Admittedly, I’m not a fan of modern art, but I recently toured the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington, DC, I was struck by one of the sculptures outside. It is a 1992 Chrysler Spirit that has been crushed by a nine-ton volcanic bolder, and the bolder has eyes and a mouth painted on it. The title of Jimmie Durham’s the piece is “Still Life with Spirit and Xitle.”
The artist is trying to convey the fundamental truth that Nature always wins! We can work with nature, or against it, but ultimately, nature is going to win.
A TV show that I enjoy watching engineering disasters … a chronicle of things gone wrong because someone in the process overlooked or didn’t respect the laws of nature.
When we work with nature, amazing things happen. Years ago, I designed and built a passive solar cabin, situated so that it was insulated by the earth on the north side, no sun ever came in directly from the east or west and sun only entered the cabin between the autumn and spring equinoxes. It was built on a concrete slab that absorbed the heat during the day in the winter and released it during the night … creating a thermal flywheel. The temperature could be in the thirties outside, and inside the cabin it would be in the seventies with no external heat source, other than the sun.
How about you?
What choices are you making that will leave this planet a healthy place for our grandchildren and great grandchildren?
All this talk of wanting to “save our planet” … the planet is going to survive. The question is whether we will wor
k with nature so that it continues to be hospitable to human life, or are we going to push it past that limit by our greed and our carelessness and make it a place where our children and grandchildren suffer from global warming and polluted air and water supplies?
The reality is that Nature doesn’t really care whether we exist on this planet or not. Nature is a powerful force. We can deceive ourselves into believing that somehow the laws of nature don’t really apply to us … our pride and deceive us into thinking that someone will find a magic cure just in time … like in the movies but, and I will say it one more time: Nature always wins … just like the sculpture says!
So, here’s my invitation to you: decide to take a step and make your life more “green,” more nature-friendly. Maybe it is not to use plastic bags, or conserving water. Maybe it is recycling and composting. Maybe it is buying locally. The list is endless … but it starts with a personal commitment to work with Nature.
The extent to which you do is the extent to which you’ll be able to say, “I feel good about being me!” … and that’s a promise … and Mother Nature will smile!
Photo Credit: Bary Fleet
P.S. Let me know what you decide.
