Check out my new friend I met at Kukio beach on the Big Island. This beautiful, big honu (honu is Hawaiian for sea turtle) was peacefully sunning itself in the warm beach sands. That day, we were blessed to sea about a dozen of this peaceful creatures in and out of the sea. This one was my favorite because its gentle eyes were open.
Click HERE to read The Struggle of the Ancients, a superb piece about the endangered honu, it's international and Hawaiian connections and it's rapidly diminishing environment. Growing up in Tacoma and living by Commencement Bay (along with many trips to the west coast beaches), I have always been passionate about our local waters and it's animal inhabitants. After meeting the honu, my thoughts have broadened to all of the spectacular creatures that are at risk in the mighty Pacific.
Sigh.
5 comments:
What a beauty!
Native Americans call this continent Turtle Island and I love the old creation story of the world being built on the back of a turtle's shell.
We have taken so much for granted and only seem to get worried way past the point of where we should've started to worry...and changed some of our selfish ways. The fastest thing we make the most of...is garbage.
Check out this incredible site...Chris Jordan has found a very artistic way to show us the error of our waste....
http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php
I love the whole Turtle Island/creation story you share. How powerful. I shall check out the site you recommend. Honestly, the Big Island is pretty clean and environmentally responsible (from what I've seen so far). Though on Oahu at Waikiki I've seen garbage floating in the water and it made me sick.
Can this turtle be my Gritty Friend, too?
I remember, way back in the sixties, reading Thor Hyerdahl's "Kon Tiki Expedition" and about how he found, out in the middle of the ocean...garbage and lumps of oil.
Then there's the noise garbage...naval sonar...and the invisible garbage...chemicals.
One thing we can all do (besides picking up the garbage we see) is to stop flushing unused medications down the toilet and start demanding a safer method of medical disposal. We can also stop using all those expensive antibacterial cleansers, another way of forcing Nature to come back with super bugs, like Lyme etc. One of the most important things to figure out, here in the northwest, is how to manage human waste in a better way...where are the design competitions for that?
We all deserve a better environment than we've been making for ourselves. I'm proud of my hippie background...we were ahead of the curve on this one...and we've been talking about it for a long time to others while we practised what we preached.
Patty:
Gritty Turtle can be your friend, too. He's a turtle friend to all!
Lorraine:
Your hippie roots are right on the money, honey.
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