A fine wine

In the calmness of it all

I don't know how much more alive I could have felt than when I was out talking with those waves today.  They were big, but not so big.  The wind was strong, but not so strong.

I had peeked out in to the open water, there was wind starting to gust, there were waves beginning to swell.  I tried to gauge my direction to anticipate when I would be returning so that I would have the wind at my back upon the return to ride the seas.  There were islands, lots of them.  I could have gone on and on, I could have continued so far that there would have been no turning back.  The winds were picking up and I could see the whitecaps forming but I went out around that one last island before the endlessness, and prepared for nature to hit me, but she didn't hit me, she caressed me, she held me close, she whispered to me you are not alone out here, there are rhythms, there are flows, there are your memories of every single time we have been together, you know me, even though you sometime try to fool yourself that you might not, you know me, but you will never know me, but you will be able to talk with me.  And so we talked.  There were the strangenesses of chop, there were the rocks emerging in the swells that I needed to keep track of, there was the wind's push upon my intentions and my thinking, yes, there, no, not there, yes, go into that lee, yes, keep going with that flow, yes, move with those waves, yes, head towards that rock cluster, yes, dead reckon beyond and you'll pass right by, it was always about yes, never about no, and then when it was time to turn, and I counted, I found myself counting, one two three and I was almost there, I continued to pull into the wind and to prepare, prepare, and counting until I was ready, until that one last crest of wave and then turn away and then I turned, in smoothness, in joy, in grace, in wonder because it is always wonder, I hope it will always be wonder, to turn upon all of that amazing dynamic and then I was racing with it all and remembering, remembering, keep the angle and ride it on, and then it got fun and before I knew it I was past the last point of land before everything tapered out and i was once again just moving on.

It was like savoring a fine wine.

Calmness to-do list

- just be

- revel in the smallest minute detail

- get out in a kayak :)

- allow my body to feel cold pass right through it without resistance

- allow my body to feel warmth pass right through it without resistance

- lose myself as often as possible - paddling, walks, carving, projects, sitting, piddling about...

- try not to think about it

- try not to believe that anything needs to be articulated, explained, or even brought into the realm of reason, ration, logic or explanation in any way

- imagine that the world "out there" is accessed not from my brain but from my heart - not from an acknowledgement of or seeking of understanding but from a sense of  love

Rewilding

There are an astounding number of projects going on around the world to "rewild" areas

ewilding is a critical step in restoring self-regulating land communities,” they claim two non-scientific justifications: (1) “the ethical issue of human responsibility,” and (2) “the subjective, emotional essence of ‘the wild’ or wilderness. - See more at: http://rewilding.org/rewildit/what-is-rewilding/#sthash.rCmrboDI.dpuf

rewilding is a critical step in restoring self-regulating land communities,” they claim two non-scientific justifications: (1) “the ethical issue of human responsibility,” and (2) “the subjective, emotional essence of ‘the wild’ or wilderness. - See more at: http://rewilding.org/rewildit/what-is-rewilding/#sthash.rCmrboDI.dpuf

rewilding is a critical step in restoring self-regulating land communities,” they claim two non-scientific justifications: (1) “the ethical issue of human responsibility,” and (2) “the subjective, emotional essence of ‘the wild’ or wilderness. - See more at: http://rewilding.org/rewildit/what-is-rewilding/#sthash.rCmrboDI.dpuf

• Aim: The project aims to collaborate with local people on the land to assist the trend of abandoned lands that are in the process of rewilding, and to promote sustainable development through rewilding in the islands as well as the adjacent area of the marine protected area.
• Vision: To bring back natural ecosystems on land and in the sea by restoring marginal areas, protecting wildlife and providing alternatives to pressure on land and sea through carefully planned organic agriculture in the regions' existing agricultural lands.

Anticipatory proximities

There are many many activities going on relating to environmental awareness, celebrating nature and trying to do little things to care for this planet.  Many of these activities criss-cross upon a landscape of our physical wanderings.  Many times we do not know who has crossed what points of our paths and trajectories.

There are many technological solutions to "place" information within physical space.  This has been going on long before the internet.  Geocaching has been happening for centuries - people placing boxes with messages in certain locations for others to happen upon.  Cabins in the wilderness have had log books where people write a bit about their situation, their reason for being in that place at the point in time they're there.  Along the way, people have started to anticipate discovering these logs, and it has become a game of sorts.

And there are activities of placement that it would be interesting to layer - to take the points of intersection and be able to "indicate" them on a map.

Take for instance The Whale Trail - it winds along the west coast shoreline pretty much in some of the same areas where Coastal Cleanup activities are happening- not always necessarily upon the exact same beaches our lookouts, but sometimes within walking distance, and sometimes within an anticipatory proximity - meaning that there is the possibility, the potential, for people who go whale watching to realize that there is also the possibility to clean up the beaches upon which they are walking if only because there is a placement of that awareness of cleanup activities right about in the same place as there is that awareness of the ability to watch whales.

And yes, it might be said that we should be cleaning up the beaches anyways - or rather, we should not be throwing things onto the beaches.  But a lot of what is on beaches has washed up, and sometimes people call cleanup beach combing.  But there is an element of raising awareness that there is the possibility to do that one little thing along the way - where you are anyways - to do something that can help make that space you're moving through a bit better, a bit healthier, a bit more beautiful for the long term.

Maybe there's some activity to have people share information about a particular location - ice formation, rain or other weather conditions, or maybe the emergence of plants in spring or maybe the data has already been collected for instance about the health of the apple you've brought with you.  No one can know the ultimate value of information when it is being collected - but the collection of information is a first step.  It might leads to surprising insights, new awareness about changes or no change, and maybe even provide background for policy decisions.

There is "value of observation in terms of our being able to
inform policy, to inform decisions and to reduce uncertainty, and the observations are a part of (our responsibility). You cannot make
weather forecasts without observing and monitoring the
weather. You certainly cannot make any predictions or
forecasts about the ocean without observing it in a sustained manner.”

This is going to hurt

Another challenge with finding information about environmental issues:

"Like people all over the world, she got her news mostly from social and alternative media, because the Irving papers and other mainstream media did not carry our news. The more independent media were usually blocked or “kettled” out of the protest areas."

New Brunswick Environmental News

On the site there is information about two upcoming workshops.  It doesn't seem that there's a way to "virtually attend"...  Maybe someday.

Two FREE workshops are already planned 

• Saturday Feb. 13, 4:30–9 pm, at the Greenwood Lodge in Fords Mills. A potluck supper; at 5:30 pm start the workshop.
• Sunday Feb. 14, 5–9:30 pm, hosted by Kopit Lodge, in Elsipogtog (bldg TBA). A potluck; at 6 pm start workshop.

• Other workshop sessions may be planned until Feb 17th. 
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LInks

Here on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore, I've been getting out in the kayak whenever the weather and winds allow.  Tucked within a series of islands, there's some nice paddling along stretches of coastline, and then when I shoot out into the swells there are more islands, and more and more...

I was reading some news about the 100 Wild Islands and happened upon the Forest Watch website.  There at the bottom right is a nice list of links.

There are a lot of ways to present links - and the events, people and locations that are associated with them.  What seems to be the challenge is to find a space where everything within one area is placed together.  It takes a consolidated effort to create such a comprehensive, systematically updated set of information.

Lists

An important - essential - aspect of the waketrail project is to build a socially constructed database for projects that relate to one another.  There are many lists out there - for instance Rewilding Projects (check the bottom of the page) and Dark Sky Projects.

How many other such lists are out there?  Where can anyone ever get any global perspective?  I don't believe that searching for, collecting and aligning these lists is something that one person or even one organization can do; it needs to be collaborative, innovative and ongoing - socially constructed.

A mobile app is in process, a database is in process, networking is in process.  It's going to exciting to see how things will emerge.