500 or 1000 or 10000 years ago, a man, not much different from me, stood on the hill that rises behind my house, as I did tonight. He felt the earth cool beneath his bare feet. He saw the same honey colored half moon rise slowly from behind the same ridge line. He looked up at the constellation that we now call Orion, as it made it's way slowly westward in the black sky.
He heard a distant coyote, an owl screech, and felt the slight February breeze that stirred the scrub oak leaves, as did I.
I looked out over the valley tonight, and realized that, as I stood there, the only thing that has REALLY changed in this vista are the man-generated lights and the structures. This place was much the same 100000 years ago, and will be the same in another 100000 years. We come, and we go. That distant mesa on the horizon will remain. The wispy cirrus clouds will still float by. Cities and forests rise and fall, and, eventually the Earth reclaims.
It is so easy to get caught up in our daily trivia, which, although important to us as we lead our lives, is incredibly insignificant in the scheme of things. Nature endures. That moon keeps cycling through its phases, Orion continues his march across the sky, and the pointer stars of Ursa Major continue to circle Polaris, eon after eon. We need to maintain perspective on our place, and give this Earth the respect that it deserves. We are but temporary visitors here.
He heard a distant coyote, an owl screech, and felt the slight February breeze that stirred the scrub oak leaves, as did I.
I looked out over the valley tonight, and realized that, as I stood there, the only thing that has REALLY changed in this vista are the man-generated lights and the structures. This place was much the same 100000 years ago, and will be the same in another 100000 years. We come, and we go. That distant mesa on the horizon will remain. The wispy cirrus clouds will still float by. Cities and forests rise and fall, and, eventually the Earth reclaims.
It is so easy to get caught up in our daily trivia, which, although important to us as we lead our lives, is incredibly insignificant in the scheme of things. Nature endures. That moon keeps cycling through its phases, Orion continues his march across the sky, and the pointer stars of Ursa Major continue to circle Polaris, eon after eon. We need to maintain perspective on our place, and give this Earth the respect that it deserves. We are but temporary visitors here.
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