Earth, capital ‘E’: I immediately picture the planet, that beautiful watery ball floating through space, green and yellow and brown patches dotting the blue, all under a wispy swirl of high-atmosphere clouds. I have no photos of my own (yet!) that depict the Earth, the whole Earth.
Small ‘e’ earth, I am intimately familiar with. My feet know its ground: squishy sand, hard-packed dirt, spongy tufts of mud-grass, stern granite slabs.
My eyes follow its paths, up and down mountains, around trees, alongside streams.
My nose breathes in its fertile scent – decomposed leaves, fresh shoots, the oxygenated freshness right after a rain.
My hands sift sand, move rotted logs, dig deep in boggy peat.
Big Earth is made small for me through the earth it has in common. The rhododendrons I adored as a child in Pennsylvania spring from similar soil in the Himalayan valleys of Nepal. The sand in Delaware buckles into ridges just like those on the Tasman Sea shore.
The grasslands in South Dakota rustle like the savannah in Tanzania, and the scree on a pass in Patagonia slips and slides under my boots just as it did on high slopes in Tibet and the Alps.
I like the abstract idea of Earth, and in my mind’s eye, I see myself, a tiny dot, crisscrossing it with a mission, but what I really love is earth, that organic foundation of it all, the part I get to actually touch, see, and smell as I ramble the globe.
Inspired by the Weekly Photo Challenge: Earth.
One Foot Out the Door 
Fabulous photo montage. After a while, every place does begin to remind us of someplace else. I also love the meditative feeling of hiking over this magnifent planet. So much more intimate than being on a bike or other vehicle.
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Thanks! I agree – there is nothing like seeing the Earth on foot. I cover less of it that way, but I see it more deeply, more clearly, more personally. I wasn’t even thinking about my feet as concrete objects of transportation when I named my blog but as time goes by, it has taken on a deeper meaning!
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Beautiful images all round from different parts of this wonderful planet. Love how you encompassed your senses as you took us through each image. Really like the grasslands in South Dakota shot. Doesn’t look like there is a stray piece of grass in sight. It all looks so smooth. Wonderful work 🙂
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Thank you, Mabel! I was stopped in my tracks by those waving grasses one evening in rural South Dakota; they really were like one big perfect mass of yellow. My senses all seem to lock in on a trek; from feet to head, I am engaged in my surroundings in a way that can only be felt on foot.
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Those waving grasses resemble the colour of cheese. Such a striking yellow and I hope you didn’t need to wear sunglasses to look at them 😀
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Haha – no! Actually it was early evening and the whole field was just glowing in the setting sun. Gorgeous!
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Simply beautiful!
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Thanks! Our Earth really is a wondrous place, and I feel so lucky to have wandered its surface as much as I have.
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Beautiful, Lex! Both your photos and your words. If you think of it, humans and earth have so many things in common. Their chemical compounds for instance. To not have connection with earth is essentially to lose your identity, so we shouldn’t wait to make that connection.
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Aha – never really thought about our own organic make-up and how that connects us to the earth! But it makes sense, for me in particular, because I do seek out and feel so deeply the foot-land connection. It will be a tough day for me when I get too old or frail to be out there in nature myself (hopefully not soon at all!).
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Well said, Lexi! I, too, am more an earth person than a water one, and sometimes there’s nothing better than watching how the earth designs patterns, especially when flying above it.
Where was the second photo taken? It makes me think at how a canyon would look like were it was to be in the UK, or some other humid area.
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Thank you! I like the way you described that as the earth designing patterns. The second photo in the actual post is from the Badlands in South Dakota, US, and it is the opposite of humid there! It is dry as a bone and baking hot. If you meant the second photo overall (including the header), that one was from a hike on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula in Iceland. The earth there was so fascinating – clumps and bumps everywhere, probably scraped up by glaciers and dumped for eternity for moss to form and little plants to grow on it.
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Mmmh, I really meant the second photo! I guess I’ve been fooled by the grass in the picture.
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I too am an earth person. I love to walk, to feel the earth beneath my feet. How lucky we are. And when the troubles seem too much then I become an Earth person, and know we are but a tiny dot in one small galaxy, one of billions of galaxies, and that nothing could possibly be that important. Except maybe Love.
A beautiful ramble over the earth Lex, in words and pictures. It’s a wondrous place we live in.
Alison
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Thank you, Alison! It’s been a while since my feet have touched real, sweet-smelling, cushiony earth for an extended time, and I’m getting antsy. (Pounding the pavement in my new city life isn’t quite the same even though I’m walking miles every day.) I like your distinction, too – becoming an Earth person does help put things in perspective!
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All these shots are gorgeous, but I especially liked the one of the grasslands in South Dakota. How serene it looks… 🙂
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Thanks! That field of grasses, glowing in the early evening sun, made me slam on the brakes and get out of the car to try to capture its beauty. I find it serene also and use that photo as the wallpaper on my Mac to keep myself chilled out at all (OK, most) times!
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Leave it to you to come up with all this in one post…without leaving home! Love all the photos and your words are…wickedly soothing. It is true…how one place on Earth can look like and remind you of some other distant place, and yet every place has its own uniqueness.
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Hey, when you’re stuck at home, the only way to travel is by opening up the old photo folders! Some of us don’t get to take two exotic trips a quarter! 🙂 (Speaking of which, have you decided where you’re going yet?) I was really struck by the earth forms and plant life that are so similar around the Earth; it makes me feel the connectedness of all of us, yet I do love the cultural and other differences that exist … the whole reason I travel in the first place!
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Lex, yup…gotta do what you gotta do when you’re stuck at home. But is that a tad of sarcasm I hear in your voice about some people taking trips? Two! Who are those guys? And NO…I actually am dead in my tracks about where I’m going. I’m almost tempted to just hop a plane back to Bali and sit there for three months. But I feel like I owe it to my blog to go somewhere I’ve never been. But then, it’s more like work than vacation. This is why I can’t decide! I suppose it will just happen when it happens. It always does.
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Half and half? Bali for a month where inspiration about what to do next will strike?
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You are not the first one to suggest just that!! I am actually at this moment (a couple days later than you commented) stuck…and actually thinking exactly this. I love Bali, feel totally at home there. But it’s not some place new. Oh well….
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Nice piece Lex. One of the things I got out of it was the reminder that travel to various parts of the earth reinforces the idea that we’re all just part of one big whole; we are of earth rather than of [insert country here].
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I definitely feel that way! Did you also note my rhododendron reference?! Haha. I did do some rudimentary research and you are exactly right: these plants originated and thrive in the deep forested valleys in Nepal and Tibet and spread throughout the northern hemisphere, with particular note made of the Pacific Northwest and southern Appalachia. They are a great example of how connected and one big whole our Earth really is!
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Lexie, this post brings to mind a phrase and concept that I learned in a philosophy class years ago. For Native Americans, it was important to always “Touch the Earth.” This expression means that by physically touching the soil one can touch the soul of our planet and be at peace within the universe. Have you ever wondered why in old photos of Indians in the American west, they are always sitting on the ground? BTW, you may have noticed that things have been quiet at Gallivance lately. Terri blew here knee out and had to have a total knee replacement surgery recently, so as you can imagine, her recovery and care have kept us both pretty busy. She’s progressing well, but it’s slow going. We haven’t forgotten about our friends and look forward to things getting back to normal. In the meantime, thanks for continuing to follow along. ~James
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Very interesting, James! It makes perfect sense to me. And yes, I had noticed your absence but assumed you were … umm, gallivanting somewhere. What a huge bummer about Terri’s knee! I just lived every minute for months of my mom’s total knee replacement and aftermath, and I know it’s a tough operation. Please give Terri my best wishes for a full and speedy recovery.
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beautiful words and beautiful pictures!
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Thanks! The beautiful earth makes it easy!
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I can not wait until the day you post your own photo of Earth as a whole. In the meantime, I will be satisfied with your small ‘e’ pictures. Everyone of these is a stunner. I particularly like the bog, the sand dunes and the savannah. Like I said, your landscape photography is tops in my book.
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Oh, you are too kind … really. And I think I’d better cover more of the surface before I shoot off into space for the big picture! Btw, I was thinking maybe I could find some U.S.-based earth photos and write something sort of similar for that Gaia Guardians thing …? I’ll see what I can dig up!
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I am sooooooo excited that you are thinking of doing a GaiaGuardians submission. Yay you! Woo Hoo!
And you totally cracked me up with your ‘I think I’d better cover more of the surface before I shoot off into space for the big picture’
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Happy to keep you amused! 🙂
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We are so fortunate to live on this ‘watery ball’ aren’t we? What a gorgeous collection of images showing the diversity of this Earth of ours. So many amazing spots to explore. I keep saying I shall have to live to be 150 to see half of them. 🙂
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Oh, you are so right! Sometimes I actually feel a sense of PANIC when I think about how much more I want to see and do! But I know that’s not the right attitude, so I try to chill and just fully enjoy the small fraction of the earth that I get to see, knowing full well that I have already seen so much more than many people. I feel lucky.
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