Ever since each of us were small we have encountered the repeated emphasis on the two, or three or even five year plan. Initially this is framed within education, getting through GCSE’s, A-level’s, Higher Education. Thereafter we enter the world of work and are faced with strategies and visions to work towards, all of a similar timeframe.
The greater context however is so much grander than this allows us to see, and if we un-blinker ourselves momentarily and look up, or down even, there is evidence to suggest there are greater forces at work and we live with the conflicting truths that time is of the essence and concurrently, that we have all the time in the world.
The re-wilding of the Caledonian forest have taken the approach to expand and stretch their strategy to a 200 year plan https://news.mongabay.com/2021/06/in-scotland-the-rewilding-movement-looks-to-the-past-to-plan-its-future/, a concept which is entirely captivating.
The BBC series ‘Earth’ tells the narrative of the earths history through geology spanning millions of years, and being naive to much of this story, with those two encounters, life broadens, and the best laid plans become 200 year ones.
And in those times, when they, whose feet tread here, bend with inquisitive eye to dig upon the land, when those knowing hands touch the tender earth which has spun hence round upon itself ten thousand fold, when those eyes, which cannot yet be imagined look up to gaze upon the moon who has adorned and undressed herself before billions, when those toes curl, resisting as they enter the frothing shallows of the sea, sinking into sandy shores washed clean as a million canvases pushed and pulled by forces far beyond our reach, Then, we, looking from a distant somewhere will sigh and this long out-breath will be relief, a great letting go which will be the breeze that tingles down spines, For then, we will be at last at rest we, whose destiny is ancestry we, who felt the earth shift and could not bear to be on watch when she crumbled, we who made two hundred year plans to rebuild, replant, rewild, we who tried, then hoped, then acted, then wished, and wanted and prayed and waited, until in the end we could only watch generation upon generation do it all better, watch ,as great dreams came to pass, watch, as what was planted took root and spread all by itself, protected as it now was having been placed in ever safer sets of hands. Then, finally, on that day, as the sun sets for the trillionth time, it will be setting to mark an end to our endeavours, the world will have saved herself, because given a nudge, half a chance and time, she was destined to heal.