Nature

 I am struggling with a heading.  The blessing of nature, the indifference of nature?  The contrariness of nature?

On Tuesday I went to Emek Beit Shean with the birding group.  It was a cold, windy, rainy day, the kind I love.  The valley, about an hour and a half drive from where I live, in the center. It is the eastern end of the beautiful Jezreel Valley where I lived on the kibbutz, and is bounded by the Gilboa mountains, and the Jordan river.  At this time of the year, in Israel, Tu b'Shvat (we went just one day before)  which is the holiday of the new trees.  Schoolchildren go out planting trees, as does everyone wherever they are.  The mountains and the valley are covered in fields of emerald green, the spring flowers are beginning their brief and glorious display.  Red and white anemones, pink, mauve, and white cyclamen.  The citrus trees are loaded, there are carpets of wild mustard dotted with deep mauve lupine.

The birds, to my amazement seem to love this weather as much as I do. The fish ponds are full and the skies are full of the wonder and beauty of nature. 

BUT, we had all heard the terrible news that morning, 21 soldiers killed by a blast in Khan Yunis.  And yet, nature, oblivious, moves on and does what it should, when it should.  Fields of red poppies grown around Kibbutz Beeri, the scene of the October 7 massacre.   Us humans do terrible things to each other, but nature continues, through it all. It is changing because of climate change, but it will adapt, and continue to cause wonder.  It continues throughout droughts, floods, avalanches, - it survives, and will survive, even if we as a species do not.

And, as we were leaving, a rainbow.