The Link between the Crude Catastrophe and Your Psyche

Watching the live video link of the gushing oil rig is a mesmerizing and sickening experience. I've left my browser window open all day today and as each moment passes my incredulity grows. Why can't we stop this? Why weren't we prepared for this inevitability? And is there anything, anything I can do?

The day I heard about the explosion, I felt ill and I recalled a saying that has always stuck with me from when I interviewed the filmmakers of Oil on Ice, a documentary about drilling for oil in ANWAR. They referred to protected wilderness as not only valuable habitat for wildlife, but also an indispensable habitat for the human psyche. And as it goes, when we destroy one, we destroy the other.

Anyone who has ever, even momentarily, felt the thread that connects them to the rest of the universe will likely grasp this concept. Anyone who has ever looked into the eyes of an animal or dug their fingers into the dirt and thought "I am you and you are me" will no doubt experience some psychological impact as a result of a disaster of this scale.

I also remember the filmmaker saying that when the Exxon Valdez spill occurred he knew he had to go to Prince William Sound. It was like receiving a call that a relative was severely ill. One just goes to be there - to observe, console, and be of service in whatever way possible. I feel this same pull to be at the Gulf Coast now, just as many people felt the need to travel to Haiti after the earthquakes.

But, this situation is so, so much different. Even from halfway around the world, we were able to throw money at Haiti and get updates from our favorite non-profits about how they were using our funds and what impromptu systems they were employing on the ground. The only one we could possibly blame for the destruction was God and he wasn't about to "pay all legitimate claims".

In this case, we've only got blame. We're pissed and we don't want to pay a dime of our money to clean up the residue of a crime committed by a careless corporation. Rightfully so, I'd say. We can only stand on the shore and watch and shake our heads and "tsk tsk" as one futile effort after another fails. But, where does that leave us, psychologically?

Once the gushers are stopped, how can we heal our souls in conjunction with the habitats along the gulf? If we make the decision to forget and move on (Phew! Glad that's over!), we become the walking wounded, lame in our own inaction. We need to ask ourselves how we are tied into this mess and how we can disentangle ourselves. The world is watching to see how we answer this wake-up call. Americans are prone to take things lying down (financial crises, unjust wars and such) and it's possible that we will do just that, thankful it wasn't closer to our own homes. But, without change these accidents-that-aren't-accidents will happen (look to the arctic next) and they will destroy not only the things that we love, admire and find beauty in, but us as well. In the end, it's all one and the same.

LINKS:

Live video link to the spill

Oil Spill Meetups

On whether a BP Boycott is effective or not (NPR)

Getting Over the Fear of Gardening

The other day I came home from work and I went to bed straight away. Just a nap. Just a little nap. The sun was shining. It was a beautiful California spring day, ideal for an afternoon in the garden. I knew it, but I closed my eyes tighter and pulled the covers over my head. I couldn’t sleep, however. My conscience wouldn’t let me. An inner battle was raging: “Go plant some seeds”. “Not yet”. “Go out there and sow!” "I’m not sure I’ve read enough about it yet”. “Just put some seeds in the soil and let them do what they do!” “But, I’m SCARED!”

I realized in that moment what was keeping me from planting my seeds. It was the fear that they wouldn’t grow. It was the fear that after spending $80 on soil amendments, $30 on seeds and hours of manpower and mompower on digging the soil and building the raised bed, that I would have no prize produce to show for the equivalent of what I would have spent in a month at the farmer’s market.

At a volunteer event last night, I met a girl who worked at a farm in Malibu under an “insane, gasoline huffing gardener” with some pretty interesting, non-traditional methods. She said, with an obvious air of exaggeration that in order to ensure a good harvest he would do something like “bury a cow’s skull, an organic cow’s skull, in the northeast corner of the field under a full moon” and that was about it. pH testing and proper seed spacing be damned. She said her mother, also a professional gardener, would throw newspaper down over the lawn, pile a mound of dirt on it and plant seeds right there. Raised beds be damned. She then relayed her own experiments with greenhouse planting. She spent an entire season employing advanced techniques to raise a vegetable crop inside her greenhouse and threw the leftover seeds in containers around her yard using only cactus soil. Which ones do you think ended up thriving? Technique be damned, it was the veggies grown in cactus soil, while the greenhouse seedlings rotted.

All these variables are what freak me out. All these soil and light requirements that real-life growing stories throw to the wind. And the more I read, the more uncertain I become that I am capable of maintaining the ideal conditions for turning these little pebble-like seeds into flowering, green-leaved, plump fruits and veggies. But, at last, I jumped out of bed and went down to the garden. I planted eggplant, tomatoes, summer squash, arugula, lettuce, spinach, beets, and beans. I spaced them correctly, covered them in compost and watered them deeply. It’s been nearly a week and all that has sprouted is the arugula, which in my minimal gardening history, I have learned will grow like a bush pretty much anywhere. I’m still nervous. I’m still waiting. I wish I could communicate with the seeds and ask them what they need.

I asked the lovely gardener girl, “If seeds do, in fact, want to grow, then why aren’t mine growing?” She said, “Probably because of… you.” So, she’s offered to come over and see what I’m doing to squelch the life power out of my potential garden. Maybe we’ll just let my dog dig up the yard and scatter the seeds willy-nilly while chanting about Gaia and fertility. For all I know, I’ll end up with the finest harvest ever seen, while my $80 block of soil sits fallow