Chapter 20: Lifeline, A Water Storytelling Project
The Sahara was once underwater. Let's consider deep time and the long view.
We just returned from a magical and transformative trip in Morocco and I am still filled with its light, warmth, color, traditions and experiences. Now here in New York, this is mixed in with the light freshly fallen snow touched by winter’s blue shadows, and all that today is….
I’m thinking about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s speech “I've Been to the Mountaintop”. You know how sometimes you hear something many times and then one day, it touches you differently?
To go to the mountain top is to seek a longer view. A different perspective, encompassing outlook, a sharp heart-opening inhale, a deeper sense of place and time… How will we orient ourselves in this moment? How will we navigate this time?
The Sahara Desert is a profound teacher, giving lessons about perspective, orientation, light and dark, the wind, the ocean, the stars and the interconnectedness of everything.
Morocco’s glowing and magnificent warm light illuminates the sands of the Sahara. It transforms everything it touches. Colors become more vivid. My Moroccan shadow behaved very differently than any of my other shadows ever had. As I took photographs, my long dark shadow slid into every one, making itself known. Announcing to me, “Here everything is different. Take note.”
The Sahara’s sand is so very fine. It surprised me with its coolness (it holds the intense cold of the night air).
Septillion grains of sand form the Sahara. And more than septillion stars exist in the universe. I have never seen so many stars in my life as I saw in the Sahara….
Speaking the language of the stars, I learned about Star dunes of Erg Chebbi, the tallest dunes on Earth. They are characterized by their distinctive branching arms and pointed tops, like a star fish, and are formed by winds that are blown in complex patterns from different directions. The biggest star dune is called Lala Lallia, dating back to the Upper Paleolithic period, 13,000 years ago. It’s 100 meters high and 700 meters wide.
The Sahara Desert was once underwater. Its dramatic transformation over time is recorded in the rock and fossil record of the Atlas Mountains and Sahara Desert. This Erg Chebbi Desert is known for its rich fossil beds of prehistoric marine life –ammonites, trilobites telling their water stories of life in this ancient ocean. There is so much to learn when we remember, when we consider deep time.
The Sahara still has a deeply significant relationship with the Atlantic Ocean. Winds blow its rich desert dust far across the ocean, providing vital nutrients like iron, phosphorus, nitrogen, all important to marine ecosystems, especially phytoplankton. The Sahara provides major support for ocean life.
We have so much to learn…
Thank you for being here with me! I welcome your questions, comments and feel free to share this with your circle.
Love,
MM
Thank you, as always, for this proof that we live in a marvelous, miraculous world! It comes at a needful time.
Your eloquence contributes to the enjoyment of these magnificent photos; what was is no longer and what is today carries the remnants of what was.
So very beautiful.
proud mom