man is the most insane creature. he worships and invisible god and destroys a visible nature. unaware that the nature he is destroying is the god that he is worshiping.

hubert reeves

sitting back and watching is all we can do. set in motion, an event will continue to follow a chain unless broken or it comes to a natural end. and when its almost all destroyed life will find another way. at least it has in the past, even chernobyl, one of mans worst self inflicted disaster sites is now teaming with life. when fires burn through the hills of california, my close friend and optimist ken aaron likes to comment that the opportunities for rebuilding become abundant. and as my mother begins her second round of chemotherapy, i ponder at the wonder of pumping someone full of poison in order to destroy a disease.

the world is a place of contradictions. a ball of fire teaming with life. living on the surface, we feel alive only in the knowledge that death lurks. it is our gift in order to value life. our days and nights fight for position as the sun and moon come and go and the bitterness of my morning coffee dances in harmony with the sweetness of my morning cereal. i am both lost in a world of too many choices and places while strongly grounded in a place and occupation that feel so perfect. the dance and balance of it all is superb.

but we do a great job at keeping things on the edge. we continually create utter messes in order to attempt to put order in again. we create complex systems where places like the United States, that claims to be the freest place on Earth, ends up with the most people behind bars. rotting food teams with life, both on the bottom of the sea and the masses of trash left to rot in the dumps. like opposite sides of a magnet attracting we are proof in the pudding that the best of times comes hands in hand with the worst.