The Color Purple

Nature brings us to our edges.

Too much cold, too much sun, too much snow, too much drought, too much rain, too much wind—it can bring any person or community to the edge. 

Or planet for that matter. 

And nature brings us to edges we probably don’t want to cross.

Four different people told me sometime last week that they had had a terrible day on Monday. I looked up to see if it was a full moon. 

It wasn’t. 

But then I remembered there was a giant storm that day in the northeast—snow enough to delight the skiers and to irritate everyone else.

It clearly put some non-skiers over the edge, including me.

I have been cranky a bit in general since winter arrived. Not because it’s too cold—but because it has been unusually warm. The climate, the planet, and its biodiversity all seems to be spiraling. 

And it appears to be mostly our fault.

Nice. 

We are degrading the very soil we stand on—the very air we breathe. 

With these happy thoughts, I, too, was grumbling last Monday. I don’t like winter, there are several months of it left, people are coughing at each other, the war in Ukraine continues, divisiveness is rampant, mass shootings still happening, violence against black people continues, we continue to pillage our earthly resources, and the economy is in the shitter. 

That’s a lot for any human—or an entire human race—to hold.

On top of all of that, last Monday morning, I was regretting not doing enough on Saturday and Sunday to feel prepared going into the work week. 

All of that adds up to a lot to think about. As I was sitting in my own grumpiness, trying to move my vibration up a few notches to something more positive, I spotted a whale figurine on my desk. My boyfriend had given it to me on my birthday.

Suddenly, I thought, the great blue whale does not know that it is Monday. The great blue whale does not know that it is snowing. The great blue whale does not know what a weekday even is. The great blue whale is not worrying about what all of us are doing up here above the water line (although perhaps it should be). 

I just read that they estimate that a single blue whale ingests 18 million microplastics every single day.

The whale may not notice the microplastics—because it’s embedded in the krill that they eat. Those whales just continue to do their thing. Dive, swim, sleep, surface, and breathe.

What are you here to teach us, great blue whale?

What is here for me to learn? 

The birds flitting to my window are delighted to find seed in the birdfeeder. The azaleas sleeping under the foot of snow in my yard are grateful for the long rest. The grass is growing its vigorous root system. Even the ash trees in my yard—the ones with the ash borer beetles and blonding bark—are preparing to die.

Nature does not fuss so much about what we are doing to it. The systems of this amazing planet remain wise—and resilient—and many of them will outlast us here.

In a recent Relationship Matters podcast, where they were talking about the idea of nature bringing us to our edges, they referenced a line from Alice Walker’s brilliant novel The Color Purple: “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”

What purple might you be missing?

The blue whale might sing to us, What purple is passing you by? Go find the purple. Stop your fussing. Too cold, too hot, too snowy, too icy, too cloudy... 

You know what?, sings the whale to us, This planet is just right.