This little blurb was inspired by my flight from Santiago, Chile to Punta Arenas, Chile last fall, when I was on my way to Antarctica for my second research expedition:
Everything that man makes ultimately looks the same. From sprawling, seemingly messy cities to minuscule, strictly ordered microchips. Because from the air it is revealed that the cities and farms create a pattern not unlike the control board of a massive computer.
But suddenly, the manufactured world ends. Beyond a gray, opaque haze of smog and mist rise the Andes Mountains. Flying low they are hard, sharp, unchanging. Like teeth chipped to points and adorned in snow. From above breaks in the clouds, they become as soft and malleable as grey silk.
There is no man there, only nature. And after a time there isn't even land or sky. For the snowy peaks are indiscernible from the clouds, and the giants of the forest are suddenly reduced to form-fitting clumps of colored fur, crawling along the back of the animal that we like to claim, but that we will never fully understand.
And if your eyes roam farther, beyond the peaks, the clouds themselves become mountains, thrusting up from the blue pool of sky.
They will always be the same, and they never will be. Like the microchip mimicking the city, they are part of the never-ending repetition found in nature. Even we humans are not immune. Like the center of atoms matching photographs of galaxies, we work in closely weaving circles, which cannot be acknowledged until viewed from afar.
I am watching the river, zig-zagging between folds of mountains. Unlike man-altered rivers, it does not run straight. It curves, stretches, quick and languorous, tight and loose. It is whatever it needs to be along its journey. And when it hits the impermeable rock it patiently bites its way through, not sure where it is going or why, but knowing it must fight to get there.
I would rather be this sort of river. Not some creation of man's society, which cuts a flawless path, straight and ambitious. Man-made rivers run without obstacles, because a path has been pre-formed. And when they stray, they are chopped and dredged back into what is considered their most useful shape. Why would they wander, when the built path is so much easier? Biting through stone to go where you like brings no guarantee of success or happiness. But perhaps it is the biting itself that brings the pleasure. Every inch gained is a release from the confines of what was, a journey to what will be.
Shapes and faces litter the mountains. An eagle's talons. A man's features, frozen just before he was about to speak. Shadows cast by the clouds, forever separated from their creators.
Most of the mountains are clustered together, but one, snow laden and weeping, stands alone at the base of an azure lake. The crater makes me think it is a volcano, and unbidden come images of ancient worship.
No doubt this peak had a name once. It probably has one now. But I have to wonder if the two names are one and the same--and how many cultures and civilizations it has seen rise and fall as it hunches, primal but not eternal. It too will be gone someday. But we will not be here to see it go.
Everything that man makes ultimately looks the same. From sprawling, seemingly messy cities to minuscule, strictly ordered microchips. Because from the air it is revealed that the cities and farms create a pattern not unlike the control board of a massive computer.
But suddenly, the manufactured world ends. Beyond a gray, opaque haze of smog and mist rise the Andes Mountains. Flying low they are hard, sharp, unchanging. Like teeth chipped to points and adorned in snow. From above breaks in the clouds, they become as soft and malleable as grey silk.
There is no man there, only nature. And after a time there isn't even land or sky. For the snowy peaks are indiscernible from the clouds, and the giants of the forest are suddenly reduced to form-fitting clumps of colored fur, crawling along the back of the animal that we like to claim, but that we will never fully understand.
And if your eyes roam farther, beyond the peaks, the clouds themselves become mountains, thrusting up from the blue pool of sky.
They will always be the same, and they never will be. Like the microchip mimicking the city, they are part of the never-ending repetition found in nature. Even we humans are not immune. Like the center of atoms matching photographs of galaxies, we work in closely weaving circles, which cannot be acknowledged until viewed from afar.
I am watching the river, zig-zagging between folds of mountains. Unlike man-altered rivers, it does not run straight. It curves, stretches, quick and languorous, tight and loose. It is whatever it needs to be along its journey. And when it hits the impermeable rock it patiently bites its way through, not sure where it is going or why, but knowing it must fight to get there.
I would rather be this sort of river. Not some creation of man's society, which cuts a flawless path, straight and ambitious. Man-made rivers run without obstacles, because a path has been pre-formed. And when they stray, they are chopped and dredged back into what is considered their most useful shape. Why would they wander, when the built path is so much easier? Biting through stone to go where you like brings no guarantee of success or happiness. But perhaps it is the biting itself that brings the pleasure. Every inch gained is a release from the confines of what was, a journey to what will be.
Shapes and faces litter the mountains. An eagle's talons. A man's features, frozen just before he was about to speak. Shadows cast by the clouds, forever separated from their creators.
Most of the mountains are clustered together, but one, snow laden and weeping, stands alone at the base of an azure lake. The crater makes me think it is a volcano, and unbidden come images of ancient worship.
No doubt this peak had a name once. It probably has one now. But I have to wonder if the two names are one and the same--and how many cultures and civilizations it has seen rise and fall as it hunches, primal but not eternal. It too will be gone someday. But we will not be here to see it go.
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