Life at the Lowest Areas
What do I see? It’s a dry pothole with trees at the lower areas so that you could not see the bottom. The rocks that surrounded the upper half of the hole seemed very unstable. I looked at the scene from afar and examined it as a space. I saw an unstable, rocky, 75 foot- diameter pothole with a lot of plant life and nests in it, nothing more. It was difficult to “see” this space as more than what it looks like.
What else could have been in that pothole? What should I have seen? I closed my eyes and embraced the energy. I opened them and my vision blurred until I saw a brown and gray canvas with a green, pink, yellow and orange paint splattered design in the middle. It was beautiful. I looked with my heart, seeing a completely different place. There was a palette with many colors of plant life at the deepest part of the hole. With my new eyes, I saw that there is life in the lowest of areas.
There is life in the lowest of areas. As a human being, a lot of things seem insignificant to me especially if they are smaller and lower than I am. However, I am not very big at all. I remove myself from relation to these lower life forms although it is exactly what I am and where I am. They are what turn these lifeless spaces into booming places. This pothole is a sanctuary for birds. This is also a place for the plants to survive and hide themselves from the harshness of the desert sun. We forget to give our green neighbors much thought. They tend to form no bonds. They do not speak a language nor do they make eye contact. They do not cry, laugh or smile but we learn in science classes, that they are indeed alive. Are we the judges of all life? Do we have that right to “put them in their place”?
If we think about it, we are just a tiny blue dot to the entire galaxy. To the galaxy, we might be as expendable as trees are to us. However, we know the truth that in that speck there is life. We human beings think, act, love and live. We should share our planet with everything in it because everything is a servant with its purpose in the great circle of life. Nothing is small.
However, does that mean we treat everything, no matter what size, like royalty? Do we treat bacteria like human beings? Do we have to please all matter? Are we wrong to have vegetarians or even eat anything at all? I believe it is a matter of balance, survival and knowing our role in the grand scheme of things. Yet it’s a question with no answer but a million more questions. Now I “see” that this pothole is not 75-foot diameter cavity but a bottomless pit of questions with answers to which only God knows.