Owner Comments:
Since I started this set, I wanted to find a coin that I could include where I tell everyone what birds mean to me to provide some insight into myself and my reasons for building this set of coins. It absolutely was not some random idea I had one day. There has been a lot of thought, time and emotion that has gone into this project.
This coin is entitled “Blessings of Harmony” and that is very fitting for one of the main things that birds mean to me. I’m not a religious person at all, and I do not believe in any gods or any higher powers aside from one. However, this does not mean that I am not a spiritual person as the one higher power I do revere is nature itself, the one higher power that is absolutely proven to exist. Nature gives me feelings of awe, respect, harmony, wonder and love. And of all of the elements of nature that I am privileged to experience every day that I live, birds are some of the most amazing to me. As superbly evolved living dinosaurs, birds are the most numerous and visible remains of the Mesozoic Era that are left on our planet. As such, they are also the most visible and numerous representatives left of the Earth from the time before we humans were on it. They are one of the last pieces of an Earth that disappeared 66 million years ago, a planet that would be alien to us in many ways and one that has left us a few tantalizing clues, both living and dead, that inspire and fascinate us. Simply put, birds are ambassadors of an amazing chapter of our planet’s distinct history that is over and no longer exists.
To me, the true history of the Earth and the story of this beautiful blue sphere we call home is far more amazing and inspiring than any fable or theology that has been created by humans. When I need harmony in my life, chapters of this true and amazing epic tale are always where I turn and they always deliver. Of all of the players of Earth’s history, dinosaurs have always been the most captivating to me, even from the time I was a child. As I stated in the introduction to this set, one of my dreams from my childhood was to see a living dinosaur. Of course, as a child, I thought that I would never achieve this dream. However, with advances in scientific knowledge, birds have allowed me to achieve this dream simply by existing. Realizing that birds were legitimate, living theropod dinosaurs was an absolute miracle for me, one that continues to fill me with awe and wonder over four years after the initial scientific papers that announced this discovery were published.
So, what do birds mean to me? Simply put, they mean everything to me. They are a huge part of my life. Not a day goes by where I don’t think about or go look at some birds. I love almost all living things (there are a few species of mammal that I dislike, most notably dogs, rodents and opossums.), but birds are magical. These flying dinosaurs represent so many different things to so many different people. They are national emblems, they represent freedom and mobility, they inspire awe, respect and tranquility and they remind us that there was a life filled Earth before us, and there will be one after us. They represent resilience and overcoming massive adversity as they survived the holocaust that was the first years of the Paleogene. More importantly, they not only survived, they thrived to the point where dinosaurs are still the most numerous and successful group of tetrapods (four-limbed vertebrates, basically all vertebrates aside from fish) on the planet. Through the very fact of their existence, birds tell us that even in the worst of times, life goes on and things will get better.
I hope that this essay has shown you what birds mean to me and has shown you the depth of my love and respect for them. I hope that by viewing this collection, I impart some of what I feel every time I see a bird to you and that it shows how amazing and precious all life forms are. We never know the next secret that life on Earth will reveal to us. We on this planet are all interconnected and we are all a part of nature. We are all related, even though those relations may be very distant and buried in the primordial past, and we are all needed. We humans have a unique ability among all extant animals. We can reason. We can observe nature and hopefully revere it. We can discern the true history of our planet and hopefully use this true history to replace archaic folk tales and superstition, which not only benefits the Earth but also benefits us as well. We alone can take steps to care for the Earth and all of the other life forms that we share it with.