“No one can save a person from his or her thoughts and deeds except oneself. We can reach for particles of light to escape our dark chambers or continue to live with an inky soul. We make the choices that become our destiny.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Behind door number 76, the sun, struggling to shine…
Behind door number 56, a planet, one without form and void…
Behind door number 37, a thriving, lush, beautiful, and balanced world full of Hope…
Behind door number 29, a dying planet, struggling to stay alive, with scattered wilted shrubs, waiting for the inevitable gust of wind to rip them from the ground and carry them off to barrenness…
From where I float, I see everything: the desolate, the lush, the dry, the wet, the good, the bad, and the ugly. The balanced, unbalanced, and all in between, I see it. Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that as much as it is important to observe ones environment, self-analysis is most essential.
Have you ever visited a well-maintained city park? It’s not the wilderness, not the Serengeti, or Kruger, or even Ngorongoro where things just grow. And even there, a balance is maintained, somehow. In the city parks, there’s weeding, trimming, and pruning of trees and shrubs, plus mowing of the lawn and so on. And this is just what you can see. There’s a load of stuff going on behind the curtains. Worms in the soil aerating it, flies pollinating flowers, ants and birds helping with the biodiversity of the ecosystem, etc.
As long as the balance is maintained, the beauty is dazzling. Birds chirp, flowers bloom, trees grow, children play, animals live, the wheel of life keeps on turning. From the dust, we come forth, live, and to the dust, we shall return.
A well balanced environment with its Vegetation offers pieces of serenity in the middle of concrete jungles; I get to experience green heavens amid stony urban hells. All this took the sweat and toil of important players and the grounded support and nurture from Mother Earth’s bosom.
Beauty, tranquility, resilience, or devastation, bleakness or death, and their spread or not, do not occur in a vacuum. They are designed to happen. It may be defined as planned or accidental, but the efforts of the different players necessitate the coming to realization of whatever that outcome may be.
Sometimes I ask myself from this far off, do I really make a difference? Then I experience her stretched arms, reaching for my warmth, grounded in her Mother’s strength and those around her. And so far, from where I am, the beauty of the green is dazzling, the twining of the creepers, creative, the sturdiness of the trunks, firm, the spread of the grass, thick and vast, and all this balance and much more, unmistakable.
Ever wonder how it would sound if we’d be saying, “Father Earth”? The words can hardly roll off my tongue. It’s like something is off. Maybe men would be the feminine gender? Giving birth, having breasts, no beards, soft voices, wide hips… It would have been something, wouldn’t it? But it isn’t, life is as we know it and the Earth is Mother. Thank God!
She’s been around for billions of years and since the beginning of time, she has shown her strength, her resilience, her kindness, her nurture, her caring and provision, and yes, in all this, her beauty as well in its various forms. In the most desolate of environments, Mother Earth still has been able to bring forth and sustain life. Hot deserts, cold ones, in the depths of the waters and the summits of mountains, there is life in one form or another. Despite man’s meddling in the normal order of things, trying and testing her to her limits, Mother Earth has still been able to claw her way back. And she has come back again, and again, and again, countless number of times. She has prevailed and her orbit is steady.
But we must never take her spirit for granted. We must never allow for the light of her beauty, strength, and nurture to be extinguished. It may dim, but we cannot allow for it to go off.
In this intricate web called life, Mother Earth sustains legions of what I’d call her inhabitants. A myriad of cells: living, non-living, simple, complex, and others unknown. All held in her loving bosom. Foxes, the Maji-Maji Rebellion, elephants, atomic bombs, snakes, lions, Al-Qaeda, factories, monkeys, rats, trees, ants, humans, and whatever else he can come up with or discover (the list is endless).
Then I come in – The Sun.
My destiny to an extent can be defined by this mix of organisms. I don’t just shine because I was meant to. Yes, that is part of it, but the web is an intricate one of different acts that define who and what I am. Who and what others are. Definition is liquid and dependant on community as much as it does depend on self. All have the potential to be everything, something and nothing, be it the right thing or the wrong thing. It might have begun at door 56. Lasted there for a few seasons (or many) and then moved on to door 76, then 37, then door 29, and who knows in the future, door 76 might be re-opened or any other door for that matter. The doors and what lies behind them, only the person opening will be able to tell and define what they will be.
So, if definition is liquid, are we then wholly relegating the Sun’s desires, to the efforts or influences of others? I don’t think so, it wouldn’t be fair. As the Sun, I have my own will, purpose, and determination. It may feel restraining in the continual questioning of my potential despite being up there with the stars. Sometimes I do not see the endless possibilities, being a star myself. But part of the universe closest to me keeps reminding me of my capacity to achieve. The everyday warmth and light shed on all. Someone wise once said, it is borderline stupidity for one to shoot themselves even before taking hold of the gun. Then there’s confirming if the gun has bullets, and is one really willing to go through with it? There’s a whole load of psychological factors to consider and not just for the shooter, there’s those who will be left behind… but I’m losing track and I believe you get the point, if not, I will pray for you…
Moving forward, the balance is at times thrown off. Rapid deforestation, racism, poaching of wild animals, the negative effects of rapid industrialization, human inequality, corruption, war and destruction, and the list goes on. All these issues in some way contribute to how the Sun shines, how the Vegetation grows, how Mother Earth sustains that growth, the ones around them all, and their interrelation.
Like I said, intricate web of life…
In the door I am currently through, Mother Earth is providing the healthy ground with which Vegetation can and is growing lush and thriving. There is a balance with the rest of life; the intricate yet delicate web is being sustained, despite ups and downs. I, although being centered 149.6 million kilometers away, still keep shining my light as Hope grows. The beauty is dazzling and I would love to keep it that way…
The goings-on behind other doors may not be similar. The Sun behind some doors is dead or constantly blocked by a thick mist or cloud of darkness. No light reaches the Earth and its Vegetation. Some soils do not have the capability of sustaining Vegetation, despite the flora struggling to grow; the overall factors cannot facilitate life. There are many doors with different scenarios and possibilities behind them. You could be the Sun, Saturn, Vegetation, Pluto, Rocks or Boulders, Earth, the range is wide. But whatever it is that you define yourself as, be the best, and remember that man is not an island.
“I believe that the community – in the fullest sense: a place and all its creatures – is the smallest unit of health and that to speak of the health of an isolated individual is a contradiction in terms.”
— Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays
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