Blog Action Day

Today is the day many of us bloggers will be writing about the environment...as if no one has been doing that up to now. I am sure there will be excellent pieces on global warming, toxic this and toxic that and the disappearances of plant and animal species. These, of course, are all important and timely issues which I leave to others who can discuss them with more passion than myself. My humble contribution will come from a different angle. For me, this pollution business is also an issue of art, soul and the collective unconscious (or am I committing word pollution...but I digress).

I choose different environments for different aspects of my life. When I did work in the heart lab I kept things meticulously neat and clean. I could do a catheterization or a heart biopsy without leaving a drop of blood anywhere. When I messed about in my darkroom, however, I chose to be in a chaotic mess that fostered thinking outside the box and welcomed experimentation.

But those were my personal spaces, one for work and one for fun. The environment, on the other hand, is our collective space. The environment offers its own chaos, orderliness, drabness and color naturally. We can avail ourselves of what we need by choosing in which of nature's endless settings we wish to spend time. We can select snow, mountains, forests, valleys or even tar pits. It is there to be enjoyed. We enter and, hopefully, leave the environment we have selected the way it was before we were there. Many, like myself, seek a certain something by going out onto the water.

On the water I can escape the daily buzz, scare myself and satisfy a primordial need for adventure or just paddle quietly and listen to what it is my soul is trying to tell me but has been drowned out by the noise ashore. This is when and where I heal. This is when and where I can be alone or share the moment with a friend. This all occurs in no small way because of what that particular environment has to offer, and a large part of what it offers (in my soul's view) is what I see out there.

The water environment offers me glassy surfaces, waves, ripples, endless vistas, shallows visible through clear waters and much more. I cherish these things, and I don't take anything from the lake nor do I put anything into it that is harmful or doesn't belong there. Like the cath lab or my darkroom, I am clear about what I am doing there and what my responsibilities are to keeping things right for others. When someone puts something into that environment that doesn't belong there they destroy part of what the lake has to offer. That, in turn, denies something that my soul seeks to find out there. That, in turn, diminishes us all.

I may welcome you into my home where you can enjoy our light-hearted style and a meal. You will be treated with respect here, and a thank you is all that will ever be expected in return. We would, however, be upset and feel a personal hurt if you left your garbage laying around after you left. Mother Nature expects no less.

Paddle safe...

DS