REFLECTIONS
Carry On
Teresita Bacani-Oropilla, MD
W
hat must those ancients have seen
in the skies as they scanned the
stars, the sun, and the moon
going through their heavenly motions? Were
they discerning patterns in order to foretell
their future, to prepare for peace and plenty,
or to ward off portents of evil? Despite the
intervening millennia, our modern seers, with
the aid of scientific tools, research, charts, and
instant communications, are still on the same quest.
The past year has made us more aware of the knowledge we left
for them to figure out. They try to explain how things come to be,
and we try to comprehend. In the meantime we commiserate with
those devastated by severe winds and typhoons, the sea rolling
over their homes and sweeping these back with it, sinkholes and
earthquakes swallowing dwellings to disappear as though they
never were, fires wiping out forests and proud man-made palaces
alike. Likewise, we identify with victims of the arctic polar vortex,
which like the bugaboo of fairy tales, descended with its cold breath
to freeze anything in its path, almost paralyzing half a cont [