Sitting looking out the large bay
window in the back of our trailer home, Sinni, I look at mountains
and mesa, buttes and canyons that are the result of billions of years
of wind and water. The desert landscape is scattered with clumps of
grasses and scraggly shrubs struggling to survive. The scene is
beautiful, made more awesome by the cooperation of cloud and sun
constantly changing the appearance of the land. A distant butte goes
from a solemn dark giant to a shinning monolith of dark chocolate
brown topped with white. It is almost a flashing beacon or sign
saying 'I will not give in. I am strength.'
Looking across the Colorado River at
the massive walls hundreds and hundreds of feet thick cut by the
persistent river I can see layers of time designated by color and
texture. The story of this land lies exposed for all to see. Sadly I
do not yet have the skill to read it but I will try to learn. I will
seek to understand. Even sadder, however, is that so many people,
even those who will admire the land's beauty, will not give a thought
to what it tells us.
The land tells us a great deal. It
teaches us and will guide us if we but stop and listen. We humans are
poor listeners. Perhaps that is because we don't believe that
anything but humans have anything to teach. In a way that is ironic
since we are the newest creature here and have the most to learn.
Perhaps that is why we have made such a mess of everything we get
near.
Sit and watch and listen to the land.
Watch that strange shaped rock at the top of the mesa. Watch it
closely and listen carefully. So many would tell me they head nothing
and saw no change, no movement, no life. That is so far from the
truth. That boulder changed and the sound of the wind attests to
that. It may have lost some of its mass to the wind while you
actually watched. It may have accepted a fine layer of dust from the
wind that was once a part of another rock many miles away. But that
boulder, like all the land, is ever changing. It tells us "even
though I'm a mountain I will not be here forever. I had a birth which
lasted thousands of millennium and I will some day be gone. Only my
story, written in the layers of the land, will tell of my existence.
Yet I will not die. I will always be a part of the land. Only my form
will change."
The rock that changes over billions of
years may not be organic life but it is a part - a vital part - of
the life of this planet. The land is alive. It isn't sentient life
but that does not make it any less alive. Like an animal or a plant,
the land is a complex combination of molecular, atomic and sub-atomic
activity. We can not adequately define life scientifically. Even
philosophy fails. How can we exclude that which shares so much with
us? The more I read quantum physics the more I am convinced that the
magnificent, strong and seemingly indestructible mountains around me
are nothing more or nothing less than a different manifestation of
our oneness. We are both the manifestation of the sum total of
elements that cling together, by forces yet to be understood, flying
through space at an unimaginable speed. Quantum physics is seeing
more and more evidence that even this planet has a oneness with the
universe and what appears as empty space is really quite full.
The land tells me this. Even as I learn
to read its story. Even as deep canyons and giant mountains tell us
about ancient seas, long forgotten creatures, atmospheric change,
bombardment from outer space, continental migration and much more,
it tells us about life. It shows us that time, as commonly understood
by humans, is merely an abstract we use to get to our next
appointment. Time has a very different purpose and definition in
quantum physics which I will not try to relate here. But
the life
around me - the life of which I am one - tells me that human time is
really inconsequential.
As a sentient creature in this
collective life I, unlike my animal sisters and brothers and unlike
the rock and plants around me, can decide whether I am to be a
deadly, destructive cancer cell or a cell with the goal and purpose
of protecting the whole organism - the life of the universe.
The mountains, my kin - a part of my
being, have so much to teach me about patience and endurance. I will
endeavor to watch and listen carefully to the lessons they have for
me.
Plants, many of whom have been killed
by human negligence yet struggle and re-emerge fifty to one-hundred
years latter, have so much to teach me about perseverance. I stand in
awe and hope to learn from them as I struggle to keep my fellow
humans from destroying life on this fragile planet.
All other sentient beings, all of whom
have been a part of this collective life and this world much longer
than humans, have so much to teach us about survival and being a
productive part of nature. I will treat them with respect and love,
and learn from them.
Life is not my personal beginning and
end in this human form. Life is not a collection of organic specimens
which I decide are worthy of existence. Life is the entire planet as
a part of the cosmos, and you and I are called upon to decide
whether we are a cancer or the means of future life.
