Have you ever looked across the mountains when you're high above them in a plane, and wished with all of your might that you could see time lapse footage of the billions of years of geological drama at play as they formed? To witness the continents smashing together like global bumper cars, shoving the fenders of worlds up into massive wrinkles of stone and dirt?

Have you ever looked down on a sea of clouds, like a endless billowing comforter, and wondered how it would look to see each molecule work through the decision influenced by temperatures and winds and waves, sun and moon, to become drops of rain or dissipate into the atmosphere...

Have you seen the landscape dotted by the squares and circles and rows and roads that men have made in the quest for purpose and success and meaning? Have you seen the miles and miles and miles of trees taller than 3 men as they file solemnly, silently across the continent below you, chuckling serenely in the face of conqueror man who has yet to tame all of their wilds?

Have you seen the lights in trails and columns and chaos as you drift over a city? A man made starscape that lends shadow to a million wrongs, a million rights, love and hate, romance and intrigue. Tragedy and ecstasy..

Have you seen the massive chimney of smokey tearing it's way through the atmosphere on it's way to heaven to proclaim the power of destruction that has only winter to face as a foe? The glowing shades of orange and red and coral and yellow, chewing a path through the timber into oblivion, the giant monster a tiny offensive front underneath your wings?

It makes me know, with no uncertainty, that we are only one of the many players, small and insignificant, on the face of this magnificent piece of art called earth.

We are here for such a short time, and even our greatest impacts are the mark of an ant on the scale of a millennia. And yet our every action conveys such meaning, such worth in the rippling waves of humanity.

Another 2 million years and we will be like so many other species. A flitting memory: mankind. But with such a destiny in our own hearts and minds.

We cannot alter the stars in their courses or the waves in their tides any more than we can harness love in it's passion or war in it's horror. We cannot stop the uprise of mountains or the downfall of sea floors.

We are merely along for a beautiful ride on this roller coaster planet, with the global warming highs and the ice age lows. We are masters only in our minds of this majesty called earth.

There is nothing new under the sun, but there is so much beauty. So much to be enjoyed in our short time here. We are small, but we are blessed.

Get out and taste it.