We are people of the Ice. An outline of a mammoth, from a gathering of stone at a Neolithic site 40 feet deep in Grand Traverse Bay, Michigan.
It’s always toward the end of season, in that short month of February when the ancient cold of the Ice Age seeps in. Today the temperature is expected to top out near 12 degrees Fahrenheit or -11 Celsius. The day is sunny and bright and in spite of the cold, the sun penetrates my jacket and gives me a sense of warmth as I stop by the gas station.
Even though it is cold, it is clear that Winter is one the wane here in the Windy City. We are less than a month from St. Patrick’s Day and in the ensuing weeks, the tilt of the planet will give us that first balmy day, in which the snow will melt, the ground will reappear and there will be that divide in which Spring will take over.
But what is the rush? There is something delicious in cold weather. Cold forces one to move, to keep the fingers and toes warm. It is something that triggers the primeval in us. The fact that we as a species have had an adversarial relationship with cold that has allowed us to thrive. The first fire, the first cloak of fur, these discoveries forced us down that crooked road of civilization, created due to cold more than warmth.
And we humans thrived in the cold. The Great Ice Age, especially here in North America, with the amazing animals that lived at the time. They all thrived for a time in that cold, the towering shelves of ice slowly grinding their way down south. How amazing it must have been to behold a herd of mammoths grazing, stare down a Giant short-faced bear or hunt camels. The cold created all this life that was larger than life.
Our ancestors, in the amazing, magical cold, created stone monuments, predating Stonehenge, that are here in the Midwest. A discovery of a ring of stones, one etched with an image of a mammoth, lying now in the depths of Grand Traverse Bay in Michigan, should fill us all with awe.
We are a species that came into being because of the cold. And it is ironic that we are species that are now slowly warming ourselves to possible extinction. Like all those giant animals that couldn’t live in a warmer, wetter world, perhaps it is only a matter of time before we too, are gone.
And it is that odd thought in my mind, as I am filling up the very machine that is contributing to my species' possible extinction, that makes me take in a deep breath of that cold, cruel air. But it also gives me a sense of hope. On one of the coldest days of the year, I can enjoy that cold, feeling an ancient feeling of being a subject of nature. Knowing that nature herself will have the last laugh with us humans. Especially if we continue along our path of hubris and exceptionalism. We will need to bring back our cold, our civilization-bestowing cold if we are to continue on this planet. I think we will because the ice is part of us.
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