The Darkest Day

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_102.html

We are quickly approaching that time of year again.  And, no, I don't mean the time of year that involves elves in red suits, flying reindeer, nativity scenes, bell ringers or carols.  I mean the time of year when the terra firma that we stand on every single day is angled as far away from the sun (or toward it if you are below the equator) as it will be for the entire year.  The day is as dark as it will be for this year's race around the sun. 

Every day, whether we think of it or not, we are cruising through space at a fairly consistent pace of roughly 67,062 miles per hour, not to mention that the Earth itself is rotating at the same time at roughly 1100 miles per hour (this, of course, depends upon your particular latitude, but for middle America, it is roughly 1100 miles per hour).  Taking those two speeds and revolutions into consideration suddenly makes even the wildest rides at the amusement park seem like child's play.

Now, add in the fact that it has all been going on for approximately 4.5 billion years without significant change or alterations and I find myself standing outside at night looking at the stars with  my mouth agape in complete amazement.  The concept of time is completely lost on humans.  We have no grasp of what billions of years means.  One year?.... yeah, that's understandable.  Ten years?....well, most of us can look back that far and, ironically most of the time we say something like, "Wow! Where did all that time go?"  or "If only I knew then what I know now."  Fifty years? ....We see marriages that have lasted that long and, if you are like me, you say "I wonder how they did it?"  A hundred years?.....This is about the level that humans can reasonably be expected to comprehend on a personal level.  Beyond this point, it becomes antiquity, mystery, mythical.  We may know stories and have a few artifacts, but we really have absolutely no physical idea of how life was several hundreds of years ago much less 4 billion.  I would even hazard to say that the average person, if tossed back in time a few hundred years, would not have the first clue about how to survive using only their wits and the tools afforded them by the Earth itself.  The learning curve in the wild is pretty ruthless.

We, as humans, have lost touch with the Earth.  Oh, we use it daily - we drag coal and oil out of its depths and we haul the fish from its sea and crowd cows, chickens and pigs into insanely small spaces and force the Earth to grow crops that we then rob for our own uses.  We get the Earth to do our bidding and then we all happily go home to our houses, warmed during these cold, dark months with all the oil and coal, turn on our televisions to yet another ridiculous reality show, eat our overly processed, artificially raised food, and then go to bed so we can do it all again the next day. 

Pretty depressing, isn't it?  Sorry about that.  And, to be fair, there are more and more people doing what they can to help the cause, but many days it seems woefully ineffective.

I battle with this "woefully ineffective" thing myself.....all the time.  Sometimes I chalk it up to seasonal effective disorder, but mainly it is just do to the world in general.  Regardless of my mental state, I try to remember that this change in the seasons is a good thing.  Winter is a time for reflection and hibernation which seems to eventually eliminate the depression and readies a person for spring.  I find I can read and digest more books in the winter months than any other time of year. 

One especially good one that I have been working my way through is Folks, This Ain't Normal  by Joel Salatin.  If anyone thinks that I am hard core about living on a farm sustainably, Joel puts me to shame.  I honestly wish I could convince everyone to read this book because he not only understands and talks about farming sustainably, but he does it and proves that it can work on a larger scale.  Much of his emphasis is on treating the earth with respect and being creative in how we solve problems such as energy, food production, water conservation and housing.  There are a few New Year's resolutions that are forming based on this book alone. 

Another book that I am reading is The Joys of Beekeeping by Richard Taylor.  I have been reading a few bee books, but upon opening this one and reading, "The thrill and fascination that filled me then as I watched large swarms stream into hives has never weakened....It follows exactly the pattern established millions of years ago...We see only a small part of the surface of things.  The rest will be forever hidden from us, to be appreciated for its felt but unfathomed presence."  In short, he had me at 'hello'.

I realize that my choice of writers has a lot to do with the level of connectedness that they feel - not just to the subject that they are talking about, but to the earth as a whole.  Emma Restall Orr wrote:  "Perceiving the world as a web of connectedness helps us to overcome the feelings of separation that hold us back and cloud our vision. This connection with all life increases our sense of responsibility for every move, every attitude, allowing us to see clearly that each soul does indeed make a difference to the whole.”  

Those "feelings of separation" are one of the problems with today's society. People no longer feel connected.....to anything.  Ironically, despite e-mail and twitter and facebook, we are all much more disconnected from each other and from nature.  It really isn't natural to sit in front of a computer screen all day and remotely learn about things happening somewhere else when our world - the only one that we will be able to actually touch and physically interact with - lives outside of our house.  

People live for connection with the world around them - eye contact, hugs, relationships.  Without it we are only so much protoplasm walking around without aim or purpose.  It costs nothing to pay attention to other living beings that share this Earth as well- animals, trees, insects - and often these connections prove to be sometimes deeper and more profound than our human ones.  So, as the earth rounds the corner yet again and makes its way back into the hours of daylight, my hope for everyone this year is this.... May you find a connection with some part of the earth around you - be it a roof top garden somewhere in the city, a farmer at a local market, a stray cat that adopts you, the bees in an apiary, the moon coursing through the night sky, or your neighbor next door.  Make this year count because you just never know......maybe the Mayans were right.