A Drop of Life

Have you ever paused amidst the rush of daily routines to observe a bird on your windowsill? Or follow an orderly line of ants making their way through a garden, in search of food for their queen?

It is a little, fascinating window into the minds of other lifeforms with whom we share our wonderful planet. Although we may often overlook it, all around us are vibrant lives being experienced in ways that mirror our own.  Cows have best friends and get stressed when apart, puffins mate for life and return to their love every year for a summer romance. Even a tiny tropical fish has the intelligence to use a mirror to recognise and clean itself, like we do. Life everywhere has routines to find food and water, form families and reproduce, cooperate as communities and even play.

That’s not all – there are also invisible threads connecting us to all life on earth. Every breath that we 8 billion humans draw can be traced back to the exhale of the world’s plants, algae and photosynthesising bacteria across land and ocean. All of life’s genetic information is stored in DNA, thanks to a single common ancestor we share - a microbe over 4 billion years ago. This web of life connects us all.

On this World Meditation Day, we invite you to take a moment to reflect on your roots in Nature. Be mindful of the journey of the little lives around you – from your house plants that produce oxygen that you breathe, to birds on their brisk daily quest for food, leaving sparkling chirps in their wake. How can we nurture our connection to Nature’s ancient rhythms and wisdom for our wellbeing?

This award-winning photograph is from the ninth season, “Water”, of the Hamdan bin Mohamed bin Rashid al Maktoum International Photography Award (HIPA) Archive. The Climate Tribe has partnered with HIPA, leveraging the power of photography to inspire global awareness of sustainability and advance climate action.