The Handsome Earth

Farewell to the summer of 2010. It was terrible weather for human beings and best to have that suffering behind us. Every warm blooded creature suffered, especially me, and all who had to listen to my complaining. The prairie plants surely considered it a great season, resplendent now in autumn colors and newly refreshed with last night's easy rain. It was mild thunder and half-hearted lightning as if even thunderstorms are worn out and tired.

The fall weather has been uncommonly gorgeous, a reward for surviving the brutal summer. The prairie is red and gold and russet. When I see the hills covered in these rich fall colors, the word that comes to mind is "handsome", in the way a very attractive woman sometimes deserves to be called handsome. It is a word for her entire bearing, not a reference only to a single attribute in her appearance.

Dictionary.com defines the the word 'handsome' as:
1. having an attractive, well-proportioned, and imposing appearance suggestive of health and strength; good looking.
2. having pleasing proportions, relationships, or arrangements, as of shapes, forms, or colors; attractive.
3. exhibiting skill, taste, and refinement; well made.
4. considerable, ample, or liberal in amount.
5. gracious; generous; flattering.
6. adroit and appealing; graceful.

The prairie is handsome in every aspect.

A woman falls in love with the spot upon the earth that provides her home, and that spot does not have to be beautiful, handsome, majestic, comfortable, safe, lovely, easy or extraordinary. We fall in love with the earth because it is our mother. We could not exist in physical bodies without the agreement of the earth to provide our bodies and all that is needed to sustain them.

If humanity had remained in matriarchal tribes, worshiping the feminine aspect of our existence, exalting the nurturing and abundant aspects of our great mother, every living thing would have fared better. Now we stand at the threshold of environmental apocalypse brought on by the greed and avarice of the worst of masculine attributes found in our collective human spirit.

In a singular act of aggression, humanity violated the moon in October last year, detonating a bomb on that utterly passive soil. Science was searching for water and claims the explosion was successful. Now science can proceed with its plan to colonize the moon.

I worry that when I reincarnate on earth in the future, the face of the moon will be defaced and desecrated by the same pollution, mining, greed and disregard with which humanity has ruined the earth. I see no redemption at hand for either the earth or the moon. There is certainly no redemption for the prairie. The remaining acres of untouched tall grass will soon be gone forever. I do not have to reincarnate to witness that tragedy.

For now, I love these handsome vistas, and give my heartfelt thanks for my chance here this time around.