Friday, February 5, 2010

Planetary power

I was walking in the dusky part of a day along a beach strand of the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii. That's where surfers gather to ride the biggest waves in the world.
I looked to the horizon, contemplating the sunset. Its radiant light beams pierced the fluffy clouds as bright spears. You've seen this scene, haven't you?, in your dreams, or perhaps in some photograph.
The radiant beams are 93-million mile-long electromagnetic vectors sent to energize our planet. Though appearing now as straight lines, the sun's rays are known to be waves. They travel in infinitesimally small ups and downs with amplitudes of precious gifts for our planet--power to photosynthesize our air and warmth to make our fragile lives possible.
I looked out at the wild ocean. Great swells of wave energy were rolling in through the waters, all the way from somewhere between Kamchatka and Alaska. The moon tugs mightily upon our planet, having its gravitous way with our wide waters while the land remains relatively steadfast. Unobstructed by any terra firma for thousands of miles, these immense north shore waves roll upon the Hawaiian island with immense poundings of physical force. Changing from deep, sapphire blue in the distance to sparkling emerald green as they mount their assault upon the shore, they are titans of planetary power that dissipate rather suddenly to nothingness between the course, brown sand grains of the beach. Where do they go?
Gazing down at the wavelets that lap around my feet, I discover that those inbound giants, having such great magnitude just a moment ago, have translated into smaller and smaller ripples; they project their diminishing images as a multitude of shadowy intersecting interference patterns upon the sand. Late afternoon hues of azure and pink enfold the entire golden sand scene in bright sparkles.
Waves, waves, it seems that all the universe is waves. All of nature is curvy and crashing and chaotic.
Yet, as I survey once again the translucent aquamarine swells pounding this Pacific shore, suddenly the image of an emerald green crystal forms in my mind; it is absolutely straight and monolithic in linear perfection. So nature is not all curvy and crashing chaotic? Something is putting it together. How amazing is that?
Oh God, here comes another huge one. Look!

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