This year’s Global Earth Exchange on June 17 inspired people to give attention and beauty to hurt and endangered places in at least 11 countries and 19 U.S. states! (And the stories are still trickling in.)
All these stories show such love of place, such sorrow when something damages a special place, and such creativity in the making a gift of beauty for the place. You can read all the storieson our website. For the next few months, we will occasionally share some of them here on Radical Joy Revealed.
Tania Haberland lives in Mauritius, the tiny island nation in the Indian Ocean, east of Africa. For her Global Earth Exchange she paid a visit and created ceremony for the mistreated ocean.
There is an ongoing problem of dumping trash and pollution being thrown or allowed to pour out from drains and canals — from sewage to fertilizers to swimming pool water, etc. and misuse of & extraction from the ocean and her creatures for tourism, leisure, business along the coasts of Mauritius, including in front of my home in the village of La Gaulette.
This January we had torrential rains and flooding, and with this the rivers and canals poured down the mountains above us onto the roads, through homes, and into the ocean. The water has never recovered from this. Strange mud has settled on the bottom of the floor and invasive long green seaweed like a monster’s hair has grown and continues to grow. It is still a magical place full of beauty, but every day I notice how the ocean is suffering and being continuously mistreated. Some days I am not comfortable to swim in her because of the pollution, other days I feel safe and free. I wanted to apologise for what my species is doing and thank the water for her gifts to me and all of us.
It was a stormy windy blustery early tropical winter morning and new moon low tide. I gathered flowers (beauty), a sprig of neem (purification) and an old benitier clam shell (restitution—that should be returned to the ocean, as too many have been and are being removed—especially by churches for holding holy water—and they are endangered now) from my garden and called my rescue dogs Luna and Onda to join me.
I walked to where the seaweed is particularly thick and buried the shell in the mud and sand below, apologizing for all we do and have done to the ocean that is extractive, polluting , disrespectful. I recited the opening lines of my poem “Watershed”: Oh Great Water of Sea Sky and Space / we love you,” like a mantra over and over and gave the offerings of flowers and neem as well as some of my hair, and I placed my hands on the water and sent love from my heart, trying to cradle the water in my hands and heart like I would when giving a human a bodywork session. I felt my heart breaking and tears came as I watched the flowers flow away with the current.
And then something in my heart lifted, and a strange sense of joy rose up helped by the exuberance of my canine companions jumping all over the place and playing with the offerings (reminding me of the importance of dance and play) I surveyed the whole space around me turning 360 degrees and felt so blessed for being here in this place of beauty despite all the horrid things we do. I took a piece of seaweed to bring back as a reminder of the repercussions of our actions. Once in my garden I went to a dead tree trunk I have been placing broken things on and suddenly understood why I had been drawn to place broken plates and glasses and even shards of a statue and crushed shell—I was creating an altar of the broken (physical and metaphorical), and so I rearranged the broken pieces to catch the sunlight and added the seaweed and a frangipani flower and a strand of hair and fresh water in another benitier shell (to be restituted to the ocean soon as well) at the feet of this phoenix-like trunk in my lush tropical garden and I meditated on the beauty of broken things and hearts able to open up to possibilities thanks to being broken.