Our beautiful planet.
As is the way of things, two completely disconnected events rang out yesterday, as if in harmony.
The first was this stunning picture released by NASA.
The full description may be read here, but I have taken the liberty of republishing this extract:
Earth, which is 898 million miles (1.44 billion kilometers) away in this image, appears as a blue dot at center right; the moon can be seen as a fainter protrusion off its right side. An arrow indicates their location in the annotated version. The other bright dots nearby are stars.
Now it doesn’t take too much imagination to put that minute speck of light, our Planet Earth, into its scale of meaning and importance vis-a-vis the universe. You get my message, I’m sure.
The second event was a comment left by long-term reader and supporter of Learning from Dogs, Patrice Ayme. The comment was on yesterday’s post, The meaning of wildness, and I quote:
Excellent article. Clearly primary temperate rain forest, nearly gone everywhere except in the American North west, has to be reintroduced.
Sheep ought not to be removed by man, but be removed by wolf, bear, felids. Cows would feel whole, having to fight off lions. And man’s sense of what nature means, vital to insure our survival, would blossom in this hour of need, when we have arisen as the planet’s gods. gods of evil, or gods of wisdom? That is the most important question.
“gods of evil, or gods of wisdom?”
To everybody I say this. (And I am most certainly not excluding me.) When you next look at yourself in the mirror will you make a decision? Will you be a god of evil or a god of wisdom?
Learning from Dogs 
The opposite of wisdom is ignorance, which is an evil of humanity. Everyone has choice, but too many choose ignorance rather than wisdom.
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Thanks Alex. Yes, the idea of a ‘tipping’ point is widely promulgated. But it implies a lack of control by an individual.
Whereas, the arrival of a turning point in the affairs of man, as is surely the case NOW, is the crux of the matter.
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Yes Paul we are just a blue dot.. among many other dots… And Patrice’s quote says it all…… We have interfered and upset what Nature put in place as perfectly Balance.. And we have only to look at ourselves as a species to see how many other species have become extinct or in peril at our hands, Including our own..
I think we all intuitively know the answer to that Question.. I only hope that as they look into the mirror, they reflect upon what kind of a future they want for their grandchildren, Because if we do not take a Good Look at ourselves Now and see the cracks we are creating.. The Looking Glass will shatter!
Peace to you and Jean,, and thank you for all your Posts
Sue xox
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And, Sue, thank you for your comments so generously given. The way of nature is the only way; for better, for worse.
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Heh, this resonated with me: “When you next look at yourself in the mirror will you make a decision? Will you be a god of evil or a god of wisdom?”
I just wrote a blog post about this same astronomy “discovery” today as well. It’s called, “Reconsider the Earth’s Self-image.” If you’re interested, it’s here:
http://erikandrulis.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/reconsider-the-earths-self-image/
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Erik, thank you and welcome to this place. To my other readers do go across and read Erik’s much better version of seeing our planet from so far away.
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Thanks for the nice welcome, Paul. I love dogs, that’s why I dropped by! And thanks for sharing my work, that’s very kind of you. I’m humbled by your generosity. Peace.
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Erik, it was a genuine pleasure to read through some of your recent posts. And all dog lovers are doubly welcome. We have 9 here at home, down from 14 a few years ago, and every one of them is treasured.
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Just surfacing here, like some submarine creature that was meditating in the depths. I am, too, humbled by your generosity, Paul. Thanks.
Dogs or humans, we have just one spaceship to live on. As the (new female) editor of Science just said, we cannot do double bind experiments with our planet.
She said this to explain she will take more risks in unveiling truths that could impact the Earth than traditional peer review has it..
We behave as if we needed a bigger boat, but we have just one!
PA
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Correcting a typo. I meant “blind”, not “bind”. However, double BLIND can bind us blindly.
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Patrice, appreciate so much your comments; as always. Apologies for not replying for 24 hours.
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