Journal Entry – 17AUG18 – I Feel the Earth Move…

This afternoon I felt my first earthquake.  I am in Alajuela, Costa Rica on a work assignment and a 6.0 earthquake in the south Pacific shook the massive coffee bar I was sitting at like it was on rollers.

It took me several seconds to sort what had happened; at first I wondered how anyone could be shaking this massive, nearly 10m long bar.  The I realised the bar was moving because the entire building, and the earth beneath it, were also moving.   This building hangs over, suspended on posts, a steep hillside.  People had already started to exit towards more solid ground and I followed.

Thousands of miles away from the epicentre (deep in the ocean off the coast of Indonesia) the experience was interesting and, in a strange way, fun.  Thankfully, initial reports on the internet indicate that no severe damage occurred closer to the source.

It is humbling and awe-inspiring to think of the forces in motion on this planet and how infinitesimal any of us are in comparison.  What we think of as our world is a thin, aptly named, crust floating on a huge ball of dense rock that moves like a viscous liquid.

In time, all of the land masses we walk on and that support the oceans will push themselves back into the fiery depths and will be replaced by new earth exploding out of the deep.  This is constantly happening; every year, by a handful of centimetres, the ground beneath our feet is recycled.

The strange sensation of the earthquake was reminder to me of the impermanence of all things.  The Buddha used the term anicca (ah-nee-cha) to describe this: everything has a beginning and an ending.  In fact, due to changes in the energy output from the sun changing the character of the ‘habitable zone’ in the solar system, photosynthesis, the primary foundation for life on Earth, will likely not be possible in approximately 800million years¹.  And here you thought we had 4 billion more years until the Sun expands into a red giant and (maybe) swallows the Earth whole!

On a smaller scale, anicca is an important concept that helps keep me grounded.  It has helped me reframe my life, my view of the world, and even my relationship with death.  The earth shaking reminded that we are on floating raft with only the forces of nature as a guide; I see this as a metaphor for existence itself.

We’re all along for the ride and there is no pilot.  We are hurtled into life without our consent and dealt a hand that we have to play for as long as we are here.  So many of us (I still fall into this trap at times) stress and worry and fret about the tiny details of this ride we are all on as if they were so important and serious.  Money and careers and achievements and on and on will not matter in the end.  We’re all headed to the same place, wherever that may be.

I heard a phrase a long time ago, I can’t remember the source, and it went something like, “when you’re on your death bed, looking back on your life and realising that time is almost up, you probably won’t wish you’d spent more time in the office.”  Sure, this sounds like a greasy greeting card from the corner store but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a kernel of wisdom in even the funkiest cheeseball cliche.  We kill ourselves in the name of things that don’t truly matter and burn away the only thing that truly belongs to us; the very limited time we have as sentient creatures.

Every minute is precious.  This is something I’ve only realised in the last couple years as my viewpoint has expanded beyond the limitations of my old wounds.  I’m learning to attend to the things that really matter- relationships, friends, family, connection.  You never know when your ride is going to end, only that it will.

Where will you be when the earth shakes under your feet?

 

1 Heath, M. & Doyle, L. (2009). Circumstellar Habitable Zones to Ecodynamic Domains: A Preliminary Review and Suggested Future Directions. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.  Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/abs/0912.2482