There is a little humming bird, not six feet from me, drinking water from the bubbling fountain in the meditation grotto here in the back yard. He is remaining there, alit on the edge, wings quiet for a second or two and then he’s away in a soft whir. He’s back again and again, three times. It’s quiet and peaceful here; the water is gurgling and provides white noise.
This morning on our walk, we saw a large deer, a doe. She wasn’t afraid of us and waited until we were close to run away. We saw lizards along the path, and bizarre insects.
There are so many forms of life that one has difficulty remembering that life is manifested in all that is alive, animal, vegetable, and microbe. Life is on this planet and is now as much a part of it as the core, crust, water, and air. Energy supplied by the sun allows life to transform atoms, molecules, and minerals into structures that enable it to fulfill a purpose, or two, or three. Without life, the earth would be those other things reacting to forces but otherwise inert and basking in sunshine, unappreciated.
The fundamental purpose of life seems to be procreation. A second, and coupled with the first, may be to evolve into ever more ideal forms. Each generation of life is incrementally different from the previous; choices influence successors and some choices improve the species. Choice connotes decision making, and decision-making connotes intelligence. It is evolution, guided by incremental, intelligent choices.
An analogy is animal breeding, horses for example. Selective breeding has resulted in the establishment of recognizable breeds that have certain specific characteristics. There are many thousands of mixed breed animals out there but the breeders know the traits they desire and breed to get them and repeat them. The horses being bred have no idea; they are just doing what comes naturally. The fact that they are horses is the accumulated result of previous choices.
I remind myself that time is the passing of the present measured with an elastic ruler. This is a way of saying that the billions of years that the earth has existed are interesting but irrelevant. Only the present allows choices to be made. The past may have been influential; the future is yet to be realized, only the present is available.
Then too, we have to remember that life is always one generation away from extinction. This is a sad fact but we need not despair. The chain of life for individuals may be broken here and there but there is such an abundance and diversity of life that it will continue to exist in some form or another forever because this earth is never going to fall apart. If others think it shall— so what, as long as there’s tomorrow. Life goes on as if indestructible but paradoxically only one generation from extinction.
It seems that another important purpose of life is arranging what it needs to exist. The effects of sun and moon, and to a lesser extent other components of the universe, are such that there are forces acting on the earth that yield dramatic and never repeated results.
There are plate movements, climate changes, tides, storms, droughts, and a whole long list of other changes taking place in the long and short term. Yet within all of this chaos, life structures itself and that around it to enable its existence. This takes energy to accomplish, and there’s plenty of it supplied by the sun, but it also takes intelligence, the basis of which is contained in DNA molecules.
I go back to my original thesis, that life is part and parcel of this planet and we are, humbly, only one aspect of it. Life transforms the energy of the sun and the materials of the earth into that which supports its existence and fulfills its purposes. It will exist so long as it chooses.
The humming bird has returned. I hear the soft purr of his wings but I’m not showing attention except to slyly peek at him. He stays; so small that he’s taking a bath in the flowing water of the fountainhead. Life is good.
Added on 7-11-2015
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