Thoughts from Living on a Rock

I wanted to redo this post because, ‘if you don’t say what you want, what is the use of writing’ as Rilke said. 

I walk the ground burdened with my troubles. But this ground though is sacred. Sacred not in the religious or spiritual sense. Sacred in the eternal-evolution-of-the-cosmos sense. For this ground holds me up with its age-old stability. It says to me, ‘I can receive your burdens’. 

This ground is a craton after all. The Dharwar Craton, an exposed part of the Archean shield - some of the oldest crust of Earth, and some of the most stable. That word means something - to be of the Archean age, of the Precambrian shield, means to have been around for 2.5 - 3 billion-with-a-B years ago. Can you imagine that? When you walk those rocks, when you lean against and touch them (one of the same lines I used in my TEDx talk) do you realize you’re touching something that holds the memory of a nascent, still-forming Earth that was part of an ancient universe?

For me, that juxtaposition could not be more stark. Here I am, here we all are indeed, walking around in the now with our triumphs and tribulations. When really, we tread back in time walking this old exposed stable earth crust; we look back in time when we gaze up at the sky and catch the light of a star that made its way to our eyes many, many years after its origination. 

These ideas have been pondered before in many different ways by many different people. Carl Sagan’s iconic blue dot quote instantly springs to mind. 

Deliberations of this nature beg the question then: what is time? I won’t allow myself to descend into the eccentric depths of that type of rumination. I’d rather get up and book my hair appointment. 

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If living on 2.5 billion-year old rocks doesn't make you feel special, I don't know what will. 

I see boulders, magnificent boulders, driving through Hyderabad, especially the area that is now overtaken by a very different type of outgrowth in Madhapur, Gachibowli and beyond. Those boulders have lived eons. 

They're part of Earth's precambrian history. The things they must have stood witness to, the events they were a part of in their evolution...that's a glorious realization.  I've been around them for 40 years. They've been around Earth more than 2.5 billion years. Woah. 

I have an Ascendant that goes out of its way to build a stable foundation. Little wonder then that the ground beneath me, that birthed and raised me, is the most stable part of the Earth's crust. That's a coincidence that's hard to ignore. 

I don't know, I find it all very magical. There's wonder up above if you manage to catch a view of the Milky Way we're swimming in and there magic down below and around, if you go touch an Archean rock, or even walk on one. Imagine the grounding!