You may have noticed more jellyfish along the coast this summer, particularly the clear moon jellies. Catherine Schmitt, Communications Coordinator with Maine Sea Grant, wrote an interesting blog post about this phenomenon.
She ends the post with this: “Jellyfish are here this summer. Maybe, for now, we should not care so much about why.
Attributing the appearance of the weird, new, or mysterious to something like climate change—as we are quick to do these days and often rightly so—nevertheless results in a kind of dismissal. We nod and shrug and move on, because we don’t think there’s anything that can be done about such overwhelming change.
But this scenario leaves little time for wonder. Rachel Carson encouraged us to foster our “true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring,” to let emotions rule, if only for a moment, before we seek out or apply knowledge.”