A tribute to the Sandhill Cranes Spring Migration in Nebraska just now. Every year 400,000 to 600,000 sand hill cranes—80 percent of all the cranes on the planet—congregate along an 80-mile stretch of the central Platte River in Nebraska, to fatten up on waste grain in the empty cornfields in preparation for the journey to their Arctic and subarctic nesting grounds as they have done for thousands of years also before there were any grains to pick up here I myself used to live in the most western part of my country Denmark far away from Nebraska and had never heard much about cranes and nothing about Sand Hill Cranes. When I met my wife and got married I moved from the west to the most eastern spot in Denmark to a small island in the Baltic Sea, called Bornholm, a beautiful island very isolated from the rest of Denmark. In fact it is located much closer to Sweden and the nature her is very similar to what you find in southern Sweden. One very clear, calm and sunny morning in October some 20 years ago, a short time after moving to here I was sitting outside on the open porch at my weekend summer house near the sea, I suddenly heard a very, very beautiful, but strange calling sound or song as from many voices high above in the sky . I looked up – and there -very high up in the clear blue sky I could see hundreds of big cranes in big loosely formed V formations, without landing, passing my island on their autumn migration from far north at the Arctic Circle on their way to the winter quarters in southern Spain. (as their goal was I later was told)It was an unearthly spiritual, calling and magic song and it did something very strange to my soul, which I shall never forget. It was like a kind of message to me to remember what was my real purpose for being here on this beautiful planet, and a message that told me that they - the cranes in the sky - and I -a human on a porch ,were much , much closer in family that I could ever imagine. I remember to this day, that sitting there on the porch, all alone by myself at the moment, I could feel tears running down from my eyes , moved in gratitude to what I just had experienced and learned. Every year in October in clear and calm weather I daily look up in the sky to the north, hoping to hear the first distant songs from the first cranes arriving my island on their autumn migration. Many years later I stumbled over a book in a second hand store. The title of the book was “The Echo Maker” by American author Richard Powers. I took it down from its place on the shelf and bought just because there were pictured cranes on its cover. The main story was not about cranes but the story was set in Nebraska in a town at the South Platte River but the cranes and the spring migration played their own mystical role in the novel. And that’s how I got to know about the Sand Hill Cranes. WHY DO I WRITE ALL THIS? SIMPLY BECAUSE WE HUMAN BEINGS ESPCIALLY IN THE WESTERN WORLD LIKE EUROPA, ( DENMARK TOO), THE USA AND SO ON ,HAVE TAKEN A SAD AND DESTRUCTABLE COURSE ,REGARDLESS OF THE COSTS , TO BECOME RICHER AND RICHER, BUY MORE AND MORE UNNESSASARY STUFF OF AL KINDS, EATING ALL DAY LONG WITHOUT NEEDING IT, USING OIL AND PETROL WHERE WE DO NO HAVE TO AND ENDLESS CONSUMING FOR NO REASON AT ALL. BECAUSE OF THIS BEHAVIOUR OF THE HUMAN RACE AND AMONG OTHER BEATIFUL THINGS WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN FOR FREE ,THE PLATTE RIVER NOW ARE DRYING OUT DUE TO IRRIGATION AND SOME DAY AND THERE IS SADLY NOT MUCH ABOUT IT WILL COME , I WILL BE GUILTY IN LOSING A CLOSE FAMILY MEMBER THAT I MET FOR THE FIRST TIME 20 YEARS AGO. youtube/watch?v=dvC6xsacncA
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 12:17:37 +0000
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