Eye of the Beholder

"Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much. Language consists of five basic sounds produced by the vocal cords. They are the vowels a, e, i, o, u. The other sounds are consonants produced by air pressure: s, f, g, and so forth. Do you believe some combination of such basic sounds could ever explain who you are, or the ultimate purpose of the universe, or even what a tree or stone is in its depth?" - Eckhart Tolle

Happiness Revealed with Louie Schwartzberg

When I graduated UCLA, I moved to northern California, and I lived in a little town called Elk on the Mendocino coast, and I didn't have a phone or TV, but I had U.S. mail, and life was good back then, if you could remember it. I'd go to the general store for a cup of coffee and a brownie, and I'd ship my film to San Francisco, and lo and behold, two days later, it would end up on my front door, which was way better than having to fight the traffic of Hollywood. (Music) I didn't have much money, but I had time and a sense of wonder. (Music)

Pollination by hand in China

Photo Credit: Eric Tourneret

In China, in the world's pear capital, it is the farmers who carry out the pollination of the trees: costly and painstaking work that replaces the bees killed by pesticides, Neonicotinoids specifically.

The city of Hanyuan, dressed in the finery of the white blossoms on the pear trees, could make us believe in the eternal China with its red and black brick roofs and the grandeur of its foggy landscapes. But don't let yourself be misled. It was agricultural reform instituted by the "Great Helmsman" that made the city the pear capital of Sichuan at the beginning of the 1980s. Perched at 1600 metres altitude, Hanyuan transformed its rice paddies into orchards. At the time, pears sold for 4 to 5 times the price of rice because China had to feed its population, which had tripled in ten years, going from 400 million to 1.2 billion. Today, with 7% of the world's cultivated land, the country has to feed 22% of the world's population.

The impermanence of life.

a fragile biosphere?

The earthquake and tsunami in Japan is another example of how fragile our lives are on this small blue planet.

Most of us go about our daily lives, playing on our iPhones, updating our Facebook, trying to get attention that our ever growing egos crave. We work, we sleep, we eat and we become so oblivious to the impermanence of our lives.

As we sit and daydream our lives away, we forget how precious each moment really is, until the next massive natural disaster hits our planet and in turn, wakes us up a little more to the important things.

When the sea is raging and the skys turn black with storms; stocks, bonds, credit cards, iphones, fast cars, big houses and our money are all meaningless.

In a world where we have become more and more disconnected from each other, events like this serve as a reminder for our need to be connected with each other.

In the social media world, I look at a lot of clips and read a lot of news. I also soak up the comments and opinions and have been rather appalled by what some people have been saying.

Many of the comments range from; God Bless Japan, to Japan is being washed away because Japanese people dont believe in Jesus or God.

How very loving and compassionate of said Christians…. Frankly if Jesus was in the presence of such comments, I do believe he would weep.

Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Storms, Disease, Decay are all natural cycles in nature, every thing that is born must die, and every thing we create will eventually decay and fall apart.

It is the natural law of life. The energy locked with in all living things, the energy that sustains its existence is impermanent, it must and will be freed at some point.

We are part of a framework, in-fact, we are the framework. Unfortunately over the last 1000 years or more, we have become so disconnected from who and what we are.

Human beings see them selves as separate from nature, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. We are nature, we are part of this web. We are the web. But the more we pick at the web and try to re-arrange it, manipulate it, genetically re-engineer it, reshape it, terraform it, farm it, the more we destroy the natural balance.

From a human point of view, earthquakes and tsunamis are tragic, they destroy our homes, our communities and our lives. But from a natural point of view, from the point of view of the earth, its a necessary part of life on earth.

If the tectonic plates didnt move, the earth would be a barren wasteland, devoid of life.

It would have never become the beautiful rich garden of life that is is now.

As the plates crash and churn, they release minerals and life bringing substances to the surface. 

The minerals feed the plants, the plants feed the animals, the smaller animals feed the bigger animals, and the cycle goes around and around.

So without these processes we would not be here right now. And you would most certainly not be sitting there reading this.

The world would be a very different place. Cold, dark and dead.

Cold, Dark ... Dead?

Cherish your life, your family and your friends.

It could all be gone tomorrow.

Everything is connected

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are
but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
All things are bound together. All things connect.
We are a part of the earth and it is part of us”

 Chief Seattle

The Earth - Our Home...

Panasonic VariCam HD cameras were used for land-based footage and Sony HD cameras for aerial sequences. For aerial footage the camera was mounted in a device called a Heligimbal, a gyroscopically-stabilised housing attached to the underside of a helicopter and controlled by joystick from inside the cockpit. The unit was lightweight, enabling lenses with a longer reach to be attached (up to 40x magnification).

The earth is a priceless jewel, of which we must cherish.

Some-days we forget what a beautiful planet Earth truly is. We wake up every day and we go about our chores, our work and we become so consumed by every thing that happens around us and in our mind, we often dont stop and observe the wonder and the beauty around. The trees, the birds, the flowers, the rock and stone, the water and air.

Have you ever picked a flower, held it in your hand, looked at it, seen it and merged with it? Have you ever just looked at an object and just allowed it to be, without question, or judgement or an attempt to understand it.

To really, see it!

The earth is a priceless jewel and it is our duty to cherish it, honour it and protect it.