A Trip to the Beach

For 25 years I have been going to the Tybee Island in Savannah, GA, a family tradition that has stemmed from my grandfather’s origins.  This year was the first time going back after a 4 year absence.  I noticed a lot of change to the beach.  At first I was disappointed.  The first day we arrived, on a Sunday afternoon, I walked not even ½ a mile, and was able to accumulate an entire ash tray of cigarette butts and fill a bag of miscellaneous plastic waste that had been left behind from lazy beach goers. As I was walking and I see the plastic, I started picking the trash up.  I saw a lifeguard loading up a truck and asked if there were any nearby trash cans.  He pointed up near the parameter of the beach, far from the shoreline I was walking.   I had asked if he was going in that direction and if he would be willing to throw the trash out for me, since it was far off.

 He retorted, “Are you serious?”

 My reply, “Are YOU serious?”

He grunted, “That is not my job.”

I go into a huff, “I am not saying this is YOUR job. It is all of our jobs to keep this beach clean.”

With that, he took the trash reluctantly.

What is with the lack of responsibility to our mother earth?  Why when we see trash or foreign objects we complacently pretend to not see it or worry about it? Why do smokers feel it is OK to just throw a cigarette onto the ground?  What a disgusting habit. It is as if we have no connection to this land, to this earth.  What do these people think are going to happen? Where will this trash go that we litter?  Just disappear? I was so frustrated that a lifeguard, who spends the most time on the beach, would be so complacent.  I also assumed the lifeguard would be a local, who would feel more ownership to that land, instead of an out-of-towner who comes to the beach for the weekend and then goes back home to their cities.

I was laying on the beach, relaxing and reading a book, when overhead I look up to see a plane dragging a banner for a Gieco commercial.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME? At the freaking beach, really??? Are we able to ever disconnect….when companies force ads into our face, into our minds? Honestly, the last thing I am thinking about while relaxing on the beach is my insurance. 

My grandpa, again who I mentioned originated from Savannah mentioned that he would walk the beach and pass all of 25 people.  Now the beach is overcrowded with people, litter and consumerism.

Luckily, the weekend passed and the beach was left for the vacationer’s staying on the island and the locals.  The beach cleared out and became the beach I remembered.  The beach is truly a magical, inspirational place for me.  As I walk alongside the shore line, I noticed the ocean changing colors like a chameleon.  At some points it’s a deep blue and others it will reap a sickly green color. A few times I woke up for the sunrise and the tips of the waves had a purple iridescent color, crashing to the shore that shimmered gold in the reflection of the sun. 

After an intense 5 days at Flipside, the week-long vacation on the Atlantic Ocean was just what I needed to decompress.  The first night, once all of my family showed up, was a full moon.  My cousin, my sister and I went to play on the beach at midnight.  The moon was so bright, casting the most beautiful shadows onto the sand.  I danced with my shadow and my hoop, feeling as though I was re-enacting a scene from Peter Pan, living in never ever land, a magical place where we could reach our inner child and play with no worries. No one else that the eye could see was on that beach but us; open space to frolic and dance as wide and big as I wanted. So magical.

To be able to have the time you want for yourself is a rarity.  To be able to wake up each morning, have a free day and decide what to do as the day unfolds.  My mom and I spent 3 consecutive days doing partner stretching and a little bit of yoga and acroyoga on the beach.  I ran the length of the beach and back, flew a kite with my uncle, and read 2 books.  What glory!

One of the books I read was called, “Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit,” a recommendation given to me by a friend at Flipside.  Please read this Wikipedia summary of the book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_(novel)

Basically, in summary, the book illustrates a common myth that is embedded into our culture that man is the center of the world, which stems from the story of creation.  The world was given to humans to conquer and rule so we are now enacting this story and therefore destroying this world instead of co-existing in it like all the other living beings on this earth, which do not believe that this world was made for them as humans believe.  Because we are not following the laws of nature, we are acting unnaturally, and therefore destruction is inevitable and will wipe out not only our own kind, but every kind around us.   I highly recommend the book, which is a quick read.  I had finished within 2 days. 

This got my thinking about my last post, moving through the Chakra’s in order to become a divine being.  As a human, do I really want to be god-like? Taking the classical story of creation with Adam and Eve, it was eating from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge that got us casted out of the garden.  In the book, the goal is to save the world and the author urges the readers to “spit out the forbidden fruit.”  It was when we ate the fruit that we thought we understood good and evil, who should live and who should die.  Because we feel we have this knowledge, we have control over our lives.  By having this control and certainty, we are sacrificing the balance of nature.  So in my quest to be divine, am I perpetuating a cycle to be like the gods and therefore helping to destroy earth.  What should humans roles really be on this earth?

The contrary theory of creation is that we came from matter that was from the slimes of the ocean and we tell ourselves creation stopped once man was created.  The book argues that man has a hard time accepting that man came from the same slime that flies and jellyfish and lions came from.  Again, the focus on creation revolving around man, thinking this world was here for man, given to man.  Because man feels the world was given to him, man believe we can do what we please to it. While walking the beach with my cousin, he had said that we have only explored 1/3 of the oceans and that we know more about outer space than we do about the oceans. And here I was reading a theory of creation stemming from the oceans and we have such little knowledge.  We put all these resources into our society, yet we do not even understand where we originated from.  This huge hole, a gap of knowledge, the book argues this is why we do not understand the right way to live. What is our purpose?  How do we be complete and fully human beings and take the role humans are supposed to serve on this earth without understanding our purpose or our origins. 

The world is rapidly changing.  Many changes in a positive direction and in many ways it is not.  Just like my experience on the Tybee, on one hand the beach was overcrowded, littered, and forced consumerism.  On the other hand, my grandfather recounts how back when he was a boy, black families were not allowed onto the beach and now the beach is now shared between white and black families today.  My grandfather was completely disturbed by the movie, “The Help” which takes place in a southern society, much like he grew up.  He hated it because it is an accurate account of what it was like for him growing up and how society treated black people.  Back then, this was the norm, this is what was taught to the children, embedded into each generation that this way of life was right.  It never occurred to my grandfather and his family that this was inhumane.  Nowadays, my grandfather seems embarrassed by his bigotry thoughts and tries to sarcastically make fun or avoid them completely.  Just as it was once believed that the black community was second rate, a shift of consciousness allowed us to progress.  A change in communal thought is possible!  

Our society is over 13 billion years old.  Sometimes I get frustrated that this shift of consciousness is not happening fast enough.  But then I think, wow, 13 billion years is OLD, and since the 60’s, when this shift supposedly started, it has only been 50 years.  I hope and sometimes even plead that I see this change happen within my life time.  People argue that if there isn’t change fast enough, we will destroy this earth faster.  Today while going through my flow of the day, I came across The Magic Love Bus: http://www.magiclovebus.org/

This tribe of people are moving across the U.S. in hopes to spread awareness and consciousness.  They are trying to connect with spiritual minded people.  However, these people are already aware.  How do you reach the masses and actually have them hear you? While on this journey, they are interviewing people they come across to show that this movement of consciousness is not just happening in one part of the country, but all over.  I was asked to interview and answer questions such as, “What is your ideal society? What would you change?  Do you think anything will happen in 2012” Questions like these, that I felt I really couldn’t answer- what expertise was I to say how us humans should live? Are these really the questions we should really be asking ourselves anyhow? It didn’t really feel like a conversation, but him asking me my expertise, which I had prefaced before the filming I did not want it to be framed in such a way.  Anyway, well if his movie every makes it mainstream and I end up in it- well, I hope I don’t sound as ridiculous as I felt. 

We are in a revolution, and between technology of the internet, a spread of consciousness from people such as Charles Eisenstein, books like Ishmael, festivals such as Burning Man and Rainbow Gatherings, and acts like the Magic Love Bus, change is bound to happen naturally, and hopefully in the right direction.