"WHAT IS MAN WITHOUT THE BEASTS? IF ALL THE BEASTS WERE GONE, MAN WOULD DIE FROM A GREAT LONELINESS OF THE SPIRIT. FOR WHATEVER HAPPENS TO THE BEASTS, SOON HAPPENS TO MAN. ALL THINGS ARE CONNECTED."
-Chief Seattle, 1854
I read this quote today in the Defenders of Wildlife-Winter 2004 magazine. It hit home for many reasons. One of which is that my cat Sammie, was sick over the last few days. The tests that were taken at the Vet will be ready tomorrow. In the meantime I have been very apprehensive all weekend that I may be losing another cat. ( I originally had two).
For some of us, the closest we get to nature on a daily basis is being in touch with animals. For those of us who have pets in our household we are blessed, that in the midst of city life we have creatures that once roamed in the wild.
If time allowed me to, I would probably go on a hike in the Mountains on a weekly basis. Wallking in the light of the Sun, treading on dusty brown earth, viewing multicolor blooms and succulents, and listening to bird calls without any city sounds or car noises to interfere, is truly a meditative and spiritual connection to all life around us. The absolute 'quiet' of nature is like no other 'sound'. It is close to a feeling of serenity. It is something that the early Native Americans came to understand early on, from what we know of their culture. The furthur into the trail I hike, the less and less I hear of city sounds. On my return back to the'city', the calmness stays with me and I am detoxed from stress, at least for a while. These revelations are not new. Discussions about this have gone on for hundreds of years. Remember reading "Walden Pond" in High School?
I try to imagine what it would be like to wander in an even more pristine environment...namely the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. An area that so far has hardly been touched by man. I think that many souls believe that drilling in the Arctic Refuge is but a tiny spot on the Map and would not destroy Wildlife or disrupt the natural balance of the Wild.
If we were to have that opportunity of being able to explore certain areas of vast untouched Nature Preserves, I don't think any of us would turn it down. Those kinds of opportunities, although still around, are dwindling over time. I know that one 'small spot' on the map can transform one pristine place into many spotted messes. You cannot just pick one small area(ie to drill for oil) and expect it not to affect much of the surrounding physical environment. It doesn't work like that.
One has only to learn about the many examples of the continued destruction of the earth to know that little by little it will all eventually fade away and die out. I think of the Amazon Forest and the many RainForests around the earth. That is only one type of destruction. Also, since I am on the West Coast, I remember Oregon's Southern lands and California's Northern Border are not the same they once were even 10 years ago. There are a lot of 'bald' spots or holes in those forested areas that can be seen from 25,000 feet.
I will not be around when our great-great grandchildren rule this Earth. Maybe I really shouldn't care what happens 200 years from now or even one hundred years. But I think of one word that sends chills up my spine: BALD. I remember seeing a movie once on T.V. which changed the way I looked at the environment. Actually it gave me an awareness about the Earth that I really never had thought about before. The name of the movie was "Soylent Green".
You'll have to see it on your own, I won't go into a synopsis here. But it is a mystery thriller withan underlying theme of humans who did not care for the earth....and disaster followed. You may say this is an extreme........And I say if it hadn't been for the beginnings of Environmental Awareness, beginning with people like John Muir and on up to the present Environmental Groups which exist today; if we had no one to protest any of these destructive Earth dynamics, we would certainly be closer to a Soylent Green kind of world than anyone of us would ever imagine or care to live in.
I'll share one scene with you. In the movie they allow old people the dignity of being 'put to sleep' to escape the horrors of their existence. As an added incentive they are shown a film, before they die, of what the Earth had once looked like. The film consists of beautiful sunsets over waving grasses and trees and many different wild animals scantering about to the music of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. These people were fasinated and awed by the beauty of the past Earth that they could never imagine. Science Fiction?
If you want something to think about. Do some research on some Sci-Fi that became realities.
Chief Seattle hit the nail on the head. It wouldn't be the same universe without Wildlife. There is no question as to our connecton in the whole scheme of things. "Whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to Man." If most species disappear from this earth, man as he has existed before, will cease to be. We can never bring back what the wild lands may have looked like hundreds of years ago, before the mass of population spread. But we can become vigilant preservers of the Earth as it exists today. There would be some bereft spirit out there, not ever to have known the Beast in the field and the surrounding beauty of the circle of Nature.
Environmentalists are not extremists.
