Life On Earth Is Infinite Beauty

I am watching tonight David Attenborough’s series of films Life On Earth.  I am just amazed at the resiliency of animals to survive the harsh circumstances.  The diversity and variety not to mention humourous behaviours just blows your mind. I just sit here thinking we are not prepared on how to look after other species. I also see our domestic situation and isolation from the rest of nature. I wonder how nature survives with humans occupying so much of the globe? I was amazed to learn tonight that Antartica holds 90% of the world’s ice. I learned about the polar bears and how with climate change they are dying. I watched as a polar bear swam out 60 kilometers and David Attenborough pointed out that if it doesn’t find land it will die. The ice is melting, hence its habitat is shrinking. I watched the Emperor penguins live in freezing conditions that just stun the BBC team. The male Emperor penguins are the ones to look after the egg whilst the females go out to sea for 4 months. They huddle together in large groups to brave plummeting temperatures that no other animal can live through. The males have a pouch that the egg fits into. When the females come back they then transfer the egg into the females pouch and she feeds the chick. Apparently some chicks die and if any become orphan the other females fight to have a chick but often squash them in the stampede. According to David they have intense parenting drives. So fascinating. Throughout the series I watched preditors and prey dance their dance. I marvel at the desperation of hunger and the need for food. I find it hard to watch animals being killed and many alive whilst being eaten I then see the babies and how it is the cycle of life that I have no experience with.

I think of humans and we seem so sheltered from the realities of life on earth. However, in this moment I think of the poor starving people in East Africa estimated at 11.5 million. We don’t seem to be able to see how many resources we are using and how much we affect the planet. I see it as ignorance and education. We are just not educated to be aware of our impact on the rest of the planet. I understood that when I travelled the world and saw each world by country. We only know our own culture and create that world by media. Yet it bears no resemblance to the real world and its harshness and natural selection.

Here is a film by BBC’s Life on Earth to give you a feel for your wonderful planet of which we are all a part and indeed stewards of this planet. May you be stunned into silence and tears as I am at the shear brilliance of it and the intricate design of which I have no understanding. I am struck by the infinite beauty.