Stuey's 2002 Insight

 The summer my 17 year old son found his Gaia spirit-
opened to transformation or perhaps better termed "Re-Formation".

 For a grade 12 English composition he wrote:

 		I spent this past summer cleansing my "internal system" of rubbish. I lived without television, video games and even electricity. It purged my system and helped me live a simpler life. I found my life to be less complicated without technology, the related frustrations and addiction to modern devices. Yet, it was a little harder in a different respect, as it required a greater demand for more manual labour, tactile labour that allows for a personal connection to everyday tasks. I utilized my free time with mixing dough for bread or chopping wood to keep warm at night in our cabin.

My days off work were spent hiking and camping in the mountains, away from people, noise and everything man made. I absorbed the immense energy and beauty of the environment surrounding me. It was during these times I realized there was something more to the trees, the plants and the animals. The area was full of abundant amounts of life and energy, the same energy that was missing in manmade cities and metropolises.

I soon noticed the population of rabbits in the area had thrived and increased to great numbers compared to previous years. The winter had obviously been milder this year and no-doubt less harsh on all animal life. Sitting on the porch of our cabin I saw a vast spectrum of wild life: squirrels hunched over, nibbling at acorns clutched in their tiny hands, humming birds fleeting around, their wings fluttering fifty times a second, black bears lumbering along, never in a hurry. 		I marveled at the beauty and magnificence of Mother Nature. As the summer season progressed, I noticed the number of owls in the area had also increased from the following year, no doubt a result of the abundant larder hopping around in the meadows.

One evening, guided by moonlight, I staggered through the forest. Abruptly, I imagined a silver flash in the air.  A silent tremor in the motionless night, like a silver arrow loosed from a mighty long-bow, the mute predator soared downward; its prey lay petrified as the winged beast overtook it.

Clasping its frozen prey in its icy talons, the ferocious creature unleashed a battle cry upon the silent night as it charged back into the darkness, ultimately devouring its conquered morsel.  Hidden by the dead of night, and cloaked by muted feathers, the winged assassin lives to hunt when the sun is down.

Nearing the end of the season, I saw owls not only at midnight but also during the day, an odd habit for these nocturnal birds.  I can only surmise that the increased population of owls was now competing for the ever-dwindling supply of rabbits as summer wore on.  Nature has a way of maintaining a balance to keep things in check.  When a species' numbers grows too large to be able to sustain its existence, some die off until that species can be sustained naturally; it is nature's teeter-totter.
 Nature and the planet have been struggling to maintain a balance with the human race for a few hundred years.  As our modern population grows larger, the world grows overcrowded until the world can no longer sustain such large numbers.

Through agriculture, science, and technology, humans have, in the past, been able to assist the ongoing balancing act that nature has been performing for millions of years.  Humans have wounded nature throughout their existence and continue to do so as they border on nature's destruction.  We are teetering on the edge of natural disaster; disease and famine are on the increase worldwide.

If humans do not soon realize that we too are part of nature as everything else, we'll be killed off on mass by the world we no longer try to live in harmony with.  Human evolution has provided us with the ability to think beyond animal instincts; our intellect is a gift as well as our curse.

Humans are the earth's greatest virus, as they have the power and ability to destroy colossal amounts of life and energy.  Our evolution could be an end to all existence on this planet.  

The summer I spent at our cabin by the lake, surrounded by nature in all its glory, has encouraged me to live a far simpler lifestyle with far greater respect for Mother Nature and the home we call planet Earth.
Stuey Read