By Jane Bauer

“What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.”
C.S.Lewis

Dominion or Delusion?

Imagine the center of the Earth—a churning core of fire, hotter than the surface of the sun. Around it, layers of rock, compressed over millennia, hold the planet together. Some of these rocks are laced with gold, silver, and lithium, elements we’ve deemed valuable. Others, we grind into dust beneath our feet without a second thought. Wrapped around all of this is water—vast, deep, and ancient—carving its way through rock, evaporating into clouds, raining back down in an endless cycle.

And then, there’s us.

We exist only on the thinnest layer, a mere film on the surface of this massive, breathing planet. And yet, we draw lines across it, dividing land into nations, waters into territories, air into controlled space. We claim mountains, rivers, even the empty sky, labeling them with deeds and mineral rights. We build economies, establish laws, and enforce rules over something that will never truly belong to us. We convince ourselves we have dominion over the Earth.

But then, the Earth shrugs. An earthquake swallows a city. A hurricane flattens a coastline. A volcano erupts, spilling molten rock as if to remind us where the true power lies. We scramble to rebuild, to reinforce, to regain control, as if control was ever ours to begin with.

Why do we do this? Why is dominion our highest ambition?

What if we saw this endless striving for control not as strength, but as a kind of weakness? What if the leaders who seek to control land, resources, and people weren’t admired for their power, but pitied for their delusion? What if, instead of fighting for dominance, we embraced the simple fact that we are just another part of this planet—not above it, not rulers of it, but made from the same dust as everything else?

Because, in the end, we are not conquerors of rock and water and fire. We are rock and water and fire. And the sooner we recognize that, the sooner we might learn to exist in harmony with the world, rather than constantly trying to claim it.

This month, our writers look at mining in Mexico, one of our earliest efforts to dominate the earth, but one that largely created the modern Mexican economy while filling affluent jewelry boxes. We need to ask at what cost?

See you next month!