The courage of planet Earth

Saturday, January 12, 2008

By Brooke Williams

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-The snowstorms accompanying the first week of the New Year have made me feel justified spending an unusual amount of time sitting in a soft chair with a cup of tea. I’ve been taking notes about the future and I’m nearly finished watching “Planet Earth,” the five-part BBC feature now available on DVD.

Over the years, I’ve grown wary of ‘nature films,’ but “Planet Earth” redefines the genre. I can’t imagine even observing the scenes depicted in this series, let alone what it takes to get such phenomenal footage on film: Great White Sharks catching seals, wild dogs hunting in formation, a million bats and a billion cicadas. The Earth is the great spectacle of color, form and consciousness.

In one scene, a mother Mandarin duck emerges from the nest she has made in a tree hole 20’ above the ground. She flies out, landing on the ground. One by one, her day-old chicks leap from the nest, madly flapping their new but useless wings before crashing onto a pile of old leaves. What courage, I think. Then I catch myself. Doesn’t courage involve making a choice, going against what seems prudent, facing personal danger in search of higher meaning or in the service of a higher cause? Courage does not drive the Mandarin chicks; they were driven by the desire of their genes to survive, by the force of life. 

Why are our lives so complicated, so full of complex choices? Somehow we’ve distanced ourselves from the knowledge that we still have a role in our own survival, and in the survival of our species. We take it for granted, assuming that it’s been taken care of and guaranteed.  The issues that demand most of our attention are personal. How do I feel? How am I being treated? How meaningful is my life and what Jackwill make it more so? We like routine and we like to know what will happen next. We constantly plan the future.

The force of life is still active in us. Our hearts beat one 100,000 times a day, every day of our lives. We barely notice. We forget that we’re all involved in a collective struggle to pass life onto the future. And now, perhaps for the first time in the history of our species, we are conscious of the role we’re playing in the deterioration of our ‘habitat’ and, therefore, in determining the length of our own future.

How can I launch myself out beyond what is personal and focus more on being a part of all life? How can I tap into that same life force that somehow, mysteriously knows that snow geese will lay enough eggs to insure their continued survival, but also the survival of the Arctic fox?

If we could tap into this same force, perhaps our personal issues, plans and routines would seem less important. We could continue to perform what seem to be courageous acts simply because they need to be done - all of us leaping from our nest in a high hole, not worrying if we could fly.
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The courage of planet Earth | Planet JH News Article: Left Wing Local

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