Thursday, September 30, 2010

BEYOND THE SURFACE

Today I got a new gift in the water I've never seen before. I love that! I was doing my usual late day swim and it started to rain. If you have never seen raindrops from below the surface of the water, it is magical! From under water the surface looks like a solid rippling entity, like a sheet blowing in the wind. When the raindrops hit, rather than just breaking and becoming one with the ocean, the surface forms little cups that get pushed down several inches in little shafts by the raindrop before they blend into the rest of the water. Like upside down splashes! It is fascinating to watch. Well today, the SUN came out while it was raining, and this amazing thing happened. When the raindrops pushed the little cups under the surface, the sun would shine down the raindrop shaft so there were bursts of sunlight in little vertical splashes UNDER the water! Suddenly I was surrounded by hundreds of spontaneous columns of blazing light against the blue of the water. YEEHAH! I've never seen anything like it. And then the thought entered...sunshine and rain means....RAINBOWS! So I popped up above the surface and there was not one but two ridiculously beautiful arcs of color out over the open sea. So do I look at the beauty under the water or above? Decisions, decisions.

After the spectacle was done (sigh), I went ashore and began to clean up from the HUGE north swell that has come in the last few days. Big waves means lots of big trash, not just the small stuff I normally pick up over the summer months, but things the size of a toaster. And lots of them. It just breaks my heart to see all that is floating around out there in the beauty of the sea. But what makes me even sadder is seeing all the people that just walk by it and do nothing. It reminds me of the story in the Bible about the Good Samaritan. All those people in the story that saw someone who had been harmed, and walked by on the other side of the road. I am sure every one of them was a loving human being, but their love didn't come beyond the surface and manifest in helping. There was no spontaneous burst of compassion. It feels like that to me down at the water as I pick up the debris that is doing so much harm to the ocean and the creatures that live there. I'm sure all these people who just walk by it and do nothing are loving people, and would even say they love the ocean, but that love doesn't get transformed into helping her. So how can we get love to move beyond the surface into HELPING?
It occurred to me that people who don't spend time at the ocean have no idea how much washes up every single day, so here is a visual. This is from ONE person picking up on ONE day, on ONE beach, on ONE island in the Pacific. Multiply that by all the beaches in all the seas all over the globe, 365 days a year. Hard to comprehend. And the next day there will be that much again if there are big waves. The bottles in front are filled with smaller bits of plastic as this picture was taken before the big north swell when all the really huge things came in. Someone asked me once what is the point of picking it up if you are just moving it from one place to another. Well in a landfill it is buried and not becoming lunch for some un-suspecting sea creature like a dolphin or a whale or a seal or a turtle that then die from ingesting the poison we have created. Of course the best solution would be to not produce poisonous trash, but we already have, so at least take it where it will do the least harm.

On the first day of the big swell I didn't know it was coming and wasn't prepared with big trash bags. So as I began picking up I very quickly filled what I had with me, and began making piles of trash up out of the high wash line that I could come back and get another time. But there was so much and I had a show to go sing at, so I didn't have time to even move it all up so it wouldn't get washed back out again. I needed to ask for help. So I started asking others if they could please help since I had to go. I started with someone I actually know and talk with regularly, who I know loves the ocean. He was picking up shells and leaving all the trash, and I asked if he could please take some time to pick up the trash in that area because I had to leave. He frowned and said "maybe", and went back to picking up shells. WOW. Then came a couple who when I asked if they could help just gave me another bag so I could pick up more! Funny. And finally a woman who asked what I was "collecting", and when I showed her the trash in my bags and asked if she could please help, she looked at me as if I had just asked her to clean my toilet, and laid back down on her towel. All of them there because they "love" the ocean, and not one willing to help when they see her being harmed. How does all that love stay sequestered and not move beyond the surface of their hearts?

We need the love to come forth and manifest in helping the ocean. PLEASE don't just walk by when you see something harming her. We all need an internal rainstorm to create shafts for light to burst forth beyond the surface in blazes of compassion for our Earth. Anyone know any rain dances?
Thanks for listening.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

GOOD NEWS!

I have good news! We don't hear that very often regarding the damage being done to the planet. But I have some things to share that are good news for our Earth, in the hopes that if you are feeling despair, this may give you a reason to keep reaching for more ways to limit the harm we do. YES! With so much devastation happening to our home right now, it is sometimes hard to not get overwhelmed and feel like there is no point in trying to help. But there IS light that appears.

A big one came when the current administration in the U.S. put a stop to ALL new drilling for oil in the Arctic. WHEW! It is temporary, while they review possible effects of allowing drilling in seas that freeze over, but if enough people are willing to work to get off oil it could become a permanent thing to leave the Arctic alone! I read an article the other day about a recent survey after the Gulf oil spill that revealed 27 THOUSAND abandoned wells just in the Gulf!!!!! Hard to wrap my mind around that. That is our oil addiction speaking, and it's time to change what we are saying. We need to start saying we don't want more wells dug, and we say it with our actions. Words mean nothing if we keep our oil "lifestyles" going full blast. So let's CHANGE what we are saying, by the way we live, and keep the Arctic free of drills!

Another big one came from the International Whaling Commission when they decided to uphold the ban on commercial whaling. Even though whaling still goes on illegally, if the ban was lifted the numbers of endangered whales being killed would have been berserk. The Commission had been lobbied so heavily by those wanting to kill more whales that they were actually considering lifting the ban. WOW. I am soooooooooo grateful they chose to continue to protect these magnificent creatures, some of which we have brought to the brink of extinction already. Keep on protecting what is left!

On a smaller scale, but still significant, the retail giant Costco now has recycled paper products!!!! YAHOOO! Now people who shop there don't have to destroy trees when they buy toilet paper or paper towels in those enormous packages. Anyone who shops there knows things in Costco are hilariously HUGE, so each package makes a big difference. They still have paper products that DO destroy trees there, but at least people who shop there now have a choice. I know people who buy all their bulk items there and would never go to a health food store for toilet paper, so this may have a large effect when you multiply it by the millions of people who shop only there. More choices to save trees!

Another grocery store chain called Big Save is local here on Kauai, but has many outlets serving a lot more people than the health food stores, and they now have biodegradable grocery bags at the checkout! So even if you don't bring your own bag at least you are not walking out with a plastic bag that is toxic to the Earth. In all the times I have shopped there I have NEVER been in a line where anyone else has brought a bag with them, so again this is no small thing when you multiply that by the hundreds of bags going out of those stores every single day. Less poisonous plastic in the world!

Those of you who have read my other posts know that even though these are small islands there is NO island-wide household recycling program here. Incredible. On Oahu they outgrew the landfills and are now shipping garbage to California!!!! (Sorry California.) That seemed a better solution than starting an island-wide household recycling program???? Really? Here on Kauai there are a few depots where you can drop certain items off to be recycled, but they are few and far between, and those who care enough have to store their items somewhere until they can make a trip to the depot. The nearest one to me is 16 miles away! So this is not something people can do daily, and most don't bother to sort and store things, so it all goes in the landfills. So where is the good news in this? Well just this past summer there was a program implemented here on Kauai to put recycle bins next to most public trash bins, so people now have a choice to conveniently recycle when they are in public places! YAY! (I don't know if they have done this on the other islands as well.) But guess what? There is a beach bin between where I live and town that I stop at regularly to remove the stuff that can be recycled, and I thought my job just got easier because it would all be in the recycle bin now. WRONG. (Sigh.) There is trash in the recycle bin every time, and cans and bottles in the trash bin every time. How can this be? People now have a REALLY easy choice to make with no inconvenience, and still don't choose to help. This is amazing to me. But at least you now can recycle in public places, and hopefully more and more people will choose to care, especially when it has been made so easy.

In facing all the damage being done to the planet, I believe we need to notice and applaud the shifts that take place that are helping this precious Earth. These are the things that need to be increased. Let's pay attention to them and give thanks for them, because we need the caring to expand! I'd love to hear what good news for the planet you have witnessed lately, and I invite you to leave a comment below.
Thanks for listening and thanks for caring.