Of course there is a hell.
It's in all our stories.
Look in prisons. Look in the eyes of torturers and tortured. Look in the back rooms of pedophile's obsessions. Look in the anguished faces of abducted women forced to perform as sex-workers and men who have little humanity remaining them.
There is a hell. It resides in the decisions of governments to choose retaliatory war for acts only marginally connected with other governments which sit on geography laden with lusted after resources of minerals or oil or direct routes for transport of same.
Hell occupies offices of defense operatives in public and private sectors negotiating contracts for stinger missiles, 50 caliber munitions, fighter planes, unmanned drones, depleted uranium, and martial law.
Who marches into hell with a heavenly cause? How do mythic stories of heavenly or enlightened beings play in the world of pain and suffering promulgated as an economic strategy and national security priority?
Break open
A cherry tree
And there are no flowers,
But the spring breeze
Brings forth a myriad of blossoms!
- Ikkyu (1394-1481)
I can't help but marvel -- It is wonderful living in a place where the horror of war and terror of denied freedom is not felt personally with razor edged pain. It is a reminder that martial law, terror-as-tactic, and fear of reprisals for difference of opinion or belief, while not overtly sanctioned, is often hiding like a poisonous bite just out of sight, yet taking aim.
On mornings like this one -- when autumn air in Maine is cool at dawn and colors peek from mountain -- there is a lingering mood mingling with wood-stove smoke from house that says: Be grateful for the moment, and do not forget your brothers and sisters who need comfort in their suffering.
Story
by Sabine Miller
Tell me the one
about the sick girl —
not terminally ill, just years in bed
with this mysterious fever —
who hires a man
to murder her — you know,
so the family is spared
the blight of a suicide —
and the man comes
in the night, a strong man,
and nothing is spoken
—he takes the pillow
to her face — tell me
how he is haunted the rest
of his life — did he
or didn't he
do the right thing — tell me
how he is forgiven,
and marries, and has
2 daughters, and is happy —
no, tell me she doesn't
die, but is cured and
gives her life to God,
and becomes a hand-holder for
men on death row —
tell me the one where the man
falls in love with the girl
and can't do it, or
the girl falls in love
with a dog and calls
the man to tell him
not to come, or
how each sees their pain
mirrored in the other's eyes —
tell me how everyone is already
forgiven every story
they ever told themselves
about living
or not living —
tell me, oh tell me
the one where love wins, again
and again and again.
(--Poem, "Story" by Sabine Miller, from Circumference of Mercy. © Mountains and Rivers Press, 2010.)
Some say all of this existence is just story. Stories all the way down. Once, upon a time, until, the end.
Some others say that this existence is a testing ground or experiment in human quality for humans and a time of extended reach for other beings upward to a humanity seen as highest experience of sentience on precipice of an ascension beyond our ken.
Still others point out that earth is a statistical anomaly where the only life in the universe exists. Scientists and Ufologists have a different opinion -- but await further evidence.
Species have come and gone on earth.
Over 98% of documented species are now extinct, but extinction occurs at an uneven rate. Based on the fossil record, the background rate of extinctions on Earth is about two to five taxonomic families of marine invertebrates and vertebrates every million years. Marine fossils are mostly used to measure extinction rates because of their superior fossil record and stratigraphic range compared to land organisms.
Since life began on Earth, several major mass extinctions have significantly exceeded the background extinction rate. The most recent, the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, occurred 65 million years ago, and has attracted more attention than all others as it marks the extinction of nearly all dinosaur species, which were the dominant animal class of the period. In the past 540 million years there have been five major events when over 50% of animal species died. There probably were mass extinctions in the Archean and Proterozoic Eons, but before the Phanerozoic there were no animals with hard body parts to leave a significant fossil record.
Estimates of the number of major mass extinctions in the last 540 million years range from as few as five to more than twenty. These differences stem from the threshold chosen for describing an extinction event as "major", and the data chosen to measure past diversity.
(--from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event)
Some feel the insignificance of life on earth has to be viewed in a larger context.
Earth at a Glance: Fast Facts
Age -- About 4.54 Billion years
Location -- In the Solar System, on the outer edge of the Milky Way, about 28,000 light years from the galactic center (Source: European Space Agency). It takes the solar system 225 million years to make one full trip around the Milky Way.
Closest Major Galaxy -- Andromeda, about 2.3 million light years away.
Age of the Milky Way -- About 13.6 Billion years
Home System -- Solar System (One Sun)
Earth's Sun -- A medium sized, yellow star. Scientists call it a G2 star. It is the largest object in the solar system and contains 99.8 percent of the solar system's mass. It is located in the center of the solar system.
Distance from the Sun (average) -- About 93.1 million miles (also one Astronomical Unit or AU). -- It is the third planet from the Sun.
Farthest Distance from the Sun: -- 94.5 million miles.
Closest Distance to the Sun -- 91.4 million miles.
Speed through Space (around the sun) -- 18.4 miles per second or about 67,000 miles per hour.
Solar Orbit -- It takes Earth 365.2422 days to orbit the sun. This is the basis for the year.
Rotational Speed -- About 1,070 miles per hour at the equator.
Rotational Time -- It takes the Earth 23 hours, 56 minutes and four (4) seconds to make one complete 360° rotation.
Rotational Tilt -- 23.5° on its axis, a straight line through the planet from the North Pole to the South Pole. The tilt is in relation to Earth's near circular orbit around the sun.
Gravitational Pull -- One Earth Unit. This measurement is relative to other objects in the universe. Earth's gravity is the force that pulls objects toward the center of the Earth and is measured by the Earth's mass. Gravity is what gives objects their weight. Without gravity, the Earth's spin would fling everything on the planet out into space! See Earth's Weight (Mass), below.
Atmospheric Pressure -- 14.7 pounds per square inch at sea level. This is the measure of force exerted on objects by the weight of the air. Many times gravity and atmospheric pressure are considered one and the same thing. Actually, they are not! In fact, it is the Earth's gravitational pull on the atmosphere that gives weight to the atmosphere. The atmospheric pressure decreases above sea level, and it increases below sea level.
Earth's Weight (Mass) -- 5.972 sextillion (1,000 trillion) metric tons. That's 5,972,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons! Actually, scientists prefer to refer to this measurement as the Earth's mass instead of weight since weight is the result of
Earth's gravitational pull on another object. And the Earth cannot pull on itself! As the Earth orbits the Sun, it is weightless. If the Earth were placed on the Sun, it would weigh more than if it were placed on Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system but much smaller than the sun. Yet, Earth (or any other object for that matter) would have the same mass regardless of where it is located.
(--from Ecology.com, http://ecology.com/features/earthataglance/youarehere.html
Meanwhile, the black and white cat is bothered by fleas. The white and black dog plays with green tennis ball. Brown leaves lay curled on crushed gray stone in front of barn doors.
We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving yesterday with turkey, potatoes, and squash after canoeing Megunticook Lake into headwinds forcing us to turn and run into quiet cove where someone lay on floating dock curious about our appearance.
One thing I know is -- I am here.
For now.
And that suffices.
Hell be damned!
We long for peace and freedom for every species.
And if heaven has any cogency, let it be among and within us here and now.
Tell the story of the cherry tree and the spring breeze.
A heavenly myriadic blossoming!
