Orange Grove at Peacock Springs State Park…water completely covering lower platform and nearly to upper platform
We have had a LOT of rain lately. So has Florida. Photos I took last week of my favorite cave diving site inundated with river water and duck weed prove that. It has officially rained so much my brain feels waterlogged.
Radar from 3am
It stated here about 3am with loud ka-booms in the distance. For the next 90 minutes lightning never seemed to turn off. And the rain was torrential.
A break this morning gave a window of opportunity to drive to Pure Barre in Daphne for a workout. The cloud cover, sprinkles all day and general threat of more weather has made for a very lazy day. The small bit of work accomplished included balancing my check book and vacuuming the house. Otherwise I have felt completely content with dreaming up ideas…like building an ark, creating a video of the top ten items that float down the Magnolia River in a flood and what to do when the frog armies demand quarters in my home due to high water outside.
5pm radar…looks about the same as 3am.
With frequent lightning, being productive on the computer isn’t much of an option. I’m behind in uploading photographs and filing them and backing them up but my computer remains unplugged…safely unplugged.
So I hunker down with my cat buddies and await the passing of the storms. Sometimes that’s the best thing we can do…simply await the passing of the storm and move forward when the coast is clear.
The coming of this down-time is perfect after a potent week. Now comes the time for assessing the next step and cultivating a plan. So thank you rain. While I don’t intend to build an ark, there are others radical ideas brewing.
Curacao…a beautiful island in the southern Caribbean
Two days before Earth Day four years ago I was underwater. The strong taste of petroleum filled my mouth with every inhale. I signaled my dive buddies to surface under the star-filled night sky. Their air was fine. I didn’t know the source of the weird taste so we submerged but I stayed rather shallow and kept the dive brief.
I remember surfacing and turning back to look over my shoulder into the dark Ocean. A wind swept across the water and I felt a chill that shook my core. It was a very ominous way to end a dive.
A few days later I was sitting in the Atlanta airport after the flight from Curacao and saw the footage showing Deepwater Horizon in flames. When I am in the Caribbean I unplug as much as possible so had missed the news coverage of the explosion until I was almost back to Asheville. As I sat in disbelief on the vinyl-covered seat, clarity came and I knew it was time to go home.
Years ago I had promised the Gulf that I would help but didn’t know how. I heard a very distinct reply on the inner…You will know when it’s time to come home. The summons had been given. It was time.
I tracked the oil after arriving back to my mountain home and timed my arrival on the Alabama Coast, my birth place, a few days before the brown goo arrived. I wanted to document the unspoiled marshes and shores. I could sense the menace approaching but could do nothing except be a witness.
I remember one day I had been to Fort Morgan and was driving back to my mom’s on Bon Secour Bay. I stopped by a marsh and took photographs of large, orange boom in Mobile Bay. When I got back in the car I lost it. I mean really, really lost it. I started sobbing and screaming….how could we do this to our planet? It was as if I was experiencing a panic attack for our planet. I thought that I was witnessing the beginning of the end of life as we knew it.
One day as I walked the trail to the beach at Bon Secour Wildlife Refuge, I crested the top of the trail on the dune and saw before me a crime scene. Big blobs of smelly, brown goo were scattered all along the beach. I called the 800 number to report it and stayed for what seemed hours until somebody came to document it. Tearfully I sat on the sand and not knowing what to do I started singing to the Gulf of Mexico….I prayed and asked forgiveness for all humans. But mostly I grieved. My tears fell among crude oil staining the beach.
When the oil first came ashore it was marked with driftwood and gloves…I couldn’t help but enjoy the message this glove was giving.
One week each month for the first year I returned to the Gulf of Mexico and documented seven areas of beach beginning at Fort Morgan and going to Fort Pickens, Florida. I remember a day in early July when I was standing at a tidal pool watching a little fish gasp in the grip of death as the bubbling crude oil, dispersant and salt water suffocated her. I was pretty close to the end of my coping skills. After days of breathing the benzene-ridden air, dealing with heat and the horrors of what I was witnessing I literally almost lost my shit, so to speak, watching that fish die.
Standing with tears flowing and sobbing I heard someone call my name. It jerked me out of the spiral of grief and I saw my friend Sherry, who I hadn’t seen in years, coming toward me. She gave me a big hug and we stood for a moment. I believe God or Mother Earth…or both… sent her to me that day. She was working on a clean-up crew and just ‘happened’ to be there.
My spiritual practice of meditation helped me make it through that year. My friend and teacher from England pulled me aside at a workshop almost a year after the spill and asked how I was doing. I told her how difficult it was to witness such needless destruction. She told me that there was a reason I was witnessing it and to stand firm in my love of the planet. Many friends from all over the world followed my blog posts and sent support to the Gulf and all life within and around it. If my actions could bring the truth to a few people, it was worth it.
The process of personal healing has been long after that year. The journey back to wholeness led me to return home permanently to the Gulf Coast. While I haven’t really understood what my role here is now, I have enjoyed each moment spent with sea turtle hatchlings, manatees, ospreys, eagles….the salt marshes and river. The very things that broke my heart and spirit have been my healers.
Much of what I shared during the spill and cleanup was what was happening on the beaches. The personal struggle was small compared to the ecosystem and the community of relationships within it. Yet humans, too, are a part of the community of nature. We are deeply engaged in the cycle of life whether we acknowledge it or not.
A week with Joanna Macy in Rowe, Massachusetts, allowed a group of thirty of us, working to make a positive difference on the planet, have a safe place to facilitate our healing and help us understand the process that is happening globally. Perhaps the most important lesson learned that week was that all of us are needed to, step-by-step, be midwives to the Great Awakening or as Joanna calls it, The Great Turning.
We cannot afford the luxury of turning our eyes away from the horrendous abuses humans do to the planet, to animals, to each other. We are all connected…we are one family of life surviving on a living planet.
A kid’s book I created to explain the oil spill in a simple, understandable way to all ages.
This Earth Day, let us remember our connection to our magnificent planet…the Ocean, sea turtles, dolphins, whales, otters, rivers, osprey, eagles, the kid across the street, the massive oak trees and the tiniest flower. We are One.
The taste of petroleum in my regulator on the dive in Curacao couldn’t be explained. On an energetic level I believe I connected with the disaster happening in the Gulf of Mexico while I was in Curacao, in the southernmost island of the Caribbean. It showed me, without doubt, that I am connected to the Ocean…the One Ocean…and to all life. And so are you my friends
To order my kid’s book on the oil spill or other books….please CLICK THIS LINK or visit Coastal Art Center in Orange Beach, AL or Page and Palette in Fairhope, AL.
Yesterday the river was clear enough from recent rains to get out and enjoy a nice SUP board paddle. Recent heavy rains had shifted a downed tree almost completely out of the way and created a nicer, whiter beach at my usual put-in spot in our neighborhood. After a leisurely warm-up paddle I was ready to turn on the turbo when I spotted a mother wood duck and her brood of over ten babies.
Who could pass up such a delightful surprise? I stood on my board watching as the little ones scooted behind their mom…peep-peep-peeping. Oh…it was great to be back on the river!
It was a quiet morning with only a few boats so stillness prevailed. I saw the pine tree at Devil’s Hole had three great blue heron nests in it this year instead of one. Two of the nests had the tall gray-blue birds standing in them. I sigh now remembering the joy that sight produced within me.
And so I continued downriver a bit and decided to turn and head upriver. I had to stop and greet the osprey pair and watch as one of the parents chased a large crow away from the tall nest. Across from the osprey family a large group of turkey buzzards were perched on the tin roof of a boathouse. I could hear their long nails scraping against the metal and even though I’m not afraid of them, it sort of creeped me out. They eat carrion…dead things…and so I felt a little squeamish as I kept an eye on them and told them, “Not yet boys. Not yet.”
When I got to the big bend in the river just past the Devil’s Hole, I spied a tiny baby turtle attempting to climb up on a small, round piece of floating driftwood. He kept spinning it. So I gently reached and caught him and placed him on my board. I gave him a ride to the nearest pile of floating vegetation near the river bank.
As I passed under the bridge and then through the Cold Hole I neared the narrow stretch of river that would lead me home. I heard a peep, peep, peep. Hmmm…where was that coming from, I wondered. And then, as my eyes scanned the direction of the sweet sound, I saw a single wood duck baby. Mama and siblings were apparently gone. I sat on my board and listened carefully and watched for any sign of movement along the opposite bank but saw nothing.
So I sat with this amazing, fuzzy, precious duckling and waited. I talked with her, suggested she stay clear of bass and keep on peeping for her mom. My heart ached as I could sense the anxiety of this small, sacred life…desperately wanting the comfort of her mother and brothers and sisters. I gave her space and left at one point to paddle back toward the bridge looking and then upriver a bit but never saw a glimpse of mama wood duck.
With a deep sadness that echoed throughout my being and out into the world, I paddled onward. Thirty minutes I waited, watched and searched but knew that the best chance this young one had was to survive long enough for mom to return and gather her into the fold once more.
Innocent beings, the smallest of the small, touch me and create such compassion and honestly, such heartbreak. I was telling a friend and fellow bird-lover about the baby duck and how heart-broken I was that I couldn’t do anything but witness the baby’s dilemma. He reminded me of the cost we pay when we are empathic. It hurts to care…and yet it is a reminder that I have such capacity for love and compassion. We all do.
Driving back from Gulf Shores today I saw a tiny inch worm crawling on my leg. I carefully placed my finger in front of him and offered safety until we arrived home. This tiny, amazing worm also reminded me that all life is sacred. All is worth protecting. And yes…all life is related…connected. The smallest creatures remind us of this truth.
As I floated in the fresh, blue-tinted spring water I gazed into a sea of green leaves outlined by cerulean sky. Reflecting back into the cave I had just exited with my friend, I smiled and whispered words of gratitude. Underwater caves always create some sense of magic and wonder within me and today was no different. Except it was my birthday. And I had the strangest sense that today would be an epic journey… something akin to Homer’s Odyssey.
There had already been two very strange encounters followed by a truly magnificent cave dive. First, I was visiting three black and white horses after checking in at the dive site and decided to do a selfie with them in the background. I love horses and they had seemed nice enough. But as soon as I turned around one of the horses literally attacked me and bit me hard on the back of my head and neck.
Horse attacking me…happened to catch it with my camera…as he bit my head and neck…
Then, less than an hour later I was hooking my side mount tanks onto my harness in the water and from out of the woods walked a father and his seven year old daughter. He was carrying a long mermaid tail that, once donned, made her an amazing mer-child. She swam in the spring and frolicked and brought beautiful energy to us before the dive.
And so as I laid upon the water, stretching and reflecting, the story of the Odyssey came into my consciousness and the day unfolded as an epic journey home, just like Homer wrote about in his tale about Odysseus’ journey home after the fall of Troy. Interestingly enough it was the Trojan War and the ruse of the Trojan horse that led to the destruction of Troy. So the horse attack this morning set the stage for my own Odyssey.
After a delicious lunch with my friend Pam I departed High Springs, Florida to continue my journey home. As I left the town behind, two huge wild turkeys were on the side of the road. I remembered a line from the movie, O Brother Where Art Thou. “You will see many strange and wondrous things on your journey.” And the drive home seemed like a series of strange and wonderful things.
It’s okay to stop and rest in a storm….
I experienced a flood of water with a storm that was probably the hardest rain I’ve ever driven in. I saw an 18 wheeler trailer on fire alongside I-10. A random peacock was wandering along the highway and later a huge hawk was seen diving with talons extended just about to grab dinner. And finally the sunset was perhaps the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.
Taken with my phone….nowhere to stop and set up my Nikon...
Layers of clouds in spirals, wisps, puffy shapes with multitudes of pinks, oranges, grays, blue extended all around me and as I approached Pensacola Bay it was like a symphony of color and shapes surrounded me. The colors were like music. I could hear them, so loudly were they displaying.
Beautiful wisdom was gifted to me through this series of events, this epic journey home. The horses reminded me that there have been those in my life who appeared supportive and loving yet behind my back were very damaging to me. Like the Trojan Horse that led to the downfall of Troy, there are those who were not as they seemed.
Several years ago in a flight from Miami to Bonaire, the whirling propellers put me into a sort of trance as I flew over the Ocean and I saw a beautiful mermaid with a brilliant emerald tail and knew that she and I were one. I saw that part of me that is intimately connected to water. The young mer-child today reminded me to reclaim that sense of wonder and reclaim my deep connection to water that is the heart of my life.
The dive into Mother Earth…many levels of learning here but mainly I saw that persistence and inner strength can take me into places of magic and help me connect deeper with our water planet. Her beauty will be revealed as I avail myself to doors that open.
The wild turkeys signified abundance, blessings and new beginnings. Native wisdom associates wild turkeys with sacrifice of the ego for Higher Purpose so that in giving one is more open to receive. It reminds me of an email I got as I was in the middle of this journey home. My side mount instructor reminded me that my invitation to commune with the Earth (when I took other folks messages of love into the cave for the Earth) opened Her arms and I was ready to receive. Surrendering the ego, opening the heart, giving…and the return is profound.
The flooding rain hit as I entered Tallahassee so I simply stopped, sat at a Starbucks and waited out the storm. There is nothing in life that says I have to fight the storms that come. It’s okay to rest and observe and be ready to move forward when all is calm.
Sometimes parts of life are no longer necessary or even healthy. The fire of the 18 wheeler reminded me of this truth. Don’t cling…let go of the past. No more holding on to anything or anyone gone from my life. The peacock is another symbol for the Phoenix which is the mythical bird that rises from the ashes of it’s own death. Let the past die…let the ego die and be reborn into the fullness of the Higher Self. (Got it).
The hawk reminds me to use my fierce passion for life and bring it to everything I do. Hold nothing back.
Time to step into life with everything I am….
Finally, the sunset had me dancing in my seat. It truly sang with color and it had an alchemical effect on me. As it peaked over Pensacola Bay I glanced back over my shoulder and saw a flock of white birds reflecting the colors of the sky on their wings against a darkening sky beyond them. They reminded me that no matter where life takes me, if I stay connected to Spirit I will bring the reflection of Love and Compassion with me to infuse the space around me with magic…harmony…love….compassion.
What an incredible Odyssey this day has gifted to me. A perfect way to begin another trip around the sun.
Today I celebrate my birthday. A while back I passed that half-century mark so this one isn’t a major milestone or anything extra special. But it feels that way.
This day of celebration is a time for refocusing my intention to live true to who I am. To allow my strengths to become gifts I share with others and to allow my talents an opportunity to be expressed fully. My birthday wish this year is to be a true expression of my highest self and live as a clear channel for love and light with an open heart.
Photograph by Jen Fraser
To all those who have guided, helped, assisted thus far…thank you. For those shining souls I have yet to meet….looking forward to it.
The coming of this down-time is perfect after a potent week. Now comes the time for assessing the next step and cultivating a plan. So thank you rain. While I don’t intend to build an ark, there are others radical ideas brewing.
