The end of this week brought the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower, an event many people look forward to all year. This year’s show was even more spectacular with the pull of Jupiter bringing meteors from all directions.
My photojournalist, Michael, and I drove out to the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia to attempt to get a view of this incredible event. Though the conditions weren’t right for Michael to get the earth shattering shots for you that he wanted, thus the photos borrowed from other sources, we did get to witness a truly amazing event that brought a level of clarity for me and for what the Progressive Nomad means.
As I lay on the small bridge at the New River Gorge National River, I watched large streaks of light explode across the sky, remnants of the passing of the comet Swift-Tuttle around the sun hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Many thoughts crossed my mind, including my curiosity if remnants of my voyage on this earth would be seen hundreds and thousands of years from now with admiration and wonder.
As the stars grew brighter, and the area around me faded out of view, I began to glimpse the vastness of the universe in which we peacefully exist. At that moment I felt infinitely small and thought about how awesome it is that in all of these visible stars we are the only ones that get to exist beyond rock and bacteria. We are the lucky part of this universe that feels love, sadness, happiness and pain. We were given, by the universe, an amazing home that feeds us, protects us, and provides the essential parts that we need to flourish.
Even with all of that, though, the earth is so small in comparison to the rest of time and space, and we are but cells on a grain of sand within it all. A section from one of my favorite readings, The Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan, popped into my mind.
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
Regardless of your views on climate change or global warming the issues we will cover can be thought of as things that you would consider general maintenance if you were looking at the Earth the same way you look at your home. If you maintain your physical house on a daily basis then why do we fight each other on preserving the planet we live on, a place that without we would cease to exist.
As I take you along on this journey, travelling the country to bring to light the challenges our planet is facing, I ask that each time you read an article or watch a video you remember that this is our one home and how small we are amongst the stars. Bear in mind that for us to flourish our planet must prosper as well and we are the ones that need to ensure it receives the love and quality care that we show others on a daily basis.
Take these issues to heart and share in a system of quality that encompasses everything this Earth has to offer in the most ecologically friendly manner in which we can muster.
And never forget that this is our only home, floating quietly amongst the heavens, a place to preserve and cherish.
Here is a moving rendition of some of the best parts of The Pale Blue Dot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PN5JJDh78I
Featured Image Via NASA
