In about 1991, my son Todd and I took a trip from Seattle to Mount St Helens. In May of 1980, Mount St. Helens had a volcanic eruption that took 56 lives and affected world atmosphere for years to come.
When we got into the blast area, I felt a strange calming quiet. At that time, there was a temporary reception area that told the story of how the authorities sensing an impending eruption told everyone to get off the mountain. It had the radio recording, from an observer from the staff, reporting on the early stages of the eruption. Sadly, the event moved quickly, and that observer died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_eruption_of_Mount_St._Helens
The landscape was otherworldly. Barren at first glance and then immensely busy when we sat, looked and let the life of the place come to us.The small animals had returned. Insects flitted about. Birds came and went.
The officials had turned the area into a no man's land so they could study this natural recovery. The trees in the area had been reduced to fallen timber all laying perpendicular to the force of the blast, something like toothpicks in a dish. Where there was the least amount of shelter from the force of the blast some trees remained relatively untouched and upright.
I mention this experience because while this disaster forever changed the surface of this land, this mountain, it in no way stopped nature from taking charge again.We have a resilient environment, but the challenge remains. Are we going to create a new environment through our foolish persistence in corrupting the one we inherited? Are we going to leave for the future the problems we make by our selfish and unnecessary reliance on such things as fossil fuels? Are we on a path to creating an environment that humans can't survive in?
My son and I have occasionally reflected on that trip. I told him it was the closest thing I had ever had like a religious experience. If there is a God, she reflects herself in these acts. If it's all chemistry and physics, it should be explainable. Whichever you believe, it demands our attention.
When we got into the blast area, I felt a strange calming quiet. At that time, there was a temporary reception area that told the story of how the authorities sensing an impending eruption told everyone to get off the mountain. It had the radio recording, from an observer from the staff, reporting on the early stages of the eruption. Sadly, the event moved quickly, and that observer died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_eruption_of_Mount_St._Helens
The landscape was otherworldly. Barren at first glance and then immensely busy when we sat, looked and let the life of the place come to us.The small animals had returned. Insects flitted about. Birds came and went.
The officials had turned the area into a no man's land so they could study this natural recovery. The trees in the area had been reduced to fallen timber all laying perpendicular to the force of the blast, something like toothpicks in a dish. Where there was the least amount of shelter from the force of the blast some trees remained relatively untouched and upright.
I mention this experience because while this disaster forever changed the surface of this land, this mountain, it in no way stopped nature from taking charge again.We have a resilient environment, but the challenge remains. Are we going to create a new environment through our foolish persistence in corrupting the one we inherited? Are we going to leave for the future the problems we make by our selfish and unnecessary reliance on such things as fossil fuels? Are we on a path to creating an environment that humans can't survive in?
My son and I have occasionally reflected on that trip. I told him it was the closest thing I had ever had like a religious experience. If there is a God, she reflects herself in these acts. If it's all chemistry and physics, it should be explainable. Whichever you believe, it demands our attention.
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