Recent air travel has given the opportunity to shift my view of the surface of the earth. There's nothing I like better in an airplane than feasting (and I do mean feasting) my eyes on this planet we inhabit. Right now I'm gazing down on the Kansas plains rippled with river veins. I'm watching a thunderhead puff up into the atmosphere while grey streaks shower rain west of Wichita, dust rising from the plains.
When I lived in the midwest (Missouri and Iowa) I was always so frusterated that everyone thought the place was flat. OMG - so not the truth if you've ever driven anywhere (well, except maybe Nebraska). I moved far away from the big sky, seeking ocean blue bordered by mountain scapes. I searched out river cracked earthscapes in Utah and Arizona, along with my favored dry naked Mojave mountain ranger.
While recently driving up the eastern side of the Rockies, I was reminded of the great plains. I envisioned great glaciers slowly moving across the earth, grinding, grinding, grinding away at the crust. Leveling. Evening out the rough edges. Depositing rich earth. I was reminded of Hexagram 15: the Mountain in the Earth, which perfectly describes the great plains.
Many many years ago, when I returned to an Iowa winter, from a Brazilian summer (and the only tan of my life) I brought with me a new view of my state. I thought of the plains of the Serengetti - exotic and appealing to me - but only because I was half a world away. If I were to stand in that exotic place around the world, I might find the very spot I was in, exotic and appealing. As I drove the gravel roads through the corn and soybean fields, I pretended I was in as exotic place as the Serengetti. And in some cases, I was.
I look back at the great plains (I'm looking at them now, checker board fields, twisting rivers), I think about the ancient slow moving glaciers. I envision the mountain below the surface of the earth - ground down and smoothed out. I feel that strength radiating out.
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