Low Tide

It is true that the Tide rolls forever in Alabama. We are considered the college football capital of the South. We learned the hard way how to play by the rules and came thundering back as the SEC Champions.
Quite a feat but football is in our blood...here in Dixie.

Rome would be proud.

Warning: Today's blog is an attempt to discharge some sorrow, grief and utter anguish. If you wish to continue to feel all warm and fuzzy...then go on to the next blog.

You will not find it here...not today.

This is Alabama, and we are at a all-time devastating low tide as the Gulf of Mexico continues her heroic battle of life itself.

Every morning I wake to an enormous lump in throat and try to swallow. I tell myself that I must rise, greet the sun and face reality. I tell myself that surely this day will bring hope...hope that we can stop the lethal arterial bleed gushing out at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. The sickening cramp deep in my gut will not relent. I sleep, yet do not feel rested.

I laid in my comfortable bed, staring at the ceiling...searching for positive thought. It does not feel right to feel comfortable.

 I call out to the Universe...'Help us now'. I cry out a silent scream of utter anguish and pain. I struggle to put my feet on the floor. I muster courage to stand up. A series of events have brought me to this place of despair. A series of choices and decisions that my great ancestors made years ago that now impact the entire world. Choices that were beneficial for a select few on Earth; decisions which provided security for a select few that now their remains lay deep underground in the earth... safe and sound beneath a solid cover of soil and grass. 
'Woe to the sins of the Fathers...for they shall be passed on to the children and their children.'

My back remains worn and scarred from the weight of this world we inherited. My heart is burdened with the weight of utter despair and sadness. My brain understands how to sustain life...give life...maintain and respect life...but I cannot fix this. I grieve. What is the benefit of all the wars, all the protests, all the effort to survive if we simply cannot protect the physical realm in which we govern to experience it?

How did humanity end up here?

Several weeks ago, I was full of energy and courage...signed up with BP and ready to go fight for the wildlife that were cloaked in this putrid, crude bile. I did not feel I had a choice...I didn't hesitate. Far from my mind was the notion that we were not all on the same page: rescue, assess and implement the treatment plan. We cannot stop the oil spill but we can fight it. We can help the ecosystem battle for the lives of all organisms that call her Mother.

I had no inclination that I had just stepped onto a carousel of chaos and confusion where it was impossible to see, hear or find anything hopeful or good. The private charter captain that committed suicide last week on his boat, did so after being contracted by BP to employ his boat to help place booms. Everyone thought it was because of his shock of loosing his livelihood. May this dear Captain rest in peace, however, I believe he simply could not cope with what he witnessed; the immensity of the loss of all that mattered to him; the immensity of the massive amount of life lost is nothing less than unbearable.
He stated, "Everything is dead out there."

Now I sit and wait on a promised phone call to inform me of where I am to work. I have been told when, what and how to jump in ...but nowhere to land.
Three weeks later, the phone call does not come.
The line is silent... like Death.
I was told, "BP is cutting costs and liabilities. You may never get called now...everything is dead or dying."  Did I just hear that?

 I will refuse to believe it...our souls are not dead. As long as we can suffer the gut-wrenching pain of witnessing the slow death of an entire ecosystem, we are still alive. The tides of the Gulf are still rolling and for now, that is enough for me to cling to the hope that we will cap the well and stop this environmental disaster.

Pebbles under the Mattress

Have you ever experienced sleeping on an unfamiliar bed where you tossed and turned all night? You just could not get comfortable in any position to let your mind and body relax enough to drift off into Dreamland.

The following morning does not improve the situation because you did not sleep well and now you are facing the day ahead of you, tired, foggy and irritable. It was as if you slept on a bed filled with pebbles under the mattress; where you could find comfort in one part of your body, but felt pressure and discomfort in another area...so you toss and you turn...all night. Perhaps you tell yourself that you just need to get back home to your own bed where you know you can secure familiarity and obtain a good-nights rest. What then, is the solution of discomfort if it is your very own bed causing the lack of rest?

 Most humans walking around today are irritable, tired and frustrated because they cannot achieve a good-nights rest in their very own bed. The reason: they have pebbles under their mattress. The majority have no clue as to how these hard stones got there in the first place. These pebbles formed when mankind's logic and global stewardship was tossed to the wind for the sake of  control, security and domination. Each time mankind created, designed and manufactured an industry which supported his need for comfort, we inadvertently slipped another pebble under our mattress.

There is an interesting group of humans on Earth; we are called " The Environmentalists, The Tree-Huggers,The Flower Children, and The Green-People, who share a connection to Mother Earth which is quite opposite to the typical human being. This connection is shared with other various cultures called the Native American Indians and the Aboriginal People. Humans who instinctively act as stewards of the planet and co-exist with Mother Earth responsibly. We do not need a wake up call;we do not need to be educated that it is our responsibility to respectfully protect, sustain and nurture our planet, our home, our bed.

It is a powerful, innate acknowledgement that our very survival as a species is dependant upon the symbiotic relationship with the planet. We do not balk at the various names we are referred to, for most of us will also gladly acknowledge that we do feel alien living here with the others. We are the Tree-Huggers because without trees, we would not survive without an exact ratio of oxygen in our atmosphere.
We are called the Flower Children because children are innocent and teachable.

Mankind must adopt a spirit of global ethics that would sustain the planet for future generations.What we should be acting upon is not so much our various identities and differences, but rather we should focus on our dependence upon science and technology to solve world disasters that Mankind himself brought upon the earth.
 " The phrase 'conquest of nature' is certainly one of the most objectionable and misleading expressions of Western languages. It reflects the illusion that all natural forces can be entirely controlled, and it expresses the criminal conceit that nature is to be considered primarily as a source of raw materials
and energy for human purposes."
A God Within by René Dubos

"The single most important issue the world faces today is the need to develop an ethic of planetary stewardship, underpinned by a reverence for the beauty and complexity of our "water planet" and its diversity of life forms. Without this ethic, the forces behind our industrial consumer societies are pushing global resource consumption to higher and higher levels, eroding the essential life support systems of the planet."

- Jon Nevill

The planet desperately needs humans to explore new ideas and technology towards a sustainable retreat which involves explicit acknowledgement of their moral responsibility to protect other life forms, whether or not they are useful to us or not.
We must actively reduce human populations over time; we need to achieve 'consensus-based political decision-making frameworks' which can make hard decisions to achieve long-term goals, and

financial arrangements which can maintain a relatively healthy economy in the face of declining population and declining use of the world's resources.

What is the specific risk of choosing to not adapt to a sustainable way of life? Go ask the multitude of Flower Children who are working the BP oil spill disaster at the Gulf of Mexico coastlines this week. My point is simply to recognize that it is science and technology that must find a way to 'plug the hole'. We must change the way we live with Mother  Earth.

~Peace

The Road Map

This message is dedicated to any and all "human inhabitants" who just happen to find themselves gazing or gasping at that (scroll up )>>>OK- Stop! See that absolutely magnificent sunset up there? Notice how you immediately experience a calm, peaceful response. Yep, those kind of things are really good to have around while attempting to survive in the 21st century. Mankind can set his weary eyes upon it, no matter his circumstances, ethnicity, geographical location or bank account for the enormous ball of fire comes without a price tag. The benefits, among many, benefit ...yes, everyone and everything. Take a closer look: so what would you think it's worth? Try and put a monetary value to it; obviously ridiculous to even consider, right? As the most intelligent species on the the planet Earth, we are unable to determine value in what we cannot conquer and control.


Globally, we all woke up today to this fascinating ball of fire called the Sun and I bet not one of us ever held a doubt that it wouldn't be there...ready to warm us, grow our food and calm our frenzied, chaotic lives. Tuesday, we were forced again to globally wake up to the ongoing catastrophic crisis occurring in the Gulf of Mexico with the BP oil spill. To gaze upon it, every one of us,despite who and where we are...experiences a sickening feeling deep in their gut ; we profoundly take a moment to let our fearful eyes communicate the image of the gulf to our brains...the message that reads: 'this is a unbelievable catastrophic global crisis for our Mother Earth. Our human consumption has caused utter destruction upon the only place we live.'
Ok Human Inhabitants! Wake up!! What else needs to occur to convince ourselves that we are responsible for our toxic addiction to oil for energy and the wars we wage as a species.
 We better not blow it- Amazing planets like Earth a hard to find...even with a road map.
-Peace