Two days worth of sunrises ...
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The last two days:
Sunrise w/ Manatees - Safety Harbor sunrise with the moon and Jupiter shining above with manatees swimming below
Sunrise w/ Eagle - just North of the manatees' home, a bald eagle was perched on a dead pine tree in the early morning light
Raccoon Sunrise - today's sunrise, at Weedon Island, with raccoons taking advantage of the low tide, flocks of birds flying in the dawn light, and ending with an epic battle between a bald eagle and an osprey (the osprey won that battle).
***
The stars are so beautiful. Scorpio, Sagittarius, Aquila, Lyra, Cygnus, the Big Dipper .... these were the constellations I noticed this morning. Although, compared to the rest of Pinellas County, Weedon Island is an excellent dark sky location, there was enough light in the sky to obscure the Milky Way.
Nature is beautiful. It was cold and windy before dawn yesterday and it became cloudy later. It was cold and windy before dawn this morning ... my jittery hands tell the story.
Today is still a spectacular day. How could it be anything else? The sky is a beautiful shade of blue and the green leaves of tossed about by the wind. This is the living Earth and it is the only Earth which endures. Everything else is passing away but Nature and life remains ... the most immortal of the nearly-immortal things.
I think of all the places I've visited. I've spent my life visiting beautiful places and there still remains many billions of places on this Earth which are beautiful and worth visiting. It is impossible to exhaust this Universe's beauty but, unfortunately, it is quite possible for humans to destroy everything and squander our species' future as we drive our own species and thousands of other species extinct.
Who will rescue humankind from itself? Who will save humankind? Who will teach peace to a species which has spent its entire existence perpetually at war with God, Nature and itself?
Humankind really needs a savior. Too bad that there is no savior for humankind!
So I'll teach myself peace and devote myself to beauty and encourage everyone else to do the same.
David Mathews
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