Today, for some reason, I finally let myself watch the streaming live video of the oil currently pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. I’d been avoiding it, only because I knew how it would break my heart. And this whole mess is already so damn heartbreaking, who needs to pile on more?
Apparently I do.
Because after watching the oil, billowing, black and horrible, I then let myself read this well-written, heart-wrenching Washington Post article — In Louisiana, wildlife show effects of gulf oil spill – and it about did me in. The tears started from pretty much the article’s sad and compelling opening paragraph:
“GRAND ISLE, LA. — In the Louisiana marsh, oil-coated pelicans flap their wings in a futile attempt to dry them. A shorebird repeatedly dunks its face in a puddle, unable to wash off. Lines of dead jellyfish float in the gulf, traces of oil visible in their clear “bells.”
I am sad for everyone involved and affected– the families of the dead oil rig workers, the fishermen wondering what’s to come of their livelihoods… But it’s the animals that are making it hard for me not to cry, making it hard for me to breathe on this gorgeous sunny Wednesday in this beautiful place. The animals, they must be so confused.
Thinking about that one bird repeatedly trying to clean his head in a puddle… How many more birds are going to feel that very thing and not understand? How many more sea turtles will wash up dead? How many more dolphins will fall victim to swimming in — to LIVING in — that hazy mess out there?
They can’t escape it. And they can’t comprehend it. And they didn’t do anything to deserve it. And to me, that makes this whole situation so sad I can hardly bear it. My eyes just keep filling with tears again and again thinking about it.
Lest you label me some rabid, silly, over-the-top environmentalist, I’m not (not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course). I’m just an empathetic human being who hates to see suffering in others, be they human or otherwise. Those animals out there, just trying to eat and breed and fly and swim and exist… in the middle of this maelstrom… Well, I am praying for them. I don’t quite know what else to do. I am praying for them and hoping against hope they make it through this violence, this assault on them, as best they can.
“One thing, all things;
move among and intermingle,
without distinction.”
– from Verses on the Faith Mind, by Seng-Tsan, the third Zen patriarch
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