I found this small salamander crawling through some leaf litter. You can get a sense of its size from the rusty-orange fir needle tucked underneath its body. At first, I was struck by the flame of red-orange on its tail. As I knelt down to have a closer look, I was mesmerized by its colors and patterns. Its body was mottled copper and gold with blue speckles on the canvas of a black, moonless night sky. This terrestrial creature crawling through layers of decaying leaves was like a portal, a keyhole to the cosmos. It looked like I was peering into a gaseous cloud of stardust deep into the universe. To produce such a gentle creature, a miraculous journey of commingling elements and mystic forces came together over an incomprehensible vast expanse of time and space. Its body seemed so fragile, and it was a reminder that the balance of nature is delicate. We need to slow down and be better caretakers of the earth. I thought, “How much longer can Mother Earth sustain the weight of human progress?”
