Broken - Five Years Later

It has been five years since the BP oil disaster. Not much has changed since then. We know the Gulf has not recovered. Will likely never recover. Not only from the BP oil, but from all the other insults, large and small, to that ecosystem that happened before BP and since BP. And oil continues to spill - into the Gulf, into our rivers and streams, into wetlands and back yards. It explodes on trains, and obtaining more of it regardless of the cost to Earth and the future is a never-ending quest. What have humans learned?

All my life, looking back as far as I can remember, the woods, fields, rivers, and streams of my home place have been my playground, my solace, and my teacher. Among my fondest memories are my father showing me animal signs (scat, markings on trees, etc.) as we’d walk in the woods, camping with my family in a big old army tent in totally “unimproved” camping areas. I became an avid skier (though my father compared the slopes to clear cuts - and he was right of course), and enjoyed snow shoeing and cross country skiing too. The latter with a wineskin of rich red wine, a hunk of crusty bread, and sharp cheese for a winter picnic. For the past 25 years, my love has been gardening, and my teachers the trees, herbs, and other rooted beings who live and thrive in and around my garden and nearby fields and woods.

In my “past life” as an activist (before I moved to Maine), my aim was to share my personal stories about my relationship with the Earth, and how they informed who I was and what I did in the world. I wanted more than anything to awaken in people a love of the Earth that was real and tangible and strong enough to impact how they lived on a day to day basis. I wanted people to feel, deep in their bones and soul, that we are part of not separate from this living Earth without which we would cease to exist. That the beauty we see each day makes us who we are. That the colors and fragrances and tastes of our home places literally create us. And that when we harm these places, we harm ourselves and become less than - and thus condemn our children and grandchildren to being less than as well. Through no fault of their own.
    

All those years I managed to keep my heart and spirit strong in the love and spirit of the Earth, of Gaia. Yes, there were some very painful experiences of feeling the horror of degradation and permanent loss. Such as my seeing my first huge clear cut in the Pacific Northwest. I had heard of them but nothing compares to actually being there. I could not believe my eyes, but my body immediately reacted as if I’d been kicked, hard, in the stomach. Seeing huge mountains literally shaved of every single tree up one side and down the other was surreal. How could human beings do such a thing??? I remember on another trip out west, I was driving in a rental car on my way to a camping area in the Olympic National Park. It was just before a moratorium on clear cutting Old Growth was to take effect so paper companies were rushing to get as much out as possible. Log truck after log truck came out of the National Forest loaded with HUGE trunks. Several carrying just a couple, they were so big. And then a truck drove by with just one. It was like these loggers were killing our ancestors, and this one tree, this one Being, broke my heart. I had to pull over because I couldn’t see for the tears streaming down my cheeks. How could they DO THIS?? I still do not know the answer to that question.

But . . . the pain I felt fueled my love and my commitment to do what I could to stop the destruction of the Ancient Forests, and my organization joined with others to form a national coalition to save what little was left of the Ancient Forests, both temperate and tropical.

Another seminal moment was interviewing Julia Hill Butterfly when she was doing her treesit in the ancient redwood she named Luna, to prevent it from being cut. Even though I was in Maine talking to Julia on the phone, I could feel Luna’s strong presence come through as clearly as Julia’s voice. It was like she and Luna were one, and I was getting to interview both of them. 

 The reality, for me, is that these Ancient Beings are wise and essential. Not only for the well-being of the planet but for our well-being, and even survival, as a species. When the Old Growth is gone, and there is very little left now, we will have lost the oldest living beings on this planet. And with them their wisdom, their strength, their spiritual essence that is part of the planet as a whole. Indeed every time a species becomes extinct, we lose a little more of what it is to be human. Think about that. Every day we become less and less human, and more and more . . . what? What are we becoming?

Which brings me to the BP oil disaster and the reason for this piece. What have we become? That disaster broke something in me. I felt it break and it has not healed. In an article in my journal (now defunct) Gaian Voices (Vol. 8, No. 3 & 4) I wrote, “Every day after April 20th I woke up with a feeling of dread, wondered why, then remembered. The oil. I cried and railed and commiserated with anyone who’d tolerate it. Driving to work or the store reminded me of my complicity. And it also gave me time to think, so I’d often be driving while tears ran down my cheeks. I live in such a beautiful place! The beauty was a reminder of the devastation. The birds I so love who frequent my yard and garden reminded me of the birds dead and dying, coated with oil, unable to fly. Everything is connected, the pain, the beauty, the love, the fear, the anger.”

Five years have passed and we have not learned. We have “moved on”. We have come to accept that these kinds of disasters are the cost of doing business, a cost the oil companies, the chemical companies, politicians, even “ordinary” people, have decided they are willing to pay. Don’t ask me why. I have no idea. Perhaps we’ve become hardened to the daily barrage of bad news. Perhaps we’ve been brainwashed by media to believe that our real problems are political terrorists bent on blowing us up (rather than political/corporate terrorists bent on destroying every living thing for profit). Perhaps we’ve decided it just isn’t true. None of it. Climate change isn’t real. Radiation isn’t killing and maiming in the Pacific. There are no islands of plastic in the ocean. Fracking is clean and safe. Maybe denial is the only way the majority of us can wake up and go about our day. 

I believed, I still believe, that Love (with a capital L) is the most powerful force in the universe. That Love can heal, can work miracles. That miracles are real (though born of hard work). I believe that working with the Earth we can transform our current dire reality into a life-affirming, sustaining, reality. There IS more to life than meets the eye (and all of our other senses). We (humans and nonhumans) are more than the sum of our parts. It is possible. But since the BP disaster, and how things have NOT changed since then, I am not holding my breath.

For me as a gardener, every spring is a new beginning. After plants have started to grow, and the new seedlings have taken on some heft but before anything has been eaten by some critter or insect, or smashed by heavy rain, or blighted by some disease, everything is beautiful and anything is possible. I know, logically, that chances are something won’t do well, maybe lots of somethings. I also know that somethings will do extremely well despite conditions. There will be losses and there will be harvests. And next year I will try again taking what I’ve learned and moving on. But it’s just my tiny garden. What if we were to consider the whole Earth our garden? Remember the Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young lyrics: “We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden”? Can we do that? Can enough of us make a choice to “get back to the garden”? Maybe I’m just an aging hippie, an anachronism, on her way out. Maybe. But I want my grand children to look back on their childhoods and have memories of the woods and playing in streams, and camping in unimproved camping areas. I want them to know and love trees, maybe even have a unique tree friend (as I did) that they take their sadness and fears to, that they climb and swing from without fear. We do not need more oil or dollar stores or malls full of cheap crap that only ends up in landfills. We need the garden! We need clean air, blue skies, green fields, healthy food grown without chemicals or tampered DNA. 

Terry Tempest Williams visited the Gulf during the disaster and wrote about it for Orion. She wrote: “The blowout from the Macondo well has created a terminal condition: denial. We don’t want to own, much less accept, the cost of our actions. We don’t want to see, much less feel, the results of our inactions. And so, as Americans, we continue to live as though these 5 million barrels of oil spilled in the Gulf have nothing to do with us. The only skill I know how to employ in the magnitude of this political, ecological, and spiritual crisis is to share the stories that were shared with me by the people who live here. I simply wish to bear witness to the places we traveled and the people we met, and give voice to the beauty and devastation of both. To bear witness is not a passive act.”

To bear witness is not a passive act! Remember that! And when you bear witness, do not keep it to yourself. Speak out! Share it. And share your pain, tell us how it hurts and why. Do not be silent. It’s the least we can do. Even those of us who are broken.

All photos are mine except for the last one, which was taken by Lynn Slocum.