Does Earth Have A Soul?

I could feel the essence of Earth, her unique and living characteristics amongst her barren planetary peers.

By Citizen Correspondent Dianne Perea

Date Posted: 07/13/08

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I watched a program called "How the Earth Was Made", a two-hour long show that did an excellent job of explaining the age of the Earth and how we are now able to tell the story about what happened to our planet over the past 4.5 billion years. Simply stated, the Earth has gone from a hot ball of fire that was relentlessly bombarded by space meteors, to a water world, then to a ball of ice, then to a lush greenhouse, then back to ice, until finally the world that it is today.

The Earth has undergone cataclysmic changes for BILLIONS of years in order to create the perfect environmental conditions today that make it possible for us to be here. Now, If the Earth were a person, it would be around 65-70 years old, which means in about two billion more years, the Earth will be a dead planet, a planet very much resembling Mars. In two billion years, scientists predict all of Earth's resources will be gone and this lush, beautiful, blue planet, a planet teeming with life, bursting with vibrancy and color, will be a lifeless and colorless ball in space.

At the end of the show, I sat there with my eyes transfixed on the screen, hearing those four lonely words hanging in the air: "The Earth will die...the Earth will die...the Earth will die." A haunting sadness washed over me and, for the very first time, I felt a deep and powerful empathetic connection to the Earth. I could feel the essence of Earth, her unique and living characteristics amongst her barren planetary peers. Her beauty cannot be ignored nor denied, so much that even Saturn's magnificent rings are not enough to stop its jealous desires for Earth's life-giving powers.

There is only one thing harder to ponder than our own mortality and that is the reason for our existence. Humans talk to each other about living in the moment and embracing every single day of our lives. We believe that humans have eternal souls, and that our souls never die, so death is not something we fear, a fact in which we all take great comfort. But what about our planet?