Tag: gratitude

The Language of Nature

The Language of Nature

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This past summer I deepened my understanding of nature. The challenge I find now is conveying, in words, the lessons because they came in wordless experiences while sitting under star canopies, beside salty waters–each conveying not with words but with the essence of life. How could I possibly scribble symbols to share this ancient language”? It is unwritten and must be felt….deeply felt.

I’ve puzzled over writing about primeval energies with words. It seems like two ends of a very broad spectrum of experience–the body and visceral and the mind that wants to sort and categorize and label. Maybe ancient earth wisdom is best described by sharing sensations, what my body experienced. And that’s easy: opening. My heart, mind, soul, body….o p e n i n g. 

So maybe the only thing I need to write is that nature opened me this summer and I found a deep primeval dance within my heart and soul.

What makes you dance these days? What opens you to life?

Absorbing the Rain….And Other Blessings

Absorbing the Rain….And Other Blessings

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It started raining yesterday afternoon and continued on and off through the night. This morning it poured. The metal roof on my home sings when it rains. Sometimes staccato, sometimes a constant shuuuuuu like a waterfall.

I can almost hear the earth lapping the sweet moisture as it slowly sinks into the loamy soil. The resurrection ferns in the ancient live oaks have come back to life, green once again due to the life-giving moisture.

This cloudy, soft, gray day has pushed me gently inward and within I find recent blessings taking root and growing. Going deeper into my being, the truths that came to me are finding a welcoming home and like the resurrection ferns, I feel myself nurtured and fed and thus unfurling my arms to capture the rain, to welcome the blessings.

Two days ago I had a transformative moment when I suddenly understood, on a visceral level–a cellular level–a deep truth for my life. Here’s what I wrote: After over half a century in this body I realize that all I have ever longed for is to free myself to allow love to move freely through me. No walls, no blocks or defenses….just allowing the sweetness of love to fill me, move through me and touch others however they are able to receive….never have I understood so fully that we are love. Our only task is to clear away everything that keeps us from being who we already are.

I absorbed the lesson–the truth–and it is transforming me. It is my moisture, my healing, my growth…in truth, it is my rain. What is your rain today? What is helping you go deeper into the truth of your being? May you find yourself surrounded by blessings.

Cleaning Up Our Mess

Cleaning Up Our Mess

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On September 15th my mom and I participated in the 25th Annual Coastal Cleanup. We chose to walk the beach at the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge. In that 1.5 miles of beach we found: 34 plastic bags, 4 balloons, 12 plastic bottles, 4 pieces of glass, 4 aluminum cans, 33 plastic lids, 2 bits of fishing line, 2 pieces of cording, 1 large plastic battery case, 2 cigarette lighters, 1 tobacco wrapper, 1 condom, 2 chap stick containers, 1 plastic baby wipe carton, 1 plastic hair care bottle, 13 pieces of styrofoam, 5 food wrappers, 2 plastic pull tags, 2 plastic straws, 1 chair, 1 set of plastic flags, 4 rope pieces, 1 large tire, 2 plastic oil containers, 1 plastic deodorant container, 1 plastic grate, 1 large plastic drain pipe, 4 pieces of rubber and 1 rubber glove.

Since 1987 61,513 volunteers have removed 1,169,844 pounds of debris on 3,917 miles of coast and/or shoreline In Alabama. The Ocean Conservancy compiles data from all over the world to identify the general sources of debris and activities related to it. Last year about 600,000 volunteers collected more than 9 million pounds of trash from 20,000 miles of coastline worldwide.

We could look at these totals of trash and berate ourselves for being such a trashy species. Or….we can look at this effort as not only a way to clean up our mess but also to raise awareness about environmental stewardship. It may have started with a handful of tree huggers but the event has grown into an opportunity for scout troops, churches, and families to join together, spend a few hours on a coastline and show love for the planet by being responsible stewards.

Gone are the days when we have the luxury to say, I didn’t do it so why should I clean it up? We grow together as a human family when we move beyond that narrow view into an expansive view of pitching in to help the planet, which ultimately helps us all.

As Above, So Below

As Above, So Below

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After a couple days of rain and storms, the Gulf kicked up a bit and offered a show of light that has me—hours later–still in a state of awe.

First there was the strong wind creating powerful waves and high surf. Then the clouds created a most amazing display of color and shape. For hours the sky went through color-after-color and cloud formations that kept me in perpetual vocalization with statements like, “I can’t believe this sky,” or “This is amazing,” and “Oh, my goodness.” These phrases became a sort of mantra for me as I breathed in golden light seeming to bounce off of every surface of fluffy cloud and every ripple and wave of the sea. I’d take a few photos and put my camera away only to pull it out just moments later.

And all the while waiting for two groups of sea turtles to decide if birth was in their plans for the evening.

Finally, the colors faded and a call came from a nest just down the beach, “Can you ladies come down and give a hand?” So we left our quiet nest and went a few blocks down the beach and joined our team members awaiting the imminent birth of loggerheads while standing under starlight of now-clear skies. And about thirty minutes later, the hole darkened and 78 babies came out in a nearly darkened skyline to crawl toward the rough water of the Gulf.

As a few of us walked along beside these tiny beings near the water I whispered to them to dive deep and let the undertow take them out to sea as the waves were churning. We approached the tideline and the sand lit up with an uprush of water. Phosphorescence in the water! The sand glowed like neon lights as the water receded. And as the little loggerhead flippers touched the sand, it was as if the starlight above was reflected below and the tiny beings flapped and crawled along phosphorescent stars underneath them to dive into their new home, their true home.

Sometimes its difficult to take in so much beauty, such complete beauty. And yet with each breath, I exhale gratitude. Perfect balance, perfect beauty. As above, so below.

Moving Beyond Survival of the Fittest

Moving Beyond Survival of the Fittest

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I hadn’t heard the term in a while but it came up the other day–survival of the fittest (SOF). It has always made me cringe, especially when it is applied to new life arriving on the planet, be it sea turtle, squirrel, dolphin, whale or human. It seems so cold, so removed from compassion. So I decided to do a bit of research.

Herbert Spencer coined the phrase as an alternative to natural selection after reading Charles Darwin’s book and Darwin, in the 5th edition of On the Origin of Species published in 1869, credited Spencer with the phrase.

Biologists today don’t really use the phrase but rather use the term natural selection to reference differential reproduction as a function of traits that have a genetic basis. SOF is inaccurate because survival is simply a normal prerequisite to reproduce (duh) and fitness in biology has a different meaning than the way pop culture uses the term. It’s not about how strong or big or fast something or somebody is in biological circles. What Darwin meant by fitness was ‘better able to adapt to changing environments.’

Extinction of various species happens because of large shifts in the environment. So truly, fittest means those animals most suited to their environment.

If we ponder the sea turtle on the coast of Alabama, we see the natural environment has been substantially altered in most locations. Dunes have been bulldozed or significantly altered, light pollution abounds and roadways criss-cross what used to be natural habitat. So sea turtles, in essence, would become greatly reduced due to human alteration of the environment (they have already been greatly reduced in numbers). NOT because of weak hatchlings, but because the environment has been altered to the point where the turtles simply cannot survive there.

And if we look offshore, we see the environment has also been significantly altered through use of nets and fishing practices that have harmed large numbers of turtles. Even though some commercial fisheries vessels use TEDs (turtle excluder devices), not all do. Onshore and offshore, the environment has greatly changed and thus made it difficult for sea turtles to live and reproduce.

I think of cancer rates in humans and mysterious diseases and see that natural selection is playing out in our own species. We alter the environment, fill it with toxic waste produced by corporations, we purchase products by said corporations and invest in the very culprits altering our ecosystems to the point where we cannot survive.

Corporations can donate endless funds to politicians. This opens the proverbial door to the rape and destruction of our planet on a scale unimaginable to us. Profit-at-any-cost is how corporations operate. There is never enough wealth to fill their coffers. So profit-hungry corporations buy more and more into our government (contributing to campaigns), elected officials then ‘owe’ the contributors and therefore legislate to please whoever donated the most money. And no matter what ‘side’ you may lean, the Earth is going to lose and that means you, me, children, wildlife, wild places….all of these precious, sacred elements of this water planet will become expendable as corporate control of our country expands.

People ask why spend so many hours and put so much effort into a nest of sea turtles. Share the Beach was originally formed because sea turtles were not able to adapat to the human-created changes in the coastal environmental. That’s why they ended up protected by the Endangered Species Act of 1973. We have to move beyond the idea that species that cannot adapt to human-created changes (over-fishing, lights, destruction of habitat, pollution) are not worth saving. Otherwise the human species would be extinct…there would be no need for doctors, nurses, medical researchers.

Because we have the ability to be compassionate and recognize value in all life, we can move beyond human arrogance and the belief that altering the ecosystems to suit our own needs is okay. We can refuse to buy into the belief that corporations have the right to continue their pillaging of the planet. For every hour spent holding a space of compassion and light in endeavors to help others, whether its humans or wildlife or wild lands, we magnify the spirit of unity and love that is the answer to healing our wounded world, to healing our own woundedness.