Tag: gratitude

Moving from Apathy to Action

Moving from Apathy to Action

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As I was enjoying a quiet breakfast I picked up my latest copy of Dive Training magazine and started reading a story about marine species that are headed for extinction and how they got that way. Not light reading, especially while attempting digestion.

It’s much easier to set aside articles such as this and watch squirrels frolic on the deck or watch my ginger cat friend play. However, when the Deepwater Horizon exploded I knew I could no longer be an armchair activist and so for the last year and a half I have forced myself to pay attention to articles and other information that helps me understand what is happening on our water planet and why.

Meet the Goliath grouper. This amazing fish can reach 800 pounds and grow to eight feet in length. They were found along Atlantic and Gulf coasts of Florida, the Caribbean and down the coast of Brazil. Their population decreased 80% in ten years. Two reasons are cited for their decline. First, channelization of the Everglades. Baby Goliath’s live in mangroves and when channels are created to drain the swamps and wetlands, the home for juveniles disappear. The second reason has to do with reproduction habits. During their annual spawning more than 100 would gather in key places. Since they are so big they were easy to see and catch. Dive Training writes that over one quarter of their spawning sites have been fished out and many have fewer than 10 fish left to gather.

When I read this my bowl of yogurt, cashews and apples almost became a projectile. I am so angry and saddened by continued reports of countless issues where humans take and take and take resources and repayment comes in the form of toxic wastes and by-products of a consumer-based society where human selfishness is elevated to new heights on a daily basis it seems. I took a few breaths and continued reading. Thanks to wildlife biologists and laws, change is occurring. Some aggregations have doubled in size. Recovery will be slow but it is beginning.

There are humans that give back and have love and compassion for our planet and all of it’s inhabitants.

I have had amazing underwater experiences as a diver and one was with a Goliath grouper I met in Key Largo, Florida. Here’s what I wrote about him in my photography book, Place of Spirit. “Goliath in size, the grouper is strangely engaging. He approaches me, flares his gills, and rattles his gill plates. I am not certain if it is a sign of affection or a prelude to aggression. His spirit and energy match his physical size and dwarf me in comparison. His small, beady eyes intimidate me as I swim to another part of the wreck. How could this reef-dweller find me worth of investigation? When his attention turns to another diver, there is no sorrow for I feel exposed, as if he sees beyond my mask to a place where spirit dwells. Even with my discomfort, I am grateful this deacon of the deep makes contact.”

Part of my personal commitment to taking action is to educate and immerse myself in saltwater environments to learn and commune with these sacred places and the animals that live there. And then to share what I learn with others in order to stir people to appreciate and love our natural world. If love and respect for the planet can be cultivated within humanity, we can make a positive difference.

What are you willing to do to help create love, appreciation and respect for Earth and all beings that live here?

To order my book, Place of Spirit, or other books I have written, please visit my website Turtle Island Adventures.

Seasonal Teachings

Seasonal Teachings

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This past week I had two perfect days of paddling my SUP board. Lake Lure was surrounded by mountains sprinkled with colorful autumn trees and smooth cliff faces crowned with yellow, orange and red ridges. Blue sky contained it all as I glided on cold lake water, which refreshed my feet if I got sloppy with my paddle.

I marveled at the patterns of light on the water’s surface. My soul slurped up the colors and patterns and beauty of the days like a person dying of thirst. And perhaps I had been starving myself of beauty, cutting myself off from the season and the many gifts it offers, too caught up in distractions. My experiences paddling and another day I spent in the Smokies, made me pause and reflect.

Living in the mountains of Western North Carolina has been such an amazing experience. Over the past five years I have come into harmony with nature’s seasonal rhythms. My home is on the side of a mountain and this time of year offers an opening view with every leaf that falls. Thirty foot windows frame a valley and mountain ridge that come into focus more each day as the season unfolds, as the leaves whirl away with windy gusts.

During every autumn, the curtain of green, then yellow and orange opens to reveal the majesty of the Blue Ridge Mountains. And in the spring the curtain offers green shade and cool days of mountain beauty. By living surrounded by these hardwoods, the full impact of seasonal shifts literally comes into my home and forces me to pay attention to the miracles happening in Nature every day.

And like seasons of Earth, our lives have seasons, too. This home and these magnificent mountains have cradled me for over five years now. My creativity has expanded, my path become more clear and my work has been launched into the world in increasingly bigger ways. For all of these things, I am profoundly grateful. The shedding of leaves from trees here reminds me that I must also let go and move forward, as the wheel of the year moves forward. Now the time has come to release this home, these mountains and trees…wild turkey, bear and all of my wildlife friends here and move to my next home.

While I feel sadness about saying goodbye to this place, this amazing place, I look forward with anticipation of new tree friends…wildlife, river, bay and Gulf friends that crawl, fly, swim and walk on four legs. Already the deep sense of place of Magnolia River calls me to come and commune with Her and be nurtured by fresh, clear water of this sacred place.

And so I wait and listen and let my heart fill with gratitude for this place I say goodbye to and a new place already whispering my name.

Orion Peeking Through Leaves

Orion Peeking Through Leaves

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I awoke before sunrise and did my usual greeting to the mountains from my deck. As I stuck my head out the first thing I noticed was the soft rustling of leaves as the pre-dawn air stirred them. I glanced up into the trees and shining through an opening in the canopy was the constellation Orion. His belt arched beautifully over the sky, bow poised, awaiting the sun.

It felt as if his arrow was a pointer, a directional guide into my day. I breathed in the beauty of the morning, giving thanks for the trees, sky, mountains…for everything that surrounded me…as I stood in socked feet on the cool wood of the deck.

The mighty hunter has, descending from his belt, a nebula and it helps me set the intention of my day. Today I will imagine myself inside a beautiful nebula, growing, developing into a stronger expression of my highest self, becoming a purer channel through which love and light can move.