Planet Earth

I bought the Planet Earth DVD series for my husband for Christmas last year and we never got around to watching until now. If you are not familiar with the series it is a Discovery Channel produced series that took several years to create with incredible footage of wild animals, oceans, deserts, caves, forests, mountains, glaciers etc. from all over the planet.

I have been watching with tears in my eyes for two nights now. The images are so incredibly beautiful that they are almost unreal. Much of it looks digitally animated, but the amazing part is that it is all real! I keep asking myself, how is it that all these natural wonders have existed for millions of years, yet most of us have never heard of or seen most of them before?

Last night I watched the episode on caves and they showed us the most incredible cave - in New Mexico no less - called Lechuguilla. It was not discovered until 1986! The walls of this cave are absolutely covered in fine crystals, so it is as if you are standing in a massive geode! The most spectacular part of the cave is called the Chandelier Ballroom, where gypsum crystals 5 or 6 feet long hang down from the cieling. It is truly breathtaking.

The episode on deserts includes incredible footage of wild camels in the Gobi desert that took 2 months to film, because the camels are so rare and when found, they are so spooked by humans that they run as fast as they can. Even the footage of the deserts themselves is so beautiful, the sand is so smooth it looks like satin sheets.

I could go on all day about this wonderful series, but what I really wanted to say is how beautifully it puts my life into perspective. The silly little annoyances in my life which I call "problems" mean absolutely nothing outside of my own mind! If I choose to simply stop worrying about them, I begin to realize they don't even exist! I have food to eat and water to drink, shelter overhead and love in my heart! We live in a miraculous world and it is too rare that we are reminded of that.

If you haven't seen the Planet Earth series, please do if you can. You will be no less than stunned.