Wonders of the World

"All Gizah Pyramids" by Ricardo Liberato

I grew up hearing about the Seven Wonders of the World and spent many hours pouring over photos of the Egyptian pyramids and the Great Wall of China.

"20090529 Great Wall 8185" by Jakub Hałun

These wonders are now prefaced by the term ‘ancient’—the
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Man is basically homocentric. Within our species we vie with each other, we compete and compare our accomplishments and laud our winners, and apparently have done so throughout recorded history.

Consider some of the most enduring monuments of man. As wondrous as the Great Pyramid of Giza is, the once polished gleam of its walls has been worn to a broken and crumbling edifice—still awe-inspiring in its own right, but undoubtedly faded in its glory. The vastness of the Great Wall of China is still remarkable, but it too has been severely degraded with the years. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Colossus of Rhodes and most of the other ancient wonders survive only in fragments or in legend—victims of conquering factions, erosion and natural changes occurring on the planet’s surface. So as I stroll through photos of my own wanderings it occurs to me that although these ancient monuments were certainly herculean constructions of man, they are by no means the greatest wonders of the world. Historic marvels of man continually flower and wither in the grind of the millennia, whether they are marvels of the ancient world or the present one. Perhaps the greater wonders are the jewels of the natural world. All man need do is walk away from the tunnel of his daily existence and into the wild to see the continuing metamorphosis of natural wonders.

Our planet apparently began as a ball of magma, spinning round the sun. It must count as a wonder that from this hot soup oceans and continents eventually separated and congealed.  

Coastline of Twillingate, Newfoundland

Pool on coast near Cow Head in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland

Rock formations in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland

And since that time entropy has played on the earth’s uniformity like a round of melodies using water and wind to carve dramatic knolls and buttes from the craggy cliffs above the sea.

One of the Twelve Apostles along the Great Ocean Road, Australia

Gold sand of Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand

Western coast of south island, New Zealand

Rock formation in Cathedral Cove, New Zealand

View from Punakaiki, south island, New Zealand

There is sublimity in a stormy coastline—the height, the gale of the wind over the water and the glimmer of the sun over the expanse all combine to leave us in awe.

Coastline near Darwin, Australia

Man is so tiny in comparison to the vastness of the rocky shore and the endless rolling waves, regardless of his tenacious will. Of course, man loves to imagine himself at the center of all things. 'Man was made in the image of God,' (or was God made in the image of man). We like to believe the 'upward' march of evolution reaches a pinnacle in man and can't conceive of what could develop beyond him.

Møn's Cliff, Denmark

Cape St. Mary’s coastline, Newfoundland

But the earth is ever-changing. Oceans beat the shores until the seabed is thick with sand. Water cycles from rain to river to sea, leaving the seeds of life awash in water and nutrients. Heat from the earth's core continually bubbles to the surface. 

Hell's Gate, Rotorua, New Zealand

Elements and time carve breathtaking forms—glacial concaves, deep canyons, sweeping valleys, and intimate hollows—dressed in the colors and complexities of the life that clings to them, and man is just a part of that dressing.

Fjord near Preikestolen, Norway 

San Juan river, Utah, USA

Canal in Canterbury, England

Tablelands in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland

Glacier water in cove near Hokitika, New Zealand

Fairy Glen near Betws-y-Coed, Wales

Life itself is the byproduct of earth’s emergence from uniformity, in all its spectacular variety. It blankets the landscape with color, texture and motion in a seemingly infinite array of guises—a three dimensional kaleidoscope of morphing patterns, textures and hues—bleached, chilled and churned by time.

Uluru, Australia

Summer runoff near Flåm, Norway

What were once trees are now rocks jutting out of the sand or polished and delicate sculptures adorning the shore or hillside.

The Pinnacles, Australia

Driftwood in cove of Coromandel Peninsula, New Zealand

Ancient bristlecone pines near Great Basin National Park

Man lives out his days generationally, a thousand times,  as other more ancient organisms endure for thousands of years growing quietly at a snails pace—letting their surface shoots live out their days and die, while the mother root hordes its core of life under the soil. 
  

Aspen grove in Wasatch Mountains, Utah

Its incredible that spores can hibernate through the ages until surface conditions are prime, and only then use their resources to begin their life cycle.  Wonders surround us. We are not at the center, we're just one of the multitude and in transition ourselves. That we can see and appreciate the complexities of the world is itself a wonder.
 

Fallen tree in Great Basin National Park

Even the more ordinary feats of nature—wooded slopes in the mist or overgrown glades with dappled light peering through the canopies—can leave us breathless in the face of their beauty.

Grove on slope in Norway

Forest undergrowth on Mt. Taranaki, New Zealand

Shells washed up on the beach seem to dance in clusters of color. Sandstone is textured by the breaking waves into rhythms of subtle shades. Dunes wear their windy existence in ever-changing swells, while grasses and cattails flex and bow like barometers of the currents that shape them.

Gold sand and shells in Abel Tasmin National Park

Undercut along Cathedral Cove arch, Coromandel Peninsula

Wind in the grass of Portland Bill, England

Sand dunes near Skagen, Denmark

Cattails along canal in Kinderdijk, Netherlands

And flowers are everywhere, in the coldest tundra, in the driest deserts, among the weeds—delicate blooms of life in a stunning array of colors and shapes that have been millennia in the making. Aren't these actually the wonders of the world?

Poppies among Roman ruins near Évora, Portugal

Wildflowers in Gros Morne National Park

Cactus rose in San Rafael Swell, Utah

Aloe blooms in New Plymouth park, New Zealand

Cactus roses in Nine Mile Canyon, Utah

Yellow banksia in Wellington botanical gardens, New Zealand

Thistle in field near Edinburgh, Scotland

We are part of the land's life cycle and part of the grind of time—both meal and wheel. With or without our man-made world, we will live our term and be churned into the dust with the rest of earth's little treasures, only to flower again in some other form another day. That is indeed a wonder, and somehow, it also pleases me greatly.