Heroes Not Zombies

You know I think that, especially in times like this, we think of life as being incredibly fragile. It’s easy to see it as transient and fleeting, subject to being extinguished in the blink of an eye.

All that might be true, but there is an opposite equal truth.

Life is an incredible power.

Maybe life is one of the most, or even, THE most powerful force in the universe.

At one time this planet which we all share had no life on it all. Now you can find it everywhere.

Some of the most successful life forms are micro-organisms. They have spread into pretty much every single ecological niche you can think of. You find them in volcanoes. You find them on the deep sea bed. You find them under metres of ice.

There’s even a theory that single celled creatures like bacteria got together to create multicellular organisms – including, eventually human beings. Did you know that there perhaps ten times as many bacteria in your body than there are “your” own cells? Each of us is actually a symbiotic community of cells.

Astonishing (and a bit creepy too somehow!)

There are regions of the world where there is a huge diversity of plants. The Fynbos in South Africa is one of those. Periodically fire burns through that region destroying all the flowers, but the heat from the fire stimulates the germination of seeds in the soil which then spring up as flowers. Some of the species of flower which appear haven’t been seen for decades. Some were thought to have become extinct. But no, they come back to life (or maybe the were never dead?)

Albizia Julibrissin, the Persian Silk tree, taken to London in 1793 was thought to have disappeared but after the German bombing of London in 1940 its seeds germinated and it began to grow again – 147 years later!

I’m sure we’ve all lots of experiences of flowers popping up in the most unlikely places!

The photo I’ve shared at the beginning of this post, of the little flower appearing in the forest floor, reminded me of all that.

Yes, life is delicate and fragile, but it is also THE most incredible force in the universe. We would do well to remember that.

I think that’s partly why I don’t like all the war language which is being used during this pandemic. We are not at war with corona virus. We are, I hope, learning how to live with it. There are already scientists telling us these pandemics arise because we haven’t learned to live with all the life forms on this Earth, that our destruction of habitats and environments, our pollution and urbanisation, are the root causes of the emergence of this particular pandemic and will remain the cause of the future ones unless we learn to respect Life and to learn to live together, learn to adapt to life together on this little blue planet.