Alabama Coast Archives - Page 12 of 29 -

Divine Madness

By Simone Lipscomb | October 16, 2015

The sharp click of metal on metal as my cleats clipped into the pedal reverberated in the foggy air–silence broken for a moment as I pushed off, leaving the mundane, the grounded ones in whirling flight. Half bird, half coyote I spun into the pre-dawn light.

The drive down to the park was spent listening to one song played and repeated as I let the music and lyrics fill my mind. I rode with no soundtrack today except the lingering lyrics echoing within my mind and heart.

“Shining light of mercy…coming of the day. Shooting star of promise…the lantern on the way. Picture in the locket, love so near and far. Song your mother’s singing, firefly in a jar…..Coltrane in the 60’s, Blind Willie lost in time….Mahalia, like an angel, the hymns of human kind. Bouquet of forgiveness, the healing of the heart. Redemption of misfortune and the madness of the world. Madness of the world. Love of peace alighting. One moment making sense. Love crashing through the barricade, love reaching through the fence. The Christmas Eve ceasefire, wind beneath a bird. Inebriated choir and the madness of the world. Madness of the World. Madness of the World. Paint brush hittin’ canvas, the dancin’ in the rain. Flannery O’Conner, word on every page. Kindness of a stranger, Prodigal’s return. The absence of all anger and the Madness of the World….The Madness of the World. The letter from your father, the weight of every word. The love that keeps you singing; the sublime, the absurd. The ancients and the mystics, minstrel in the park. Soothers and the sayers, healing ancient scars. Those who came before us, those we’re never heard. Babies breath on my neck, madness of the world. Madness of the world….madness, oh madness, madness of the world.” Will Kimbrough from Mercyland Vol 2.

The first time I heard this song, tears came as my heart opened. Every time I listen the same thing happens…even listening to it on repeat. It mirrors my feelings and probably those of many of us struggling to make sense of this world.

Choosing to pay attention to behaviors human’s choose to practice toward each other, animals, plants, sacred places brings so much grief and sadness we can be overwhelmed. But then the fog is lit by colors of the rising sun….”Shining light of mercy…” or birds surround me as I pedal through their woods….”wind beneath a bird…..” Bursting out in laughter at the rays of light bursting through pine limbs in the fog…”coming of the day….” I realize beauty helps me rise above the sadness…”shooting star of promise…”

Without beauty of landscape and heart, the madness of the world would devour us. But somehow, amid the insanity of darkness we see inklings of light and they lift us above the quicksand of sadness to flight.

Will’s song brings tears because amid awareness of climate change and ocean acidification, social injustices and meanness, we can still find the sweetness of love and laughter. It’s a healing waltz as we dance in the schizophrenic reality of life. I think he reminds us that we can survive and even thrive in a world of madness by being mindful of beauty walking shoulder-to-shoulder with darkness.

——

Check out Will Kimbrough‘s body of work. Find his song, Madness of the World, on Mercyland: Hymns for the Rest of Us, Volume 2

Stealth Cycling

By Simone Lipscomb | September 19, 2015

The orange orb of dawn had just peeped over the horizon when I turned from the roadside trail into the woods. Light under the canopy of pines and live oaks was gray. The paved trail was littered with pine straw and oak leaves. The snake didn’t see me. My wheels were over the small garter snake when I saw it. Dang it! I love these little guys and gals and hurting one…or worse…brought sadness.

*Image of bobcat taken at Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park*

The bike wheels whirred over sand scattered on the hard surface. A few minutes later a bobcat was leisurely strolling down the road and didn’t see me. I slowed and quietly coasted, observing this magnificent creature. After a few minutes she glanced back, saw me and leaped across the pavement into the open sandy area. A gaze as I passed saw her sitting, licking her paw with one eye watching as I pedaled past.

Image of Sampson, a rescued bobcat that somebody had illegally and had all four paws declawed. He lives at Emerald Coast Wildlife Rescue Center — *Image of Sampson, a rescued bobcat that somebody had illegally and had all four paws declawed. He lives at a wildlife rescue center*

More sunrise splendor of Little Lake, brightening sky, glorious green plant life, coastal forest trees…marshes, gopher tortoise burrows. A typical morning on the trail.

Doe taken in Cades Cove in the Smoky Mountain National Park...can't get photographs while I am cycling. — *Doe taken in Cades Cove in the Smoky Mountain National Park…can’t get photographs while I am cycling.*

Then several miles later a doe walked out into a patch of sunlight and gazed ahead, the light illuminating her large size. I slowed, she waited. Then she saw me and trotted off into the forest. Right behind her a spotted fawn tiptoed and balked at the pavement, acting as if it were slippery ice. The smile that enveloped my face was tremendous. Then with a flash both disappeared into the piney forest.

Doe and fawn taken in Smoky Mountain National Park....one of my favorite images — *Doe and fawn taken in Smoky Mountain National Park….one of my favorite images*

Observing wild creatures without them knowing, even if for a moment, brings such joy. To view them in their natural state of calm learn how they interact with their realm is a true gift.

For some reason the wildlife witnessed today wasn’t aware of my presence….at least at first. Stealth-mode. Quiet mind? Peaceful emotions? Lately nature has been teaching me to be present and mindful as I ride. Perhaps the result is becoming more wild…part of the world of wildlife, marshes, forests…maybe I’m becoming more myself. More integrated with nature. More whole. More joy-full.

Chasing Sunrise…Backcountry Communion

By Simone Lipscomb | September 16, 2015

Today I attended Hugh’s celebration of life service and wanted to share this post from last autumn. Thank you Hugh for giving me an opportunity to learn about being a caretaker from one of the best I’ve ever known! Happy trails my friend. Soft, puffy, pale pink clouds hung in the eastern sky as I drove towards the Gulf. Each county road took me closer to the beach and as dawn approached, the clouds evolved from bashful beauties to loud expressions of color painting the sky with creative exuberance.

It was still a bit dark to ride and the lake was close by so I crossed my fingers and drove to a spillway at the lake. I arrived for the most intense sunrise these fifty-something eyes have ever seen. Having only my iPhone, I clicked away hoping that it would do justice to the beauty. I could feel my Nikon weeping from the confines of its soft case at home.

I spent the first ten miles of the ride in the afterglow of profound color that ignited my heart with gratitude. Every live oak tree seemed to reach out with gnarly, twisted branches to greet me. Blazing stars with their arched, purple fronds exploded in joyful dance in the soft breeze. Brilliant red cardinal flowers seemed to emit sounds of color through their tiny trumpet-shaped blossoms.

As I pedaled and stayed present with the beauty enfolding me, I realized the only thing that separates us from nature–from all life–is our distracted minds. If we pay attention, are mindful and aware of life around us, it pays attention.

A group of four folks and I passed four times in my twenty miles and on the last pass one of the guys waved and said, “Hey, Simone!” Helmets, sunglasses…I don’t know who it was but his greeting created bubbles of gratitude for this beautiful park and trail where so many people enjoy nature–Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail.

When I was in high school I worked for Hugh at the park. After college I was hired as the naturalist in the state park. I witnessed Hugh stand guard over the park while politics and development seemed to want to tear it to shreds. He was a mentor to me and his ability to work well with people kept many of the takers from taking too much from this special land.

He’s not well these days and I know that at some point he will take the journey across the abyss to that other place….like all of us will some day. I hope the sky is as beautiful when he makes his journey as it was this morning. And whenever he goes, I hope he goes knowing that he is loved and appreciated for all he has done in his decades of dedication to Gulf State Park. Anyone who rides the trails there knows his name. I only hope they know what a very special person he is.

Chase a sunrise soon. Greet the flowers with your full attention. Let the Universe know you are aware of It and It will commune with you.

The New Normal

By Simone Lipscomb | September 2, 2015

The usual situation of having at least three books going at once gave a strange coincidence last week. On the sofa I was reading, Telling Our Way to the Sea, by Aaron Hirsh. The book is about two college professors who take students to the Sea of Cortez via the Baja Peninsula. The quote that caught my eye? “We live amid wreckage yet we hardly notice that something has changed. Why are we so blind to the destruction–so forgetful of what was here? Knowing only the natural world we’ve encountered in the short interval of a life, we fail to notice the substantial transformations wrought by previous generations; and so we over look the absence of all that was already gone when we ourselves first arrived on the scene.”

Then migration to the bedroom and the book on the bedside table about the Amazon River, Mother of God, by Paul Rosolie, presents this quote on the same evening: “I have witnessed a kind of generational amnesia to ecological abundance. It is a sinister phenomenon whereby members of each generation seem to accept what they see around them as the way things ought to be. It is a problem of shifting baselines, a lowering of the standards by which we judge the condition of our environment. Over generations and across continents, this collective inability to accurately assess environmental change has become a serious problem.”

From May 1st through August 31st I walk one morning a week at sunrise looking for sea turtle tracks–evidence of a nest—as a sea turtle volunteer. The mile and a half section I walk begins at the wildlife refuge and goes eastward. The first part is in an exclusive, gated development but it isn’t immune to litter. And not just a plastic bottle here and there. Metal tent frames are abandoned here just like all along our Alabama beaches. People leave tents, ice chests, beer bottles and cans, plastic water bottles, chairs, plastic toys, cigarette butts, kites and string, fireworks, balloon remnants, diapers, condoms….it’s an endless list of nasty human waste and the weird thing is people walk by like it’s not even there.

Photograph Summer 2010...Shell Oil — Photograph Summer 2010…Shell Oil

Tar balls, oil containers, gas containers, antifreeze containers….doesn’t seem to faze our tourists or those that live on the beach.

Drilling in ocean water too deep to be safe…drilling in sensitive environments like the Arctic…fracking shale near homes, schools, playgrounds…clearcutting forests….overfishing…dumping sewage in the sea…violence against the planet, wildlife, humans….yet we seem numb, immune.

Are we so used to trash, pollution and rape of the planet as the norm it no longer affects us? S.N.A.F.U. I suppose. Seriously S.N.A.F.U. Sadly so. I don’t like this new normal. How about you?

Photograph I took Summer 2010. It reminds me of a woman's body and so I call it the Rape of Mother Earth — *Photograph I took Summer 2010 during the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster. It reminds me of a woman’s body and so I call it the Rape of Mother Earth*

Paradise Right Here*

By Simone Lipscomb | August 30, 2015

It was still dark as I pulled onto the highway and turned east. There, in the lightening sky hung venus while Dreamer’s Sky, Will Kimbrough’s song on the new Willie Sugarcapps CD eased me into the morning. The last sea turtle patrol of the season begins here, in my car, with music carrying me toward the Gulf of Mexico.

A turn south and another song, another turn east and there’s Venus again with Anthony Crawford‘s song, Love Be Good to Me, sweetly sung by Savana Lee Crawford. The planet of love and these lyrics…..”Love be good to me, Fill my heart again. Love, can you still hear me calling out to you?…..Everything happens in its own time.”

Another turn south and more wonderful music. Grayson Capps, Love, surrounds me with soulful words and notes. And finally, a turn west at the beach and the full moon hangs in a perfect square notch in a massive cloud as Will Kimbrough’s, Paradise Right Here, begins to play. For less than a breath the moon is cradled by the towering cloud and then it disappears.

The words of the song touched me deeply the first time I heard it at the Frog Pond. Tears streamed down my face as I listened to Will’s lyrics. Today, they touched me again as I thought of daily abuses to our planet that take more of the paradise away….the paradise that literally is in the palm of our hand, as Will sings. It is totally up to us if it remains or is destroyed.

I reach the beginning of my sea turtle patrol at the edge of the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge and grab my camera as I exit the car. The full moon is still bright in the sky and the sun not yet risen. As I reach the water’s edge my faithful dolphin friend swims up and we journey east, toward the rising sun. He, swimming just offshore, and me, walking close to the water’s edge. The past several Sunday’s we have shared the sunrise together and the thought of not seeing him next Sunday saddens me.

The sky is in full sunrise celebration with crazy clouds and colors of phenomenal beauty. Joy leaps up within me as I frolic along the shore which seems to excite my cetacean buddy. As Will sings, “I’m glad to be alive and I’m thankful for this paradise right here, paradise right here. Right here, by the warm inviting water, right now with my bare feet in the sand, right here share it with your sons and daughters, paradise in the palm of your hand. Paradise in the palm of your hand. Paradise in the palm of your hand.”

So grateful for the paradise of this shoreline, the Alabama coast and the greater Gulf of Mexico….all life here…and hopeful that we can make it even better with efforts to be good stewards and approach our walk on this planet with love and compassion for all life.

The end of my walk neared and I saw two of my teammates approaching from their section. We celebrated the beauty of the morning and a successful patrol season and sea turtles. We remembered our loggerhead friends who lure us out each Sunday morning from May 1st through August 31st to chase the sunrise and re-discovered paradise…in the palm of our hand.

*Paradise Right Here is Willie Sugarcapps new CD title and the title of Will Kimbrough‘s fantastic song. Check it out!