Journeys through the mist
I just checked over at the NASA Earth Observatory web site, and they have a new image up for today showing the massive amount of oil that is collecting around the Mississippi barrier islands. All the silver-ish swirls you see on the water is oil from the spill. I’ve downsized it from its original size. You can, if you want, visit this page at NASA to see or download the original full-sized image.
I’ll let the image speak for itself.
I don’t post the following to make people feel sad. I post it because there are those out there that need to wake up and really see one of the many tragic consequences of our petroleum-fueled lifestyles, and what it is doing to the world we live in and depend on for our very existence. [Cropped satellite image from NASA Earth Observatory, image of the day.]
This tragedy is the direct result our our addiction to oil, pure and simple. BP was simply the instrument we used to produce it. The Ixtoc spill in the waters off Mexico in 1979 should have been a wake up call. The Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska should have been a wake up call. All the oil spills around the world should have been wake up calls. Sadly though we have gotten too good at ignoring and forgetting. That has to change.
Change is going to come from each of us, as individuals, making conscious choices to reduce our dependence on oil and our impact on mother earth. Real change always happens from the level of the individual and then moves up though higher and higher levels of society as a whole. If you are looking for real change to come from the top down be prepared for a very long wait. True change though cannot happen until we each realize who we really are, and that we are not only all connected to one another, but to all life everywhere; the whole continuum from the smallest one-celled organisms to the Source of all life itself.
The Christian Science Monitor ran a story today titled “Gulf oil spill’s wildlife toll: sharks near shore, turtles incinerated” that I humbly suggest you read. The Christian Science Monitor I find to be a news organization with integrity and a good source of truly “fair and balanced” reporting (unlike the news organization that touts being “fair and balanced”). At the end of that story is a link to a slideshow called “Sticky mess: The Gulf oil spill’s impact on nature” that I again suggest you view. Then spend a little time thinking about what you can do personally to reduce your burden on this wonderful world. If enough people choose to make even small changes, the combined impact of those small changes can be dramatic.
One such change we can all make (and Obama, unfortunately, got a lot of flack for this during his campaign for President) is to check our tire pressure regularly and keep our tires properly inflated. According to the US Department of Energy, underinflated tires cost the US 1.25 billion gallons of gas per year; about 1 percent of our total gas consumption. One bonus to keeping our tires properly inflated is our tires will last longer. Another is that we reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere. There is no downside.
A while ago, we took a trip over to the Waipio Valley on the east shore of Kohala. The Waipio Valley is a very sacred place to the Hawaiian people and was the home to many Hawaiian rulers. When you visit the valley, you need to first ask permission to enter and if you get that permission, you want to enter with respect for the land and the spirits that live there, and also for the people who live there. Daily, they have to endure hundreds of people walking and driving around the dirt roads and trails, and for the most part, they are quite tolerant.
According to the locals we talked with, this was the first day in quite some time that they valley had not been overcast and rainy. The photo above was from the lookout at the top of the road going down into the valley late morning. The valley is a mile wide and six miles deep with 2000 foot cliffs on each side, and the road at 25% grade requires a four wheel drive if you want to drive down into the valley. With an annual rainfall in excess of 200 inches per year, it is as lush and beautiful as anyone can imagine.
Due to the generous rainfall, the walls of the valley have hundreds of cascading waterfalls and toward the inland end of the valley are two that I definitely want to visit one of these days. The Waipi’o river, fed by these falls, runs through the valley floor and consists of multiple channels, and since there are no roads, your only choice is on foot or horseback. The channels can be quite deep at times ranging from one to four feet deep – or more – depending on how rainy it has been. As with so much in life, timing is everything.
We had a good chance to get a feel for the valley, but a trip back when I have more time is definitely in order, and next time I’ll have all the necessary gear and camera equipment with me. By late afternoon, the clouds had started to move in so we bid goodbye to the valley, expressed our gratitude and headed back up the steep road.
[Edit: I’ve dived into the PHP abyss and added the math spam code and reactivated the plugin. Let me know via the contact form if anyone has problems leaving a comment.]
[Edit 2: Well, I can’t add the math comment spam code into this theme without major surgery, so I’m likely stuck having to sort through thousands of pounds of spam weekly.]
I had forgotten to either turn off my math comments spam captcha thing and I got several emails this morning saying people could not post comments. That has now been corrected. If I stay with this theme, I’ll add the code into the theme files and reactivate it.
One of the main reasons I have it is that if I don’t, my spam filter queue gets a real workout. At times I’ve gotten over 200 per day and I have to look through all of them carefully to make sure legitimate comments are not mixed in with the junk. With the math comment spam thing, I only see about 5 or 10 in the spam queue per week.
I’ve gotten quite tired of the current look of my blog, and think it is time for a change, so I’ll warn you ahead of time that you might be seeing some different looks and styles over the next few weeks as I try to figure out what I want this creation to look like – or probably more precisely, what IT wants to look like.
I’ve been tired of the look now for nearly a year, but simply haven’t done anything about it, and I think that might be part of the reason for not posting on a more regular basis. Well, there was that move to Hawaii during that time, and all the packing and sorting and planning and such. You know… life? 🙂
So, if you stop by and see an entirely different look, don’t be alarmed. The Sacred Path is just trying on new clothes.
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