And then it was here, four billion years ago, hanging in all the black darkness. Blue. A little blue dot, so small, insignificant, and yet somehow, someway, in just the right spot. 

Circling a star, the blue turns, making day and night. All that we would become, everything that would live and die, circles the sun. 
Come with me to this little blue dot, see the sun shining on the blue water, the waves crashing on the shore. Watch the sun patiently shining on the waves, waiting; it has so much time. Millions of eons, the earth turns, making a circle - billions upon billions of circles. Then, finally, something begins to happen in the water. 

Look.

Stand with me and look down at the water. Do you see them?

Those are living cells. Out of nothing, something is alive. Alive. 

The brave little blue dot turns some more, collides with others; massive explosions erupt from the surface, then there is land. Land, where we would walk and live. Can you feel the land under your feet?

 
Now listen and hear the ocean waves meet the land, crashing on the shore. Stand with me at the ocean’s edge and listen. Can you hear?

Now kneel. Kneel with me; get down on your knees, bend your head low, as if in prayer. See the first cell divide. Then another, and another, and another, and another.

 
Eons pass. Now the little blue dot is covered with plants, trees, rivers, and mountains; it teems with life. Flying in the air, swimming in the water, creeping and crawling on the land. 

• • •

 

On the land, a bipedal mammal walks and runs upright. A large hard skull, filled with soft tissue, sending, and receiving bits of electrical and chemical messages. On the end of both forearms is a hand, a thumb that complements four fingers.

 
On her back, an infant hangs on to life. 

She kneels by the blue water, sees her reflection. 

“Me?” she asks. She moves her head up and down, back and forth. “Yes, it is me.” She looked up at the sky, “That does not end—how? Who am I? Why am I here? What are these feelings of joy, sadness, life, and death? Am I special; did something create me?” She looks back at the water and then to the sky again. Her mind spins with possibilities. 

The infant on her back peeks over a shoulder; seeing its reflection in the water, it jerks its head to the other side. Then sees its reflection again and makes a sound. The mother moves the child to her breast. Milk flows. She sighs and strokes his head softly.

 
He is her second child. The first died when she turned her back, when the ones with teeth took it. She’d shed tears for the first time from a pain that was not a wound to her body. This pain was deep inside. The scar is still there, never to leave.

 
She strokes her son’s head again, rocking him as he nurses. He finishes and she moves him to her back once more.

 
She cups her hand and gets a drink of water, sees a smooth rock by the water and picks it up. It fits her hand perfectly; she opens and closes her hand around the stone. Images of the ones with teeth flash in her mind. Perhaps... maybe a chance? She holds the stone tightly. 

The rock becomes so much more.

Rock in hand, one of our mothers stands up, her son on her back, and walks away, joining others, multiplying, creating, and evolving until the little blue dot is covered with us.

• • •

Of all the living things that came out of the water, one mammal dips a feather in ink to write. He smooths papyrus with the palm of his hand and begins to write on a surface that is as flat as he believes his Earth to be. The reflection of his own face fills his eyes.

The feather moves on papyrus, black ink flowing. 

“God created heaven and earth.” (Genesis 1:1) “God created man in his own image.” (1:27) “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.’” (Genesis 1:28.)

Across an ocean, the Hopi story of creation speaks of a spider woman who mixes her saliva with dirt, creating two beings. Her only instruction: to respect all creation. 

In another culture of this world, the Egyptian god Atum weeps, and the tears bring human beings into existence. Tears. 

We agree to disagree on how we got here in our own holy books, legends, and faiths. Each story changes, yet so much stays the same. We come from something, rise from somewhere.

The one indisputable fact is that we are here, all of us. Consuming towards oblivion. We have used the waters we emerged from and the air we breathe as our slit trench. The rock is now a missile, thrown thousands of miles. 

We teeter on the edge of destruction. This is not a myth, legend, or statement of faith. 

Now we cry, “God save us.”

Listen.

What do you hear? 

The silence is frightening.

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