Sub Terra Vita—Chronicle 3, “Terra Firma”

Sub Terra Vita—Chronicle 3

By Tim Krenz

“Terra Firma”

Although the human body contains mostly water in its form, over 60% for the average adult, we know by science and legend that we possess dirt and dust to the very bones of our existence. Water brings life, and keeps life alive, as the water renews itself. Add the sun, it combines to create the nutrients and soul, the inner shine, of life. The sun sources all energy, here, to move levers of space and time, that roots, leaf, and flesh should grow, in due course, to the mature harvest of their purpose.

Sun itself turns also the orbit of thoughts, through its arc of cycles, at the dawn after cold night, or in spring following a heavy winter. Sunshine can embellish both smiles and hopes, strengthening human roots to the present. Taken all these, if granted, we still need to remain grateful for the most obvious blessing, the one never mentioned: The ground beneath us to take our stand.

By reason and parables, all should treasure the Terra Firma (“solid ground”) as the stable platform in our living. Sadly, recorded memory makes plain in painful ways the terrors that obsessions for land have wracked upon simple, otherwise peaceful people. The platform—land—in bad times, becomes both an object of fear and greed, but also a place for the fulcrum to lever history over the obstacles to peacefully living together, however short the times between conflicts. In the dust of the storm wind, human crises swirl, and then settle, again, resting dust and debris on firmer ground to recover and rebuild during the reprieves.

The land reclaimed from tempest natures, with hope, becomes prosperous again, feeding, clothing, and sheltering all survivors. All quarrels, even wars at sea or in the air, ultimately square over the rights and use of land. That, unfortunately, proves the enduring importance of the dirt, the firmament above the water, to all political-economic issues—in the beginning, in the middle, and at the end.

In times of peace, humanity can find the true worth of itself in the land beneath them. People live on it; play on it; work on it; roam it; explore it; see it; feel it; absorb it; both make song and dance on it; picnic with family upon blankets above the soil; and reverence things in homage by consecrating it. We can gratefully acknowledge a truism: People need land more than land needs people. Except, that the land might want people to create legends and poetry, story and feeling memory about what happens in the places they live and travel upon their own Terra Firma. In truth, only that part of the earth at the right angle of our shadow actually matters, at any time, along with the single heart beat, a faith in better things to come, and gratitude always.

From the first settlers in the valley to all who still will come, everyone comes to the St. Croix Valley for the same reason, perhaps, to discover that stable platform of the land in their lives, and to add to it the home-sense everyone seeks. People seeking peace all want that fulcrum point to lever over the obstacles standing in their path to happiness. By the end, in the middle, as at the beginning, the land of the Valley will always remain master of its own fate. Such a permanent, Terra Firma will rule over the temporary dust of all the others, and those remaining grateful, humble, . .mortal, that we can enjoy the lands in peace, as good as it will last.