Dear friends and family,
I hope your 2018 is off to a good start and that you have enjoyed (and survived) the holidays :) I've been feeling a lot of gratitude recently due to the single digit temperatures we are currently experiencing. I'm so grateful for electricity and central heat. I feel so warm in my house that I just feel blessed, as well as deep compassion for those who are not as warm and comfortable. I'm also in awe of those who lived through tough winters long before the modern conveniences of home life. I can only imagine the effort it took, heating with wood in drafty log homes with no running water or electricity. I'm warm, comfortable and grateful, and I hope where ever you are you are as well :) This leads me to my latest blog post on Mother Nature. I hope you enjoy.
Happy new year!
Almost all of the things you see and touch everyday come up out of our magical Earth. In fact, I can’t think of anything that did not originate in this planet. Humans have developed this uncanny ability to extract things from the ground and create an unimaginable array of objects. We have learned through modern technology how to take minerals from the dirt and manufacture wonderous things, even generate electricity. I find myself thinking about this sort of thing regularly and it has built up a sense of awe and appreciation for even the most mundane things. I look around and I see the miraculous existence of all things and recognize that everything is brought to us by Nature, then feel the gratitude for its gifts. This is why I would like to invite you to spend a little time and attention contemplating the sacredness of all things.
First, think about how much metal goes into making cars. How many thousands of pounds make up a car or truck? Think about how many cars there are on the highway near you on any given day. There are thousands of cars traveling down the interstate near me on a daily basis, and I live in a relatively small town (i.e. a speck of dust in a planet full of small towns and major cities). So how many cars are there in the world? If you Google that you’ll see that there are well over a billion. Now, think about how they were all made of metal that has been mined from the Earth, then melted, molded and put together in intricate ways. Not just metal, but also the fossil fuels that go into making plastic and rubber, and the minerals that go into making the glass. The natural resources that go into making a car is mind boggling, much less a billion of them.
Pick anything at random and consider where it came from and just how much was needed to make it. For example, think about how many trees it takes to build a house, or an apartment building. How much sand is needed to build a single bridge or make a house full of windows? What about the fabric in your clothes and furniture? Your dishes, your furnishings, your toiletries, your computer, your book, your phone. It all originates in this beautiful Earth and is mass produced by its brilliant inhabitants. I invite you to look around at something, anything, and recognize it as a gift from our planet, brought to you by the ingenuity of human beings just like you.
I just want to say, “Thank you, Mother Earth.” You are like the giving tree, always allowing us to enjoy your living breathing body 😊 And to my fellow planet-mates, thank you for being a crucial part of what makes society work as well as it does.
Much love,
Trey
