Nature's Teachings Archives

I Choose Love

By Simone Lipscomb | September 15, 2013

The past week’s meditations have been about connecting with animals…wildlife and domesticated. It has been challenging. Once we determine to be aware of what is happening in our world, we can never go back and forget. I discovered this while documenting the oil spill in 2010.

simonelipscomb (1) — Necropsy of young dolphin whose tail had been entangled in fishing line.

Ignoring news was my way to deal with the multitude of sins humanity commits against the planet. But when the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill occurred, I felt called to action. Ignoring was no longer an option. But it came with a cost. My life was changed and not in a good way. Once the blinders are off, there’s no going back into forgetfulness. No returning to blissful ignorance.

Fishing line discarded with hook...now embedded in sea gull's mouth/throat — Fishing line discarded with hook…now embedded in sea gull’s mouth/throat

So this week of meditating on animals has only served to remind me (as IF I needed reminding) of how humans perpetuate such darkness by our actions. Lack of compassion when killing for food, using fishing practices that harm sea turtles and marine mammals, not recognizing the spark of Spirit within all life….how can we do this and think it’s okay?

Northern Gannet being cleaned of oil in 2010. BP Deepwater Horizon spill.

There are excuses for all behaviors we practice. Haven’t we heard them all? Sacrifice the land to drill for oil with fracking procedures. Pollute the rivers because it’s cheaper. Deafen dolphins, whales and other sea creatures just to test sonar. Is anyone else just fed up? The grief I carry within is so vast, so deep I truly feel paralyzed at times by it. I look in the mirror and am ashamed that I am human…part of a species bent on destruction and selfish greed…profit at any cost.

Joanna Macy teaches us to stay with our grief for it will fuel us to make positive changes. Right now…and for the past several months….grief has simply clobbered me. And I’m not writing to generate sympathy for myself…not at all. But it is time to simply be totally truthful about what it feels like to be a human engaged in the planetary process…at least from my heart and mind.

I’m tired of pretending it will all be okay or things will magically get better. I am weary of humans ignoring responsibilities we have to clean up our messes and to stop doing destructive practices to our planet, each other…wildlife…domestic life.

I am crying out for an end to our closed hearts and an opening to love…to spiritual love that binds us to each other and all life. Living like we have been living is fast becoming an obsolete option. We have seen what living with closed hearts does to each other and the planet…ALL life on the planet. I refuse to live like that any longer. At the risk of standing alone I choose love. I choose an open heart!

I choose love. No matter the consequences. I choose love.

Wildlife….Two Sides of a Story

By Simone Lipscomb | September 14, 2013

Photo taken by Laguna Key Team member today of raided and consumed soon-to-be hatchlings

Today I received a text from my friend and sea turtle team leader than one of our nests had been raided and consumed by a fox. 105 eggs of nearly hatched loggerhead sea turtles became the meal of one of our beach foxes.

Sadness enveloped me. Not just for this precious, threatened species of ocean-living reptiles but for the skinny, malnourished red foxes who eek out a living in the dunes of the beaches. We have had problems with foxes this year. They have approached us very closely as we sit near the nests at night.

One night I was sitting at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico, avoiding the interaction and chatting among visitors at the nest. I wanted to connect with the tranquility of the evening. I felt something close-by and turned around to see a fox curled up maybe ten feet from me. I suspect humans have been feeding them and she was awaiting a morsel, a tid-bit of something to help stop her hunger.

So now, tourist season is over and easy handouts are no longer coming from well-meaning guests of our beaches. Even the garbage that might have fed them has all but disappeared. So what is left are hungry foxes.

These foxes are so skinny they look like slim cylinders of red fur with four stick legs. The extra food sources during our busy season causes them to have more babies; however, when the food source is gone, starving foxes will go to great lengths to obtain nourishment.

Our sea turtle nests have predator grates staked on them but let’s face it, if you or I were hungry we would work hard for food and persist in obtaining it.

I can’t be angry at the foxes or vilify them. They are wild animals trying their best to survive. I know there are lessons for us in this tale but it doesn’t take away the feeling of loss, of sadness.

Part of our team after processing a newly-laid nest earlier this summer.

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In the Flow

By Simone Lipscomb | September 9, 2013

My last morning on photography retreat was spent in my favorite place to work with water in the Smokies. It was so early, in fact, that I hardly saw anyone else…except a bear that scurried off as I drove by him. Standing beside or in flowing water made it difficult for me to hear snapping twigs if a big critter like a bear approached so I did a bit of singing hoping they would hear me and choose to wander elsewhere.Aside from that slight tingle of bear awareness it was the perfect ending to four days of connecting with nature through photography. Blissful quiet, hardly another human in sight and verdant beauty that seemed to reach into forever made me glad I had awakened before dawn and made the hour’s drive before the weekend crowd became active.

At one point I was braced against a large, gray rock with both feet wedged in between smaller rocks in the cold water while balancing with my tripod and camera taking long exposures. I checked the exposure on the screen and felt so grateful to be capturing such lush and endless beauty. My heart and mind merged with the flow of clear water and I felt a sense of purpose and direction that had eluded me for months.

Self-portrait...goofing off with my really dusty and happy car. — Self-portrait…goofing off with my really dusty and happy car.

Focused intention, open heart and profound love and appreciation for nature became interwoven elements that made for an excellent photography retreat. Being present with what I love doing in a place that I love kept me in the flow.

When Beauty Makes Me Weep

By Simone Lipscomb | September 6, 2013

I didn’t set an alarm clock this morning. Making another sunrise shoot wasn’t something I had planned to do. But I woke up early and had plenty of time to drive to Cades Cove before sunrise…so why not?

It was fogged-in again this morning but within an hour or so of sunrise the mists began to lift. And it was so gradual that I was able to travel around the dirt roads and loop road getting really nice images.

There was one particular field that was aglow with yellow flowers, some lingering fog glowing golden and a multitude of spider webs. I pulled to the side of the road and grabbed my camera and waded through very damp, deep grass into the field and was moved by the light, illuminating fog and life in general. Birds and insects of late summer created a symphony of sound and I completely lost myself to the moment. I heard myself whispering….thank you…thank you…oh how beautiful…thank you.

Wandering up and down the road on foot, more little miracles of light and water and color kept presenting to me. I could feel my heart filling with magic that was building as the elements conspired together to create a perfect morning. At one point I looked at the grass and saw hundreds…maybe thousands…of sparkling spider webs and the miracle of life, the unbounded beauty, caused me to sob great sobs that came from deep within as I was wrapped in the ecstasy of life.

I gazed into the azure sky, the green mountaintops, the golden fog floating as tears streamed down my face and I cried aloud, “THANK YOU! I LOVE YOU! THANK YOU!”

I continued composing various images after that intense opening to spirit, to life. I was drawn once again to the open field of flowers and fog. I glanced down the edge of it and a beautiful black bear, still wet with dew, started climbing a tree. The bear had witnessed my weeping and my loud exclamation of love and emerged as if in perfect harmony with my own feelings about the day.

Even while collecting my thoughts to write this the sobs come, the tears moisten my sun-kissed cheeks and I know a big door opened within my being for that is what happens when beauty makes me weep.

Infinite

By Simone Lipscomb | August 28, 2013

Nest sitting for sea turtles has the reward of helping insure baby loggerheads find their way safely to the Gulf of Mexico. But there are other reasons I volunteer for this work of love. This evening reminded me of the value of spending time outdoors, not for the hoped-for end outcome but for everything else that happens.

Six p.m. to nine p.m. was my shift. It was still sunny and bright when I arrived at the nest but the air was dryer than usual and the sky was clear…an oddity this summer after forty-something days of rain. I set up my beach chair and reclined so I could gaze into the cerulean sky.

Within minutes I relaxed and felt myself unwinding. Tension drained away as the waves gently sloshed onshore. Gulls flew west to their roosting place for the evening. The space of quiet in nature was mirrored within me. Everything within became incredibly still. I didn’t sleep but simply found myself in a place of perfect peace.

As the light gradually faded tiny stars began to emerge from the darkening sky. That time of transition from day to night is most magical, most powerful. As other team members gathered I moved to sit on the sand at the water’s edge so I could experience just a little more time of inner quiet and stillness.

I felt clean on the inside….really clear and clean. Open, expansive and yes, even infinite like the night sky. The fuzzy part of the Milky Way was easily seen in the distance in the open sky over the Gulf and I pondered the immensity of it all but mostly I just sat and looked at the now-black sky sprinkled with shimmering stars…..and the night-black ocean.

The best word I know to describe the evening is infinite. I’m learning to appreciate stillness and silence and I’m learning to be receptive to the bounty of blessings that are waiting to fill me and my life….and yours, too…wherever you are and whatever is in your sky this night. May it bring the experience of the Infinite.