IN THE MOMENT

The phrase "being in the moment" has become really popular, and when it comes from the concept of being mindful, it is truly a beautiful thing. There are so many things I would miss in my life right now if I wasn't "in the moment". Like the phenomenal "spanish dancer" I discovered in my swim yesterday. A creature that normally lives in caves and doesn't usually come out during the day, so sightings are rare for me. But there she was in all her splendour: red, yellow,white and orange in fantastic patterns with a huge mantle the entire circumference of her body with ruffles that undulate like the skirt on a flamenco dancer. Gorgeous! Or the huge ancient sea turtle that swam right up to me and just stopped in the water only a foot away and looked right in my eyes. I wonder what I look like to him? I wouldn't want to miss these moments being distracted with other things or other thoughts.

Yet in my garden I have learned that being in the moment needs to be balanced with cause and effect. My favorite thing is harvesting. I LOVE picking my own food!!!! But if all I ever do is pick, very soon there is none left! hmmm. The thing about growing from seed is that it is a lot of waiting. You put these tiny fragile seeds in the ground, cover them, and then wait 2 MONTHS to start eating. And I'm hungry right now! So one actually has to PLAN in order to have a constant supply. It's not just drive to the store whenever you are hungry in any given moment. Cause and effect. If you want to have food in a moment 2 months from now, you have to do something about it now and then wait! Sigh. And then there is the effect I am dealing with from what has been done to the soil before it became my garden. For 100 years this was pineapple land, mono cropped which depletes nutrients, and tons of chemical pesticides dumped into the soil. Less nutrients and more toxins. Yahoo. (At a gardening workshop the speaker said he feels sorry for those poor people who live in Anahola because it has the worst soil on the island! Ah...that would be where I live...thanks buddy) So the soil needs some loving in order to produce. She's not happy with what we have done to her and I'm asking her to give me more! Trying to nurture my one little plot back to health. To undo the damage done in the past. So here I am in this moment, dealing with the past, and planning for the future, in my little garden plot.

This is what I think we are missing right now with all the "being in the moment". People get so focused on something with no thought for cause and effect, of what this moment may mean for someone in the future, or what happened in the past to create the moment. I want to stop for a mocha java right now. What had to happen in order for that coffee to get to the cup? Did people in another country actually get harmed in order for me to have it? And after I drink it and throw it in the trash along with the billion other cups produced for that one day, what happens to all that day after day after day? Do we think about any of that when we are in the moment enjoying the mocha java? And if so, would we make a different choice? One with less damaging consequences? It seems like we have moved so far from actually seeing what our choices create in the world, to a place where the most important thing is momentary pleasure. There must be a way to be in the moment AND be able to see cause and effect so we can have pleasure with no damage done! Did the pineapple people think about others who might come after them and what they were doing to the soil? They just wanted a crop in that moment. Was there a way for them to get the crop they wanted AND not harm the soil for future generations? I would like to say yes. There is a Native American thought that all our actions be considered with the next 7 generations in mind. I love that. (why 7? Don't know.) That is what we are missing now in our take-all-you-can-right-now society. But some are making a shift. Some are making an effort to be in a moment and really LOOK at what the effect might be of a certain choice. The more people that are willing to become aware the more chance we have of helping this earth we all call home. We don't have another one to experiment with if we wipe out this one!

So I return to my garden again and again, learning what I can do right now to have healthier soil in the future, and mend what has been done in the past. Nature is remarkable in her resilience and forgiveness! We have stepped outside of being kind to her, but we have a chance to return into a relationship of mutuality where we are once again a part of her, not separate. The more people on the planet willing to look at the effect they have in any given moment, the more chance we have of living in harmony again. I pray dear readers that all of you are willing. Thanks for listening.

LIGHT

This is my favorite time of the month at Larsens. (the beach I practically live at...) After the new moon, every day at sunset the moon's light is already in the sky and keeps getting bigger and bigger until the night of the full moon when she rises right out of the ocean at sunset! She comes out all orange and magical and HUGE. Astounding. I don't know anything more beautiful in this world. And I get to be there over and over for the spectacle. Tonight she is about 2/3 full and because she is already in the sky when the sun goes down, the light never goes dark, it simply changes colours in gorgeous ways. So before I left the water tonight I lay in the sand watching how her muted colour created mystical worlds where the sun before had been splashy and brash, on the same canvas. Mesmerizing. If you ever come visit me you must plan to be here for a full moon!

I love the word "light" in the title of this blog spot. When Thom created this site for me and we were brainstorming about a title I got excited about what we came up with. Two things came to mind: shedding light on something, because I hope to illuminate in my blog what is happening to the earth as I see it; and light at the end of the tunnel. Hope for Eden and what we have done to her, if people are willing to make different choices. But then I was talking about this with my little sister (no fair how come she gets to be in almost every blog???), and she had yet another take on the word that made me wild: "going" light on Eden, as in treading lightly, having a light footprint. YAY! I LOVE that. So all three. Illuminate, bring hope, and go lightly. That is what I want to do with this blog. My wish put out there to see what happens. Sometimes wishes come true.

There is an AMAZING book called The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight that I have learned so much from. Please read it. The title comes from the concept that oil and coal are actually stored LIGHT! Plants store energy from sunlight, and when they die and are buried that is stored sunlight. What a beautiful concept. And when we mine the oil and coal we are releasing energy from ancient sunlight. Isn't that gorgeous? Here's the thing: when we have mined all the stored sunlight, we will be forced to go back to living on CURRENT sunlight, and everything we have created in the last few hundred years is based on a supply of stored light. What happens when that runs out? Current sunlight won't support the numbers of people on the earth and all the things we have created that run on oil and coal. So we have got to start LOOKING at this before the stored light is gone. I had never thought about this before reading this book and there is SO much information in it I never knew.

So dear readers, I would love to hear from you. What illuminates, brings hope, or inspires you to "go lightly" on the planet? There is a comment link at the bottom of the page you can click on. Below where you write your message, there is a drop down menu to put in your name, or anonymous if you don't want me to know who you are!, and then hit post.

Illuminate, bring hope, go lightly. All three. Thanks for listening.

RE-CONNECT TO FOOD

Today I went "shopping" in my yard. Yay! I LOVE food. Mangoes, bananas, oranges, tomatoes, kale, arugula, chard, mizuna, and basil, all from the trees and my garden. And all for FREE! I call it my "abundance walk" to see what gifts the yard has each day. It never even has a chance to hit my fridge. It's so EXCITING to actually connect to the food going into my body. I have only lived like this for one year now, in the country with fruit trees and a garden for food, and it still thrills me every single day. For years in the city I had NO connection to the animals and plants I was buying at the store, and it felt that way again this past week being away from home. We have started doing horrific things to animals because we have no sense any more of them being a life. We just buy something in a chunk in plastic wrap at the meat counter. Might as well be a cracker or a ju-jube. Not a living creature. Now don't go getting your shorts in a bundle. I don't believe there is anything morally wrong with eating animals for survival. We are part of the food chain after all. But we have created such an artificial way of farming them and slaughtering them that most of us never have any part in, and it is shocking when you do SEE it. We no longer kill for survival, we kill way more than we need, and we pay someone to do it for us. How did we get to this place? If we all had to go into THEIR environment where they actually live freely, and then kill them, we might have more reverence for what we are doing. Right now we are too dis-connected to feel their life before we take it. I LOVE the aboriginal cultures that still consider ALL life sacred. Is a Big Mac sacred? (ooh, funny image of someone worshipping a big mac...) And what if we didn't have meat every single day, several meals a day? I have discovered it is actually quite possible to live a healthy life without killing. So many people I have spoken with are so afraid to not eat meat. I too wondered when I stopped if I would get really unhealthy, but the exact opposite happened! Not killing AND healthier! Sweet. There may come a time when it is necessary for my survival, but not right now. And there may come a time when we don't "farm" them the way we do now. Meanwhile I am trying to live life with more reverence for the creatures I share this planet with, and it feels powerful. It's so fascinating to change that relationship and see what happens!

What about the plants we buy at a mega-store? Who knows what chemicals and pesticides have been slathered on them. I don't. In a recent Harvard study of Alzheimer's and dementia they discovered DDT in the brains of EVERY SINGLE PATIENT! Wow. That has been banned since the 70's but it is still in our bodies because it was sprayed on our food as it was being grown and now it is in the soil. Our bodies don't recognize it as part of Nature, and don't know how to get rid of it, so it is stored. And now there are a slew of NEW artificial chemicals that we have no idea how they might affect us down the road. YIKES!! So I am trying to re-connect with what I put in my mouth, and what has been done to it before it got to me! It's a big learning curve, and right now without stores I might starve! But I'm learning. I'm learning how to find food without artificial chemicals, and I'm learning how to grow some myself. The more I re-connect the stronger I feel. I LOVE this process! And I am more in awe of people who have been doing this for years and have so much knowledge about how to get things to grow and where to find food in the world around us, other than "finding" a grocery store...hee. I heard a very moving talk at an environmental conference about how we are losing not just "old growth" forests (places that have never been altered by humans), but also "old growth" peoples! Tribes that still know how to gather food and what is deadly or edible. That would be a horrible thing to lose, that ancient wisdom.

So let's re-connect to food! Let's pay attention to what goes into our blood and bones and brain. More than just our bodies will be happier.......Thanks for listening.

DIS-CONNECT FROM THE ARTIFICIAL

I just spent 8 days in a city back in Canada, (lived there before Hawaii), away from my island life, and it brought up all kinds of things that point in the same direction. When I got off the plane coming home and breathed deeply of the air imbued with ocean dew, my body said thank you! I drove to the beach and ripped off my shoes and socks and a sharp thrill ran up my entire body as my feet sank into the sand. And then even more intense as the waves rushed up to meet me and engulfed my legs. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The sounds outside my apt. right now are the gentle rustle of my mango tree, a few night insects singing, and the waves down the hill. The darkness is complete with only stars to illumine. My soul is fed. At my sister's retreat cabin in the Cascade mountains (GORGEOUS!) there was an entry in the log book by someone from a city who said he had NEVER been in a place where he could dis-connect from the artificial. I LOVED that concept! He spoke of no artificial light, just light from the stars, no artificial sounds, only wind and insects, no artificial smells, only trees and soil and flowers. I was reading an article about an organization called ICO, Inner City Outings, and they take kids from the inner city to the wilderness. YAY!!!!!!!! The reactions they described were delicious. A 9 year old girl who exclaimed in delight "that was my first chipmunk!" Imagine never having seen one before, living in the Northwest. A 6th grade boy after canoeing a dangerous rapids: "I COULD HAVE DIED! IT WAS AWESOME!" And another young girl who had left a hiking stick on the trail and was looking for it on the way back: the leader had stopped and was searching and the girl said "no, it didn't SMELL like this where I left it"!!!!!!!!!!! So she hiked till she smelled whatever tree or flower was releasing the scent she remembered, and there it was. That just makes me happy.

Being in a city again I was struck by the concrete everywhere! In my life right now I live in a wooden house, I walk down the wooden stairs to the bare earth outside, get in my car and drive to the water and walk on sand. All have a "give" to them that concrete does not. I found walking around the city my legs and hips would actually get tight from contacting something so hard and unyielding. Back in the days when I was dancing and we were on tour it was in the Equity contract that theatres would have sprung wood floors, which is a floor with an air space under it. Our legs and feet became so accustomed to that "give", if we stepped onto a floor that was not sprung we could immediately feel it. Some theatres lay the wood floor right on top of concrete thinking no-one would know. Hmm. But bodies can be very sensitive if they are not de-sensitized. When the Tsunami hit Indonesia I read an article about how all the animals that were not domesticated or locked down by humans could feel that the Tsunami was coming and moved to higher ground. And that they knew because there is a gland in all animals, including US, that reacts to changes like that and can warn us! But we have surrounded ourselves for so long by artificial things, separating ourselves from Nature, this gland has gone dormant. Wouldn't it be fantastic if we could re-awaken that???!!!!

So..... try and find a piece of wilderness, take off your shoes, and see if you can FEEL the earth. See if your Tsunami gland re-awakens! Smell, Look, Taste. Let's dis-connect from the artificial and re-connect to the natural world. We are, after all, PART of all this. Thanks for listening.

FIRST THOUGHTS

My friend Thom just created this blog for me, he's excited and I'm terrified! I can't imagine what I am going to say that will intrigue people. But I tell him stories about my life on an island and things I discover about the world, and he keeps saying "you need a blog, you need a blog, you need a blog!" So today he created this and now I have no excuses about how I am still so computer illiterate...soooooooooo welcome to my thoughts! Thank you, Thom!!! (I think...)

The picture at the top is the beach where I swim every day. Gorgeous! Larsens, on the N.E. side of Kauai. If you go I recommend NOT swimming! There is a sign at the top of the trail you hike down that shows how many people have drowned there. Another drowning occurred a month ago that hasn't yet been added to the list. So why do I swim there you ask? Am I insane? Death wish? Someone dared me? I am there because of the reef. The reef that is still partially alive. More so than many other reefs around the island, because the area above the beach is still mostly wilderness and has not been developed. Coral that is purple and blue and yellow, octopus that change colours and shape and texture as they touch different things, eels in spectacular, patterned skins, and more endemics than I have seen in other places. Endemics? Something that exists only in that place. Even though the oceans are all connected, many species have developed that don't occur anywhere else. I LOVE that! In the ENTIRE world, you can see that species ONLY in that one place. Wow. So every day when I see the endemics, I clap for them. Bravo for being so unique! I know, quaint. It's something my little sister does that makes me squirm with delight: she claps for any spectacle of Nature and says "GOOD JOB"! How cute is that????!!!!!! So I stole it. Now "my" endemics that I see every day get clapped for.

Even on Kauai a pristine reef is rare. It breaks my heart to write this, but in the 10 years I have lived in Hawaii, I have watched reefs die WITH MY OWN EYES! People who don't get into the water every day probably come on vacation and think "pretty". It is shocking to actually SEE the progression month after month of things dying and feel like I can do NOTHING about it. Except make choices that will not harm the reef, and talk to people and hope they are willing to hear. Here is the thing: every single thing that goes down the drain on an island, any drain, goes to the ocean. So every chemical in every product lands on the reef, and all run-off from development. And this is not unique to the islands. On the mainland ALL water is connected to the ocean eventually either through rivers or ground water. We have created so many chemicals that go into products that do not exist in Nature and are toxic to her. She has not yet learned a way to cope with the things we have conjured. Try reading the ingredients on your shampoo bottle. How many of those things do you actually know what they are and what they do once they go down the drain? I'm sure some rocket scientist will know every single one. Not me! I have only learned since I moved to Hawaii what they do. I still have no idea what they all are or why they are in there. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that people realize they are making a difference every single day. We have to decide what KIND of difference we want to make. Perhaps most people think their contribution is so small it is insignificant. But since we all have a choice, why not choose one that helps rather than harms, no matter how small that may be? One step toward restoring rather than one step toward degrading, even though it is still just one step. And then the next day you take another step one way or the other. Hopefully choosing again and again to help rather than harm. So here is one: choose things that go down the drain that are biodegradable. You may be sick of hearing that word, but it means you have chosen something that Nature can recognize and cope with. The reef will have that much more of a chance of living in all it's spectacular wonder. Imagine if ALL people suddenly realized that. It would no longer be one small step. Each drop adds or takes away. You already know what I hope you choose! And if you ever get to swim on a pristine reef in the ocean, or even a lake or river, you will know you did your part to help it live.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! My first blog!!!! Thanks for listening! (thanks Thom...) d.