Trash and Freedom
Recently I was blessed with some time to walk along one of my favorite Northwest landscapes. This trek is along cliff edges where the force of the Pacific ocean that has traveled inland along the enormous Strait of Juan de Fuca meets glorious shore and cliff formations. Bull kelp dances in the waters and an occasional seal breaks the surface as if to have a conversation through gaze and mutual reverence of one another. Cliffs are rimmed with meadows, trees, wildflowers, and mosses. The sky is vast and stirs that deep sense of wonder and gratitude whenever we face that which is so much greater than ourselves.
As I reached my favorite cliff perch to spend time for reflection and writing, I was greeted, not with the textures of teal and aqua and steel blue of the water or the variety of flowering succulents and wind-bent evergreens, but instead by hundreds of snippets of plastic multi-colored ribbon segments strewn all across the meadow's edge which cascades into the sea. The fragments of human created, petroleum based, flecks of trash littered the expanse between the cliff, across the grass, and disappeared into the woods.
It was only a few days since the 4th of July here in the United States, so I assumed that this was a burst of color-filled fiery eruption from an explosive delivered skyward in the name of the great freedom that we celebrate on this holiday which I once thought I understood but now evokes such wildly conflicted feelings in me.
Here I was looking at a celebration of "freedom" with an explosion that would have lasted between one and five seconds at the most as the shards of plastic crap flitted across the sky and scattered across the ground. Five seconds! Five seconds to say some version of "thank You for our freedom as Americans". The "happy" moment scattered trash across a glorious landscape that would take hundreds or even thousands of years to decompose and become part of Earth again (and upon decomposing I'm not sure if it would be even usable again in the cycle of life in that setting). And then the humanoids that did this just walked away.
Five seconds of "ohhhhhh" and "ahhhhh" without even really paying attention to what we are actually celebrating in terms of human freedom, but nevertheless, screaming "Screw You" to the Earth. It is as if the celebration was of our freedom to use up, abuse, and rape all that the Creator has generously offered for our mutual participation and care. It was a great shining announcement to the universe that we are free to destroy you in whatever way we want thanks to our great American project. That is some wildly twisted, arrogant, and self-destructive freedom indeed!
So ... I decided to spend the next hour picking up all the little pieces of plastic ribbon. I did so. For me, it was a moment of discipline and relationship with Creation. I am thankful for that moment. But then I walked the trail back to the parking lot and got in my petroleum-powered machine (which is at least a hybrid, but in the big picture I'm not even sure if that matters very much) and I drove the miles back home. I was part of the solution I suppose. And then habitually and mindlessly continued to be part of the problem. This all occurred within two hours of each other. Even those of us who are trying to participate in a broadened and expanded mindset of care toward Earth and relationship with all of Creation, are trapped in a system that is hell-bent on using it up and destroying it all. In that sense, I am what I judge and hate. I am the problem.
What will it take for us to wake up. Or perhaps we will all just be lulled to sleep, never to be awakened again on Earth because we have chosen to be blind and comfortable and "free".
Dr. Kirk Webb
(Director of the Celtic Center)