by NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring
In the belly of the furnace of creativity is a sexual fire; the flames twine about each other in fear and delight. The same sort of coiling, at a cooler, slower pace, is what the life of this planet looks like. The enormous spirals of typhoons, the twists and turns of mountain ranges and gorges, the waves and the deep ocean currents – a dragonlike writhing.
~ Gary Snyder
(A Place in Space)
Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have a clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.
~ J. R. R. Tolkien
(The Return of the King)
Contemplating the lace-like fabric of streams outspread over the mountains, we are reminded that everything is flowing — going somewhere, animals and so-called lifeless rocks as well as water. Thus the snow flows fast or slow in grand beauty-making glaciers and avalanches; the air in majestic floods carrying minerals, plant leaves, seeds, spores, with streams of music and fragrance; water streams carrying rocks both in solution and in the form of mud particles, sand, pebbles, and boulders. Rocks flow from volcanoes like water from springs, and animals flock together and flow in currents modified by stepping, leaping, gliding, flying, swimming, etc. While the stars go streaming through space pulsed on and on forever like blood globules in Nature’s warm heart.
~ John Muir
(Meditations of John Muir: Nature’s Temple)
Happy Earth Day!
Wonderful tribute to Mother Earth and Earth Day! Which in reality is everyday ! Have you told your Mother you love her today!
Thank you, Jeff! Every day I consider my special planet, sometimes awestruck by what a tiny blue spaceship she is, carrying us safely through the vastness of space.
Barbara – I echo Jeff’s sentiments. This post is a wonderful tribute to Mother Earth.
Thank you, Laurie! Our planet is so full of life, all sustained by gifts from our dear living Mother.
I was just reading how ever since an astronaut went into orbit and took a photograph of the earth, people were suddenly newly sensitized to their relationship to our world. Seeing the earth from space created a more intelligent framework to view themselves and started several Earth Day movements. It really is a “small, small world.”
I remember reading something similar not too long ago, Monica. There was definitely a shift in human consciousness the first time we saw our planet from space – before then we could only imagine what Earth looked like from a man-made globe. As Carl Sagan observed, we could finally see that we are truly “a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
Happy Earth Day, Barbara. What a lovely post to honor our Mother. Pondering that dragon-like writhing both in/on the Earth and inside ourselves. The movement of the creative fire as it sparks and smolders and burns…
Thank you, Kathy! It’s true, we are so like our Mother Earth, alive and full of creative energy. Even things like rocks and continents that appear ageless and solid and permanent are not really. They are evolving, flowing, writhing, too.
Boy, Tolkein sure hit the nail on the head: ” What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.” It seems we are “ruling” it: and doing a terrible job of it. I used to be proud of Canada’s environmental reputation — not any more.
You have me wondering, Sybil, what has changed in Canada recently that has caused you to feel dismayed?
We are definitely usurping the power future generations should have inherited, to have a clean earth to till. I like how Tolkien says it is not our part to master all the tides of the world – it seems in harmony with the eat locally mindset. If we could master and cultivate our own parts of the world it would be a huge benefit for the whole earth.