Friday, August 30, 2019

Love of the Sea

At an early age, I kept aquariums in my room. Maybe starting in 5th grade, 6th grade? Around ten or eleven years old anyway.

I'd bike to "fish stores" in the San Fernando valley and try to bike back before the fish in the little plastic bags ran out of oxygen and/or overheated, and died.

I loved feeding them, researching which fish could live together, researching and providing the conditions they needed to live, etc.

It was entertaining, and they were my own pets! Studies show today that aquariums and fish can help relax people, and extend life expectancy. Incredible. I look forward to starting aquariums here at home with my two young kids.

I moved onto salt-water aquariums in about 11th grade - which are more difficult to keep! Salinity, temperature, pH and water quality all need to remain in safe zones. Or the fish would die. I didn't like that. Nobody likes that.

I think the Republican climate change-denying politicians today do not understand that the world's oceans are the same - and that the temperature and pH are quickly becoming problematic. And that we are to blame. Perhaps they never kept a fish tank? We are heating and polluting the planet and our oceans too fast. We are losing our coral reefs. Entire species are at risk. Perhaps the web of life in the ocean as a whole. It is an overwhelming idea.

In high school, also just around the age of 16 (I'll have to check my PADI card), I got certified as a scuba diver. Today I have almost 100 logged dives, mostly in California, but many in exotic and wonderful places like Hawaii, the Bahamas, even Greece!

The diversity and beauty and wonder of coral reefs is irrefutable. yellow tangs, blue tangs, green moray eels, zebra fish and humuhumunikinikiapuaa (I typed that from memory, maybe it's close!).

Octopus, sharks, lobsters, starfish, shrimp, scallops - these are all amazing, wonderous creatures.

The coral reef is the home for many of these animals. The bottom animals of the chain eat from the coral reef, and all the animals up the chain eat from there, up to us. We endanger societies all across the earth that rely on seafood for protein and nourishment. That cannot just go to Costco and get some farm raised salmon.

It is almost impossible to imagine a world with a nearly dead sea. We have time to save it - maybe. We have to stop increasing the rate of global warming right now. We have to stop preventable pollution from entering our seas right now. I hope you have this in your awareness, and take it quite seriously, and are helping. It's taken millions of years to deliver the Finding Nemo beauty and necessity of sea life. We cannot allow it to go away.



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Sunset, Venice 12/20/2012

Sunset, Venice 12/20/2012
I've been thinking some about the Winter Solstice, the Mayan end of the 30,000-year-cycle on 12/21/12.

What if in fact the world did end? Even though this probably will not happen, to live consciously it is honest for us to take a bit of an inventory.

Am I happy with how I've lived my life? (Yesterday, I thought mostly yes, with some areas for improvement, as below.) Are there changes I would make?
Would I have tried to forgive those that were hostile or disappointing to me?
Would I spend more time with those I loved the most, telling them that, feeling that more?
Would I be happier, grateful for what I have, what I've experienced, the joy, the beauty in this world?

Maybe the answer is yes to all of the above.
So this time can serve as a point of rebirth for all of us. If we think about it.

Because somewhere along the line I realized I think maybe mankind deserves it. !
The way we are killing each other, killing the planet.
How selfish we are, and snotty to those around us. Petty, competitive. Why is this? Do we have to behave this way? (I say no, it greatly detracts and misdirects energy from the full-time celebration in which we could engage, the great multi-cultural, multi-rhythmic dance we can sustain here.)

Maybe God or the Great Universe is fed up, and will pull the rug out from under us.
Don't think I can say we could blame Him/Her/It.

But it probably won't happen. (Probably not! This time.)

Still we are finite on this ride.

It is a time to think, am I happy with how I've lived my life?
Hopefully most of us can say yes.

For the part of us that have a little worry, a little sadness....
This is the time to be present.
This is the time to be the person you want to be, that can die at peace, that can hope to every day be able to look yourself and the Universe in the eye and say, how beautiful, smiling, and thank you. Let's do that.

Antidotes to Violence, a.k.a., Take Charge of Where Your Head's At - here

Tell Congress to Strengthen Gun Control Laws NOW - here

Good News & Brain Food News -
Christians & Muslims Gather, for Peace here
Good News - Top RIO+20 Summit Posts here
The 'Busy' Trap - NYTimes.com
here