What I want OUR area to be…
Think Global / Act Local
RAW EARTH
WE are on a little tiny planet called Earth spiraling around the Sun.
Our Sun, does a corkscrewing journey through space, making a 225-250 million year loop.
The solar system’s corkscrew action means slowly, seasonal constellations as viewed at the same time each year; change.
Our Sun is just one star of 200 billion, that make up our Milky Way Galaxy. Now, there is a old saying the there are more stars in the Universe than there are grains of sand on Earth. This was the concept taught in school in the 1960s, taught in a nice package. How safe it was! Until you think! what’s on the other side of the end of the Universe?
National Geographic had a little frame on the subject that used the analogy that our Universe was like a “Bubble in a head of Beer”. Our Universe was packed along with other universes in an all expanding and contracting sea of universes, all affecting one other. Now we take a 3D animation trips through a virtual universe while your munching on snacks. If you want to see the real thing; you have to get away from all the noise, lights and man-made distractions. The Raw Planet has hosted mankind’s inspirations & aspirations a long, long time before modern inventions. If you were here looking at a clear night sky on a warm summer night, it can be humbling. Think of the humans before us that have been confronted with the same reality; that is humbling. To survive meant to have your wits about you, nature can be so deceptive and cruel, but to avoid death and eat regularly early humans have to be given credit.
Here we have a little home looking out into space that gives us a place to wonder; what’s it’s all about. We know that advanced cultures of the past tracked the movements in the sky and used mathematical formulas (I assume) to predict the position of the stars as we see them today. Ancient thinkers thought, if that’s the sky; what’s on the other side of where the sky stops? How is it that ancient peoples found ways to track the sun and the stars and solve the geometry problems needed to predict future skies? THEY PUT THEIR HEADS TOGETHER! People are people, good & bad / lazy & motivated / leaders & followers; people have forever formed groups and experienced the same social problems we face today. It makes no difference which culture or ethnic group, you have your mix of personalities.
What we NOW know about the past and the present, is more than what any one person can comprehend. If we are ever going to advance in these times we have to realize that we each share a piece of the puzzle. In the history of mankind, man has never had the freedom to find share information & personal insight using Internet tools available in the present. We need to talk! So many good people on the Net willing to share things just because they believe what comes around goes around. While tunneling for your interests you meet many very interesting people who broaden your knowledge in unexpected ways. Borders can be dropped where it’s as easy to communicate overseas as next door.
Astronauts now look down and think how small the planet is. The lush green covering and even the oceans are a thin skin making up a fraction of the mass. In that skin we drill for oil, mine for minerals and fight for ownership. I’m still trying to figure out who really does own the Earth!
Mankind has so much in common if we just realize how little we are when everything else is so BIG! Sometimes we have to get away from all that just to think to ourselves. Try to meditate, try to think of nothing! Relax, let all thought go meaningless and picture the physical reality of your body sitting there… totally aware. Aware of every sound, every being and object in the room, picture the past and the future, picture the bubbles in the beer and laugh a little.
Scenic & wild places humble us! The people who climb mountains and paddle across oceans, do it for a reason; it puts things in perspective, they feel humbled; but alive and empowered all at the same time. Around the World, natural places are the monuments that let people feel what people of the past felt, letting them be one with the raw nature of the planet. When YOU venture into the wilderness, you need to know what can happen. The sun moves things look different; you can get lost! We can play to exhaustion getting from point A to point B and if we get lost we call on the cell phone. In the old days you found a solution or you were a goner.
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NATURAL PLACES
The most obvious example is to drive around Ruidoso / Alto, and then take a drive to Cloudcroft through the Mescalero Indian Reservation. The Native American’s don’t commercialize every nook and cranny of their land! Drive around south of Cloudcroft on Lincoln National Forest, it is beautiful without the billboards.
Habitat around the globe is fast becoming habitat for mankind. Where ever you live you probably see this first hand, where property gets bought up, developed and paved over. Driven by profit the Earth is for Sale.
My answer will be:
Develop the developed land and do what you can to keep the rest WILD! I’m not against development, just destruction of habitat for wildlife. If people move here for the beauty, I think it is in our best interest make that our goal.
Instead of trying to save species we should be saving habitat. All people connected to outdoor activities involving wildlife, should understand the system needed for Wild Lands to be self-sustaining and agree to protect it. Land takes care of itself in this state, everything from fire to bug kill should find an equilibrium and need very little management.
P.S. I am NOT anti-hunting!
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MANAGED EARTH
We are the keepers of our planet. Like it or not we are now engaged in patching up problems that are popping up instead of fixing the PROBLEM!
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TO BE CONTINUED….