THE HEALING POWER OF BEAUTY

 THE BEAUTY OF THE EARTH
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that last as long as life itself. (Rachel Carson)

September 1 marks the start of the annual Season of Creation. For some (many?), this is more a time to grapple with all the negative news we hear about the environment, nature, climate, etc. than to celebrate our beautiful Creation, give thanks for it, and be inspired by it.
I recognize this very intensely myself. I, too, struggle with these two sides.
Inspired by what Rachel Carson writes above, I now want to think a little deeper, with confidence and joy, about one of those mysteries that intrigue me so much: WHY IS THERE SO MUCH BEAUTY that we humans often never even see and that has been around for millions, even billions of years: in so-called lifeless nature, in the plant world, in the animal world, and among us humans? The entire cosmos is full of it! It is incomprehensible...!


PURE EXTRAVAGANCE

"Why all those lush colors, gossamer wings, silky petals? Why rainbow-colored waterfalls that plunge into deep, winding rivers that disappear into the folds of beautiful mountains? Cool forests with feathery ferns at the foot of towering trees, filled with the cheerful song of birds? Why ‘rustling’ waves of grasslands, full of flowers, chirping crickets, high-flying meadow birds? Deserts lit up by luminous cactus flowers, the call of ravens, the song of coyotes? Why clouds ablaze with the setting sun?" wrote the great nature lover Betty Crawford. 

The easy, rational answer might be: because we have developed our senses and our consciousness to find all this beautiful. But then you might ask: why so incredibly extensive and varied? Couldn't we have developed to find a much more boring world satisfying? Couldn't bees and hummingbirds have evolved to pollinate a planet full of (only) white flowers? Butterflies and birds don't need their beautiful jewel colors to fly or find food, do they? Peacocks and turkeys could have devised quieter ways to attract a mate—or so we think. It is precisely the pure extravagance of it all, the “excessiveness,” that makes it so mysterious. 

BEAUTY AS POWER        
According to cosmologist Brian Swimme, beauty is an aspect of that universal force we call attraction. Beauty as attraction. Yes, we recognize that in our daily lives. Beauty attracts. But isn't beauty actually something much more fundamental? Even in the world we cannot see, there is an incredible amount of beauty. 

According to physicists, it was beauty and harmony that manifested themselves as one of the first forces when the great gravitational pull brought together the newborn atoms of the universe to form the first stars. The stars themselves then felt the gravitational pull on each other as they came together in galaxies, such as our own Milky Way, which we can admire on a clear night. 
Dust drifted between all those stars, gathering to form planets, around which moons sometimes also formed. An unimaginably grand process, summarized here in a few words. And to think that it didn't stop there, but that one of the eight planets orbiting our sun, our Earth, developed into that beautiful ‘blue planet’, full of dynamism and life.

AND THEN THE SUN AND THE EARTH...
A ‘lifelong’ bond between the sun and the earth was created. The sun was there ‘a little’ earlier (about half a billion years!), but then it was able to offer its full light and warmth to that relatively small, young Earth - so now for more than four billion years. After many intermediate steps, that long relationship led to the emergence of life, an incredibly intimate event, you might say: from extremely small, minuscule plants to increasingly larger plants. 

Then came that amazing moment when living beings discovered how to make the chlorophyll molecule (especially in leaf green). This chlorophyll reacts to the light of the sun in a rich resonance, vibrating, as it were, with the different colors of sunlight—without any violence, just very beneficially, just as we can also experience sunlight as very beneficial. By creating this highly complex molecule, plants bound themselves and the entire earth to the sun in an increasingly intimate relationship. Thanks to that chlorophyll, they were able to use the abundant carbon dioxide, together with water, to bring oxygen into the atmosphere and produce energetic sugars for plant growth—allowing increasingly complex and dazzlingly beautiful life to emerge.
 
ATTRACTION IS CREATIVE
These are a few ‘big’ examples of how attraction, or seduction if you will, does not stop somewhere, but continues, not more of the same, clones we would say, but creatively: creating new things. And that continues today. Not only on a large scale (in the universe) but also on a small scale and even on a very small scale.

In that ‘in-between’ where we humans exist (we are not 'big' and we are not 'small') we know very well how beauty, harmony, intimacy, complexity, etc. attract us. We know this, of course, in human relationships and in their fruitfulness: not only in new physical life, small children, however incredibly important, but also in friendship, in caring for each other, in faithful service.

The same is true in so many other forms of creativity, curiosity, research, and that lasting amazement at everything that comes our way, nearby and further away, like in society. Deep within us lies an irresistible creative instinct. As human beings we are spontaneously, from within, focused on beauty, connectedness, harmony, interaction, and cooperation. We are, indeed everything is, as a theologian wrote, blessed from the beginning.

We see this throughout the animal world (to which we humans also belong): many forms of involvement, even intimacy, and also, for example, curiosity, organizing and ordering, creating beauty. Think, for example, of the intimacy between horses and also smaller animals, the beautiful building of nests, the care for newborns, and countless other examples...

WE ARE TRANSPOSED
When you look or listen to all this and think about it, you feel your whole being responding to it. It responds to the experience of beauty, harmony, creativity, radiant life.

This natural process of attraction, which produces forms in great creativity, which grows into beauty and intimacy—or however you try to imagine this wonderful process—has produced an earth, a living world of indescribable beauty. Imagine walking through a field of wildflowers. Or looking at the structure of a shell through a microscope. Or discovering the complex mathematical language that governs the universe. Or, of course, the beauty of a young child or other (young) living being that touches us deeply.
At such moments, indeed, our whole being responds to the power of beauty. Our hearts open. Our energy rises. We feel alive, connected, excited. We are transported, as it were, to another world. We cross a threshold into a realm where worries are put into perspective and the confusions of everyday life subside. Another world that is just as real as the often routine reality of everyday life. Beauty and creativity are just as real, but they do require you to open yourself up to them. It requires you to consciously detach yourself from what is preoccupying you and holding you in its grip at that moment.

EVOLUTION INSPIRES AWE
As mentioned before, if you take the time and peace to allow yourself to be touched by beauty, harmony, or creativity, you will experience how beneficial that is. In light of the many challenges of existence, it gives you reason to love life again. We experience this clearly in our good moments. And what is perhaps even more surprising: beauty has been around for centuries and centuries! That beauty, harmony, and creativity have been around since the very beginning of our universe; you cannot realize that deeply enough.

Perhaps you could say that the cosmos wanted to find a way to “reflect” on all the beauty it had created, and that is why it ultimately evolved into us, thinking, feeling, seeing, desiring, intimately loving human beings. What a beautiful thought and a tribute to the Creator, who has embedded this life-loving capacity in all of creation from the very beginning! This has long been doubted, because the earth has also gone through several major crises (just think of the five major extinctions, the extinction of almost all life), but great scholars, cosmologists, and astronomers today can only conclude, with all the questions still unanswered, that this fundamental focus on (ever-evolving) life must really exist—to their surprise and amazement! 
We, ordinary people, can wholeheartedly agree with that.
 
THAT'S ALL VERY NICE...  
  
But meanwhile, the Amazon rainforest is burning so that we can grow soybeans to feed pigs. Or to make room for cattle farmers to supply beef for fast food hamburgers. Or to drill for oil to satisfy our insatiable hunger for consumer goods... and so on and so forth. The newspapers are full of it.
And what we humans do to each other!

You wonder to yourself:
How, surrounded by so much beauty, harmony, and creativity, have we managed to create a history of so much cruelty, neglect, and indifference? That is the other mystery that many, including myself, struggle with. 
Our soul, our heart, our whole inner being longs for the beauty, harmony, and creativity that we know so well from within. Yet our thoughts and actions are so easily focused on the superficial and the fleeting. We pollute our environment and fail to feed and protect our children. We wage war for land and resources. We lock up families fleeing the danger caused by our policies. We burn the lungs and nutrients of our planet...

STILL OPENING OURSELVES TO BEAUTY?

In light of this destruction, is there still room to reflect on and open ourselves to the value, power, and healing capacity of beauty? In our good moments, we know that we must certainly do so and make room for it, perhaps even a lot of room. That healing effect takes us out of ourselves, brings us back to real, joyful, and inspired living, time and time again. Opening ourselves up to beauty, taking time to enjoy it, gives us the strength to bear the weight of disappointment, sadness, and anger and to focus on recovery. 

Beauty is not a superficial attraction. The ultimate beauty of flowers does not lie in how beautiful they are, i.e. how beautiful we find them. They existed at least 160 million years before we humans came along to enjoy them. Their great power lies in what the universe wanted from them, not in what we want.

They are cosmic beings, forged molecule by molecule from stardust and the raw materials of our earth. Like so many other products of evolution, they allow the soul of the earth to emerge from the ground beneath our feet, as it were—it couldn't be simpler, you might say. They, too, like all other life, are shaped by relationships and for relationships. They are very adept at entering into them: with the soil that nourishes them, with the air they breathe, with the sunlight they convert into food, with the plants and animals around them. And we are only talking about flowers...

In fact, the whole of nature, from the subatomic level to the largest units in our cosmos, is based on relationships, on cooperation, on connection, on dynamics.

RELATIONSHIPS - THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT
Relationships characterized by beauty, harmony, and creativity. Profound beauty that goes hand in hand with goodness. These draw our deepest inner selves to them, in bonds of intimacy and love. 
Why are we often so devastated by the news? We are so deeply disappointed because we feel how profound relationships are being broken day after day. That hurts us.
It is true that we owe a great deal to our industrial society, but unfortunately it often leads to connection, harmony, and beauty being abused and even destroyed—which has an impact on our human relationships, on both a small and large scale. Yet, when we take the time and find the peace, we continue to experience that this goes against the positive attraction, harmony, creativity, and beauty that our hearts yearn for. 

The profound and encouraging lesson of beauty, harmony, and creativity lies in the healthy energy they continually generate in us humans. This is not just theory. We experience it when we consciously move toward that which attracts us, connects us, gives us peace, and which we find beautiful. We experience that we change, relax, grow, heal, that new light and joy come into our lives. 

THE HEALING POWER OF BEAUTY and harmony and creativity and ... 
How much I wish you, reader, this experience! Then there is every reason to truly celebrate and experience the Season of Creation, also as a gift!

Finally, before closing this reflection, enjoy these three beautiful fractals: fresh broccoli, an unfolding fern, and a spiraling cactus:















[ A fractal is a geometric shape that exhibits an infinitely complex pattern, in which the same shape or pattern repeats itself at different scales, a property known as self-similarity. Fractals are very common throughout nature. ]


Johan Muijtjens
end of August 2025 

METAMORPHOSIS - THE POWER OF TRANSFORMATION

BEAUTIFUL EXAMPLES

As a reader, when you hear the word metamorphosis, you probably think of what we see in butterflies, which emerge as a beautiful miracle from a fat caterpillar that pupates. This happens through the cycle: egg -> caterpillar -> pupa -> butterfly, which then lays eggs again... etc. 

It is one of the forms of metamorphosis in nature that you can even observe with the naked eye. And there are more. A few examples:

* the frog: from egg-like frogspawn, via the tadpole to the completely differently shaped frog.

* The dragonfly: from egg, through nymph-larva to the graceful dragonfly

* The bee, which also develops in four stages from egg, through larva, pupa to one of those thousands of species of hymenopteran insects.

* The salamander, which develops from an egg into a larva with gills (in the water) and then into an adult salamander with lungs (on land).

There are many more examples, e.g. from the world of fish, amphibians, and sea urchins.

The examples mentioned here are forms of complete metamorphosis. In addition, there are numerous forms of incomplete metamorphosis, in which the pupal stage is ‘skipped’ and what emerges from the egg already resembles the adult form.

Probably the most striking example of this is the chicken egg, from which the chick emerges, already resembling the adult chicken. The same is true of grasshoppers, damselflies (picture), and bugs, for example.

All very interesting! These are striking examples of (just one of) the enormous life forces in nature.

Perhaps you find this fascinating enough. But it becomes even more fascinating (in my opinion) when you realize that these are just a few examples of what happens in so many other ways throughout nature.

IN ALL OF NATURE

Metamorphosis, shape-shifting, transformation in the literal sense, is a constant in all of nature, i.e., something that occurs always and everywhere. The earliest (elementary) particles at the beginning of the universe transformed into atoms, which in turn transformed into molecules and thus into the first forms of stars, which in turn transformed in various steps and under specific conditions into the first elements (such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur) that make up the matter of the universe. 

In subsequent stages, genuine transformations gave rise to different types of stars, spiral nebulae containing hundreds of thousands of stars, galaxies, within which solar systems and planets were formed, and on them not only mountains, but again through enormous transformations, the incomprehensible miracle of life, first in single-celled plants, bacteria, and through countless steps to larger plants. These are still bound to their place. 
And then organisms arise that are no longer bound to a place... the animals. 

An incredibly long history unfolds with countless metamorphoses, both in the plant world (flora) and in the animal world (fauna). Flowers and trees, hummingbirds and kangaroos, and then, about 7 million years ago, the first ‘human-likes’, the hominids. In great strides, in which humans began to walk on two feet, use tools, learn to use fire, travel greater distances, and develop language and culture, about 300,000 years ago, humans emerged whom we call homo sapiens. Humans with a relatively large brain volume, capable of symbolic thinking and further developing language!

Each of these countless forms undergoes its own unique metamorphosis or transformation. New creations are constantly emerging, albeit with trial and error, from existing forms and materials. From the material that already exists froms a completely new being. Just think of the caterpillar from  which develops the butterfly, which in our eyes bears no resemblance to the caterpillar. It is both, one could say, a cyclical and a spiral-shaped event: repetition and change, improvement, enrichment, over and over again.

The story is endless—in all directions! It seems, someone wrote, as if the universe is never satisfied, because it strives for ever more spectacular achievements. If you pause for a moment to consider this whole evolution, you are truly speechless...

WHERE TO?

And then the question almost automatically arises: What is the universe trying to achieve with all these transformations? Not only what drives all this, but also: to what end, where to? These questions have, of course, preoccupied many people throughout history. What is the drive, the force of nature, the creative energy? Where does all this come from and what is the goal, what is it aiming at? It is inevitable that people have constantly sought answers to these fundamental questions. We know:
The Judeo-Christian Bible has its various creation stories.
The great Eastern traditions have their unique origin stories, in which they attempt to portray the deep intuitions of countless people.

And the many people today, whom we sometimes call primitive peoples, but who are better described as indigenous cultures, who still have their beautiful songs, dances, stories, and images—to express at least something of that great mystery of creation in which we are all included...

Those of us who allow themselves to be moved by these miracles will increasingly question how we currently treat creation around us and within ourselves.

There is a lot to say about this, in two directions: a worrying side and a hopeful side. The worrying side concerns our human attitude, our decisions and our actions. The hopeful side has to do with what is apparently indestructible in our entire reality: the wonderful, irresistible, creative forces that remain present no matter what - and that only ask us to work with them —so that, through all the ups and downs, life prevails.

In a subsequent episode, inspired by that omnipresent and ever-present multifaceted transformative power, I hope to explore both aspects further: our responsibility and the basis for our hope and trust.

Johan Muijtjens
July 2025

GAIA INCREDIBLY CREATIVE e.g. in PHOTOSYNTHESIS

 THE MIRACLE OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS

TOO HOT OR TOO COLD ...

Our Earth was formed about 4.4 billion years ago as one of the planets orbiting our sun. It is the only planet that supports biological life. The planets closer to the sun (Mercury and Venus) are too hot, and the other planets, which are further away from the sun, are too cold for biological life: Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Our Earth, amazingly, has just the right balance: the heat from the sun, the heat from the glowing core of the Earth itself, liquid water, and the mantle of the atmosphere. And so, by earthly standards, a very thin shell (around 20 km thickness) has formed, in which all life, plants and animals, from microscopic creatures (such as bacteria and fungi) to large plants and animals, can thrive.

A WONDERFUL SYNTHESIS

About 4 billion years ago, the first forms of life began to emerge. It started out extremely small, with cells in the depths of the oceans that did not even have a nucleus.
But soon (i.e., after about 100,000 years), a process began that provided food for growth, a process called photosynthesis: “photo” stands for light, which undergoes a synthesis with water and (the gas) carbon dioxide. A wonderful trio. And of course, that didn't happen just like that.
In a long process, very special molecules had been created, the most important of which was chlorophyll. This is a molecule that is activated by light, which resonates with sunlight, just as a tuning fork resonates with certain frequencies in music.

By absorbing the energy of light, the chlorophyll molecule is able to split water into oxygen, charged hydrogen atoms, and electrons.
The oxygen is released into the atmosphere and the other products of the splitting of water ingeniously interact with carbon dioxide gas and ultimately form a ring-shaped molecule that we call glucose, one of the forms of sugar.

It is easy to say, “they ingeniously work together.” In fact, it is an unimaginable achievement of nature to form the complex molecules that ultimately produce the relatively simple molecule glucose (see image: black=carbon, red=oxygen, gray=hydrogen).

AN UNIMAGINABLE ACHIEVEMENT

Despite extensive research, we still do not have a complete picture of how this formation began and continued.
It is now clear that the origin lies with primitive organisms at the bottom of the oceans, but the exact steps are still difficult to visualize. Nature appears to be incredibly creative. It works empirically, countless times through trial and error, always a little different, always something new, until it ‘fits’ and ‘works’... and then it continues to build... We cannot understand how the most beautiful and extremely complex molecules came into being in this way - and then after that also the ‘interplay’ of so many different molecules.

After the creation of the earth, it began with the interaction with the sun, which radiated a large amount of energy and caused the earth to change more and more. It differentiated further and further, more and more new ‘things’ were created, and as a result, everything became more complex and complicated. It must have taken countless attempts and steps before such a complex molecule as chlorophyll was created. And then, after it was ‘activated’ by the power of sunlight, how it ultimately produced glucose in collaboration with other molecules. And that glucose is in turn the beginning of the food that is necessary for the growth of plants. Many animals live off plants—or off other animals, which ultimately also live off plants.

GREEN NATURE

Chlorophyll is the molecule that makes all of nature green. Painters will tell you that green is the most ‘natural’ color—and we know that too. Green is the color of health, growth, and life. All green plants are engaged in the process of photosynthesis: producing the raw material for all further nutrition for themselves (their own growth). AND, not to forget, they also produce oxygen, without which we cannot live.
We breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide—and that is how we stay alive. Conversely, plants use that (exhaled) carbon dioxide to give us oxygen again. It is a very special, indeed vital, cycle that revolves around the process of photosynthesis.
We can feel a sense of admiration and gratitude when we see all that greenery that surrounds us in abundance and is so indispensable to our lives!

This is the main thing I would like to share about this wonderful process, which has been going on for billions of years. The admiration of this NATURAL WISDOM.


WANT TO KNOW A BIT MORE?

For those who want to go a step deeper, here is some additional information. Perhaps it will increase your admiration?

The BASIC REACTION of photosynthesis is:

    6 CO2 + 6 H2O + light energy > C6H12O6 + 6 O2   (C6H12O6 = glucose)

This process can be divided into two main phases:

1. Light-dependent reactions:
These take place in special membranes of the chloroplasts in the cell, the organs that contain chlorophyll.
     a - Chlorophyll absorbs sunlight, which provides the energy to split water molecules, i.e., the photolysis of water, which is split into oxygen (O2), protons (H+), and electrons.
       b - The energy from the light acts on the substances ATP and NADPH. These are energy-carrying molecules that are used in the next phase.
       c - Oxygen (O2) is released into the atmosphere as a by-product.

2. Light-independent reactions:
    These take place in the supporting tissue (stroma) of the chloroplasts.
       a - Carbon dioxide (CO2) is fixed by the enzyme Rubisco and converted into an organic compound that ultimately forms glucose.
       b - During this process, ATP is used as an energy source and NADPH as a reducing agent to convert step by step CO2 into glucose (C6H12O6).

Photosynthesis is extremely important because it supplies oxygen to the atmosphere, which is essential for life on Earth. The glucose produced is essentially a form of chemical energy that plants use for growth and maintenance. Other organisms, such as animals (including us, humans), obtain this energy by eating plants (and the eaters of plants).

In sum: it starts, as said, with the ‘capture’ of light energy by chlorophyll in the chloroplasts. That energy is used to split water and release oxygen, while ATP and NADPH are formed. In the next phase, carbon dioxide is converted into glucose using the energy from ATP and the action of NADPH.

ATP (adenosine triphosphate): provides energy for many processes in living cells (here for photosynthesis, but also, for example, for muscle contraction).
NADPH (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate): This is an essential electron donor for reduction processes.

BLUE - RED - GREEN ...
It is interesting to note that chlorophyll does not use the green part of the sunlight spectrum, but higher and lower frequencies than those of green, i.e. more blue (higher energetic) and red (lower energetic). Green is reflected back - and that is why everything is basically green! The absorption spectrum (see graph) for two types of chlorophyll clearly shows this.


Johan Muijtjens
2-11-2024

GAIA'S OCEAN IN DANGER !

CARE FOR OUR OCEANS

 1. THE OCEAN CONFERENCE IN NICE

From June 9 to 13, 2025, the third UN Ocean Conference was held in Nice, France. The conference, UNOC3, brought together scientists, policymakers, and activists to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goal related to ocean conservation. This is one of the 17 major sustainable development goals (namely, No. 14, on life below water) that the UN set for itself in 2015.

There was a keen awareness that, while humanity is working to mitigate threats to life from climate change, damaged ecosystems, biodiversity loss, and pollution, the original source of life, which sustains billions of people and species, must not be overlooked: THE OCEANS. In fact, the oceans receive (even) less attention than the mainland: only 8.6% of the oceans are protected, compared to 17.6% of the land surface.

Among the activists were representatives of a wide variety of religious and spiritual organizations, all of whom realize that we humans have a great moral responsibility to protect the *Full Sea (*=see also Appendix) and, even more importantly, to truly improve its health. First and foremost through attention and research, but above all through (the financing and legal regulation of) concrete measures.
 

In Nice, the joint faith traditions declared:
“The ocean is the source of life that connects us all, and as religious organizations, we not only have the opportunity, but also the responsibility to remind everyone what is really at stake, so that we do not slide into false solutions or into *commodification and destruction of the ocean.”


2. WISHES of numerous organizations:

1. Protect and restore at least 30% of our oceans by 2030 through (expansion of) protected marine areas by means of effective area-based conservation measures. 
This is not only about quantity (geographical expansion), but also about the quality of protection. Marine ecosystems must be effectively protected from harmful activities, including destructive fishing practices (e.g., bottom trawlers), offshore oil and gas activities (drilling rigs, etc.), and other harmful industrial activities (e.g., wind farms and offshore fish processing plants).

2. Support the moratorium on deep-sea mining. The depths of the ocean must be protected from exploitation that could cause irreversible damage to ancient ecosystems. The international community must give priority to the precautionary principle: do not intervene/act until science and consultation can lead to responsible management, in this case particularly of the deep ocean.

3. Ratify and implement the Treaty on the High Seas (the Full Sea Treaty) (Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement) as soon as possible. This will provide the legal framework needed to protect marine biodiversity and promote greater equality in international waters. These waters outside national jurisdictions make up almost two-thirds of the world's oceans. They store very large amounts of carbon (mainly through sediments on the seabed) and are home to enormous biodiversity, both flora and fauna. This biodiversity (which is still being discovered) has remained largely unprotected until now.

4. Address marine pollution in a comprehensive manner, including plastic pollution, sewage and chemical discharges, underwater noise pollution, heavy metals, and nutrient emissions, each of which poses specific threats to marine ecosystems and human health. Fortunately, a global Plastic Treaty is in the works to tackle this crisis at its source (production, use, and processing/degradation). Hopefully, this Treaty will be signed and ratified by a sufficient number of states at the UN in Geneva this fall (2025), so that they will also commit to implementing it.

5. We must increasingly recognize that the oceans play a vital role in regulating the climate. Ocean-based climate solutions must be supported by ensuring consistency between the results of UNOC research and the latest *IPCC reports. There is an urgent need for binding measures to tackle ocean warming, *acidification, oxygen depletion, and sea level rise. At the same time, fair, equitable, and rights-based *blue carbon initiatives and nature-based solutions must be strongly reinforced.

3. OUTCOMES of the UNOC3 Conference:

1. The Full Sea Treaty (see above) has been signed by more than 50 countries and is expected to reach the minimum of 60 soon, after which it will become legally binding and can enter into force. When we realize that arbitrary and uncontrolled fishing has depleted or overfished nearly 90% of all fish stocks in the seas, the need for this Treaty becomes abundantly clear. 
See the short film by the High Seas Treaty Alliance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F0jIhKK38A

 

2. There are already 27 states in favor of the moratorium on deep-sea mining. This mainly concerns the collection/extraction of so-called *(polymetallic) manganese nodules, which contain manganese and iron as well as all kinds of other “interesting” substances. See appendix. 

3. More than 100 states are opposed to subsidies for the “most wasteful fishing practices” (David Attenborough in the film OCEAN ): the harmful and illegal forms of industrial fishing: trawlers with dragnets over the seabed, which take ‘everything’ with them, throwing back the (often dead) animals/fish that are not used, as well as the ‘material’ that is of no use. This destroys the entire ecological structure of and above the seabed for a long time.

4. 96 countries are calling for a binding Plastic Treaty, with strict rules for production and (waste) processing.
The need is very urgent: micro- and nanoplastics are penetrating our organs and brains (including through the food chain). They can cause inflammation, disrupt hormones, and weaken the immune system.

5. A coalition has been formed against the extinction of sharks and rays in particular, more than 30% of which are already endangered, even though these animals are essential for maintaining a healthy biological balance.

6. French Polynesia has announced a significant expansion of a protected area (a so-called no-take zone). 


7. In addition, numerous other commitments to (expand) no-take zones have been made.

In short: there is growing awareness and a powerful and positive movement. This movement and awareness must now be vigorously continued!

Hopefully, a little more information about the oceans and their life (and suffering) can help you, the reader, in this regard. Therefore:
Below is some more information about life, stratification, and cohesion in the oceans, followed by a brief explanation of some important concepts in the Appendix.


4. A LAYERED LIVING WHOLE: the three major zones/layers in the deep ocean.

Scientific insights into how an ocean lives, produces life, and serves life can help us to realize the deeper, spiritual meaning of these enormous “bodies” and to receive the wisdom that can lead humanity to a more conscious relationship with water, the source and womb of all life.   

1. THE SUNNY ZONE (*epipelagic zone):
This zone, which extends from the surface to a depth of about 200 meters, produces half of the world's oxygen and supports most of the world's fisheries, providing food and income for millions of people. 
This crucial region faces serious and converging threats. Due to the unbridled expansion of mass fishing, 90% of all fish stocks are completely depleted or overfished, while various human activities have destroyed nearly half of marine nurseries, including *mangroves and *seagrass. 
Climate change, including ocean warming, has led to widespread *coral bleaching, with projections of 90% reef loss by the middle of this century. *Ocean acidification threatens shellfish and many other organisms in marine food chains, while pollution, particularly from plastic and sewage and chemical discharges, is creating ever-larger “dead zones” where little life can survive. 
Rising sea levels and increasing storms and cyclones further endanger vulnerable coastal and island communities, home to billions of people. These factors increase pressure on the waters that are most essential to ocean productivity and human livelihoods.

2. THE TWILIGHT ZONE: (mesopelagic zone)
This zone extends from 200 to 1,000 meters deep and is home to the largest animal migration on Earth, a daily vertical movement of countless organisms that creates a vital biological carbon pump. Scientists estimate that this still poorly understood region contains ten billion tons of fish biomass, yet it faces emerging threats from multiple directions. 

Without knowledge and, above all, respect for sustainable catch levels, commercial fishing poses an increasing threat to species specific to the twilight zone. Climate change is altering ocean circulation and oxygen levels, which can disrupt migration patterns that are essential to both ocean populations and the carbon storage they generate. Deep-sea mining, which often goes even deeper/more thoroughly than trawlers, namely into the seabed, carries the risk of releasing obscuring and sometimes toxic sediment plumes into these waters, while ocean acidification threatens various ecosystems. The crucial role of the twilight zone in carbon storage is being jeopardized just as we are beginning to understand its importance, while countless species remain undiscovered and we therefore have no idea of the possible far-reaching effects. Hence the importance of applying the precautionary principle: if an action could potentially harm humans or the environment, and there is no scientific certainty about the damage, then that action should not be carried out unless it can be proven that no damage will occur.

3. THE MIDNIGHT ZONE: (bathypelagic zone)
This zone, the least researched and least scientifically understood part of the ocean, exists in perpetual darkness under extreme pressure at a depth of 1,000 to 4,000 meters. Despite this extreme environment, it is home to extraordinary biodiversity. *Bioluminescent organisms illuminate the darkness, while unique communities thrive around *hydrothermal vents through *chemosynthesis. These ‘deep’ ecosystems are now also facing unprecedented threats through advanced technologies, as deep-sea mining targets the most biodiverse areas, namely where at mineral-rich hydrothermal vents *polymetallic nodules, formed over millions of years, can be found. Bottom trawling damages deep-sea habitats, which take centuries to recover, while the effects of climate change and pollutants, including microplastics, are already being felt even at these remote depths. In this environment human disturbances cause damage that will last for generations. What we destroy in the blink of an eye may never recover during our lifetime. Moreover, we still know far too little about the long-term consequences in both smaller and larger contexts.

In addition to these three zones, scientists distinguish even more zones:
* Within the ‘sunny zone’  the upper layer: the dynamic and relatively ‘thin’ tidal zone. 
* Below the ‘midnight zone’ is the  abyssopelagic  zone (the abyss zone) (4,000 - 6,000 m) and below that, where it occurs,  the so-called hadopelagic zone (the  'underworld' zone).

 OUTLAWED 
Without protective global legislation, each of these zones is outlawed: anyone can try to take advantage of them at their own discretion. Often, the use of so-called territorial waters is already (partially) regulated/protected by national legislation. However, this does not (yet) apply to waters outside national coastlines and jurisdictions. These cover almost two-thirds of the Earth's total water surface and supposedly belong to ‘no one’. But it is much better to say: they belong to themselves (have a right to exist in their own right) and also belong to all of us, to all of humanity, who are of course entitled to use them in a sustainable (i.e. self-regenerating) manner and therefore also bear joint responsibility for them – if only out of well-understood self-interest. 
We are already seeing a number of effects of uncontrolled intervention, e.g. the disruption of the biological balance due to overfishing and the acidification due to the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the water. 
Growing insight makes it clear that there are probably even more aspects and effects that we do not yet (sufficiently) know or understand.
CARE for our oceans is therefore of the utmost importance!


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APPENDIX

* Bioluminescence is a form of chemoluminescence in which living organisms produce light through a chemical reaction in their cells. This occurs in a wide range of biological organisms, including bacteria, algae, insects (such as fireflies), deep-sea fish, and fungi. 

* Bottom trawling: an incredibly destructive fishing method in which a weighted net is dragged across the seabed. This causes large-scale damage to our oceans. (pictures: left: an example of the great wealth before and right the devastated plain after ‘fishing’)

* Chemosynthesis: a process in which microorganisms, mainly bacteria, obtain energy from chemical reactions of carbon dioxide with, for example, iron and sulfur, instead of from sunlight. They thus make their own food (glucose) from inorganic substances. It is an alternative to photosynthesis (as in green plants in sunlight) and plays a crucial role in ecosystems where sunlight is not available, such as in deep oceans and other ‘dark’ conditions. 

* Commodification or commercialization: the process in which something that is not a commodity, such as an idea, a service, an experience, or even a human being, is transformed into a tradable object or merchandise. An economic value is assigned to it, making it available for sale or exchange on a market. It is an unauthorized claim to power that does not do justice to the intrinsic value, goodness, or beauty of someone or something.

* Hydrothermal vents: openings in the seabed where hot, mineral-rich water flows out of the earth. These vents are created when seawater infiltrates deep into the earth's crust, is heated by magma, and then erupts back out. They are often found in volcanically active areas. These are usually places where tectonic plates are moving apart (spreading zones) or where one plate is diving under another (subduction zones). 

* Blue carbon initiatives: initiatives to capture carbon dioxide through the world's oceans and coastal ecosystems. This carbon is stored in the form of biomass and sediments from mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrass beds. Blue carbon is the most effective (and relatively inexpensive and natural), but overlooked, method for long-term carbon sequestration and storage. Equally important, investments in blue carbon provide valuable ecosystem services that contribute to people's ability to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. 
[ Detailed information on this potentially important development: https://oceanfdn.org/nl/blauwe-koolstof ]

* Animal migration: the daily, mostly vertical movement of marine organisms up and down the water column. This phenomenon is mainly caused by the need to balance food opportunities and avoidance of predators. Organisms, especially zooplankton (animal plankton) and some (very small) fish, rise to the surface waters at night to feed on phytoplankton (plant plankton) and other prey, then descend to deeper, darker waters during the day to escape predation by visual hunters. It is one of the largest daily movements of biomass on Earth and plays a crucial role in marine ecosystems through the food cycle, carbon storage (carbon-rich excrement converted into soil rock), and the overall structure of the food web.

* Deep-sea mining: an extreme form of overfishing, aimed in particular at collecting technologically crucial minerals such as manganese, iron, nickel, copper, and cobalt, and in special locations, particularly near hydrothermal vents, also copper, zinc, gold, and silver. The general argument for this is that these metals are needed for sustainable products in the context of the energy transition, such as solar cells, electric cars, robots, communication equipment, etc.

*IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: This Panel is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its task is to “provide governments at all levels with scientific information they can use to develop climate policy.” The IPCC produces well-founded and comprehensive reports on the various aspects of climate change.

* Carbon pump: in particular the biological carbon pump: Phytoplankton (plant plankton) forms the basis of the marine food chain. In the sunlit ocean layer, they assimilate carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and transfer carbon through the food chain when consumed by other organisms (including zooplankton).

* Mangroves: Mangrove forests, also known as mangrove swamps, thickets, or mangals, are unique coastal ecosystems dominated by salt-tolerant trees and shrubs that are adapted to the tidal zone where saltwater and freshwater mix. These tropical and subtropical forests thrive in coastal areas and provide crucial ecological and economic benefits. Mangrove forests are highly productive ecosystems that provide essential habitat, nursery, and food sources for a wide range of marine and terrestrial species, including fish, birds, and other wildlife. They also play a crucial role in protecting the coast by reducing erosion, storm surges, and wave action. 

* Underwater noise pollution: This is a growing problem in which human activities such as shipping, construction, seismic surveys (to study underground movements), sonar (communication and measurements using sound waves), sand extraction, and explosions cause unnatural and excessive noise in the ocean. This can be harmful to all kinds of marine animals, which depend on sound for communication, navigation, finding food, behavior (e.g., reproduction), and health.

* Polymetallic nodules: Manganese nodules, also known as polymetallic nodules, are nodules found at great depths in many oceans, consisting of a mixture of iron and manganese oxides, other metal compounds, and chemical elements in lower concentrations. These were formed very slowly (over millions of years) (see above under deep-sea mining).


* Bleaching of coral reefs: higher temperatures and higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are changing the chemical balance in seawater (making it more acidic), causing many coral reefs to die (dissolve) and thus lose their water-purifying and life-giving function (for animal and plant organisms). 
In addition, like all life in the oceans, they also suffer from ruthless industrial overfishing, including trawl nets that ‘scrape’ the seabed.

* Acidification / ocean acidification:  the phenomenon whereby the pH of seawater on Earth is becoming increasingly lower as a result of a higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is absorbed into the water. Between 1950 and 2021, the average pH of seawater fell from 8.15 to 8.05, corresponding to a 30% increase in acidity (increase in H+ ions). This ever-increasing acidification poses a threat to the food chains associated with the oceans.

* High seas: the oceans outside territorial waters or other jurisdictions, which cover almost two-thirds of the Earth's entire water surface. 
All oceans together cover two-thirds of the Earth's total surface area.

* Precautionary principle: if an action could potentially harm humans or the environment, and there is no scientific certainty about the harm, then that action should not be taken unless it can be proven that no harm will occur. This principle was strongly emphasized at the first global environmental conferences of the United Nations (such as the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992). It is an expression of respect and caution, but it is at odds with human (short-sighted) greed.

* Heat absorption: Oceans absorb 90% of the planet's excess heat, which is mainly caused by (the excessive production of) greenhouse gases. As global temperatures have risen, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels, ocean water has also become warmer, which now appears to be one of the main causes of stronger and faster storms, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, cyclones, and the like. 
Higher temperatures (of both water and air) are also causing glaciers and sea ice to melt, raising sea levels and threatening an estimated 2.8 billion people worldwide who live in island states and coastal communities and very often depend on the products of the sea for their livelihood.

* Seagrass: a functional group of plants that have adapted to submerged life in brackish and salt waters. Seagrass communities can harbor a rich algae flora and fauna. They also have a very important filtering function and eliminate many pathogens. In the tropics, seagrasses are a very important food source for many marine reptiles.

* Zones: origin of the names epipelagic, etc. Pelagic comes from the Greek pelagos: sea; epi: on, above; meso: middle; bathy, bathos: depth;  abysso: abyss and hado from hades: underworld. 

* Zooplankton and phytoplankton are fundamental components of plankton, the diverse collection of organisms that float in aquatic environments. Phytoplankton are microscopic, plant-like organisms that perform photosynthesis, i.e. produce oxygen and glucose from water and carbon dioxide using the energy of sunlight. Zooplankton, on the other hand, are animal-like organisms that consume phytoplankton or other small particles as food. They are crucial to the aquatic food chain, with zooplankton often feeding on phytoplankton and then becoming food for larger organisms themselves.

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Johan Muijtjens, July, 2025 

ATTUNING AND COOPERATIONG 3

 MORE WISE LESSONS

Don't fight against, but cooperate with, embrace diversity, contribute to the greater good, and dare to take risks—these are valuable lessons we can learn from nature. But there is more to learn...

For example, it is amazing how nature has no preconceptions: nothing is ruled out in advance. A tree does not say, “I don't want to be planted in that soil,” but simply “tries” it out. A flock of sheep is not afraid of a grassy field with what we consider to be a lot of ‘weeds’. Just look at how flocks of sheep are used to ‘clean’ rough ground or overgrown heathland (as in the photo of the Lüneburg Heath).
Nature starts with an ‘open mind’, as it were: ‘Let's see what's possible...’ That is a big lesson for us humans:

BE OPEN TO THE WHOLE TRUTH.

Keep your eyes, ears, mind, and especially your heart open to what is happening on a larger scale. Do not resist painful information about the state of our world. Dare to read and listen to ‘difficult’ or ‘unwelcome’ information.

Yes, know that your suffering from the state of our world stems precisely from your connection to that world! Your willingness to feel the suffering of others gives you energy and shows you what true well-being is.

In practice, this means that you don't just glance at things, but take the time to be moved by, for example, photos or stories of desperate climate refugees, of animals dying from drought, of children dying from the toxic environment in which they have to work, of the victims of a devastating tornado, of the extinction of fish in a river, and so on.

IT'S OKAY TO FEEL BAD, BUT...

In addition, consciously look for examples of good initiatives and actions, both in your immediate environment and elsewhere. Collect them for yourself, make a list, and keep them in mind! This will give you confidence and courage, inspire your creativity, make you happy, and expand your heart!

Pope Francis writes in Laudato Si' that we need both: a willingness to suffer, even to mourn with the victims, in order to truly feel their pain, fear, and sorrow — AND to be open to all the good that is also being done in so many ways and in so many places—and which you can join!

DISTINGUISH

Nature is extremely sensitive to what works and what does not work. It teaches us to carefully distinguish between ‘true’ and ‘false’.
An important example:
Like nature, be very alert to distinguish between fake news (which is always biased and often involves hidden interests) and honest, factual, and independent information, even if it is sometimes painful and discouraging. Have the courage to know the whole truth and, when appropriate, to speak it: the good and the bad, the wrong and the promising. 
That is what will really help you move forward.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

In nature, everything is truly interconnected and everything works together. A root system, for example, is an extremely sophisticated mechanism in which an incredible amount of interaction takes place.

When you feel that it is difficult to be open to the whole truth, to everything that comes your way, the encouraging and the disturbing, be aware that you are not alone! There are many more people who share your feelings, your fears, and your desires and hopes. 
Dare to share your feelings and questions with others, as well as your suggestions and your hopes. There is a good spirit, yes, God's good Spirit, which is active in so many people of good will. Therefore, do not be afraid!

DARE TO DREAM!

Does nature “dream”? Yes, certainly, in the sense of resting, waiting, allowing possibilities to mature, responding sensitively to “silent” signals...

We can learn from it, as already mentioned: Live with an open mind; believe in many possibilities. Do not believe anyone who claims to have the only and definitive answer. Such claims are signs of ignorance or (hidden) self-interest. 

On the contrary, be open and dare to dream: imagination can be a great virtue, writes Pope Francis. It can be a valuable and crucial way to serve, even a form of practical, but also spiritual and religious leadership! It is first and foremost a new way of looking, of appreciating, of thinking and empathizing, which then resonates in our behavior and our practice. It is about a coherent change of mind, heart, and action!

BELIEVE IN GRADUALITY AND PROCESSES

Nature is amazing: on the one hand, everything moves slowly (in our eyes), and on the other hand, it is very persistent and continues tenaciously and resourcefully. It does not use force, but rather all its inner strength and creativity. 
Nature works step by step, can wait for the right opportunity, but is then ready with all available resources. It works in steady, regular, and usually cyclical processes, taking all the time it needs, without restless haste but with great purpose.

The lesson for us humans is obvious: believe in gradual development, do not force anything through haste and impatience, but know what you want. Allow processes, such as the growth of insight or conviction, to unfold gradually and trust in the good result—when the situation is ripe for it.

USE ALL TALENTS

We can learn from nature that, in principle, everything that is present in a situation can play a role in a growth process. Everything that can serve the purpose is used. Biology is discovering more and more ‘smart’ methods and possibilities, particularly in the field of the extreme versatility of microorganisms.

We humans have received many gifts and should be grateful for them. We can therefore be expected not to bury those gifts, but to make them available with conviction and generosity and use them for what we have to do. Those gifts are not our private property, but have been given to us for the common good, and we discover that it is precisely this ‘selfless’ commitment that often unleashes unexpected creativity!


Dear reader, there are so many lessons we can learn from nature ! They may sound obvious to us, yet in practice it is often quite a challenge to apply them.

In the next contribution to this blog, we will give some concrete examples of how we can apply these lessons in our care for nature in a concrete and intelligent way. 
Yes, let nature teach us, help us and save us!

See you next time!

Johan Muijtjens

ATTUNING AND COOPERATING 4

 PRACTICAL LESSONS

We can learn an incredible amount from nature. If you look closely at animals and plants—and also at so-called “dead” nature—you will discover more and more wisdom. It is a wisdom that has been bearing fruit for billions of years. 

Our Earth, as a satellite of the sun, formed around 4.5 billion years ago, and the first forms of life emerged around 4.3 billion years ago. It was an amazing process, in which life and death, and then new life, something ‘better’ than the previous, emerged, thus forming the enormous chain of evolution - which is still forming today.

What can we learn from all this and use now, in our time, when the health of our natural world is so endangered, to contribute to restoring that health? A health that also has a positive impact on our human society, through less pollution, healthier and more natural products, healthier air and water, less threat to livelihoods, and so on. After all, it is the poorest, who are least to blame, who suffer most worldwide from the current multifaceted assault on our natural environment.

Nature itself has the power to teach us, heal us, and save us. It is up to us to attune ourselves to and cooperate with the healing power and intelligence of nature.

FIVE EXAMPLES

* PLANT TREES AND SHRUBS

Trees and many other green plants are excellent ‘means’ of purifying the atmosphere and soil. The green of the leaves absorbs (excess) carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through photosynthesis and, under the influence of the sun and with the presence of water, converts all of this into carbohydrates and oxygen, two of the most important ‘raw materials’ for the life of the plants themselves and of animals, and therefore also of humans, who cannot live and develop without carbohydrates and oxygen.

And this is only half the story: everything that happens underground in and around the root system has a major positive impact on the quality of the soil with all the other vegetation in and on it, and thus contributes to a relatively large extent to healing the human-caused disruption and pollution of the soil.

* COMPOSTING

This is an extremely useful and important process that nature uses everywhere and has always used in a process of recycling, so that all waste is reused as a building block.

Composting is the process by which (in principle all) organic waste, such as vegetable, fruit, and garden waste in our human situation, is broken down into compost, a rich, nutritious substance that improves the soil. This occurs through natural decomposition with the help of microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi, together with oxygen, moisture, and heat. The end product of composting is a dark, crumbly substance that is often used as a soil improver in gardens and agriculture.

It is a very good way to recycle waste and convert it into a natural fertilizer, which is both environmentally friendly and very useful for plants.
In this way, we mimic what nature has been doing for millions of years and use the life force that nature has in abundance. The forest floor is perhaps the clearest example of how nature composts.

* DEALING WITH ENERGY

Nature is, you could say, very intelligent. This is evident, among other things, from the fact that it is remarkably economical in its use of energy. However, ‘economical’ must be interpreted differently than in human terms. Nature follows the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, whereby energy is converted from one form to another, such as from heat to motion, or from chemical to electrical, or from motion to sound, or from nuclear power to heat, and so on. In this process, some heat/energy is always lost. [For those interested: see the second law of thermodynamics: Heat naturally flows from warm to cold areas and never spontaneously from cold to warm. Work can be completely converted into heat, but conversely, heat can never be completely converted into work.]

So we learn from nature to waste as little energy as possible. With every conversion (e.g., gas or electricity to heat, such as in cooking, heating water, lighting, electrical equipment, etc.), some energy is always lost. Nature uses mainly solar energy, either directly or indirectly. In fact, wind energy, for example, is also solar energy (wind caused by different temperatures in different areas). Geothermal energy is heat that comes from the earth's interior: the processes in the mantle (including volcanic activity) and / or in the earth's core.

* USE OF WATER

Water is a universal prerequisite for life for all living creatures (plants and animals, including humans). Water as a building block, as a means of transport, as a cooling mechanism (e.g. through evaporation). Globally, water continuously goes through the so-called water cycle (or hydrological cycle). This describes how water continuously moves through the atmosphere, land, oceans, and biosphere. It is a cycle in which water changes between different states (solid, liquid, and gas) and moves between different reservoirs such as rivers, lakes, oceans, the atmosphere, and underground water. This cycle is driven by solar energy and gravity.

In addition, nature is able to purify water repeatedly, or at least remove toxins and other substances that damage nature.
The best-known purification process is, of course, the evaporation of liquid water (sometimes sublimation from ice to vapor) -> which then leads to condensation -> and thus produces precipitation: purified water. In this cycle, the ‘undesirable’ components are largely left behind. Unfortunately, this does not apply to certain gaseous components that attach themselves to water molecules or vice versa (e.g., certain sulfur and nitrogen compounds) and to forms of particulate matter from traffic, industry, drought, wood burning, etc., which, as it were, ‘go along’ with the water. These are largely pollutants caused by us humans.

It is now up to us to participate in this purifying cycle and contribute to the quality of the water—in particular by limiting human-caused pollution as much as possible.

DON'T WASTE ANYTHING

One of the remarkable characteristics of nature is that it is so creative and welcoming. You could also say that nature tries to use everything as much as possible. This applies to the composting process, but also to other growth processes, in which unexpected alternative solutions are sometimes found. In the animal world, too, we see amazing solutions to certain problems, such as a lack of water, light, or heat. Nature, i.e., the different species, adapts to what is possible.
Nature does not give up and persists. And ultimately, it achieves comprehensive recycling, so that the whole is sustainable.

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These are five examples of how nature works, which can teach us a lot.
If we treat our environment in this way, we are fully in line with how nature itself ensures its continued quality and then life remains possible, also for us humans.

By being open to the lessons of nature, which has continued to evolve and maintain a dynamic balance for billions of years, we can trust that there will continue to be sufficient vitality in our time for the continued existence of our environment, of which we humans are not superior but an integral part.
 

Johan Muijtjens