John P. Kneal Patient Tutor Through its long-tested catalyst, Nature, this planet spins an ever-thickening web that for us blossoms into lessons and knowledge. Even in the harshest conditions, like hope, life emerges and persists— worms wriggling inside Arctic ice weeds wiggling through driveway cracks trees torturously rooting around rocks tigers trekking from deforested domains. What so often seems worthless or destroyed somehow replenishes— like Sahara sands hoisted by trade winds to enrich Amazon jungle, volcanic wasteland transformed into soil for abundant nourishment or dying coral reefs that still sport a teeming array of denizens. Even in pandemics we see members care— like ailing finches, mandrills, or spiny lobsters that socially-distance to protect the greater whole. Nature has no bias, forgives but does not forget, and fashions portals through which life’s sprigs and towers proceed in an ever-changing cornucopia of length, weight, color, frequency, texture, and even style. And buried in Her bowels are the past’s brilliant blasts and subtle shades, proof that excesses, even if minor or human, revert back to harmony. We have the senses to appreciate our biosphere, both in splendor and in need— like the lilac’s fragrance, redwood’s length, elephant’s wrinkly skin, crane’s warning whoop, and peaches and salmon to savor. But will we have the sense to inhale and preserve this diverse bounty, both around us and in the far reaches of our minds?
74