We walk into our mountain chalet in Wengen. Our hearts stop beating, our lungs stop breathing--metaphorically of course. The beauty, the view is so astounding, it is surreal. My heart takes a picture.
When we send pictures to our children, it looks too good to be real. It looks like AI has created this heavenly-created place.
Coincidentally, each time my cousin sent a photo to her children in the states, they accused her of sending AI photos. Switzerland is beauty almost unbelievable. But the AI accusations are an uncomfortable truth. We are in the midst of a rapidly changing world, where imitation causes us to question--everything.
On the morning we biked the Lauterbrunnen Valley, before we took the train down the mountain, I read a new interpretation of the world's bounty and beauty. In Robin Wall Kimmerer's book Braiding Sweetgrass, she proposes the question, "Does the earth love us back?"
Her question was initially proposed to a graduate class on their relationship to the land. The students were in the class because they were devoted to preserving the earth, to a sustainable relationship. They loved nature. They hadn't considered that their love-of-earth was reciprocal. The author proposed a followup question, " What do you suppose would happen if people believed the crazy notion that the earth loved them back?"
These questions spoke to me too. It was beyond personification or anthropomorphism. The earth became a breathing, caring entity capable of loving us back. And with that revelation, her power seemed greater than ever before.
While biking the valley with seventy-two waterfalls dropping from sheer cliffs, Tony questioned how the valley was formed. From his question, I had another: How much agency did or does the earth have in it own beautification?
It were as if, earth mother knew that a valley between this mountain, if separated just so, would be incredibly beautiful. This valley would bring joy to earth's children. And yes, she had the capability to split it just so--whether that was by her own will or through a thousand years of rushing water slowly creating the Lauterbrunnen Valley.
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