They say that Mother Nature is “red in tooth and claw,” and I suppose if we think only on the fact that life feeds on life, we might think that saying is true. Of course, life has no choice but to feed on life, and so that saying is undeniable. There can be no life without the consumption thereof. Life eats itself over and over. The life force must continually be supplied and resupplied. But there is more to her than just that.
This is a very difficult concept for some people to
grasp. Most people are kind by nature,
regardless of what the news headlines might tell us. Because of this, it hurts their hearts and
feelings to think of anything dying, to think that they must feed on life in
order to live, to think that something must die that they might continue on.
Their hearts and souls are in the right place--one of kindness, love, and
decency--but their bodies are in the arena with Mother Nature, “red in tooth
and claw,” as Lord Tennyson could attest.
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| Awash with dripping color. |
So bargains are struck.
I will consume this life but not that.
I will rescue this form but sacrifice the other. When something is done out of love, who’s to
say whether it’s right or wrong? We all
have to strike our bargains with her after all.
Some do it with their food, others with their souls.
And bright red is just one of the many colors that drip with
abandon from the palette of Mother Nature.
She is a messy artist at best and certainly a lousy housekeeper. The colors fall off her brush, occasionally
painted, often dripped. Sometimes she runs
after deer and forgets about the many buckets of color, and she kicks them over
by accident and they wash down to the Earth.
Purple and yellow on the flowers in the photo, red in our veins. What does it matter? In the end, the picture is still beautiful,
even if the beholders have long since perished.
