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.
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.
Through warm coastal air I glided. Flying through layers of orange, purple, blue, yellow and white I became one with the sky and water.
Photo by Kyle Shepard
What a nice way to end a challenging day of paperwork at home. Zipping with friends at the Gulf Adventure Center was our way to celebrate the beginning of summer for the Alabama Gulf Coast…and our love of helping people connect with nature and experience joy outdoors.
The white sand felt cool on my feet as I stepped out of my flip flops at the bottom of the dune. I turned to gaze out over the Gulf, metallic turquoise in color. The sun was just beginning to warm the sky with golden light.
There was no wind or big waves to disrupt the surface of the water. Purple, teal, pale orange, gold and indigo danced in slowly-moving geometric patterns. As I raised my camera to capture the image, I realized I couldn’t discern the horizon. It was blurred with low-hanging pink clouds. Water and sky blended as elemental spirits celebrated the day.
My excuse to be on the beach at sunrise was sea turtle nest patrol. I was supposed to be looking for mother sea turtle tracks but admit distraction occurred, culprit of the gentle, soft beauty emanating from the sea and sky.
As I approached the edge of the water, where saltwater slowly pushed against the sand, a little shark swam by as it fed in the shallows. I don’t think most birds were awake as it was quiet and still topside while the toothy dawn feeders, who live below the surface, were already enjoying a tasty breakfast.
The sand welcomed my happy feet. Every step was a celebration of beauty, of life. There was no separation as I breathed in harmony with life on the shore.
This is how we’re supposed to live–each step one of gratitude and recognition of the oneness of life…in a state of balance and harmony.
Each color was a note. An osprey diving just offshore gave a dramatic increase in the tempo and crescendo, those elements that create tension in a composition. A sanderling scurrying along the water’s edge created sixteenth notes, quickening the symphony. Dolphins offshore gifted grace and rhythm to the song. A tidal pool added a bridge, that contrasting bit of music leading back to the original melody. The song still echoes within my being as I sit inland among the live oaks and reflect upon that glorious two hours at the shore.
My muddy boot bumped the bulkhead as I stepped up. It sounded like a bubble escaped from the soggy soil at the base of a piling. I put my foot down and looked. In a tiny puddle, less than an inch deep, a baby brim struggled. The receding water left the little fish in a quickly-disappearing pool.
It was a long reach but I managed to gently grasp the fish and walk it to the river. A few minutes more and the fish would have died. As I walked home I thought about the stories from our neighborhood and the surrounding area that seem like miracles to me.
First, one of my neighbors happened to wake up Tuesday night. He looked outside and saw that their home was surrounded by water. He awakened his family who quickly evacuated and proceeded to call everyone in the neighborhood. He still doesn’t know what awakened him.
His actions saved another neighbor’s car from being lost in the flood. It saved his family a lot of anxiety. Had they been in their home just a few minutes more they would have been trapped or worse, if they had tried to leave it once the water was a torrent of white-water they could have drowned.
One of our neighbors was trapped in her home. We called 911 but the fire department and sheriff’s heavy-duty rescue vehicles began to float in the current so they had to turn back. My car was parked away from the sheriff departments monster truck but somehow the driver nearly crushed my car. I say nearly because it was a mere three inches from backing over my car. He had already backed over a small tree because he couldn’t see.
Marine Resources officers arrived by a large flat-bottomed jet boat once the fire department and sheriff department couldn’t’ make it. They launched at the Magnolia River bridge trying to rescue our neighbor and others who live nearby. They checked on some people who were already in their second story and didn’t want to evacuate so they found our neighbor’s home. From a place of relative safety in her attic she saw them but couldn’t get to the window in time to get their attention. This probably saved three lives.
The current was outrageous and the river was up 12 to 15 feet above normal level. When the officers left her house they were losing control of their boat. The jets were taking in debris and becoming clogged so they were losing power and steering. They followed the lights of another neighbor’s home and as they were making their way to the porch got swept by the raging current into a tree. Their boat was pinned between the massive current and the tree and had no power or steering. It began to fill with water.
They managed to get it to a grassy area on the other side of my neighbor’s home and stood on the front porch after wading through two feet of water to land on the relatively dry porch. Had my trapped neighbor been in the boat it could have over-weighted it and they all could have entered the raging water.
The next morning at dawn another Alabama Marine Resources officer navigated his way via flooded roads to our neighborhood with a boat designed for swift water rescue. They launched it on our flooded street and made a successful rescue. Even though she spent a terrifying night in her attic, fearful her entire home was about to wash into the river, she made it out safely. During the dark night with an ailing boat she might not have been so lucky.
During the middle of the night I called my brother to let him know of the danger as he and his family live near a creek. Also, I wondered if he knew anyone with rescue equipment that could help our neighbor. I told him not to come out but he did anyway. The bridge was flooded so he couldn’t cross it. By now it was 1.30am.
He noticed a friend of his that lives near the bridge. He was trying to get his truck to higher ground. My brother gave him a tow. He saw him today, after the waters had subsided. His friend asked him why he happened to be there at exactly the right time to help him….at 1.30 in the morning. If he hadn’t been there, his friend would have lost all three vehicles. The truck they got out was the only thing that wasn’t flooded. Their home and two other cars were ravaged by storm water.
When I arrived on a neighbor’s porch as the water was rapidly rising, one of my neighbors wanted to attempt a rescue of our trapped neighbor. I recalled some of my basic swift water rescue training: 1) 6 inches of rapidly moving water can float a vehicle; 2) debris in flood waters can trap a person walking and thus cause them to fall and drown; 3) massive flood waters rushing as they were and at the depths they were would basically guarantee drowning; 4) we had no suitable vessel to attempt a rescue; 5) none of us had proper equipment or training (if you are not trained properly you put yourself and others–who would then have to rescue you–in serious and deadly danger); 7) it is totally unreasonable to contemplate a rescue in the circumstances in which we were experiencing. Sadly, people do not understand these basic rules and it leads to deaths. Needless deaths.
One more miracle before closing. Our community is a gated community. We have two large main gates that open with a keypad or remote. Our back gate, the one closer to the river, goes to Van Wezel drive. That particular gate opens only with a remote.
This image was captured after the water level had dropped several feet.
The night of the flood one of our Van Wezel neighbors awakened to water filling his home. He got in his truck knowing that the wooden bridge exiting his street would be unsafe but also knowing the gate coming into our neighborhood might not open because of the water. When he got to it, the gate was already open and so he could drive to safety. His house was completely flooded. Had the gate not been open he could have drowned.
My mind is fatigued with lack of sleep and attempting to grasp the magnitude of the flood. I paddled my kayak down the Magnolia River from our neighborhood past the osprey nest this afternoon and saw homes that had been flooded, one that was completely gutted and enormous damage to homes, boats…trees. I heard two people arguing and crying as they tried to clean their property. I heard others laughing and joking as they surveyed their destroyed home. So much loss and damage and so many emotions. Neighbors were checking on neighbors and trying to help them find missing boats and other property.
Amidst the elemental power of water that raged people were drawn together in support and concern for each other. And while we couldn’t physically rescue our neighbor, perhaps the prayers that were lifted through the torrential rain and never-ended lightning helped create little miracles. We were clear when we prayed aloud…We need help. Bring your angels to those in need. Protect our neighbor and give her strength. Let her feel the embrace of angels this night as the flood waters surround her. Protect the rescue workers who brave the storm to save others. Help us all know the power of love and strength.
We are all stronger from the experience. We survived. Everyone on the Magnolia River did as well…and that truly is a miracle considering none of us suspected the fierceness and level of the flood.
As a P.S. I would like to advocate for our marine resources officers and fire departments to be equipped with advanced swift water rescue training and gear that keeps them safe. The two officers that arrived soggy and cold came very close to overturning in flood waters. They had a boat that wasn’t equipped to handle flood waters, they had no swift water rescue gear. This needs to be a priority for them as first responders. The fire department guy said they were swift water rescuers but had no safety gear and no rescue equipment. I want our first responders to have the training that will keep them safe and enable them to help others. How can we start a push for this to happen in our state? Who can lend support to them? Thanks for helping.
Loving the Earth: Creating a Conscious Relationship with Our Planet
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.
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.
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.
