Category: OCEAN

Gratitude for a Sense of Place

Gratitude for a Sense of Place

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It took me a while to make the decision to leave the Blue Ridge Mountains but when I did my compass pointed south, or specifically– southwest. The live oak trees draped with Spanish moss whisper my name as the wind rattles their waxy, hard leaves against each other. The smell of coastal Alabama soil, that sandy loam, lies waiting for me to come home, to walk barefoot and connected with its magnificence.

In the past 18 months I made over ten trips to my home to document the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and with each trip, it was more difficult to leave. I felt my work was just scratching the surface, that there is so much more I could do, that I wanted the Gulf of Mexico to raise up through me to protect Herself. All of these reasons resound in my mind but more important than anything is an intense desire, a burning within my soul, to be home. I can’t really explain it, although my mind has tried to make sense of it. It feels like my bones responding to a homing signal. Maybe I’m experiencing the same pull that monarch butterflies feel or migratory birds. It’s like an internal signal has been activated and I’m ready to go.

Meanwhile, amid this magnetic pull back to the Alabama Gulf Coast, I have my home for sale and am dealing with flaky buyers who change their minds like they were changing their dinner order. Dealing with the ups and downs of selling my beautiful home is wearing on me. But my vision is still crystal clear; I won’t allow insensitive buyers to detract me from my intention.

I love the land here in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The nearby Smoky Mountains are a true spiritual home for me and have been since I was a child. Living here has been healing and restorative and has boosted my creativity and connected me with incredible people. All to prepare me to return back to my home and apply everything I’ve learned here to help an area that was heavily damaged with the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. And no matter what the slick BP advertisements and tourist boards say, there is still substantial problems in areas along the coast and a looming unknown regarding wildlife and Gulf health. I want to be there to do whatever I can to help this place recover.

And still….still…beyond the reasons I think I’m headed home, I really don’t know what I will be doing help the communities or wildlife. And that doesn’t matter really because I’m taking the first step and that is to be willing to sell my mountain home and move back to the place where I was born in total trust that I will be shown what to do when I am there. I am willing to take this leap.

When I was walking this morning in the frosty, mountain air I realized that the biggest surprise of everything going on in my life now is this intense love I have for the Gulf of Mexico, the shores, bays, rivers and people. My bones resonate with the tides there and for this deep sense of place, I am truly grateful. I never realized how powerful the love of a place could be and how being totally committed to helping protect it can change the course of a life.

Excerpt from my book Sharks On My Fin Tips: A Wild Woman’s Adventures with Nature–“Like many coastal species that begin life in the brown waters of Weeks Bay, I began my life on the shores of this tiny estuary. I grew up amid herons, egrets, baby crabs, shrimp and mullet with the dark-brown mud squishing between my young toes. The smell of salt marsh filled my being and was imprinted on my soul only hours after I breathed my first breath….And like the creatures birthed in the bay, I too moved away from its tranquil shores yet I will always feel the pulsation of saltwater in my blood like a magnet, drawing me home.”

Where do you find a sense of place? What place calls to your bones?

Change Agents

Change Agents

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On September 23rd I was in a small jet flying to Atlanta from Asheville. We flew over Lake Julian and the coal-fired power plant. Horrendous, black piles of death lay below. Earth raped as a commodity. I was glad to be headed for Rowe, Massachusetts where I would be spending a week with Joanna Macy and many other activists and lovers of our planet.

The first night, 68 of us met with Joanna. We listened as this wise woman shared about the history of humanity’s relationship with Earth. Most humans have used Earth as a supply house and a sewer. Finally, many are beginning to see the Earth as alive, as living. After she shared this and more, each of us stated our name and something of Earth we would protect. After feeling so isolated and alone documenting the Gulf Oil Spill, it was balm to my soul to witness so many people standing up to protect a place, animal, plant…body of water, mountain, meadow.

I left that first night’s gathering feeling the sweetness and power of people uniting for the common good. And with this happy feeling I had to negotiate walking on a small, wooded roadway at night with no light. I had to use my spider-sense, my bear and cougar sense–my wild woman sense that is connected with the wet, deep darkness and rich, loamy Earth. The part of me that sees without eyes and knows from the sound of gravel or grass underfoot where I am. I later wrote, “Amidst the inky blackness, rich and deep, silver drops from dark green leaves splatter and fall to the ground. I walk between two worlds, caught in the middle between lies and truth. May I stand with an open heart and bear witness.”

There was so much I learned and experienced that week at Rowe Camp and Conference Center and there are many nuggets of wisdom that will be with me as my work at the Gulf continues. However, one particular concept stands out. John Seed, an activist who worked to protect trees in the forests of Australia, had the idea that when we stand up to protect something on Earth, it’s really that place or thing protecting itself through us. In example, “I am not Simone protecting the Gulf of Mexico, I am the Gulf of Mexico protecting itself through this piece of humanity.”

And so to all those working on the Gulf, we are united in our efforts by the Gulf of Mexico. And for all environmental efforts, it is the same. Reframing activism, in this way, shifted my thinking and helped me feel the whole of all involved in working to protect and heal our planet.

Whatever you love about Earth and are willing to stand up for, say it out loud in the context written above by John Seed. What do you notice?

Some ideas shared by Joanna: Healing the planet comes from seeing the relationships and interrelationships. Action is something I am! (Not something I do). Don’t wait for the blueprint or plan as an activist. You cannot predict the synergy that occurs when you take steps and risks. Have the courage to move out with ideas. Power is an organic outcome of synergy. Evolutionary forces are wanting to work through us.

After lunch one day I climbed a steep trail and sat on a rock at the top of a mountain and heard this: “When you are called to witness a devastation to Earth, you serve as one of a council who then reports to the whole. Tell the truth of what you see. See with your heart.” And so my work continues whether I’m reading articles on the Gulf Oil Spill and passing them on to others or on the beaches documenting the huge chunks of tar washing up or speaking with school kids.

Many times I have struggled with my reason for doing the work at the Gulf and have asked myself questions like: “Is anybody really paying attention?” “All this time and energy here and is it making a difference?” Joanna reminded us to release the need for our work to make a difference or reach people or be successful. The most important thing to do is to keep doing the work, allowing the creativity to continue to move through us. The key is simply to keep doing it.

“We are so much more than we see right now. The powers that brought us here are so powerful we cannot even imagine.” Joanna reminded us that we have help and we’re not alone. What an important message for all who are working as change agents for Earth.

What are you willing to stand up and protect?

To learn more about my work, please visit my website Turtle Island Adventures.

Moving from Apathy to Action

Moving from Apathy to Action

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As I was enjoying a quiet breakfast I picked up my latest copy of Dive Training magazine and started reading a story about marine species that are headed for extinction and how they got that way. Not light reading, especially while attempting digestion.

It’s much easier to set aside articles such as this and watch squirrels frolic on the deck or watch my ginger cat friend play. However, when the Deepwater Horizon exploded I knew I could no longer be an armchair activist and so for the last year and a half I have forced myself to pay attention to articles and other information that helps me understand what is happening on our water planet and why.

Meet the Goliath grouper. This amazing fish can reach 800 pounds and grow to eight feet in length. They were found along Atlantic and Gulf coasts of Florida, the Caribbean and down the coast of Brazil. Their population decreased 80% in ten years. Two reasons are cited for their decline. First, channelization of the Everglades. Baby Goliath’s live in mangroves and when channels are created to drain the swamps and wetlands, the home for juveniles disappear. The second reason has to do with reproduction habits. During their annual spawning more than 100 would gather in key places. Since they are so big they were easy to see and catch. Dive Training writes that over one quarter of their spawning sites have been fished out and many have fewer than 10 fish left to gather.

When I read this my bowl of yogurt, cashews and apples almost became a projectile. I am so angry and saddened by continued reports of countless issues where humans take and take and take resources and repayment comes in the form of toxic wastes and by-products of a consumer-based society where human selfishness is elevated to new heights on a daily basis it seems. I took a few breaths and continued reading. Thanks to wildlife biologists and laws, change is occurring. Some aggregations have doubled in size. Recovery will be slow but it is beginning.

There are humans that give back and have love and compassion for our planet and all of it’s inhabitants.

I have had amazing underwater experiences as a diver and one was with a Goliath grouper I met in Key Largo, Florida. Here’s what I wrote about him in my photography book, Place of Spirit. “Goliath in size, the grouper is strangely engaging. He approaches me, flares his gills, and rattles his gill plates. I am not certain if it is a sign of affection or a prelude to aggression. His spirit and energy match his physical size and dwarf me in comparison. His small, beady eyes intimidate me as I swim to another part of the wreck. How could this reef-dweller find me worth of investigation? When his attention turns to another diver, there is no sorrow for I feel exposed, as if he sees beyond my mask to a place where spirit dwells. Even with my discomfort, I am grateful this deacon of the deep makes contact.”

Part of my personal commitment to taking action is to educate and immerse myself in saltwater environments to learn and commune with these sacred places and the animals that live there. And then to share what I learn with others in order to stir people to appreciate and love our natural world. If love and respect for the planet can be cultivated within humanity, we can make a positive difference.

What are you willing to do to help create love, appreciation and respect for Earth and all beings that live here?

To order my book, Place of Spirit, or other books I have written, please visit my website Turtle Island Adventures.

The Basis of Our Self-Destruction

The Basis of Our Self-Destruction

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There was a mass-murder of beautiful tigers, lions, wolves, cougars, bears and a baboon this week in Ohio. I understood that fear was the basis for destroying these beautiful and, in some cases, highly endangered animals but it seemed to me that raising a gun with bullets took only a little less effort than raising a gun with tranquilizer darts.

In my grief and horror at this needless destruction of animals in Ohio, I realized that human fear is the basis of our path of planetary destruction. We fear not having enough food, clothing, video games, electronic toys–money–and so we consume at alarming rates, at rates that are literally annihilating everything precious, everything sacred. And I’m including the human species as well.

Have you ever stopped and watched birds like pelicans feeding? Even with an abundance of food, they only take what fills their bellies. There’s no fish-bank or pantry in some posh pelican pad where catches are stored for days when there may be lack. They live so much in the present moment that there’s no stress over making sure they have more than the flock down the beach.

Kind reader, you might argue that there’s no higher brain function of reasoning and so of course pelicans and most other animals don’t project themselves out into the future. And I understand that; however, have you ever wanted the freedom to not be so consumed by your own consumption? The pelicans might have an answer to our path of self-destruction.

Two days ago I heard about a huge school of sharks that had been finned in a nature preserve off the coast of Columbia. People came into the protected waters and caught hundreds of sharks, cut their fins off and dropped them back overboard still alive and doomed to die. All for the Asian market demand for shark fin soup. Murdered for an unnecessary delicacy. I wept for those sharks and for the tigers, lions, cougars, bears and baboon….but mostly I grieved the ignorance and apathy that so many humans continue to exhibit toward each other, animal species and Earth itself.

A Carrie Newcomer song came to mind and I share part of it with you, dear reader and offer a nudge of encouragement and gratitude for your compassion and love shared with all life.

“I heard an owl call last night
Homeless and confused,
I stood naked and bewildered
By the evil people do.

Upon a hill there is a terrible sign
That tells the story of what darkness waits
When we leave the light behind.

I am a voice calling out
Across the great divide.
I am only one person
That feels they have to try.

Light every candle that you can
For we need some light to see.
In the face of deepest loss,
Treat each other tenderly.

The arms of God will gather in
Every sparrow that falls,
And makes no separation
Just fiercely loves us all.”

“The arms of God will gather in, every sparrow that falls; And makes no separation, just fiercely loves us all.”

To find out more about my work, to order one of my books on the relationship we have with nature, please visit Turtle Island Adventures.

Dance of the Dolphins

Dance of the Dolphins

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Paddling my SUP board on Mobile Bay and Weeks Bay this morning was a fantastic two hours of saltwater delight. The water was calm, the sunrise soft and inviting and I had two hours of dolphin bliss. And people wonder why I’m moving back to this place–this sacred, holy place.

I started in Mobile Bay and paddled through the pass at Weeks Bay. As I was making my way up the bay, I heard a HUGE splash. I turned around and saw fast-moving rings of water moving away from a large bottlenose dolphin. Another joined him and swam along side my board. Of course, I greeted them, said good morning, sang to them and laughed at their antics. In their hunting they turned head-down and their tales stuck up out of the water as they feasted. Dolphin tales, large sighs of air coming from their blowhole, calm water…what else could I ask for?

I paddled about 20 minutes with them as they fed and finally turned and paddled back towards the mouth of the bay. As I neared the pass, I saw misty blows backlit by the sunrise as a larger pod swam across the bay. How could I possibly resist another encounter? So I paddled back up the bay at an angle to intersect this larger group.

There were seven or eight in this group and one leaped out of the water right beside me, close enough to splash my board. There was one baby but the rest were adults. More feeding, more tails all around me, more cruises beside me. So elated was I, I about levitated off the board. I knew the meaning of joy on a visceral level.

After another 30 minutes of watching dolphin dance in the brackish water, I paddled back down the bay, through the pass and on to mom’s beach. My day was so blessed, so totally made awesome by these brothers and sisters of the sea.

After cleaning up and having my breakfast, I read where four dolphins had washed up in Alabama during the past week. The dead cetaceans consisted of a pregnant female and unborn baby, and a mother and baby. The mysterious dolphin deaths continue, all the more reason I am grateful for healthy dolphins frolicking and feeding.

If you pray, please say a prayer for all wildlife on the Gulf Coast. We’re still dealing with a LOT of unknowns from the oil spill. And while you’re at it, please say a prayer for the people here as well.

To order my books on nature, please visit my website, Turtle Island Adventures. You’ll find a children’s book on the oil spill, a photography book of images from many beautiful places in nature along with prayerful descriptions and a book of essays on the relationship between humans and nature, full of funny and inspirational stories.

P.S. These are stock image photographs. I was too busy communing to take photos. Sometimes the best photographs are those I never take.