“Keep in mind the closest exit may be behind you.”
I am physically lifted from the surface of the Earth. Above the clouds, above the atmosphere of even my own thoughts. I slowly gain altitude and perspective on the values and relationships that are at work (and at play) in and upon my life. My heart and mind let go of any unnecessary weight, allowing it to fall back to Earth, handing it all over to gravity. Giving it all to “God.”
I see the planet below as a blue green organism, veined with wet rivulets and richly detailed connective ecosystems, occasionally interrupted by layers and patches of mechanical gray — an ordered, human civilization that is spreading. Slowly.
We carve and inscribe our culture and our systems onto the Earth in hard lines and exaggerated strokes, imitating what is already inherent in nature — fluid cells, shifting borders, porous boundaries — but we choose to set them in metal and stone.
The clouds cast great moving shadows on the Ground, creeping across the surface, providing a brief respite from the heat of our life-giving Sun.
We have such potential to numbly and mindlessly choke new growth from the surface of her. But we have the same potential to connect to each other, unfold together and build new worlds.
My heart opens like a searchlight with a love for all beings.
“As far as the eye can see” can be a pretty small place.
Joran Slane Oppelt 