Beauty Cannot Be Tamed

Beauty cannot be tamed, if it is a wild beauty. When you walk through a forest, you can see the trees growing in every direction, the thickets full of hidden life, secreted away from the human eye but not from the ear. The sun pours down through the trees with such intensity one could never think to cage it. The rains come whenever they see fit, bringing life to every living thing in its path. This is such a beauty that cannot be tamed.

Even if you clear away the trees, the thickets, chase away those who call the forest their home, you never quite succeed in quenching ALL life. The ground still breathes as a forest, no matter if there are houses now resting upon it. The trees still grow, quietly planning and plotting to take back what was once theirs, and still is. The thickets grow in hiding; someday they'll burst throw the metro chaos and join the trees in their revolution. The sun still comes, the rain still drenches, and if you listen carefully, you can hear the voices of the life that made the forest so sacred.

Yet humans can never understand this untamable beauty. We believe that we can rule the world if we so wish, that the universe is our playground. What are we, though, compared to the wonders of the Milky Way, or the amazing act of a doe giving birth to her fawn? We cannot compare ourselves to the sacred acts of nature, or our intelligence to that of the animals. In contrast, humans are self-destructive, uncaring, with no remorse of their hate. But it's not just the hating, the fighting, the loss of life we see on the news every waking hour that sets us apart from nature. It's the wear and tear of the human heart, the pain of losing a loved one, or failing at a goal you hoped to accomplish. Nature knows no failure - only the will and perseverance to survive in a world gone mad. Between the two, which would you rather be a part of: the chaos and noise, or the quiet peacefulness? This you shall only find in nature, and only if you care.

Do not destroy the precious beauty God gave to us. For one, you can never destroy that which creates life, and two, this wild, wild beauty can never be tamed.

Melanie Lapham Jan 17, 2007