Jellyfish Jellyfish
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Hercules Assisting Atlas, Claude Mellan
Nature, Opinions

Jellyfish

Julia Fiedorczuk
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time 4 minutes

This anecdote, read somewhere a long time ago, resurfaced lately from the depths of my memory: the Indian Jesuit Priest Anthony de Mello was walking with a friend by the edge of the sea where thousands of jellyfish had been washed ashore to certain death. Without interrupting conversation, de Mello would bend down every few moments to collect the unfortunate creatures and put them back in water. His interlocutor noticed: “You are not going to save them all, why bother?” De Mello replied: “Ask the ones I rescued.”

I don’t know whether saving jellyfish stranded on a beach is the right thing to do or not. However, that is not the point of the anecdote. I read it rather as making a declaration: an act motivated by empathy is never insignificant – even if its practical consequences are minimal. It is so easy to say: “That won’t change anything.” But for whom? This little

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Julia Fiedorczuk

Through my bedroom window I can see a large rectangle of sky. The window faces west. During the day it gradually fills with light, becoming enriched towards the evening with many shades of red. If I don’t have to go out, I sometimes work in bed, looking up at the sky from time to time in order to gather my thoughts or to rest. It’s truly amazing how quickly the view changes, especially when it’s cloudy. One cannot step into the same river twice; likewise, one cannot look at the same sky more than once. Clouds are shape-shifting quietly, letting in more light, then less light. Fluffy vehicles leave the window frame never to return.

It was cold in mid-April and the light was bright and sharp as a razor, soft contours of clouds stood out clearly against it. One day I was watching the springtime spectacle of the sky, looking up, every now and then, from the biography of Rachel Carson, that great teacher of wonder. It occurred to me that if there were a charge to see this, if this were an exclusive ticketed show, many people would certainly wish to see such ‘wonders of nature’. However, because the sky is for free, most of the time we don’t see it at all. Who would be crazy enough to become excited about clouds?

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