conscious change Archives - Page 16 of 18 -

The Questions We Ask

By Simone Lipscomb | February 20, 2013

Florida Manatee posing for a candid photograph

Yesterday I watched a news video relating the story of a family that abused a baby manatee. By abuse I mean the dad pulled it out of the water, hugged it, placed his small children on it while it was half out of the water and who knows what other torments. All of this was documented by photographs and posted to the dad’s Facebook page. A Facebook friend turned them in to Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission. The dad was arrested.

It is suspected that the baby manatee was already suffering cold stress from the recent chilly weather so the abusive handling most likely further stressed the calf which could easily lead to its death.

So. what’s the big deal? Manatees are one of the most endangered species in our area. They estimate the population to be around 5000 individuals. Reproduction rate is slow, many are killed and seriously injured each year by boat propellers. These are the biological answers, the scientific answers that support the very strict rules of conduct that are enforced by law enforcement agencies charged with protecting wildlife listed under the Endangered Species Act.

He checked out my dry suit, my fins, my snorkel, my camera...always learning more about humans, these little ones. — He checked out my dry suit, my fins, my snorkel, my camera…always learning more about humans, these little ones.

To fully understand this question one must journey deeper to the ethical and moral foundation of how we treat species other than our own. Manatees are very gentle, curious creatures with friendly dispositions. Given the fact that humans have nearly decimated their populations, they are incredibly trusting of us.

In a recent trip with a group of women to Crystal River, Florida, a juvenile was persistent in forcing an interaction with me. I believe in passive observation only and don’t ‘pet’ them. If they want to nose around my dry suit, play with my camera housing or suck on my hair, I don’t mind. But I don’t encourage the contact by excessive touch. I want them to be wild for their own good.

But this little one refused to leave me alone until I lowered my camera and held my hand out in the water. She swam to my hand and laid her head snugly in my palm and we maintained eye contact. My heart and entire being was open to the connection and it felt as if we crossed space and time where different species gain understanding and trust. After I gently pulled my hand back and swam on, I sobbed into my mask and thought, why do these animals trust us when their near-destruction is at our hands? I felt honored and blessed and as usual, deeply changed from the interaction.

So the story of the recent abuse of a baby made me nearly crazy with grief. The family had no concept of respect for the baby, no understanding that this darling manatee child was such an important link in the recovery of a seriously endangered species. I weep for this and all ignorance with which humans continue to destroy our beautiful planet–ourselves. As a collective it seems we see no connection between ourselves and other species, rivers, oceans….How did we become so separate from nature, from each other?

A dear friend of mine had a wonderful solution. He suggested that the family be ‘sentenced’ to work in a manatee rehabilitation center so they can truly understand the fragility of these gentle beings. Of course! What an amazing idea. For, as he said, we are taught by example. We learn from others. What better way to understand another species than to be taught directly by them. We can truly and profoundly understand another by helping them heal their wounds.

I think they see the reflection in the housing port...they are truly fascinated with cameras — I think they see the reflection in the housing port…they are truly fascinated with cameras

And this idea is applicable with all species, including other humans.

It is time to start asking the right questions and devoting ourselves to the healing of all beings. For that truly is how we learn about their suffering, their challenges. When we learn compassion, seeds of peace are planted. And that can only lead to a better world.

In Training: Learning from the Animals

By Simone Lipscomb | February 19, 2013

Two days of passively observing brown pelicans at very close proximity helped me get through Basic Orientation: Animal Life 101.

The conclusions I’ve drawn thus far? Silent observation and attention to detail give the best learning experiences. Staying in beginner’s mind is the clue.

Shoshin is a concept in Zen Buddhism meaning “beginner’s mind”. It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even if studying at an advanced level. Learning from animals necessitates using the quality of curious mind. Be quiet and observe.

Two experiences during my first ‘classes’ left me completely baffled. One happened at the end of each day’s observations and with each one, I was confronted with very aggressive energy from males. One was middle school age and the other an adult.

Class One: The pelicans had just settled down to nap and had been sunning after a particularly cold night. I was tucked in a corner of the pier with them, sunning on a bench. A group of four kids walked up and one drew his fishing rod like a sword and started trying to hit the dozing birds. It was calm and peaceful one moment and the next erupted into chaotic, mean-spirited energy.

Class Two: I was sitting with the pelicans in the same place–a corner tucked around from a fish-cleaning station. The birds were active in preening, perching, communicating with each other and yes, some were very interested in what the guy was doing with his dead fish. Suddenly a blast of cold water shot out and around the corner, splashing me and soaking the pelicans. But it didn’t stop. It kept coming and blasting the birds in their faces in their corner. They had little opportunity to leave.

I was just trying to catch a nap and then some human started spraying me with cold water

It stopped so I just let it go. Then it started again and this time after it quit I peeked around the corner and asked the guy to please stop spraying so far around the corner as I was getting wet…but more importantly, my camera was getting wet.

He kept spraying and finally blasted a bird perched on the rail for probably 30 seconds in the face and the bird could do nothing but sit there and take it. I yelled at this point: STOP IT!

He finished cleaning his fish and then came around the corner and cursed me for being on the pier. Told me I had no business taking photographs of the birds. That I had no right to stand up for myself or the birds because they shit all over the deck.

I attempted to explain I paid the fee to walk on the pier like he did…it didn’t matter. I also reminded him that I wasn’t feeding the birds and I had seen him toss fish remnants overboard where pelicans promptly flew for their meal. He blasted me with hate and words as he had done the pelicans with yelling and blasts of water.

ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?! I wanted to scream. But finally I just looked at him like he had lost his mind and didn’t say anything. And I continued to breathe and stay as focused as possible.

Today while SUP boarding I thought back to the encounters and pondered the entire lesson the pelicans were teaching me. What I resonated to so perfectly was the simple beauty of every movement, the peaceful quiet of the pelican world. I smiled at their squabbles over gifted fish and enjoyed the soft passes of their wings on my legs or hands as they opened them to fly off or argue over a fish. I haven’t felt that much peace in weeks and it was from letting go of thinking and just being and observing with an open mind.

If I look at the encounters with the two aggressive males from the point of view of a pelican, I notice two things. First, pelicans really don’t take it personally when humans are sometimes mean, abusive, and hateful. Second, they pop their bills a couple times at the offending party and forget about it.

Perhaps I just need to observe behavior that is abusive and angry and mean-spirited and not form judgments. Just notice it and carry on. But it is challenging when it is directed at innocent beings who are doing nothing but showing up for free food. It’s difficult to know how to balance observing passively and taking action.

Spread you wings, let it go — Spread your wings, let it go

How does anger, aggressive behavior and meanness affect me…from the perspective of beginners mind? Really it doesn’t if I don’t take it personally. If I can simply observe and not take that aggression or anger inside of me, it has no affect at all. I can advocate for those who need protection but I don’t have to take the insanity of the offender personally. That would be rather silly.

Perhaps I passed the exam from my first official class. The bonus question? How does a pelican deal with humans who adore them and cherish them? Observe, breathe, go back to preening in the sun.

Attachment to nothing... — Attachment to nothing…

Beauty

By Simone Lipscomb | February 15, 2013

Ft Morgan 122912 (19) — Winter beach at Fort Morgan, Alabama

The dictionary defines beauty as– “the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which spiritual qualities are manifest).”

Intense pleasure or deep satisfaction.

Virgin tulip tree in Great Smoky Mountain National Park

Can we experience beauty if we are not open to it?

What might keep us from being open to intense pleasure or deep satisfaction?

waterfall — Waterfall near Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina

For me it was trauma and grief due to environmental destruction….a “broken heart”….but it could be anything.

What keeps you from experiencing intense pleasure or deep satisfaction? What keeps you from being fully open to Beauty?

Wandering horse in desert. Bonaire, N.A.

It is worth exploring these questions. All of us could benefit from a daily practice of seeking Beauty and identifying our level Beauty Tolerance.

What fills your life with Beauty this day?

Fat Tuesday

By Simone Lipscomb | February 14, 2013

I was standing at Lulu’s Homeport in Gulf Shores, Alabama, listening to a band play a traditional Mardi Gras tune and felt a subtle, inner shift. A small glimmer of something started to awaken within me and it made me smile.

When embarking on a course of action it’s not necessarily easy because you (finally) found your path–your direction. When I answered an inner call to document the Gulf Oil Spill in my home state, I never imagined the emotional wreckage that would occur within me. I remember days before the oil began washing up on the Alabama beaches fervently trying to photograph as much of the Gulf beaches and marshes as possibly and while doing so sobbing, sometimes uncontrollably. Then when it began coming ashore and coating animals, beaches and filling the air with toxic fumes I was in a state of near exhaustion from anger, sadness, grief and the physical challenge of exposure to the toxic soup in the water and air.

It changed me. I remember going back to my mountain home for a few weeks each month and finding it very difficult to connect with anything pleasurable. I was numb from what I was seeing. Traumatized. And in some sort of cosmic disbelief that humans could destroy our planet…not just by an oil spill…but by endless sins committed against this beautiful planet and its inhabitants. Nothing touched me. Beauty was painful to see. Yet I couldn’t look away from the environmental destruction because finally I felt I was doing my legacy work.

Sometimes the cost of that commitment is high.

There was healing during the many weeks spent along the coast. Realizations, moments of inspiration but it was a week spent with Joanna Macy, in a Work That Reconnects workshop that truly helped me understand and process what I had been going through. And healing continues since my move back to the Gulf Coast.

Yes, I enjoy SUP boarding and walking the beaches and diving in the Caribbean. I’m not walking around in a constant state of gloom and doom. Yet finding a space for personal pleasure….just the inkling of fun for no particular reason…has continued to be challenging for me. The burden of our planet’s plight is heavy.

But yesterday, while riding my sea turtle volunteer team’s float in the Gulf Shores Mardi Gras parade and hanging out at Lulu’s with my friend and her family provided a little spark of fun for the sake of fun….with the intention of fun. Imagine that.

Gratitude for a day of fun runs deep within me. It helps to balance the deep grief that fuels my work to share the beauty of our planet…in the hope that people will realize the beauty of Earth and will do everything they can to help heal it. And heal the human relationship to it…and each other.

Communion

By Simone Lipscomb | January 30, 2013

Curious about the SUP board, the juvenile says hello.

It is no secret to anyone who knows me that my best friends are finned or flippered, feathered or furred. My heart is touched by an encounter with wild dolphins or a gentle nuzzle of a manatee in ways that surpass any human connection. Maybe that’s why men I’ve shared my life with have moved on…never content to come second after my love of wild animals. Connection with all creatures wild is my Communion, a way to rise above the mundane and connect deeper, more fully with beings more evolved than humans. (Personal bias).

Today I received an early-morning call from a friend and she tearfully expressed her love of the woods surrounding her home was about to be logged, destroyed so the landowner could purchase a vehicle for his son. How can you put a price like that on a sacred woodland? When will humans learn that the planet is not a commodity to be pillaged, a land to rape for spoils but rather a sacred cathedral?

The mentality of profit at any cost is not a luxury we can afford any longer.

Joanna Macy’s teachings come to mind. She explains the necessary evolution from a life-taking society to a life-sustaining society. We are in a time of moving from a profit-at-any-cost world to a life-sustaining world. We are in the middle of the dissolution of the old way and are awakening to the reality of the mess we’re in economically, socially, environmentally. And within the mess, within the reality of how we have treated the planet and each other, we find positive change occurring. Many, many people are choosing to act from a place of responsibility, a place of compassion and love. We are waking up to the idea that it is possible to live in balance with respect for all life.

Wildlife reminds me of the connection we have to the whole. The manatees scarred by propellers remind me that humans still have a huge impact on fragile species, that we have done great harm to our planet. And when I see volunteers paddling their kayaks, overseeing interactions with these gentle beings and acting as protectors, hope is refueled.

While snorkeling recently, a juvenile manatee came to me and demanded my attention. My goal is passive observation, in or out of the water, but while filming them, one insisted on connecting face-to-face and drew me out from behind the camera. He swam in front of me, stopped and I felt his gentle spirit guiding me to remove the camera from between us and commune, one wild heart to another. I gently placed my hand aside his face and channeled as much love as I could to him and his kind. And I listened in silence to him.

In those moments we were one with each other. There was no me, no him. In that neutral stillness was birthed understanding. Deep, profound understanding.

As we parted, sobs wracked my body and soul for the trust demonstrated by a species so abused and wounded by humans. The future of this planet is in our hands. That is both frightening and empowering. What will we do to create a better world? Will we do anything?

It can start with daily communion with the natural world. Let it show us our next step each day.