The warm, bright summer morning waits patiently outside the window, waiting for people to press through; moving swiftly from one cool cocoon of a building or vehicle to another.
The first sign of dawn on the farm is the grayish glow that washes over the hills to the east. Next come the sounds of the birds; chirping, tweeting, warbling, and twittering. The comforting, carefree songs turn to scolding as the sound of a jet plane taking off from the airport pierces the humid air. The sound of the jet is my own personal ‘time to get up call’.
As I sit, looking out the window, enjoying my first cup of coffee, I do believe that our ancestors had a greater understanding and respect for nature. They spent time in the presence of beautiful spring days. They toiled in the heat and humidity of a mid-summer day reaping the golden wheat that would better their lives.
Today I watch the men standing next to the John Deere 8120 with the New Holland BB940 baler attached. Soon one of them will be sitting in the air conditioned cab constraining the massive machinery while the alfalfa in the windrows is turned, twisted and tied into gigantic bales.
I know that others are on their way to work in their air conditioned cars, heading to their air conditioned offices.
Some will be stopping at Economart, filling their shopping carts with processed, canned, baked, and frozen foods. One lone woman pushes her cart, filled with two lugs of peaches and 10 pounds of sugar, to the checkout stand.
As they stand in line the question reverberates through the store, “Hot enough for you?”
As we became ‘masters’ of nature - building structures to protect us from the elements, designing comfort into our work places, packaging foods for easy preparation, creating bigger and better machines to control our prosperity – we distanced ourselves from the power and authority of nature. We gained a distorted confidence that we have control over nature.
The common personification of nature is that of a mother. Mother Nature is a powerful force of good. Mother Nature focuses her power on giving life to plants, animals and man. As children, most of us learned about Mother Nature from stories, myths and yes, even through cartoons like Woody Woodpecker and The Smurfs.
The images of Mother Nature are timeless and mystical.
That distorted confidence that we have control over nature comes back to haunt me on mornings like today. It is only a false sense of control.
I know because I have sat on the front step and watched the low clouds pass overhead. I see the wind change as branches of trees blow one direction and then the opposite direction. I know that the rotation of a wall cloud is the area where tornadoes are most likely to form.
I know because I have sat crouched under the steps in the basement, listening to the wind tear apart our symbols of control – homes, grain bins, cottages, schools – like so many structures made of toothpicks.
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The warm, bright summer morning waits patiently outside the window, waiting for people to press through; moving swiftly from one cool cocoon of a building or vehicle to another.
The first sign of dawn on the farm is the grayish glow that washes over the hills to the east. Next come the sounds of the birds; chirping, tweeting, warbling, and twittering. The comforting, carefree songs turn to scolding as the sound of a jet plane taking off from the airport pierces the humid air. The sound of the jet is my own personal ‘time to get up call’.
As I sit, looking out the window, enjoying my first cup of coffee, I do believe that our ancestors had a greater understanding and respect for nature. They spent time in the presence of beautiful spring days. They toiled in the heat and humidity of a mid-summer day reaping the golden wheat that would better their lives.
Today I watch the men standing next to the John Deere 8120 with the New Holland BB940 baler attached. Soon one of them will be sitting in the air conditioned cab constraining the massive machinery while the alfalfa in the windrows is turned, twisted and tied into gigantic bales.
I know that others are on their way to work in their air conditioned cars, heading to their air conditioned offices.
Some will be stopping at Economart, filling their shopping carts with processed, canned, baked, and frozen foods. One lone woman pushes her cart, filled with two lugs of peaches and 10 pounds of sugar, to the checkout stand.
As they stand in line the question reverberates through the store, “Hot enough for you?”
As we became ‘masters’ of nature - building structures to protect us from the elements, designing comfort into our work places, packaging foods for easy preparation, creating bigger and better machines to control our prosperity – we distanced ourselves from the power and authority of nature. We gained a distorted confidence that we have control over nature.
The common personification of nature is that of a mother. Mother Nature is a powerful force of good. Mother Nature focuses her power on giving life to plants, animals and man. As children, most of us learned about Mother Nature from stories, myths and yes, even through cartoons like Woody Woodpecker and The Smurfs.
The images of Mother Nature are timeless and mystical.
That distorted confidence that we have control over nature comes back to haunt me on mornings like today. It is only a false sense of control.
I know because I have sat on the front step and watched the low clouds pass overhead. I see the wind change as branches of trees blow one direction and then the opposite direction. I know that the rotation of a wall cloud is the area where tornadoes are most likely to form.
I know because I have sat crouched under the steps in the basement, listening to the wind tear apart our symbols of control – homes, grain bins, cottages, schools – like so many structures made of toothpicks.
