Tag: gratitude

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.

So Perfect the Night

So Perfect the Night

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The mother loggerhead heaved her massive body on to the white sand beach during a coastal thunderstorm and laid a nest of 119 eggs in her perfectly dug pit. After being satellite tagged “Storm” crawled back to sea, leaving her babies to incubate in the summer heat.

Fifty-seven days later, during a ferocious lightning storm, 87 hatchlings crawled to the salty water of the Gulf and began their lifetime of ocean living. Two more siblings made their appearance later that night.

The next night five more babies crawled out of the nest amid island visitors ooohhh’s and ahhh’s and questions about sea turtles and sharks and sand and practices adopted to assist the turtles. Another emerged later cheered on by children and adults alike. And while it’s wonderful that people take an interest in hatchlings and sea turtles (and anything unrelated to television, video games and other human-created distractions), sometimes it is stressful for those of us charged with keeping the turtles safe as they journey from nest to sea. What is the fine balance between allowing up close and personal viewing and danger for loggerhead hatchlings–a species protected by the Endangered Species Act?

The following night arrived and a few people were still inquiring about the status of additional hatchlings. We heard noise when we listened with the stethoscope but it sounded like the turtles were not progressing past a certain point in their crawl up and out. Tourists lost interest and wandered home. Children were called inside by family and finally the beach got quiet.

The orange moon began to peak above the condos far to the east. Three of us ‘green shirts’ remained, softly sharing stories of animals and the intimate connection women develop with the Earth and four-leggeds, winged-ones, finned-ones and creepy crawlers. The instinctual knowing we have because of our own child birth experiences and the understanding we share with the Earth as she labors with these little hatchlings, draws us closer to each other and to the turtles in the process of being birthed from the womb of the planet.

Stars lit up the sky as they hung close to us, three women sitting with this labor, this unfolding of life. The soft murmer of our voices sprinkled with joyful notes of laughter wove a web of safety as three more hatchlings slowly emerged from their confinement of hard, wet sand. Quietly we crawled beside them allowing them to find their way to the water, encouraging them with low notes of song or words of encouragement until they found their way to the rolling breakers that welcomed them in watery embrace.

Some argue that the method we use to assist the hatchlings is unnatural–using a trench, redirecting them when they head toward artificial light sources. However, the only way to re-create a natural sea turtle’s hatching experience is to return the beach to a natural state….a complete blackout of all lights on the beach and/or removing all buildings and tourists. Extreme? Of course, so we hold up towels or block light these babies are naturally attracted to, otherwise they crawl directly to the light. In the case of this particular nest, every baby made a bee-line due east once they reach the hard-packed sand…directly to the brightly-lit sky of the ‘condo run’ in Gulf Shores. Or like last night, to the house that had an inside light on that was illuminating the sand above the nest.

If humans created the dangers for sea turtle hatchlings, then humans must be responsible for making this right in some way. It is the only moral thing to do. Even if it involves hours of sitting on dark beaches waiting…..waiting….waiting. And for many of us, the willingness to correct mistakes made by humans to help such a vulnerable species knows no bounds.

The natural beach is long gone in Gulf Shores but it is still a place where humans can try to undo harm done to marine species such as sea turtles by giving them safe passage back to their ocean home. In the process we are transformed, we become attuned once again to the cycles of nature–the coming and going of tides, the patterns of stars, weather. In the truest sense, we are healed through our efforts to help sea turtles. With each hour spent, with every turtle that makes it to the water, we right a wrong done when the beaches were leveled and condos raised.

12 Hours on the Beach

12 Hours on the Beach

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Shuuuuuuuuuuuu…..shuffle..shuffle……SHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU…..shuffle–crawl….. Silence.

Cycles of tides, rhythms of waves, calls of gulls as they make their last patrol over the sand……shuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…shuffle….shuuuuuuuuu….the sounds of sea turtle hatchlings as they break free of their eggs and begin their long crawl from under the white quartz sand.

On July 23rd the sea turtle nest East Beach team had been monitoring for Laguna Key team was wildly active. We continued to hear cascades of sand that lasted over 90 seconds and they came often. Then vigorous digging began as the loggerheads slowly made their way up against the pull of gravity and toward the pull of something even greater for them–the Gulf of Mexico.

As we patiently waited and watched for the young ones to emerge, the waves continued to whisper to them and to us. Stars called out to their internal timing and the crescent moon teased them with light as it silently slipped over the watery horizon leaving us in the dark–expectant, hopeful for a birthing.

Little by little team members drifted homeward, needing rest and renewal. Finally four of us sat vigil under the starry, summer sky. With microphone and speaker still connected to the sand outside the nest, we listened for hours to the cascading sand, the scrapes, the crawling noises and silences as the hatchlings rested, weary from their efforts to reach the night sky.

Alas, even though a deep crater had formed, sunrise thwarted the babies best efforts and so they spent the hot day resting, preparing for another nighttime attempt to merge with saltwater where their mother and father drifted in the blue-green water, never to see the tiny ones their union created.

I can’t remember the last time I spent the night on the beach. During those twelve hours my body and mind became more attuned to the rhythms of nature, more at ease with sitting in my own silence and simply being, witnessing the tidal nature of life whether lived at the shore or inland. Breathing in starlight, exhaling love for the beauty that surrounds us….what could be more important, more sacred than this?

When words drift away and the mind surrenders its nearly constant effort to analyze and decipher and plan….when we go beyond mind to that place of expansion and breath…where we breathe with the incoming rush of waves and efforts the baby turtles make to be born…we begin to understand that the Earth holds us all in a holy embrace and we labor to be born, over and over again throughout our lives.

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The next night 73 tiny loggerheads found their way to the surface of their earthly home and made their way to the sea. Twelve long nights we sat vigil yet it was those last 12 hours that brought me back home….to myself, to the Gulf Coast, to the Path.

“There are plenty of sea turtles” and other misconceptions

“There are plenty of sea turtles” and other misconceptions

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I posted a photo of a sea turtle caught in a net on Facebook today and it had a link supporting TED’s or Turtle Excluding Devices. Two people connected with the commercial seafood industry cried out in anger saying shrimpers didn’t hurt sea turtles and they loved nature and besides (and I quote) “There are plenty of sea turtles.” After my blood pressure came back to normal and I got really depressed about nature’s continued destruction by humans I decided to do a little research.

First of all, all sea turtles that visit or live in US waters are on the endangered species list. National Marine Fisheries Service cites the following reasons: Destruction/alteration of nesting and foraging habitats (coastal development), incidental capture in commercial and recreational fisheries, entanglement in marine debris and vessel strikes. So while the shrimpers in the Gulf of Mexico may love nature, their nets do kill sea turtles and finned fish and other marine life that cannot escape. This is a known fact.

In 2011 more than 3500 threatened and endangered sea turtles washed up dead on the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts. Only 5 to 6% of dead turtles wash ashore…do the math on the total estimated number of sea turtles killed just last year.

Nets properly equipped with TED’s are proved to be 97% effective in releasing sea turtles. And this comes after trials and rebuilds on the equipment. Very few shrimpers voluntarily used TED’s so laws were put into practice to require some shrimpers to use TED’s.

According to the person that replied to my post, the government is lying about all this. He went on to say that coastal development hurt sea turtles as did other fishing boats who don’t use TED’s and he’s right on both accounts. But I  know of shrimpers that used to shoot sea turtles, years ago, because they would get in their nets. I actually even found one shot and dead on the beach many years ago. Times have changed for sure. Hopefully that kind of behavior is no longer practiced. Now, if someone does that and gets caught they go to prison and lose their boat.

We think that kind of atrocious behavior is in the past but actually on June 21st of this summer, a bottlenose dolphin was found with a screwdriver sticking in its head. It had been reported in Perdido Bay and was still alive but was later discovered dead. So much for humans acting appropriately. Even the fine of up to $100,000 and a year in jail doesn’t deter people who, for whatever reason, cannot temper their inclination for seriously stupid and cruel behavior.

I find myself overwhelmed with emotions of sadness, grief and anger at what we humans are doing to this planet and each other. There are people that care and there are people that refuse to accept responsibility for their behaviors and call it the Will of God if a species goes extinct. So…should we not have doctors and let the problem species of the planet die off? Then everything else would come into balance. Of course not. But oh for a magic pill that would help us all see how our behaviors, thoughts, intentions and actions are destroying the planet and each other.

When I found myself deep in dark emotions this afternoon, I lit and candle and said a prayer for understanding. A few minutes later, while folding clothes, I heard these words: Those that don’t care about the planet and are only concerned about how much wealth they can amass, want you to quit, to give up. They want everyone who is bringing awareness, practicing compassion and love–to wildlife, wild places, and people who are hurting–to give up. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Love deeply, have compassion for all life and continue with the Work.

I replied back to the gentleman and let him know I heard his frustration about developers getting away with anything because they have money. I understand and agree. I also agree that some commercial and recreational fishermen and women follow the rules and some don’t. What I suggested was a dialogue between fishermen and women and National Marine Fisheries and NOAA. Rather than fighting each other and both sides claiming the other is lying, find common ground. Start healthy, sane dialogues. Otherwise we are destined to repeat and perpetuate the same old dysfunctional way of being.