Photo: Azurite-Malachite from Potosi, Bolivia, by Robert Lavinski, Wikimedia Commons
Has life gotten faster? Are the wheels a blur on this life train? It’s already the middle of the year. More than half way through. World War threatens, genocide continues, and the scramble to survive the capitalist model persists. Where is one to find solid ground? Comfort, like medicine best comes from the earth we are born of and into. A return to earth is how you find sanity in the unreality.
It takes about ten minutes to turn a rock into a jewel ready cabochon. Those same rocks take millions (if not hundreds of millions) of years to take shape, develop color, and migrate into the comparatively tiny inch of earths crust we have access to. If you’re not careful you forget that each mineral is a miracle.
If not for violent, continent shifting eruptions, we would never see a natural diamond or garnet. They form so deep it takes an act of destruction and creation to bring them to us. We can only imagine what other formations and minerals lurk outside of our view. Instead of marveling in these wonders, we wage war, enslave populations, and decimate thousands of miles of sacred land and waterways. I’m no expert but that seems a terrible way to worship the ground we walk on. It’s no wonder we’ve grown unsettled. We must find our wonder again, our marvel and our awe of the magnificence that is earth.
My favorite rock is one I can’t identify. It’s probably an amalgamation of things. It’s a couple shades of green in wavy pattern with splashes of brilliant blue in unexpected places. It’s hard to cut, hard to polish but it glows! I found it on the beach. Every time I look at it I’m back on the sand, waves rushing over cobble, gulls crying and friendly voice calling hello. It means more to me than the most pristine diamond could ever. It’s a physical link to my happy place and it brings me to peace.
It can be easy to lose track of oneself in the competitive world we live in. But finding awe in the magic of the world around us can help bring about a shift in perspective. Shifting from what the world demands we desire to meaningful and/or memorable items removes us bit by bit from the endless cycle of consumerism. Breaking that cycle in favor of intentional and conscious choices grounds us and brings us back into alignment with the earth. It’s not easy to tear our eyes away from the life of hyperbole poured into the airwaves constantly; but bit by bit we can take our world back.
