for being left-handed as a child”, she asked, “would you curse your genetics or tell the teacher to screw himself?” (She knew how to appeal to me!)

“I would hope I would fight back,” I answered.

“There’s your answer. ADD wasn’t a choice you made, it was the gift you were given.”

And thus the lights went on for me. And have gotten brighter ever since. The block of marble that hung in front of my eyes and impeded my view of everything, was what needed carving. The blobs of black and white paints, put on my palette at an early age by others, and which I was convinced were the true colors with which the world needed to be painted by me, even though I didn’t want to and had no talent for doing so, needed to be spilled and replaced with the cacophony of colors pouring in abundance through my mind at any given moment.

I learned how to see, not what to see. How was under my control. What was under the control of others. And, screw them!!!

I had been watching the ants, the maggots, the tree limbs, and the clouds (I began to understand after that day of liberation) because they were here first- and I had always known, without having the language to say it, that there was something to learn from them! Every single one of those “diversions” are now part of what I am writing here, and talking about with others all the time. And they make a difference in the lives of people I’m with, and in myself, in ways they never could if I tried to talk about the process of titration, instead.

If y’knowwhatI’msayin here, then I invite you to do some carving and painting of your own. It is your gift to be able to do that. The ants have been waiting for you to listen..

As humans we are born of the Earth, nourished by the Earth, healed by the Earth. The natural world tells us: I will feed you, I will clothe you, I will shelter you, I will heal you. Only do not so devour me or use me that you destroy my capacity to mediate the divine and the human. For I offer you a communion with the divine. I offer you gifts that you can exchange with each other.  I offer you flowers whereby you may express your reverence for the divine and your love for each other.

~Thomas Berry, “Evening Thoughts”, EarthLight Library

The Earth is on Fire

There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire, out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Exodus 3:2

There are those who relegate such a vision as Moses’ to antiquity, to a time when divine interaction with humans was more common, or, at least, recorded in an authoritative way.

But look! Look at the fiery magentas and yellows of a wildflower field. Look at the heated golden exultation of a hill covered with daffodils. Look at the simmering blue-green glow of lilacs, iris, and lavender. Eight minutes ago, the photons which are being absorbed by the leaves of those flowers, left the surface of the Sun, and are now fueling the photosynthetic furnaces within each cell of each leaf of each plant on Earth. The Earth, and every single bush nurtured by the Earth, is burning! Brightly!

   

And rising from each of those cellular fires is oxygen, the sustaining smoke of our lives! We breathe, and we breathe the Sun. We breathe, and we breathe the Oceans which last week rose to the atmosphere in great gathered collections of evaporated water molecules, to drift and be driven by the wind; to become heavy and fall as rain; to be touched and held and raised again by the roots and phloem of those flowering plants. We breathe, and we breathe the Starstuff of billion year ago asteroids, ground to dust over time and now feeding their mineral nutrients, too, to the floral flames.

It is not that miracles are no longer! It is, rather, that there are too many to see!