Alabama Coast Archives - Page 4 of 23 -

Motivation to Move

By Simone Lipscomb | July 16, 2014

The engine of the car idling a few feet from my head brought me back to the present moment. I found myself laying flat on my back with severe pain in my elbow and back looking up at the ceiling of the garage. The cats! Through tears of intense pain I forced myself to get up and shake off the nasty fall so I could take care of my cat friends who were in their carriers inside the car.

Taking cats to the vet for their annual exam and vaccinations isn’t my favorite pastime but they really aren’t difficult to travel with and the vet’s office is a few minutes from my home. But let’s face it–cats are never overly fond of change…and being crated, put into a vehicle and visiting a place where slobbering, noisy dogs are present is not on the top ten list for felines.

I loaded two of my cat companions into their crates and into the back of my station wagon. I pushed the garage door opener and the motor operated just fine but the door didn’t move. Drats! The power outage with yesterday’s storm had created a ‘situation’ when I tried to enter the garage so I had used the emergency release to open the door from the inside and closed it manually. I didn’t think about reconnecting the door to the electric pulling device so this morning I had to once again open the door manually.

There was no problem getting it open and backing my car into the driveway. I expected a quick closing operation but left the car running so the kitties would stay cool if I was delayed.

The wooden doors are very heavy and they are tall so I had to reach to grab the emergency cord to try to get the door moving. It wouldn’t budge. I’m pretty strong so I thought I would simply force the cord to move the door. Little did I know the cord was wimpy and as it broke my feet flew out from under me and I landed flat on my back and right elbow. Thankfully I had a pony tail that cushioned the blow to my head or I might still be laying on the floor.

What motivated me to get up and move, despite the shock and pain, was my friends in the car. The motor noise is what brought me back to myself and I realized there was a task to do, an appointment to make and so I wiped the blood off my elbow with my other hand, got a short step ladder, climbed it, grabbed the door and pulled the damn thing down. And we were off to the vet’s office.

Other than being a bit sore and having an elbow that’s complaining, I’m fine. It was scary…but not for me. I kept thinking: What would have happened to my cat kids had I not been able to move? They are what motivated me to get off my back and take care of business.

This afternoon I’ve been pondering the idea of motivation in our lives. What motivates us to take action? The safety of my beloved Stanley and Gracie motivated me today. But with life in general…what motivates me to take action?

If I titrate each action taken that has meaning, I’d have to say love is the motivation. Turtle volunteer work at sunrise and those midnight hatchings? Love. Scuba diving with all kinds of beautiful creatures? I LOVE them! Cave diving? I love the Earth and so appreciate being inside Her. Writing about nature? Love of nature. Teaching photography classes? The love of teaching something about which I’m passionate.

And sometimes love motivates us to take action that is most difficult….freeing someone we love to be on his Path….loving ourself enough to follow our Path…leaving a job we enjoy to take care of ourselves…moving geographically to follow a calling.

A kid's book I created to explain the oil spill in a simple, understandable way to all ages. — *A kid’s book I created to explain the oil spill in a simple, understandable way to all ages.*

Love can motivate us to get up when we have fallen, to push past emotional and physical pain and to follow our heart’s calling even when it’s difficult. What motivates you?

How Can I Keep From….Smiling

By Simone Lipscomb | July 13, 2014

I felt the dolphins before I parked my car. Before my feet reached the sugar-white sand or my face felt the warmth of the pre-dawn salt spray, I sensed their sleek bodies slicing through sea water. When I crested the top of the path leading over the dune the first thing I saw was several dorsal fins moving up and down through golden water. It was perhaps the most glorious morning I’ve ever spent as a sea turtle volunteer.

Clouds were building all around. The towering tops of some reflected the sun, not yet above the horizon. Their flat bottoms hung close to the Gulf as if teasing the surface with the sweet kisses of raindrops.

As the light increased the surface of the water turned that metallic slate-blue-turquoise highlighted by flecks of orange or gold or peach, depending on the angle. This is when the shore is at its most magic, at least in my mind.

As I strolled the sand looking for sea turtle tracks and gazing at the magnificent clouds I felt immense peace….and joy. At one point I realized I was grinning widely and even laughing at the beauty of it. A dear friend and teacher recently told me the Ocean had claimed me as Her own. Never have those words felt so true.

I thought back to the decision that brought me back to the Alabama Coast. My significant other had decided to move back to Iraq and I didn’t want to spend any more time alone in the overly-large home I owned on a mountain in Asheville. I had also grown weary of snow and ice and howling winds that seemed constant in the winter. I knew it was time to sell the house and move…but where? The man in my life followed his Path to work in Iraq. Where was my Path leading me?

I thought about purchasing a smaller home in the Asheville area at a lower elevation. I pondered moving to North Georgia. But the example set by my partner made me think…where is my heart calling me? When I put it that way, I narrowed it down. A coast. And even though I explored other coastal areas, it was this beautiful place of my birth that tugged on my heart.

There is no magic ball that tells me what’s next, if there will be a man and partnership in my life, what I’ll be doing or where I’ll be living in a year..five years . But I do know this…I am happy. I am joy-full. I am smiling in my heart. The Ocean has claimed me as Her own. I rejoice to have such a mighty Mother, Teacher, Friend.

Things I Don’t Understand

By Simone Lipscomb | July 7, 2014

Looking at the dwindling health of the planet has me scratching my head in confusion. During my sea turtle volunteer work, in the colorful dawn hour, questions come to me as I pick up trash left behind or washed up. I’ve compiled a short list of things I don’t understand. Perhaps you have some you can add.

1. People who depend on the Gulf of Mexico as a resource for their livelihood in the way of commercial seafood fisheries and use the Gulf as a dump. Last week I found all manner of debris washed up….yellow bags of salty brine, thick gloves, bailers, large floating buoys. Why would the people depending on the water dump their wastes into the sea?

2. Parents who sit on the beach with their kids and leave cigarette butts, beer bottles, metal caps and trash on the beach. What are they teaching their precious children? Cigarette butts are made of the same material as plastic bags…they don’t decompose. Bottles are made of sand…they won’t decompose but may break and cut said children. Metal caps will decompose after rusting and perhaps cutting children. Styrofoam plates, plastic bottles and other trash…takes decades or longer to be ground into smaller pieces that are ingested by sea life which we, in turn, ingest and therefore have toxic chemicals added to our already challenged DNA resulting in genetic changes and ill health.

3. People who toss hundreds of feet of monofilament line overboard. This has the potential to harm countless marine species…think about it. Guesstimates are about 500 years for it to decompose.

4. Why politicos and city hierarchies put money before care of the beaches…the same beaches that attract all of those tourists and tourists dollars. I don’t need to say anything more on this one. I just don’t ‘get it.’

5. Why is the health of the many ecosystems put dead last on most priority lists when it is the complete basis for health and life for humans? I don’t understand why this is so difficult to understand. It’s factual.

So while I’m out there looking for mama sea turtle tracks and picking up garbage that fills bags every time I go, these questions come to mind. I’ve yet to find a real answer and I’m left with many things I don’t understand.

Loving the Earth

By Simone Lipscomb | June 25, 2014

Loving the Earth: Creating a Conscious Relationship with Our Planet

A slight breezed carried my SUP board downriver as I stopped paddling to watch a pair of bald eagles drag their talons along the surface of the water. Nearby great egrets crowned cypress trees, their white plumage dazzling against the background of blue sky. A mullet splashed in the mud-tinted water of the Magnolia River and brought my attention back from sky to earth. As my gaze turned downward a brown pelican folded her wings, as if in prayer, and dropped from the sky close to my board. All around life expressed in a beautiful ballet of balance with this lone patron admiring the dance. Bliss seemed shared by all but perhaps it might be better named communion.

One never knows what will be the call that brings us to our heart’s work. While I loved nature since childhood, I never felt the commitment…the calling…to dedicate my life’s work to it until the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. It felt as if everything in life stopped so I could focus entirely on the Gulf Coast and the amazing life in our coastal ecosystems. During the first days of oil washing ashore I remember thinking the end of the world had arrived. How could this happen?

It’s easier to believe everything is okay than to pay attention to what’s really happening. I shared my book containing oil spill images with a cousin the other day that lives in Pensacola and she was shocked to see the reality I documented. There are people who live in Gulf Shores who still believe it wasn’t bad…that there wasn’t oil mixed with dispersant and it wasn’t fizzing in tidal pools of tiny fish gasping to their last breath. I know because I saw it first hand and stood on the beach weeping for every life I saw pass.

The most difficult thing I have ever experienced was witnessing the spill and its effects on innocent life which included small children playing in oily waters…so polluted that the benzene burned my eyes and throat. Video and photographs in my library document everything I saw but they can never share the true experience of grief beyond anything I’ve known.

A friend and mentor reminded me, during the first year of the spill, that there was a reason I was being called to witness the horror even though I might not understand why. Over four years have passed and I am more convinced that the only way to heal our broken planet is to heal our relationship with It and to heal our relationship with each other. That means healing our own lives.

The only solution I have found is to practice love…love as compassion…love as respect…love in the purest form of opening to surrender, to service.

Love for the planet requires opening the self. When we risk the deep opening of human heart to planetary heart we know the elation of unspeakable joy, of the heart’s expanding in answer to beauty. We also know the experience of grief and heartbreak when places, wildlife and humans we love are destroyed or profoundly injured.

Celebrating the beauty of the Magnolia River and other places of natural beauty relieves the grief that comes from being aware of the trials our planet is experiencing. There is resilience in nature and my hope is we will practice better stewardship before a non-reversible tipping point is reached.

As I remain engaged with nature’s rhythms through simple, daily observation and intention, I am drawn more deeply into partnership with the Earth. If we collectively open our hearts to loving this sacred planet, we can create a bond with each other that will transform darkness and create positive, lasting change.

Inner Music

By Simone Lipscomb | May 25, 2014

As I pulled out onto the dark highway, the delicate crescent moon hung directly over Venus. It appeared as if a gossamer thread connected the planet of love to the sliver of light. And then, within moments, wispy clouds obscured the planet and the moon appeared lonely in the immense pre-dawn sky.

I had awakened at 12.22am and spent hours wide awake with no apparent reason. Nothing was ticking through my mind but finally I surrendered and got up before the 4.30am alarm sounded. I made coffee and waited until nearly 5am to depart for my Sunday morning sea turtle patrol…my most favorite time of the week.

The white sand appeared blue as the first hint of light made its first tender caresses of the day. This is the time when softness and gentleness prevail. When we are gently invited to engage in life…to be present and awake.

As the sun claimed the day, light reflected in pastels that first appeared as a pale mist of color. This quickly changed as the intensity grew until the sand and tidal pools and waves changed to metallic pastels. Every sense became alive with color.

As I walked, three guitar fish got a gentle push back into the Gulf after getting trapped in tidal pools. Their eyes blinked at me as I wished them well and watched the tidal pool current take them back home, back into the Gulf. Go, go, go! Swim my friends!

If only I could express through words the feelings of sheer joy and exhilaration experienced. While seemingly shared only with a great blue heron, a few gulls and two or three sanderlings, and the guitar fish, it truly felt as if there was no separation of myself from the Universe. As if everything within me was pulsing in harmony with life. The sweetest sense of oneness continued for the nearly three hours spent on the shore.

Several days ago I had a dream and in the dream told a friend that I had always been able to hear music in my head and had come to accept it as normal for me rather than think I was crazy. This morning, this amazing saltwater morning, I heard music as my toes caressed the soft, cool sand. As I waded in shallow tidal pools it continued and as beautiful shells presented themselves to me, I heard it. And even now, as I sit reviewing images and reliving emotions, I hear the inner music, that vibrant chord activated when soul and nature interact to create inner harmony.

Venus is the planet of love, beauty, prosperity and harmony. It teaches us how to love and appreciate life and how to spread happiness and tenderness. It was coming into alignment with the Moon early this morning and had I slept later, I would have missed the magnificent sight of Venus hanging on a silver cord from the crescent moon…a sight that will continue to inspire me to listen to the music created when I allow the strings of my soul to be touched by Light, by Life.