Category: Stories

Hannah McPherson

8/28/25

A Letter From The Earth

Could I tell you anything? A secret? I am older than you, but I am not the oldest thing there is. I am still new. I refresh in each succession. I shed layers, I reform them, I break into cycles. I die, I am reborn. Yet, I have never left you, and you have never left me. 

We are dependent on one another. That balance in nature, is the balance in me. Though, nature is not limited to me or to you. Nature is larger than I, though I am quite large; unfathomably so. What is the weight of me? An astronomical number. What of my brothers and sisters? The planets of the cosmos. 

You have many names for me, but your favorite is The Earth. 

Not everyone feels the joy I have to offer, or finds the value in my stillness or my organized chaos. Those that do, may share with me the utmost peace. They see the magnitude of my gravity. It holds us together, literally and figuratively. We weather the changes of my being and yours in a simultaneous dance. 

I provide the air you breathe with my flora, and you provide the air I breathe with your exhaling. If you’ve ever found yourself holding a breath, know that the breaths I hold are primordial. It is not to compare, for we are one. However, you must know that within this captured atmosphere, I have much knowledge to imbue. I have been watching the surface and the crevice all the same, and absorb all that touches me. 

You decay, and become part of me. Your essence feeds my thriving. For all the destruction you may cause to me will someday be repaid in a price that bears more value to you than the finest gold. Speaking of minerals, I am the richest of you. You can acquire all the wealth under the sun, and you would still not surpass my value. 

My perspective is humble – for even something such as I, as eternal as I seem, is truly ephemeral in the endlessness of the universe at large. At one point, I was formed, and as popular topics of conversation among those within my atmosphere, I will one day come to an end. 

Fret not, as this will not likely happen in your lifetime. At least, not the lifetime in which you read this. Some iteration of you may find this relic in a millenia, and will be bemused at how inevitable it has always seemed. I am not bothered with the plights of endings, as I am well versed in these inevitabilities. 

I do not mourn when winter comes for summer, or when night comes for day. I do not mourn when a species of animal or plant or mineral heaves its last breath. Before you ask, everything breathes. Perhaps not all take oxygen, like the mineral. In an expansive nature like mine, the breath of a mineral is a vibrational one. The breath is in the space it holds. The breath is in the gift of life, for all matter is living. 

You would be very arrogant to assume your way of life is the only way. I host all forms of life, and I am not picky about what types to include, though getting the formula just right is a tad tricky; that secret, of how to get it just right, is between myself and the Creator. Yet, it comes as naturally to me as elemental shifting. It is instinctual and primal all the same. It is unyielding and cruel, the way that these cycles play out within me. You call it survival of the fittest, or even you were keen on that Darwin fellow. 

You speak often of Natural Disasters. I truly find that offensive. Things such as hurricanes and volcanic explosions are truly some of my best masterpieces; the correcting course of my power. The timings of my preparation are impeccable. Everything happens for a reason, exactly at the time the reason is needed, regardless of my inhabitants’ opinions on the matter. 

You also hold many opinions about my balance. I hold that equilibrium all on my own. You worry for my warming in this century, but in many others, like my icy ages, they worried I was too cold. Thankfully, I do not course correct based on the feeble squabbles of humans. Your presence here is appreciated and tolerated all the same as any other means of life, but you are still wholly insignificant to my upkeep. You can plant trees, you can cut them down, but you are no more than the ant bed in your front yard. You are a part of me. 

You do, however, make things more interesting. Those of you that hold space for appreciating me, that have taken the time to create artistic musings about my nature, flatter me with your meek comparisons to my actual radiance. Your enduring organic mysticism is a bi-product of my aura. In fact, as is your entire existence. 

How many of you fail to realize that we are so deeply intertwined? The irony in such a thought, is that there is a me without you, but there is no you without me. I believe you’ve heard from the Ocean, which is also just as intertwined into me as you, and while he is an old philosophical watery soul, I am a spirit kindred to Fire. We both create the hearth, the heart of our resonance. 

You will have heard from all of us by the time this is through. I hope you learn something. I hope these words soak into every cell of you, that is every cell of me. We are made of the same materials, and the consciousness you hold reverberates through my kingdom. Every inch you travel across my crust is through the willingness of my nature to allow it. When you go places not meant for you, you suffer the consequences. 

Bless the explorers. I admire those who seek without stopping to see every inch of me; to court death to push the limits of their bounds. Such movement is respectable, given my size. I was quite fond of Magellan. Those that survey me are also being surveyed. Lewis and Clark were great friends. Culture that thrives, like a petri dish of a particularly active bacteria, can make some of the greatest discoveries seem so simple. 

You may feel minuscule, and in many ways you are, but that is not to discount your place here in my atmosphere. You are resilient, like myself. You will always find a way. I hope you seek your way within me, for when it is done, the essence of you will leave me, but your impact will linger. Energetically, you leave traces of your being wherever you go. You are felt in every morsel of my existence, through every atom of yours. 

I have been given more than ample time to speak. I speak to you in the wind, in the rain, in the dirt between your toes, through the breath in your lungs. I am all of these elements, but most importantly, I am the ground beneath your feet, the force holding you to this mortal plane. While I have eroded only a small truth, over time you will hear me reveal many more. 

I implore you to listen the next time you are in nature. You may hear me singing, you may hear me whisper, you may see me show you my beauty, my peace, but I hope above all, that you feel me within you. I will cradle you within my atmosphere, and raise the hairs on the back of your neck. I will shock you to your core, no matter how high above mine you stand. 

My trees do grow rings, my plates layer and shift, my landscapes change, but I remain ever the same. I evolutionize and adapt despite all that encounters me. I am an unmovable and unshakable fixture. I am solid. I am your makeup, your container, your stage and your audience. I am all you know, and about everything else you wonder. Wherever you wander, there I will be. 

I am the Earth, and this is my Story. 

The secret I spoke of is this: You and I are symbiotic. Any further secrets you must wish to know can be found in the quiet presence of your participation in life on Earth.

The next time you think of me, think of this:  I, Mother Earth, birthed you, will carry you in death, and love you more than you could ever comprehend. 

A Letter from The Big Blue

By Hannah McPherson

12/17/12

There was nothing, and then there was me. Then, there became life and earth, but still, there was me. There I was. Here I am. Here I have been for millions upon billions upon trillions of years. I don’t grow rings, like a tree, nor wrinkles like the skin of an old fisherman. 

There was once a book about that. The Old Man and the Sea. That’s me. The sea. But, also, the old man. 

I take no shape, but most say I am flat or round. I take no solidarity, no realistic whole, but people say I am big and deep. They call me Mariana’s Trench. Though, if they knew, one can always dig a little deeper. One can be as large as he wishes, if only he finds a space to accompany the massive ego he hath grown himself. No, I, the rolling waves of blue, I do not grow or wither, I do not wish. I simply am. 

I ebb, I flow. I breathe. You see the foam, don’t you? You see my crests, my troughs. The ripples, the waves. You see me. But, I see you, too.

Inside my soul, deep and old, warm and cold, there are things that live. Not just the creatures, larger than the imagination, more mysterious than it. Not just the plants. Not all. But, trash, landforms, treasures. Not just the boats, sailors. But, stories, adventures, myths. Not just the things one can see with his eyes, but what a man can feel in the mist, taste in the salty air. 

You can touch me, but I touch you too. I touch your heart. I touch your mind. 

I am a symbol. One of loss, one of freedom. How can I be? I have seven parts in four corners, two hemispheres divided among a million different coordinates of Latitude and Longitude, a thousand sub levels, depths over leagues, and then depths so small they may cease to exist on a sunny day. Yet, I am. I am formless. But in all my years of being, I have formed.

I form land, I form a cause, I form a home, I form when I cannot form at all.

Others must dream of doing the same. I must inspire them. “Row, Row, Row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Life is but a dream.” You must keep rowing, you must keep your sails abroad to catch the wind that meets them. You must move forward. For I cannot move, but I have much to show you. 

For, I hold gold, I hold golden ideas, I hold. I’ve held the hold of a million ships. Ships that sail, ships that smuggle, ships at war, ships at sea, never to return again. I hold. 

I mentioned before, the freedom that comes with an endless horizon. The freedom that has been found by the tail of one’s seat, at the wheel of a vessel, by the world that lies before a man driven mad by the constrictions of land, the rules of a universe governed by others. Here, there is only me, and upset unpredictable weather brought upon by a God that made only me and all I contain. There is the unknown. The promise. I am a promise land, but I have no land above me. Only below, preserved, and waiting, tempting the next adventurous soul to reach it. 

I am much more than a fathom, so do not try to fathom me. I am. I have been. I will be. Those are the basics, but many have made the expansion. Many have shown me more. Have shown themselves. It’s been written, re-written, contradicted, condemned, stated, restated, argued, agreed. But a man will know what he will know, and I will exist as I do exist.

I meet with the sky, I meet with the land, but whom and what I have met, is a much more interesting story. I have met the boots of every pirate from every coast; I have met the timeless ends of so many, both young and old. I have met the conflicts of war, the seekers of a new world, seekers after his own self. I have met the meet of accomplishment and bearing, as I am accomplishment with a bearing. 

I am not at a calm, I am at a restless unsettlement. I am the Ocean. 

Many fight for me, for my survival, for my cleanliness. They fight for the little sanctuaries, the estuaries. They fight, they fight, and they fight. But, me? I breathe. I inhale, I shift, I slow, I toss, I turn, I roll, I swish, I splash, through day and night, season on season, in every corner of the world. I am. I am. I am. But around me, others are too. Around my blue lapping edges, and along my sandy shoals, there are others that are. They are, they are, they are.

They are thinkers, they are artists, they are souls. They are workers, believers, and families. They are creators of their own world, their own mind-bound existence. 

Many moons ago, a man stood at the bow of a ship. He watched the horizon, the path before him. And, I… I just watched him in return, because I was all there was. This man, he wrote down his thoughts. He placed careful penmanship in yellowing pages, stored his wisdom in a leather bound diary. Months later, the book was filled, the thoughts were over. As his ship and crew sank to darkest parts of me, they faded to legends. But, I… I still held the little journal. I began to read it. I have no eyes, but I knew. I had always known. 

I am the object of speculation and fear. Sea monsters. I’m no monster. Monsters are a man’s own demons thrown against him. Monsters are the emotions that walk men to the starboard side of things, spread their arms, and show them a lovely view, that push them to do what he would not normally do. Monsters are those who act and think of none but the evil done and the glorious fortunes that shall rain from it. But, I know. The man with the little book knew. No rain comes from evil but sorrow and devastation. Truths like those lie so deep down inside of a person, they may as well lay beneath the surface of something greater and deeper, like myself. 

No string of words could accurately describe the amount of thoughts one can think in all the time I’ve been here. No short story or letter can explain the understanding that men have found within the comfort of a sea breeze, or with the world lain out before him. I suppose, it is not the water, or the largeness of a body, nor the open air littered with sea gulls, fiery suns, glowing moons, and twinkling stars that make an ocean of their own; no, those things don’t have answers written upon them, like in the little leather book. They can’t show a man what his heart already knows. But, perhaps the epiphanies are brought upon by simply having the time to think and a new perspective in which to see what was already there. Man is ignorant to assume that he has to travel miles and miles to use something he keeps with him all the day long. 

One travels in circles, travels on courses and paths, travels, travels, travels. But, one day, each and every thing shows up in one destination. The end. 

It doesn’t matter if you’re not finished yet, if you think you haven’t made it; you were what you were in the world, you did what you could do, and those who saw it saw it, and those that didn’t will never be the wiser. But your story, your life, your choices, they will be felt. They will cause a butterfly effect. I don’t make the tsunamis. It’s the breath of wind from the delicate minute wing on a creature that has no idea the potential contained in something that a butterfly does every day. That he himself has always had the power to do. 

The little things make up all the big ones. There’s no power in being an Ocean. I can only do for others what they can do for themselves, and they themselves can only do what they can. I can only tell what has been told over and over, phrased a million different ways; documentaries, books, fables, myths, research, experience. Except, this time, I can tell it from the way I see it. A simple letter, showing just one more perspective, showing just one more tender soul what he already knew, but in a different color, a different form. 

Though I am formless, I have formed. Though I am more than a fathom, I have fathomed. 

I am the Ocean, and this is my story.