My Place In The Grand Scheme Of Things
Two recent experiences showed me just how insignificant I am when measured on a scale more grand than my own immediate concerns (which can loom as monumental if I let them).
Grains Of Sand
The first experience was stimulated by an exhibit in the underground Johnson Geo Centre in St. John’s, Newfoundland. The exhibit consisted of four clear acrylic towers, standing in a line, each of them containing a quantity of sand, each grain of sand representing one year.
The tower on the left displayed the age of the earth. That would take about four and a half billion grains of sand, so instead of trying to construct an impossibly tall tower, the people who built the exhibit sent this tower through the high roof of the exhibit hall, ending who knows where.
The two towers in the middle displayed the ages of Newfoundland and of the Rocky Mountains. Estimates of their ages vary depending on how one pinpoints the beginnings of the two, but by most measures both Newfoundland and the Rockies are at the very least more than 200 million years old and contain rock that is much older. The exhibit shows Newfoundland as the oldest, and the sand in both towers reached more than half way to the ceiling.
The final tower in the sequence, the right-most, appeared at first glance to be empty. It wasn’t. At the bottom was a very, very small pile of sand; maybe an eighth ot a teaspoon, maybe less. This pile represented a human life. I stared at it, thinking, “Man, I really don’t amount to much.”
The People Who Disappeared
The second experience was brought on by a visit to the Park Of The Canals in Mesa, Arizona. The canals were created by the Hohokam people who, between about 300 BC and 1400 AD, occupied the part of the Sonoran Desert that is now Phoenix and its neighboring communities. The Hohokam diverted the waters of the Salt River to irrigate fields of cotton, tobacco, maize, beans, and squash.
The Hohokam dug more than 400 miles of canals. There is not much of the Hohokam’s industry remaining on the surface of the earth beyond a few mysterious ruins and a few miles of canals like the one in the photo below.
“Hohokam” is a Pima term meaning, “the disappeared ones.”
Peace Of Mind
When compared to the life of the planet, my existence is microscopic. The Hohokam lived where I now live for more than 1500 years. They are gone and have been for more than 500 years.
How modest and impermanent are my contributions to the life of the planet? How important are my own passions and worries? The message in these experiences is, “Look at yourself from a larger perspective.”
I needed two experiences to get the message. I may need more to make it stick. But it turns out that looking at myself from a larger perspective is a great tonic for increasing peace of mind.
One Question
How are you doing with looking at yourself from a larger perspective?
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Tags: Arizona, Hohokam, Johnson Geo Centre, Mesa, Newfoundland, Park Of The Canals, Peace of Mind, St. John's
Scale brings us all down to size, doesn’t it? And that’s a good thing! Sometimes being out in nature can do it for me. Sometimes it’s seeing people far worse off than me, which in reality is most of the world.
Peace of mind is a choice, I’ve grown to realize. If I want to feel good, I choose what to “see” and what to ignore. Ignoring “reality” often helps!
Scale! That’s the right term. Thanks Deb.
I think we always choose what to see but forget that we are choosing in the sense that we do it without awareness. Yes?