Here's to the Explorers!

While my day job is helping to get people to connect with, care about and ideally support our work in nature, most of the time my version of 'field work' is sitting at a desk in the concrete jungle, 16 floors up, dialing into webex conference calls and looking at powerpoints and white papers.


Last night I attended the premiere for Discovery Channel's amazing new "Frozen Planet" series which gives viewers a rare glimpse into a world they likely will never see, life at the North and South Pole.


Polar bears traveling miles in the frozen Arctic to find a mate (ahem, gives some perspective to 21st century dating life), seeing a forest that contains over a third of all trees on the planet and watching surfing penguins in Antarctica slip away from a hungry seal helped to remind me that the ends of the earth is full of incredible life, and how we're all connected to it. 


I left thinking about how challenging filming conditions must have been, and still not able to fully grasp how early explorers discovered these places, traveling by boat or on foot.


"Il faut aller voir - We must go and see for ourselves," said Jacques Cousteau.  


We all don't have it in us to be explorers, but their spirit of adventure and trailblazing discoveries continue to light up our lives, fill us with wonder and amazement, and just open up the world past our limited horizons. 


Sea World in San Diego brought in two penguins for the premiere, and I am still smitten from my face to face encounter with "Penny" and her shy little friend.  


So I'm off to work again, with meetings and budget discussions, but now have penguin cam to keep me connected with the joyful waddle of one of the millions of species who share our planet with us.

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