Seeing these sublime bioluminescent creatures
filled me with a sense of the inexorable drive of life and the relentless flow
of time. As the comb-jelly and its cousins ascended and descended in their
respective aquariums, responding to the ancient rhythms of the sea innate in
their essences, I felt in a visceral way the convergence of the streams of life
and time. I remembered the stirring questions pioneering ecologist and marine
biologist Rachel Carson asked in her lyrical book, The Edge of the Sea.
Writing about the shell of a type of clam called Angel Wing that glows with a
strange green light, Carson asked: “Why? For whose eyes? For what reason?”
No matter how much we study and observe
creatures of the deep sea, answers to such questions will forever elude us.
The world is a mess now. On any given day it appears to be on the
verge of collapsing. Covid, climate emergencies, including degradation of
marine habitats, the exponentially rising cost of living, global food shortage, a
genocidal war and an epidemic of gun violence have intensified our collective
despair. Under such conditions, is there any room for beauty, mystery and
wonder in our lives?
It is a valid question. Einstein provided an answer. “The
most beautiful thing we can experience,” he wrote, “is the mysterious. It is
the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger,
who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead;
his eyes are closed.”
Another answer came from Thoreau: “We
are surrounded by a rich and fertile mystery. May we not probe it, pry into it,
employ ourselves about it, a little?”
So yes, we need to set aside moments for beauty,
mystery and awe to remain human during turbulent times, especially during
turbulent times. The good news is that we don’t have to travel far and wide to
experience the mysterious. It is available when we employ ourselves a little,
as when we take the time to observe a bluebird family raising its brood in the
cavity of a tree, or a family of ducklings taking to the water with much
quacking, or an egret patiently waiting for a meal at the edge of a pond, or
observing the “morning star” Venus glowing with blinding brightness in the pre-dawn sky.
Or, if we are lucky, to observe the miraculous deep-sea
denizens in a unique aquarium.
