This Morning...I Dance...

(press 'play' and begin reading) Last night I went to Chasing Ice with The Earthquake Man and my two children. I sat between them in a sold-out theater and beheld images of ice...ice others...like individuals...so full of story, like jewels beneath big skies, calving glaciers which are now simply leaving. Falling apart. So much has happened in the last 100 years after a millennia-long dance of becoming and falling apart. Overnight.

We are such a clever species.

I’m so sorry. I am so sorry we forgot. What have we done...

So many have asked this question before that it now feels trite: but what must it be like for my sons, filled with the wonder of their own lives, filled with the chemistry that tells them they can do anything, that they are immortal, to be told it is ending? How can I ask Henry to plan for his future when the adults in his lifetime have actively plotted against it? Ignorance is no defense. There is no defense.

The geese still fly. Though sometimes they forget where they are going or why. And there are so many of them. No one to eat them alive in that way that is so holy.

If there is such a thing as sin surely it is the forgetting we have done. Surely it is the lack of our gratitude.

And still, how is it possible to be filled with joy? How can I be filled with wonder and awe? Filled with gratitude for each sunrise that so brazenly kisses barren scree-topped mountains every morning as if these two were meeting for the first time. I am grateful, grateful for this world. For the ancient disappearing ice. For mountains that remain for their time. For bears who feed remorselessly. Filling their bellies with feathers, fur, and flesh. For babies born in pure potential. Filled with the same mandate as the air trapped in the ancient ice. Live...Now. This is a miracle. Even as it comes apart. This is a miracle.

PattiAnn Rogers says it’s all nature. We cannot separate out what is right and pure from what is not. It’s all part of the dance. We are all part of this dance.