For millennia we have looked at geological processes as the acts of gods. Volcanoes that blocked out the sun for months, floods that swept away whole states, these actions of nature would be deemed so powerful they were actions of deities. We cast these deities with our own minds and within our image.
Geology has always elevated materials for me. The natural processes of the planet are directed by the properties of the 98 elements that make up our world. To study geology is to study the power of materials, to appreciate it, to recognize the power of the geothermal engines below our feet and the currents of air above our heads. To recognize that this power does not extend from human-like deities but extends from matter itself, is to recognize the vitalism present within matter itself.
We personify, we deify, but do we ever think to materialize?
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