Periodically, the Earth picks a spot to deposit magma in its hot, flowing form. This magma is full of the things that create and sustain life, albeit in the wake of its destructive force. Out with the old, in with the new. At the base of the volcano in Banda Neira, Indonesia, the hard, black lava from an old eruption is clearly visible where it dips into the ocean. This was our dive site for the morning. As we began our dive, I expected to see an underwater continuation of the hard, black lava. I was wrong.
As soon as we entered the water, we were on top of an endless field of various types of thick and healthy hard corals. I wondered how to photograph this enormous display. We drifted and drifted over the coral field and eventually came to a point where the hillside dropped. Here, the hard corals became even more massive and diverse. The fields and fields of hard corals dropped away into the deep blue as we continued floating over hills and canyons every square inch of which was covered with layers of hard corals. Finally, I gave in to the complete wonder of it, so grateful that there was this piece of Earth teaming with life and completely unspoiled by humans. The Earth pumped its life into my heart until the life started leaking out my eyes. And then I started shooting photos—little, tiny squares of images of this massive field of hard corals that is really too big to comprehend. Indeed, one of the Earth’s sacred places.
Back on deck, I learned that this volcano had erupted in 1988. What I had thought had surely taken hundreds of years to grow had actually gone from a lava flow to a “hard coral flow” in only 37 years. Think of that. When the Earth brings death to a place, life is contained within the destructive force, and new growth begins almost immediately. Death and life evolve and create together. Wonderful.
