This week, I've turned my column over to guest columnist Liz Zetlin, Welcome, Liz.- Cathy Hird
By Liz Zetlin
"Boo" is one of our granddaughter's favourite words. Not the "boo" of peek-a-boo. Boo is how she pronounces "blue," the first "colour" word she learned.
It's no coincidence, I discovered, having just read Blue Mind (http://www.wallacejnichols.org/122/bluemind.html) by marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols, that a toddler is drawn to blue. Evidently it's universal. We have a strong emotional connection to nature and especially water.
This connection is real science, Nichols says, not just touchy feely stuff. We can now begin to map the brain on nature. Nichols believes "being in nature lights up our brains the same as the faces of those we love."
Blue Mind (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/16/blue-mind-review-wallace-j-nichols-philip-hoare) explores why water makes us happy. It combines neuroscience and psychology, nature and conservation, art and science, poetry and practice.
It helped me understand why so much of my poetry and filmmaking focuses on water. And even suggested a way that this emotional connection to nature holds the key to preserving the habitats and species we cherish.
In one of his TED Talks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2_X7mTUirk), Nichols asks "Where were you when you really, completely, deeply . . . fell in love with nature?" For him, it was a fascination with turtles, which he turned into a career.
For me, it was playing in Chesapeake Bay until my lips turned blue and my mother insisted I come back on land to get wrapped in her towelled arms. The drip of wet sand from my fingers, fishing with my father, collecting conch shells and stones with my mother.
Skip ahead six decades to the Great Lakes, 2013. I joined the Saugeen First Nation's water walk. Each person gathered water from her neighbourhood and poured it into a copper kettle. We took turns carrying the kettle 19 kilometers to Lake Huron, where there was a water ceremony.
I learned that in the Anishinaabe tradition, women are the keepers of the water. I was so moved by the love and gratitude shown for water, that I decided I had to do something. One of the results was the docu-poem, Keepers of the Water (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eKPmTXusPw&feature=youtu.be) - screening at the Wild Lands Film Festival (https://www.facebook.com/events/261361970740279/273837466159396/?notif_t=plan_mall_activity).
Searching for water quotes, I found e.e. cummings:
For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),
It's always our self we find in the sea.
Then I found another TED Talk by Nichols. I was stunned to find he based his whole talk on the same cummings' – "maggie and millie and molly and may" (http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/maggie-and-milly-and-molly-and-may). I love it when scientists quote poetry and poets pay attention to science.
Consider what Anglo-American poet W.H. Auden wrote:
Thousands have lived without love,
not one without water.
My granddaughter is fortunate to be surrounded by a loving family. But she might have difficulty getting safe drinking water when she's my age. The American Geophysical Union published a paper that found "the rate of global groundwater depletion more than doubled between 1960 and 2000." Based on these findings, scientists say if water were drained from the Great Lakes at the 2000 year rate of 68 cubic miles per year, "they would go bone-dry in around 80 years."
As inconceivable as this seems, this could happen. It almost happened to the Aral Sea(http://www.unep.org/dewa/vitalwater/article115.html). So what can we do? Maybe a good place to start is to remember when we first fell in love with nature and what might we might do to strengthen that connection.
These are my three blue prayers.
May Owen Sound become a Blue Community (http://www.canadians.org/bluecommunities) - under consideration by Owen Sound Council.
This means recognizing water as a human right; making sure water and waste water services are publicly owned, and banning the sale of bottled water in public facilities and events.
May we come together to protect the Great Lakes.
The Great Lakes Commons is a grassroots effort to establish a living commons — shared waters that we all take care of and protect in perpetuity. Follow this link to discover 10 Ways to be a Great Lakes Commons Champion.(http://www.greatlakescommons.org/commoning/). Water justice is a climate change issue. If you're concerned, join the Owen Sound People's Climate March on Sunday, September 21, noon, St. George's Church (https://www.facebook.com/350GBOS).
May we celebrate our waters together.
Join me, Owen Sound Poet Laureate Terry Burns and musicians Keira McArthur and Coco Love Alcorn for an hour of poetry, music and song. Sunday, September 28, 2 pm at the Black History Cairn in Harrison Park. A 100,000 Poets and Musicians for Change event (http://100tpc.org/).
Liz Zetlin is a poet, filmmaker and the former poet laureate of Owen Sound.
