Nature Within

To follow something like religion is not a weakness, it is a strength.  To obey laws of nature and nurture is not a sign of weakness, it is a strength.  It leads us to understand the heavens about us.  Even after all of what we know, we know little of the stars, the moon, and the sun.  We are a small dot on the edge of something that is quite grand all about us.  From the very smallest thing we can see to the the very largest there is, there is this sense of harmony and inter-unity about it all.

It is nature and nature's creator that brings out the best of curiosity in all of us from all paths in life.

Despite the darkest of the far reaches of the universe our earth is a veritable garden of all kinds of plants, animals, and things we haven't even met yet!  The moon has this interplay with plants that allows them to burst with seed and produce jumbo sizes.  The sun gives us a complex mix of light and growth that sustains life we haven't even met yet!

And then one finds water -- that magical source of life sustaining essence that permeates all living things.  It can be powerful in all of its states.  It nourishes, renews, and cleanses the earth.  It is teaming with life.  Can we be as pure as water, taking with us those things that are not pure and giving them back with stillness to parts of the earth which can receive them.

The earth cultivates in our fields the life sustaining force that keeps us all alive.  It all begins with a seed.  By following the course of a seed, life around us begins to make sense.  This simple cycle used to be watched over and followed everyday in our struggle to be alive.  Today our seeds are managed by larger and larger groups who help sustain larger and larger groups.  Our world was designed to sustain a large number of people.

One PhD friend did his thesis on how many billions of people the great plains of the United States could sustain.  It was well over 20 billion people with planned cities, canals in a system of free enterprise.  It reminds me of how the Russians who let the farmers plant and sell their own crops on 1 percent of their land.  That one percent out performed the 99 percent of the rest of their crops.  It adverted a disaster of famine.  Private enterprise in a communist country averted a national disaster.

Is it any surprise that you find researchers in Kansas looking to turn annual food crops into perennials?  That would mean that food would grow naturally everywhere.  Many farmers already know what perennials are great to plant and make that part of their harvest plan.  Home owners in the cities can plant these easy to grow, sustainable crops as well for a hedge against high food prices.

Clouds in our sky come and go with rain, and sometimes with storms.  Man has forever been talking about the severity of stormy days.  Protection from storms comes at the cost of advance planning and serious thought about wind, rain, hail, tornadoes, hurricanes, and even earthquakes.  Despite our best advances it continues to be a vigilant need in our communities.

Our responsibility is to cultivate the humanity within us -- the nature within.  When a baby is born the purity of their life is read in their face.  They absorb everything within their hearing, taste, touch, and sight.  It is an amazing transformation.  The vigor and energy they put into life is instantly rewarded as they become fellow speakers of our language, fellow doers of our actions, and fellow followers of our inner natures.

A simple breath is taken when a child is first born.  That breath is not extinguished until death comes.  It sparks an energy throughout the body.  I've noticed when patients register a low oxygen level, that ten deep breaths instantly restore its value to 99 or even 100 percent saturation.  Collectively our breath is that ability to find what is best in our communities for us all.  Deep within us there is a divine call or a spiritual nature to what defines our being.  It is found as we give service to others and begin to understand the cycle of life around us that sustains our community.

A flowing river is a powerful tool given to the earth which removes mountains and creates valleys.  It ebbs and flows in cycles that sustain powerful communities of life.  Our efforts on this planet do the same by our attitudes and choices.  We become the rocks of our generation that fill in the places where people need to be helping.  We become the trees that plant deeply in the earth and sustain the land across the background of changing weather, and changing times.  We grow deeply into the earth -- so that what seen above the ground is only a hint of what went on below.

The ancients of this world had the same struggles we have and their wisdom is still with us preserved in their records both oral and written.  It is in our best interest to continue to catalog the best of our nation.  It is in our best interest to provide open portals into that knowledge.  This mountain of knowledge is not without precedent as many far flung nations have made attempts to amass libraries only to see them plundered in ruins.  It is our honor and respect for the ancients and the freedom and liberty of mankind that should sustain us.

Let us be strong as the tiger in sustaining freedom for all people.  Let us be wise as the crane who in stillness embraces the earth.  The crane is vigilant in knowing the area about him.  Let us be determined as the fish who swim upstream with the strength of survival ... that of one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.  May we be as enduring as the turtle who is both self-sufficient and self-preserving despite the slowness of his movement.