My trip to Alaska gave me plenty of examples of the principle of undulation, something that, because we are such transitory creatures, we rarely see. So maybe the sun never completely sets and maybe the rain kept on while I was there, but the sun moved, and the seasons progress. I saw the tide, I saw the progression of generations, and I stood on ground once covered completely in glaciers and realized anew that the cycle of undulation goes far beyond our power to comprehend.
I teach my students about the principle of equilibrium which teaches us that there is an optimum balance at which there is no net change. Change occurs, and the ebb and flow of undulation continue, but over the right interval, you don’t notice it. When we look at Alaska, we need to keep in mind we’re looking at a single snapshot that captures one point in eons of time.
It is widely supposed in Alaska that the retreat of glaciers is bad. I overheard numerous conversations of persons concerned with how much the glaciers have retreated in the last century. Park rangers and residents spoke of the “dangers of global warming” even as the outside weather gave us the most prolonged winter in Anchorage since white men settled there. It rained and snowed, and they still spoke of it. Even the plaques disagreed. One of them spoke of how it was beneficial because the glaciers ground up the bedrock to make soil and permit the growth of museum size vegetables (which are proudly on display in a nearby museum). Another plaque spoke of ginkgo biloba fossils unearthed by the glacier, meaning that Alaska was once tropical.
What makes us think that the present state is the one advantageous? It certainly benefits us, but that doesn’t say that it isn’t better to have a warm Alaska and a frozen Arizona. Who are we to say what is normal? It is what we know, and so we assume, because we know how to handle that circumstance, that it’s how things ought to be. They have not always been that way. Denali grows every year as the Pacific Plate slides under the North American Plate. Glacial retreat revealed gold. It is presumptuous of us to assume, particularly when we speak cliches like “the only constant is change” that we’re changing AWAY from the ideal.
Undulation permeates all of life. We have the cycle of life, the cycle of seasons, the revolution of electrons, planets and galaxies, and the succession of generations. The tides go in and out, the sun rises and falls, men are born and die, and the cycle of up and down progresses onward like a perpetual game of jump rope. We see only a small part, as Shakespeare said: “Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon a stage and then is heard no more”. It is but an hour, a paltry sum of time, and as we look back over the procession of our own years, we can see our own lives rise and fall like the Alaskan terrain, peaks and coastal wetlands alike, combining to make either a bleak landscape or a pleasant picture.
All things change. As we learn to trust that what should be will be when the time is right and recognize our true role in the universe, we can have confidence in good things to come. We are not the center of the universe. We are a part of this massive orchestra that plays flawlessly and creates a masterpiece truly worthy of awe. Alaska awed me. What it taught me I hope will help you see awe as your life illustrates for you the principle of undulation.
No comments:
Post a Comment