On the banks of the Animas River, in the San Juan watershed south of the Weminuche Wilderness, north and east of the canyons of the Colorado River, west of the Rio Grande, the birds are quiet this morning. All of us are in shock, looking at this yellow-green river, flowing slowly with arsenic, lead and cadmium. What will the herons and eagles eat? How toxic are the fish that are still alive in this poisoned bloodstream of this valley?
Who would have thought that our precious Animas would fall victim to a toxic spill? And yet, we’ve known that Silverton, our neighbor to the north, has tons of undealt-with mine waste. It’s been easy to look the other way, ignore what is just under the surface of the earth, just under the surface of our consciousness.
I saw an interview with a woman in Kenya. She is a farmer, owns a cow, sells her produce. By our standards, she is “uneducated” and “poor.” She lamented, “We are humans, we pollute our environment.” All of us are beginning to understand this flaw in the nature of our species.
Joanna Macy teaches us that, until we are willing to feel the grief of how we have impacted our Earth, we will not be able to access the anger we need to heal the wounds we have caused to our mother, Gaia.
We need to be willing to feel this grief in our own bodies. Our bodies are Earth’s local representative. We need to understand on the deepest of levels that we are totally interdependent with everything. All is interconnected, one being.
As the sun rises this morning, moving south along what I call “Visionary Ridge,” I can see that some of the mustard yellow is shifting to brown in what I hope will soon be crystal clear water of El Rio de Las Animas Perdidos. I know the Earth will return to balance. There will be casualties along the way. I pray that all my relations will be healthy and whole once again.
Jessica Zeller
Durango
