The Anatomy Of The Earth Brought To Life

What a wonderful world!

On TED Talk Tuesday, we get a glimpse of the amazing world that cinematographer Louie Schwartzberg brings to life. He describes his greatest satisfaction as creating works that have a positive effect on the future of Earth: “I hope my films inspire and open people’s hearts … If I can move enough people on an emotional level, I hope we can achieve the shift in consciousness we need to sustain and celebrate life.”

[youtube=http://youtu.be/FiZqn6fV-4Y]

*

Beauty is Nature’s Tool For Survival (Prepare to be wowed)

 

Take Time To Renew Your Spirit

“It is understandable that a realist would despair. And if I was to retreat into self-absorption I would find a small plot of land where I would never have to hear another leaf blower, and find what comfort I could in my family, my books and the whispers and beauty of the natural world. But to give up is not morally permissible. It is to condemn, as Sitting Bull reminded us, the born and the unborn, as well as the flora and fauna, which Sitting Bull also considered sacred, to misery and death. We have no right to do that. We must stand and fight for life.”
~ Chris Hedges 2011

Our Land: Will We Be Left With Only a Memory of Beauty That We Might Have Protected?

American photographer and environmentalist Ansel Adams was a passionate advocate for national parks. Adams, who was best known for his striking black and white photographs of the West, died in 1984 at the age of 82. Although he spoke them 46 years ago, these words are eerily accurate today, as we stand on the threshold of global, irreversible, climate change thanks to our unsustainable way of living.

The American Pioneer approached the Natural Scene in a very different way than we must now. The land and its provisions were seemingly inexhaustible. The problems of existence were most severe. The Pioneer undoubtedly cherished his farm, his ranch, and his range – representing something almost infinite in extent and bounty – young, vibrant, ever-enduring. Now, as the blights of over-population, over-exploitation, and over-mechanization encroach from all directions, we come to love our land as we would love someone very near and dear who may soon depart, leaving naught but the recollection of a beauty which we might have protected and perpetuated. We must realize – and with desperate conviction – that it is truly later than we think.

~ Ansel Adams, Charter Day Address, University of California at Santa Cruz, 1965

Take Time To Renew Your Spirit

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

~ Wendell Berry

Beautiful Earth

Bella Gaia” is a project by director and violinist Kenji Williams in collaboration with NASA. The stunningly beautiful  “Living Atlas” multimedia presentation combines music performed by Williams and other musicians with a backdrop of orbiting visualizations of Earth from space, simulating space flight. Bella Gaia expresses the deeply moving beauty of planet Earth as seen through the eyes of astronauts, and serves as a reminder of the fragility and beauty of the planet we all  inhabit.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiI7vMbSpn8&feature=player_embedded]

Go to BellaGaia.com for more.