EDEN ON E   RTH

It happened when I watched my first BBC Earth documentary. My jaw dropped. I couldn’t breathe right. Inherently, I’d always known the earth was beautiful and valuable, but watching those camera shots-- the close-ups, the slow-motion clips, the birds-eye views-- affirmed and magnified everything I ever knew. There were oceans gasping for air, and mountains breathing solidly and gloriously, and deserts so rolling and silent they were holding their breaths. And all these animal species I never had imagined existed, tumbling through the world with more presence than humanity could ever hope for. 

 

The world is overflowing. The world is a flood of beautiful things that we could never drink enough of-- and yet most of us build arks and trap ourselves inside and try to wait out the flood. Never once do we peek out the window, much less throw ourselves into the lovely storm. And what’s more-- we try to get rid of it, we try to dam the waters shut, and we have been draining it, slowly, over the years. And it’s draining faster now.

 

It is my dream to become a wildlife filmmaker. Watching a wildlife film was what truly opened my eyes to the beauty and instability of our earth, because reading and hearing about something just doesn’t hold the same impact as seeing. It’s different when you’re watching reality play out in front of your eyes. It hits a more urgent chord. I’ve always wondered what would happen if President Trump watched BBC’s Planet Earth documentary. If he could perhaps see the tender and tentative balance of the Earth in front of his eyes…  

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Admittedly, my photography is amateur and my fieldcraft skills rather rough. But I'm hoping that with time and determination, I'll be able to hone my passions into something worth watching. That's what this website is for.

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Running has ingrained the mentality, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, into my life. For me, these words convey subtle optimism, unyielding determination, and the mindset of always looking forward. Every setback -- everything that doesn’t kill you -- makes you stronger. It is this mentality which, I believe, will carry us through this period of climate change and destruction, if we apply it.

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With all the bad news, we’ve become nearly desensitized to climate change. What once was urgent now seems gradual, saddening, and worst of all, unavoidable. Yet the rewording of the phrase-- from crisis to rebirth-- implies that we still have an opportunity. We have to remember that climate change is not a dead-end, one-way street. There are so many pathways out, even if we have to make them ourselves. 

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