Earth Topography as Skin

Earth Topography as Skin

The earth’s crust is our touchpoint. The Laramide Orogeny, approximately 55 to 80 million years ago, was the primary mountain-building event that led to the modern-day Rocky Mountain ranges we see today. Tectonic plate shifts and volcanic activity have shaped these systems, which are all part of the larger crust makeup.

Understanding how the mountains on our earth have formed over long stretches of time as the crust shifts and adapts to deep pressures far below is quite a fascinating process to ponder. If the crust is the exposed area of the earth, this is akin to our human skin. Our skin — the largest organ of our body — shifts and adapts over time, not only due to RNA directives but due to environmental phenomena as well. Our skin has layers and distinct parts when one delves into the minutiae of the organ, including specific functions that each layer provides. What happens below the surface of our skin that impacts our skin? What is going on that produces rashes, raised areas, swelling, and explosions of sorts (you know what I mean — those myriad and maddening zits that populated your skin in adolescence, primarily)? Our bodies are a massive system of electro-chemical activity, consisting of nerves, vessels, synapses, and pathways.

Being in Denver, Colorado this past weekend has inspired me. Nature is evident here, everywhere you look. Surrounded by mountains, water, and animal life, I’m in tune with an acute awareness of the complex beauty all around me. I feel I’m subsumed into the larger ecosystem and intensely resonating with being a part of something larger. Much larger. With much longer and wandering histories. A staggering string of events over eons. I am small.

My heart is large. My appreciation and love for nature has grown. The mountains still rip my mind with how gorgeous they are. I love to walk and walk through trails, noticing all the details around me. In reality, I’m traipsing over the skin of the world, particularly the area of skin in the western US. It’s a mesmerizing skin, a landscape of fire-breathed sunsets and scorching blades of light resting on the mountain tops. May I find myself here again in the future.

Thank you, Denver, and all your natural graces and eccentricities. I flew out for a concert and adopted a love for a city surrounded by raised beds of ancient skin.