Summer New (Grandchildren) Moon
Outside this morning, finishing my tea on the patio, a hummingbird darted in and out of the lilies, gathering the last bits of nectar, passing on final touches of pollen. Like the possum from yesterday’s adventure the hummingbird shares this patch of land with us, too. Possum, groundhogs, gophers, chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, deer, hummingbirds, blue jays, goldfinches, red-headed and pileated woodpeckers, a great horned owl, crows, grosbeaks, dogs, mice, skinks, salamanders, garter snakes, garden spiders, wolf spiders, worms, bees, moths, wasps, caterpillars and butterflies and many others, most one-celled or many-celled, I imagine, live here.
They live here as we do, making a home, finding and preparing food, eating their meals, raising their young, growing to old age, dying. Our home takes up more space, yes, and our decisions impact the land in dramatic, sometimes even drastic ways, but that we are only one species among hundreds that live here is beyond question.
When we leave, either through death or otherwise, the generations yet unborn of these animals and insects
and other life forms will, perhaps, know no difference. If fact, if the house became abandoned, many of them would find a use for it as shelter, as a place to raise their families, perhaps as a source of food.
All of us, all of us who live here, are only here for a while. It is so important that we leave this place a better one for all its inhabitants. If each of us only took this one objective, a prime objective?, to leave our places better for all those who live in them, wouldn’t the world be safe now and into the future?
