When I was growing up the word ‘pollution’
was something people actually heard. It didn’t put your mind asleep. You had to
twist it around your head. It forced
meaning upon you. It’s totally different today. We’re shut down to words like
pollution and cancer. Everyone in my family has died from cancer. These are big
words meaning big things; entire eco-systems, our bodies’ immune system.
Entire regional ecosystems are in danger.
It’s not just any longer about how many hectares or acres a tiger needs in
order to be a tiger. It’s not just about
the curves in a river a salmon needs in order to be salmon. (The curves somehow producing more viable
offspring within their bellies.) Finally,
in our lifetime, we’re seeing some dams taken down. We wait for the salmon to
wiggle waggle up the river again.
Today, we know that major dams, the
largest constructions in the world, can cause seismic activity. We’re talking
earthquakes. But the earth’s health is not even just about this sort of thing
anymore either. It’s about how we’ve become threatened by our own
existence.
Every day we hear about new extinctions.
How do you talk about this enormous loss
that all of us are facing? Those that
have little ones. Those that like to think about futures. Like to think about the summer sun or kitchen
gardens feeding families in
We know that our opposable thumb is
unopposable.
How do you talk about this and relate this
to the loss of someone you love without making it seem like you’ve made too
much of a leap and that people aren’t important? When people rank priorities of life, we’re
always at the top of the list. Do people have to be the most important? Of
course they are to you. Those that love you; those that give you meaning, and
gravity and ground. But what about all those other beings and bodies living on
this planet that sustain all that you love? What do you know about that? How close are you to it? Is your ear to the ground?
Enki, in ancient Sumeria, the place that
gave us writing, meant wisdom. Enki literally meant your ear to the ground. Can
you hear the smooth turns a salmon makes up a winding river? While in the belly, salmon eggs learn how to
follow the river and to mind their way back to the open ocean.
Every day another extinction. Aldo Leopold said an intelligent tinkerer
saves all the pieces. We’re losing the
pieces. Rhythms are changing. Some of the sounds that make up the song are
disappearing. Some of the movement in
the river is stopped by dams and diverted waters. We should celebrate our
differences. But we have to distinguish between difference and loss. We know that the Earth has tremendous
capabilities of renewal. Some people call wetland habitats the earth’s
lungs. If given a chance wetlands not
only transform toxic wastes but thrive again and become open invitations to
ducks flying overhead to rest during their migration. Every being is a significant part of this
world. Every living being, every body of water, every parcel of land. How do we
learn how to hear what we’ve put into the background? We need to start listening again.
