For our first staff feature, we are thrilled to spotlight Callen Kuwahara, who serves as Managing Editor of Gaia Lit. Read "Wente" below: Several summers previous, when I was a savage of civilized society–unlettered to the wisdom of wilderness, Aniki and I had to fend off brush and twig with little more than pocket knives and the clothes on our backs. Plants were resources to harvest, and animals were sustenance for the next day; these were lessons ingrained in us, we who were leashed by modern amenities, we who emerged from jungles of concrete and steel. Our knives clashed against the withered limbs of deceased trees as we cobbled together primitive structures that were perhaps not too unsimilar to those made by the first humans to learn from the nature of these lands, humans that were sophisticated by nature. We were not the first disciples to subsist upon these lands, learning its gifts and embracing its knowledge, but could we be the last? Would we be the last to relish the gifts of life that perished before us, to salivate at the thought of savoring a sorbet the same color as the retreating sky, to imagine cookies cut in the same shape as the silhouettes of the sparse pine trees? Would we be the last to clomp about on soil with a tad too much clay and gravel, to breathe in air so crisp that each inhale felt like the bite of an apple, to be stroked by the grass so arid yet blessed with a sheen of gold? Would we be the last to witness the procession of a deer and her children, to gaze down upon the reflection of endless woodlands in a mirror of water vaster than any sports stadium, to savor an outcrop so aureate it transmutes gold into pyrite? But three senses, one sky, and one landscape were all it took to entrance us, enlighten us to the fleeting nature of Earth’s quintessence; yet, the universe offered more. When tangerine skies turned to dusk and then night, the vantablack blanket that commonly enveloped the Earth was no more, and in its place a welkin of midnight dotted with brilliant stars and banded by extraterrestrial clouds of untold proportions enthralled us. We reached our hands out above us, fingers outstretched and longing, trying to pluck a single speck out of that mirage. However, our arms grew tired, and so did our legs, thus we rested upon beds of soft leaves that did little to shield us from the unforgiving rocky earth below us, waiting for the next treasure that may reveal itself to us the next dawn. And although not a word was spoken that evening, together we both cherished the new value brought into our lives as we stared up at a cosmos that wouldn’t be tainted by the blunders of industrialized man for eons to come, a starlit haze that may be appreciated for generations to come. Callen Kuwahara is a high schooler who enjoys spending his time on chemistry, woodworking, gardening, baking, cooking, and the occasional fiction book. If he isn’t doing any of these, you can count on him making another cup of coffee or tea for upcoming projects to work on. He is currently implementing his chemistry knowledge to do research on topics such as antibody delivered drugs and nano-materials.
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Welcome to Gaia Lit's blog!
As champions of climate activism, we are thrilled to utilize this platform as a place for our staff members and wonderful readers to come together—to forge new connections and revisit old ones. In this space, you will be able to find exciting climate-related discoveries from our editors, whether that entails sharing original creative work, reviewing books and articles, or providing fresh takes on the very latest in science and technology. Given an era of immediacy, we want to remind our readers of the beauty of being whole in newness, new in wholeness. In this shared space of warmth and knowledge, we want to remind our readers of what it means to find home. As always, we are so thrilled to have you here. Happy reading. Best wishes, Elane Kim Editor-in-Chief & Founder of Gaia Lit |
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