Exploring our Sameness

        Spring has come to the mountains, and that prompts ideas.

     Do you think we can tolerate a few more? Especially about race?      

    

    Splendid revival is underway in the western Sierra. New life buds and blooms, rivers are swift, despite a low snow pack, and the Red Bud trees are painting the mountains.

    Warnings were posted about the cold and dangerous currents, but riparian life is thriving.  

 Kaweah river, Three Rivers California 

Kaweah river Sequoia National Park

    Some ideas are simple, but in the mountains they seem more grand, at least to this scribe. 

    Could we begin to "solve" racism, or even awaken ourselves to how deep and systemic it is, if we elevated our view? 

    If we could manage a cosmic perspective, seeing planet earth from a vast distance, would it have an ameliorative impact? 

        If we had the capacity to see our blue and mostly water planet in the context of a milieu that embraced galaxies, even rich with life, would we see life here, differently? 

    For the sake of this post, assume life exists in some form elsewhere in the known and unknown reaches of all creation.

   How would we think about each other down here, if "we" realized how same and alike we are, compared to another life form from out there?

        Do you think we can or should be trusted in space bustling with life, or might we disdain that not like us, be it any image of an "alien" you can imagine? And see, right here from the start, we have this problem of calling it or them or they, an "alien." Alien connotes something other than relationship.

         If you are a person of faith and discover there is indeed life, then do you have any other choice than to recognize a spiritual kinship with that life, also a product of the forces of creation. C.S. Lewis nailed the idea when he said,  "Our loyalty is not due our species, but rather our God."

    

         So with that as a frame, could we not better see how much alike we truly are, down here on planet earth as we travel the highway of life? 

    I've driven these roads in Sequoia but never before when the Red Buds were blooming. Another cosmic treat.

        Be kind to each other. Offer hospitality to strangers.

        See you down the trail.

DESPITE THE CLIMATE DIVIDE--NOT WHAT IT SEEMS--DIVINE COLOR?

Warning-this post includes notes on climate science.
TREES AS ART

    Cambria artist Bruce Marchese said he was experimenting with an abstract work. Bruce is best known for his rich color and realistic capture of people and scenes so I was intrigued. His vivid abstract piece now hangs at the Art Center. It's a brilliant representation of Eucalyptus bark. I see why he was so captivated.

    These Eucalyptus stand in a grove at San Simeon state park. They have competition in the color department though.

    This living abstract is the peeling bark of a Madrone.

   Hey Bruce, if you have success with the Eucalyptus you might consider the Madrone as your next model!

NEW WORRIES IN CLIMATE CHANGE

   This grand citizen of planet earth is one of the largest living things and one of the oldest.

     The only place in the world where you find these 2,000 to 3,000 year Sequoias is in the Sierra Nevada. Jim Robbins of the New York Times has published an article linked here that details the concern of biologists that climate change, especially longer or more frequent droughts, may peril the existence of these masters of the mountains.

    Sequoias, a type of redwood, have no disease or insect enemies and they can survive fire, but they need water, either in rain or snow melt.

    I've pondered if there isn't a message in this for humankind. Could there be something in the bark or essence of the largest and oldest living things on earth that could provide a molecular blessing?  Disease free, survive fire? What other living thing has such a resume?

    There is something else to these living spires. I am never  in a redwood forest or among the Sequoias that I don't sense a palpable spirit. Yes, there are differences on questions of the Divine, spirituality and faith, the degree and nature of climate change, but there can be no dissent on the overwhelming awesomeness of the power and survivability of the big trees. I think of them as the planet's silent sentries. What wisdom do they hold?

 See you down the trail.