The Meaning of the Vision

Figuring Out the Purpose

My quest for understanding led me to study the Late Permian period, an era 250 million years ago. Long before the dinosaurs, it was a transformative epoch in Earth's history, when therapsids roamed the land alongside three other sorts of large animals that would give rise to the turtles, lizards, snakes, crocodiles, and dinosaurs. For their part, the therapsids gave rise to mammals, of which we are one. So now I had nailed it! The animal in my vision was a therapsid, and now I knew why she had gazed upon me with so much empathy — she was my direct ancestor, the ancestral mother of all mammals and humankind! 

But when? And where on earth? 

Then one afternoon with 20 browsers open, I discovered it — the Zechstein Sea, which existed between 260 and 250 million years ago. It was in this ancient sea where thick beds of polyhalite were formed. 

The Late Permian period is called "The Great Dying," as more species went extinct then than at any other moment in Earth's history. This realization heightened the signficance of what I had seen, because I positively felt that the therapsid and the nature all around her had somehow appeared to me to tell me an important message spanning epochs. 

The moment I learned about polyhalite, it connected the dots of my vision, bringing back the profound feelings of connection and purpose I had experienced. Polyhalite, a remarkable mineral that offers sustainable solutions for modern agriculture, was the key to understanding my vision.

Through my studies and reflections, the inescapable conclusion became clear: even as it neared its catastrophic global extinction, the Late Permian period was laying down a tangible solution for the future with the creation of polyhalite. In my vision, I was transported to that moment, and the empathetic therapsid was there to reinforce the message. Polyhalite, a multi-nutrient mineral crucial for modern agriculture, serves as a strategic bridge from an ancient environmental crisis to our current food scarcity and environmental sustainability challenges.

If the story of our ancient therapsid ancestor, the grandeur of the Zechstein Sea, and the allure of the polyhalite speaks to you, it may well be that the vision which unfolded before me is also reaching out to you. It's an invitation to see how polyhalite, with its remarkable benefits for soil health and crop yield, is part of a larger story of sustainable agriculture and positive change. Your curiosity and engagement are vital. I welcome you to join in this discovery, to share in the insights, and to contribute toward a sustainable future for global agriculture. Your journey starts here. 

Credits:

Evolutionary tree: Original Image Source: Benton, M. J. (2021). "The origin of endothermy in synapsids and archosaurs and arms races in the Triassic." Gondwana Research, Elsevie. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1342937X20302252. Note: Red arrows and Mammalia and Therapsida labels added, and the right side has been cropped.This image is used under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY license.

Geologic time scale: United States Geological Survey, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Map showing boundaries of ancient Zechstein Sea (late Permian Period): San Jose and Drdoht, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons (with added red lettering) 

Photo of tractor in field: Bob Embleton / A Dusting of Fertilizer near Mayall's Coppice, licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.   https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/A_Dusting_of_Fertilizer_near_Mayall%27s_Coppice_-_geograph.org.uk_-_156926.jpg (cropped to focus more on tractor)