Underland: A Deep Time Journey

Into the underland we have long placed that which we fear and wish to lose, and that which we love and wish to save.

Here the human body is largely disposable in the view of the corporations that own the mine and the markets that drive it: a small, unskilled tool of extraction to be replaced when it fails or wears out.

This is a risk that will outlast not only the life of its makers but perhaps also the species of its makers.

This upper world is very beautiful

A chamber is entered. Sound now booms, resonates.

I lie on my back, a gaffed fish, breathing heavily, and there above me, showing through the mist, is a sea eagle, low and circling, and the queasy fear in my throat is forgotten and my heart leaps to be overflown by that remarkable bird in that remarkable place. Then I think, It’s just sizing you up as lunch – and I laugh out loud at my stupidity and the land’s indifference