The August National Geographic has an article and editorial on New Orleans and whether or not it should be rebuilt and another article on the Mayan culture and its collapse.
The editor points out that the site of New Orleans has been subject to disaster again and again. Even without the threat of global warming, a new site would probably make sense and yet there are people who still hold on to the heart and soul that is New Orleans. It allows one to better understand perhaps those last 200 years of the Mayan culture sinking into change. It also allows us to see the contrast of human achievement and pride, and the arrogance that maybe is not able to see when it is time to let go and begin again.
We can put a Crittercam on an Emperor Penguin and dive with a penguin 120 feet under Antarctic ice. What we can do is amazing, and there is also a place to pause and reflect on what has been done and what may be done now. We need vision and an honoring of our abilities to reach far beyond what seems possible, and also an ability to put imagination into a container that holds.
One reason the Mayans may have sunk is too many people living lavishly at the top. Hmmm! Nothing of that here, I suppose, among those of us who live better than kings and queens of the past.
Here is my poem on Being, a place which Jane and I experienced and shared yesterday.
The Simplicity of Being
Though I carry paper and pen,
to record, we walk,
and sometimes talk,
but mainly we look
and absorb
the circling of a mountain
at the top
looking down on patterns below,
water, land, bridges, ships
and the bonding hand of fog.
We sit and butterflies flit
like a Fairy Godmother’s wand.