Considering the Ocean

To stand next to the ocean is the easiest way for me to remember how incredibly small my problems are.  The expansiveness of the water, the impossible task of measuring every grain of sand; these things are obvious when you can smell the salt in the ocean air and hear the seagulls calling against the hollow sound of wind and surf.

I am lucky that the ocean is only an hour away.  The days I am able to go to the beach are precious to me:

The jagged nature of the Oregon coast allows for pockets of tide-pools.  When we visit the ocean, we gingerly pick our way along the wet rocks, checking the dark shadows where the water remains in low-tide.  Sea stars, crabs, and bright anemone cling to the pool walls, water sifting over them in my view.

Sometimes Jason and I will pack a picnic, finding a somewhat dry spot near the water's edge to eat, buying saltwater taffy from town for dessert.

I meet creatures:  Seagulls standing watch, the water and sky reflecting equally against their feathers, and grouchy sea lions who bark from their claimed docks.

On a windy day the sand moves as if a thousand invisible horses are trampling the beach and kicking up dust.  We walk backwards, our heads hooded to keep the flying sand out of our hair. The waves come up higher and we chase them north and south along the beach, laughing and attempting to keep our feet dry.

The Pacific ocean.  How can you describe such a phenomena?  It contains great mystery in its cold depths, and abounding life.  It is part antagonist in many tales, part bread-giver.  It rolls to meet the land with the force of white-caps, and yet is still controlled by the gravity of the moon.  I feel a pull to the ocean myself, maybe because I feel like I can relate.   Humans are capable of great goodness, and yet can be destructive and unpredicable.  The ocean is the same, in its own way.

I've been reading a lot in the news about the oceans lately-- specifically about the oceans' deaths. To see an ocean die would be a great and terrible thing.  It would mean that life as we know it has passed into a different realm.  Everything dies, I know.  But the ocean, if you think of it as a great metaphor for life, would be a thing to grieve in its death as though humanity itself had died.  And that's not even regarding the physical changes that would occur and alter the world as we know it.

I am not a marine scientist, so I will not claim what is fact and what is fear-driven fiction in the news, but there are things that shouldn't be ignored, regardless, if it drives us to act kinder to our earth.

I've read that it is estimated that salt-water fish will be extinct by 2048 due to over-fishing, habitat loss, climate change, and pollution.  I've seen reports of rare deep-sea fish washing ashore, dead from undetermined reasons. There is ocean acidification, and whale migration change--  all things to consider, signs to heed.

Please join with me as I consider the ocean, its fate, and our own.

TEN THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE THE OCEAN

Consider your carbon footprint.