What's Your Water?

Embracing Water (art by Hallelujah Truth)

WHAT'S YOUR WATER?
An intriguing question! I've been contemplating this question since I attended the 100 Miles Second Annual Conference on Jekyll Island, Georgia, USA, last week (January 13th).  The renown marine biologist, movement maker, and visionary, Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, passionately spoke about WATER with an evangelical fervor!

WHAT'S YOUR WATER? The question asked by Wallace J. Nichols at the beginning of his keynote talk at the 2018 100 Miles Conference on Jekyll Island, Georgia, USA. 

Someone a while ago asked me which one of the four elements (Earth, Water, Air, or Fire) I most identified with. The questioned haunted me for some reason. In part, I felt challenged. I had always held all of the Earth to be very dear. Why would I choose one element to embrace in particular?

Then one day when I was hiking with my boon companion, Tony Martin, on Mount Arabia, a national heritage area close to where we live in Decatur, Georgia, I had an epiphany! I was hopelessly and madly in love with ROCKS.

YAY ROCKS! Of the four elements, I have fallen deeply and madly in love with ROCKS. Here I am at Mount Arabia, a granite monadnock, which has its own rich ecosystem. (photo by boon companion, Tony Martin)

For those of you who know me, you know that my boon companion and husband is a paleontologist, and even more importantly, an ichnologist! Since we met in 2001, I have spent innumerable hours out in the world on, at, surrounded by, and embraced by ROCKS. 

These ROCKS have histories! Rich in story, they can tell us about how the earth evolved, rivers that flowed through them in ancient times, fiery powerful forces uplifting them and downshifting them, and life (like dinosaurs) that walked upon them and left their traces.

I adore the smell of rocks, their rough and smooth surfaces beneath my feet, and the vast and various colors! Yay ROCKS! 

So imagine my surprise at being asked to shift my mindset to WATER at this 100 Miles Conference (I have always seen the 100 miles of our Georgia Coastline as an inseparable duality of land and sea). Why should I consider the question: WHAT'S YOUR WATER? Why is this question relevant and why is a research associate at the Academy of Sciences asking it? 

Wallace J. Nichols
#100MilesGA 2018

Because the health of our Earth's waterways and oceans is dependent on each of us connecting with WATER in a personal way! It is not enough for us to "know" the facts that our oceans are at risk from rising temperatures, overfishing, and pollution. We must also "feel" impacted by those negative changes as a result of our relationship to WATER. From connection comes responsibility, and from responsibility, action.

The only way we are going to succeed in engaging ourselves and others in conserving WATER is to get EMOTIONALLY involved. It is not enough to espouse water's value intellectually through education of its economic value and the balance of ecological systems! NO!

We must love WATER wholeheartedly with both our minds and--significantly--OUR HEARTS!

THE FOUR E's! In addition to "knowing" about water through the 3 E's --Ecological, Economical, Educational -- we need to experience it through our Emotions. (This image is a PowerPoint slide from Wallace J. Nichols' keynote talk at #100MilesGA.)

Imagine a scientist inviting us to name our WATER. What is your experience with water? Can you name the body of WATER you first went swimming in as a child? What kind of activities do you do with WATER? How does WATER make you feel? 

Wallace J. Nichols wrote an entire book -- BLUE MIND -- exploring the role WATER plays in our lives. As a scientist, he looks to neuroscience to explain the benefits to us humans at an emotional and health level. In the works is a new book, "The Seven Ages of Water," in which Nichols explores from birth through death the cognitive, emotional, psychological, social, and spiritual benefits of healthy waterways and oceans.

CALLING FOR A SPIRITUAL AND CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION. Asking scientists to shift in how they engage themselves and the general public in thinking about conservation. (Wallace J. Nichols used this in his keynote talk #100MilesGA 2018)

ALWAYS INCLUDE "BLUE MIND." The summary slide of Wallace J. Nichols' keynote talk at #100MilesGA celebrates the role of WATER in our lives. He emphasizes that we all need access to water at every stage of our lives. He also encourages conservationists and scientists to be present to the universal need of humans to connect with water and to share this "Blue Mind" awareness in their public outreach. 

BLUE MIND. For a week, I have been contemplating what my "Blue Mind" might be. Right now, I am dancing with my WATER, open to feeling the connection I know I have. For the past three days, I have been drawing this "Blue Mind" image, meditating on the various water experiences in my life. I am so thankful for this opportunity to expand my heart in connection with the Earth. In a short 7 days, I am thinking differently about WATER. It is almost like I am hearing its pulse. And that pulse is amplifying. In the future, I will write more about my WATER experience. (Art by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter)

OUR BELOVED GEORGIA COAST. In answering the question "What's Your Water," I can make this claim: My WATER(s) are the coastal waterways along the coast of Georgia and the marshes and fresh waters on its barrier islands. I have had the enormous privilege of spending time up and down the 100 miles of our Georgia coast as Tony Martin researched and wrote his book, Life Traces of the Georgia Coast, and now works with his Emory colleagues the digital project, The Georgia Coast Atlas. Here we are on Ossabaw Island, December 2017. With each visit to the Georgia coast, I fall more deeply in love with what we locals call the Golden Isles. 

That's Coffee with Hallelujah for now! Soul Blog with me. I want to know your answer to the question: WHAT'S YOUR WATER?

I AM A LOVER OF THE LAND

PERPETUATE. The words preserve, maintain, conserve, sustain, continue come to my mind when I think of our Earth, and in particular, my beloved Georgia Coast. (art by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter)

Hallelujah for our beautiful Earth! Hallelujah for all of us who are Earth lovers and caretakers. Hallelujah for conferences like #100MilesGA that bring together conservationists who inhabit the 100 miles of Georgia Coast. 

This past weekend (January 13th), I attended the second annual 100 Miles Coastal Conference on Jekyll Island. The theme of this conference was "Choosing to Lead." I was asked several questions about my involvement in taking environmental action for the Earth related to climate change and our Georgia Coast.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT?

WHO, ME?

ME? RUTH SCHOWALTER, aka Hallelujah Truth on Jekyll Island, Georgia, 2018; Second Annual 100 Miles Conference: Coastal Conservation in Action/Choosing to Lead. (photo by Tony Martin)

I didn't have a ready answer. And I really wanted one. After all, aren't I involved in environmental activism? 

Here are some items of action I have accumulated:

1. I am the wife and field assistant of the author of Life Traces of the Georgia Coast. (All you have to do is read the book and see how present I was in my husband Tony Martin's jaunts up and down the Georgia Coast and the majority of its barrier islands. I supported his research and documented his work through photos and blog posts.

2. Even before Tony's Life Traces book came out, I had illustrated a children's story, "The Misadventures of Maria the Hutia," set in the Bahamas and about endangered species there. The book is used in the Bahamian schools.

3. Over the years, I have generated numerous images and written blogs about the Georgia coast. See these blog posts as examples: Life Cycle of the Moon Snail: Lions of the Tidal Flats, Eternal Sacred Images: We Find Ourselves in Nature, Substituting Beauty for the Spiritual: An Interview with Carol Ruckdeschel.

4. I began a collaboration on the life-cycle of the American Oystercatcher with Jenifer Hilburn, then the ornithologist on St Catherine's Island. See a couple of the blog posts that documented this process to get the idea of our collaboration: Getting Inside of the Egg, Embracing Hope as a Strategy for Conserving the Environment. I would love to complete this body of work in the future to bring attention to endangered animals along the eastern coast of the U.S.

5. For the past several years, I have been integrating the improvisational system of InterPlay with science communication. In addition to training undergraduate science majors, international scientists and researchers how to express their ideas more effectively, I engage the general public in "play" around topics of evolution, the environment, water monitoring, and science as fact. Here are two blog posts: Improvising Trilobite Eyes: InterPlaying with Evolutionary Concepts at the Atlanta Science Festival,and  Shyness Evaporates: College Science Students Use InterPlay Storytelling Methods to Convey Their Nature Observations.

But, how do I condense what I do into one polite concise but descriptive response? I find myself lacking confidence in the face of a lack of clarity. I need a vision statement that will embrace it all!!!

Perhaps  I am a LOVER...A LOVER of the land as author, poet and wildlife ecologist J. Drew Lanham talked about the closing keynote of the 100 Miles Conference this past Saturday. He equated being a lover with being a conservationist. Here is his definition of conservation:

"Conservation is caring about something intensely enough to save it for later for others." -J. Drew Lanham

J. Drew Lanham. Master Teacher and wildlife ecologist at Clemson University, Lanham teaches that conservation must be a blending of the head and the heart. A widely published author, he has most recently published, "The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature," which won the 2017 Southern Book Prize. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

This caring for the environment equates LOVE. We are LOVERS, those of us who care for the land, striving to take action to save it for later for others.

Could my answer be: "I am a LOVER of the LAND. I care intensely enough about it to save it for later." ?

That's Coffee with Hallelujah. Soul Blog with me. I want to know what you are doing as a caretaker for the Earth? Do you care intensely enough about the Earth to save it for later for others?  Are you too a LOVER of the LAND?

PERPETUATE. This image began back in 2014 as an outcome of the work that I was doing with the ornithologist, now Altamaha Riverkeeper, Jenifer Hilburn. We were collaborating on a story about the American Oystercatcher. She was the scientist taking action to perpetuate the life of this coastal bird, and I was the artist, listening to the plight of this endangered species and interpreting the emotion of the situation. Titled, "Perpetuate," this piece was an "outside" image from our storytelling effort. That is, I put myself into the image as the central figure as way of engaging myself personally in our conservation storytelling. By being front and center is the way I figure things out. I put myself into the Georgia Coast landscape. In viewing the life cycle of the American Oystercatcher, I was able to see where it nested in a "scrape" nest on thin bars of marsh land covered with oyster shells. The nests are threatened by rising sea levels, predators, and mindless boat visitors. In my hands, I hold "Baby New Soul," who embraces a baby alligator. Yes, there appears to be a story here. Stay tuned. (art by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Thanks to Tony Martin, whose amazing life's work takes

him again and again to the Georgia Coast. In great appreciation to the Emory University project, The Georgia Coast Atlas, that funded this trip to the 100 Miles Second Annual Conservation Conference.