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Watching the Mercury transit and seeing our fragile condition

Fort Lewis College professor Charlie Hakes, who writes the astronomy column for The Durango Herald, set up a solar telescope with two different viewing lenses and filters in the third-floor observatory in Sitter Hall so we could see the rare Mercury transit last month.

Taking a peek, I was immediately awed by the immensity of it all. Here was the sun, fiery red with a visible solar flare, and Mercury orbiting in front of it. We all orbit around the sun, but to see our sister planet like this confirmed the enormity of the universe, and that we are all part of it, specks in this great mystery. But along with the beauty of the solar system, there is also a fragility here. The imbalance happening now on our Earth worries me about the vulnerability of our lives and how we all must work together to save our suffering planet.

We cannot continue with “human exceptionalism” as Terry Tempest Williams calls it, where we are the center of the universe. We have evolved together with all flora and fauna since the beginning and are all interconnected and dependent on each other. The Earth is a commonplace of habituation in a finely tuned balance.

The destabilization of Earth is so evident, in all the natural disasters, migrations of people and animals, the increase of endangered species (both plants and animals) and the warming of our planet. Individual “opinions” and politics are no longer important in the great scheme of things. They seem so trivial after seeing the cosmos.

The Earth is all we’ve got. Human activity increasing the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is warming the Earth. We must get away from fossil fuels and turn to clean energy – fast. Pollution, over-consumption, carelessness, denial and ignoring the facts are all killing us and/or will be killing our grandchildren. It’s environmentally unsustainable.

Do we need all this holiday shopping? How else could we give to the planet this season, instead of to huge corporations that are contributing to so much destruction on so many levels. We have a heavenly body to care for.

Looking at space, like walking in a sunny Utah canyon, gives me a chance to open my mind a bit and consider things that are greater than day-to-day life. I think more freely and more creatively. We all need times like this in our lives to see things in a different perspective, the bigger picture.

Here’s to hoping professor Hakes and his colleague, Joanna, offer more viewing opportunities to see the heavenly bodies so we can all experience otherworldly thoughts. Maybe we can escape to Mercury, thinking as I did as it turned its shadowy side toward me. But it looks a bit too close to that orb of sun we all depend on. What else is out there? Where else can we celebrate the vulnerability that we all share? How to bring back balance and humility?

Season’s greetings to all, and may we find ways to save our precious Earth.

The gift of a poem to you:

Teach your children

what we have taught our children –

that the Earth is our mother.

Whatever befalls the Earth

befalls the sons and daughters of the Earth.

If men spit upon the ground,

they spit upon themselves.

This we know.

The Earth does not belong to us,

we belong to the Earth.

This we know

All things are connected

like the blood which unites one family.

All things are connected.

Whatever befalls the Earth

befalls the sons and daughters of the Earth.

We did not weave the web of life,

We are merely a strand in it.

Whatever we do to the web,

we do to ourselves.

– Chief Seattle

Martha McClellan was a developmental educator in early childhood for 38 years. She has moved her focus to the other end of life and written a book, “The Aging Athlete: What We Do to Stay in the Game.” Reach her at mmm@bresnan.net.