Weak light

It dawns a sunny day. Yesterday was clear as well.

As Stephen brings me my morning coffee, he tells me there is a 50 percent chance of rain and I understand that watering the garden will not be necessary.

It’s been a rainy summer with the last three days of no precipitation an anomaly. The garden grows, although I think that the plants, especially the tomatoes and the peppers, look a bit spindly as if they are stretching toward some sort of light that is not there now.

I wonder about a weak light that causes us to stretch ourselves toward it. Usually, that stretching, that reaching, promotes growth, provides inspiration. Although, perhaps not this day.

This day, this age when we have become acutely aware that the potential of great change comes in understanding that our ways and our living has stressed the earth, it yields a counter presence that insists that all things be as they always were.

Take our reliance on fossil fuels for example.

At a time when we understand that we must turn to alternative energy, our area, the pristine place of fresh drinking water, is being primed for natural gas extraction that will not only squander that precious resource, but upset the hydrological balance by taking billions of gallons of water out of circulation, poisoning it as well.

Some people say there’s plenty of water to go around; certainly it falls from the skies this summer. But I can’t help but think that what falls from the heavens is relatively clean and does not cause the skin to burn.

I receive news that the Northern Wayne Property Owners have signed a letter of intent to lease thousands of pristine farmlands to a particular gas company. It has been a long negotiated process and I am sure that those owners feel like they have protected themselves, their land and their livelihood. It is cause for celebration for those large property owners who struggle financially. I cannot help but remember the phrase “they know not what they do.”

And at best, it seems like a weak light that will cause us all to grow spindly.