It’s often said that every action you take, every word you utter, maybe even every thought you have, ripples out into the Universe like the spreading waves on the surface of the water after you throw a stone into a pond.
Take a look at this photo. I took it the other morning when I saw the grass was covered in frost and the sun was coming up.
You can see the sunlight is coming from the top left of the image and that the bush is casting a shadow towards the bottom right. You might think (rightly) that the land covered by the shadow will not be warming up as quickly as that which is in direct sunlight, so the frost will stay there longer.
But look more closely. there is a whole circle of ground around the bush where the frost has gone. And that circle is on both sides of the bush – the sunlit side, and the shadow side.
More than the metaphor of the ripples on the water, I think this image reminds us how a living organism impacts on the world of which it is a part.
It reminds me that all living organisms are “a part” of the Universe, not “apart” from the Universe.
It reminds me that our every day living influences and effects the place where we live, the environment in which we live, and that we interact in complex and surprising ways with the Universe.
It’s true, isn’t it? Every action we take, every word we utter, every thought we have, cascades “out” into the Universe.
