RESILIENT….NATURE

As 2023 winds up, I wanted to give a shout out to another mapmaker,  Anton Thomas of New Zealand, who recently completed a Covid-driven project of amazing breadth and beauty, his WILD WORLD global map.  This hand-drawn, view of the planet contains 1642 animal species, all roughly located in their natural areas.  It’s a stunning piece of art for many reasons, both for the artistry and the ideas that drove it.  In the face of so many global challenges, it serves to remind us how resilient and diverse nature, as well as we (human nature), is and will need to remain just to survive!  I was further reflecting on this in the Fall as we observed the annual migration of sparrows that show up for a couple of days, usually in September.  There are tens of thousands of them, flying haphazardly in dense black “clouds”, while seemingly never running into one another.   How do they do that?  To stare at this absorbing ballet is to see how adaptive nature truly is.  It needs to be the mantra for all of us.  Pax.