Things of Beauty and Promise in this World

The aim? To see an Entry detailing things that you personally would hate to see gone forever, along with suggestions as to how action might be taken to protect them. Practical solutions are fine but there is no need to limit yourselves. The most fanciful suggestion may well hold the key to a new approach to the world or may simply spur a reaction from someone else that you had overlooked.



In this way I hope that we can all begin to find a way to solve every problem, by remembering that each of us stands next to another in an endless and timeless chain that encompasses all that there is or can be.



Nothing exists independently of anything else though we may have forgotten for the moment that we all stand on the same planet, drink the same water, and breathe the same air. Even though the world is currently facing another time of trial, there is never a time to stop dreaming.

The human race may have been born in the forests. I can testify, personally, that when I wander through an ancient forest, I feel that I am in touch with one of the original sources of wonder in the world. It is not the kind of wonder that makes me feel small, like standing at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and gazing up at the edges of the cliffs from the river at its bottom.


It is not the kind of wonder that puts me in awe of the power of human determination such as comes standing on the Hoover Dam with a vast min-made lake to one side and the aching emptiness of an ancient river valley on the other.


It is not the kind of wonder of scale that comes to me when I stand on the ocean beach and see the far off hoizon with no trace of land to break its perfect line, perhaps with the tiny dim silhouette of a great ocean liner made into a tiny smoking bead as it trys to catch up to the world rolling away from it far faster than it can hope to go.
The forest brings me the wonder of rightness and a sense of being in a proper place. Science tells us that the air truly is better in the dimmed light beneath a canopy of leaves.


At night in particular, I like to wander off a ways from my campsite to gaze up at the few stars that can be seen slipping past the over-arching branches thirty, forty, or more feet above my head teaching me again where the inspiration for vast cathedral halls came from.
Is not a shame then, that the places where we can experience this particular sense of wonder are being systematically stolen from us, such that we must make pilgrimages to the few remaining such spots set aside so grudgingly for the posterity of all.


I remember one particular poignant cartoon by R. Cobb in the sixties that showed the bleak concrete landsape of a large city. A tired, wrinkled, and very old man sits on a bench beneath an open, merciless sky staring in obvious rapture at a single weed that has managed to push its way up through a crack in the sidewalk.


Cobb had plainly stood in a forest and looked upward with awe. If you have not done so, I suggest you do it soon, while you still can.

The solution is not to scream and shout for the cutting of trees to be ended. The people really do need the trees or the ground they stand on. Some times the reasons do not compel us as they did the takers, but the need was there, for the most part.


The solution is a simple one and well within our power to achieve it. Whenever we have the time and the opportunity, plant a tree where it may be permitted to grow long, tall, and old. Take the time to water it well and see to it's protection. Then when the chance comes again, plant another.


Look around you, often the trees had to go to make way for the machinery that was needed to build your homes. The machines are gone now. Plant a tree or two or three.


Get creative, plant different kinds of trees. Get interested, plant the trees that will do well despite the odds. Get involved, take seedlings and tools with you when you go somewhere. Plant a tree there. Stay busy with that when you have no other reason to be busy.

Plant a tree.

One of the most important things we can do for the planet, as well as for ourselves, is simply notice things.

I notice the warmth of the sun on my foot, the colour of light in the garden, the smell of the earth after this morning's wondrous rain.

More mundanely, I also notice the feel of tortilla chips in my stomach, the taste of thirst in my throat, the sound of the keys as I type, the sounds of my neighbour talking in the garden next door.

Racism: the evil of modern times.

But how easy is it to change?

A smile begets a smile; a frown begets a frown. There is an argument that one smile, aimed at one person, first thing in the day, will cause more smiles from the recipient of your first smile.
So if you smile at one person, just after breakfast, your recipient will remember, subconsciously, and smile at, say, ten. Those ten people, smiled at between breakfast and elevenses, will smile at ten people each, or one hundred. During their lunch break, one hundred people will each pass the smile on to another ten people, resulting in more than one thousand happy smiling people by early afternoon.
A smile is contagious.


A smile is contagious.
Four words so obvious that few recognise their truth.
;Four words that hide the secret of peace. Next time you're stuck in a crowd, and someone tries to push past you, try smiling. Chances are that you and your recipient will share something special - a moment of calm despite the crush. Next time you're on a bus and some of the passengers are being noisy, try raising a smile with them. It may reduce the noise, the irritation factor, and everyone else will smile with you.


These simple exercises apply to all classes, colours and creeds. A smile is a smile, no matter the age of the recipient. Perhaps, sometime someone may smile at you.

If you're watching for smiles, you may become a recipient.