Today, I sent you another one-line email about the love I feel for my puppy. You are the first person I can call up and chant “I love her too much. Why is she so cute? ” on repeat. Who else will listen without rolling eyes at me ? Mothers to human babies can talk about the love without getting dismissed. Dog mothers, are shy for a good reason. Only a soul sister can listen. Today, I am planning the day around taking her to the marsh and showing her the birds. It’s a 2 hour walk. I should be working and doing zillion other things. But for her, time and energy gets summoned. I want to see her play on the trails. To give her this experience, is my pride. I want her to show me what my eyes don’t see. To learn one more little detail about the land I live on, is slow mindful travel. After wishing that I lived closer to wilderness – a forest by my mind’s default image of nature, I realized that I did live next to one of the last remaining swamps in the Bay. California, has been slowly restored it using our tax payer money. Forests get all the attention, while there are other biomes near me. All of them are significant and necessary. We have not learnt the importance of grasslands and wetlands. Grasslands look like empty space for future McMansions. Wetlands are drained and landfilled. We destroy them and plant some trees in the wrong places in the name of reforestation. Puppy and I, have set out to discover the beauty of the wetlands. I really wish that a certain politician didnt make ‘drain the swap’, a colonialist understanding of how to destroy an ecosystem, the political slogan for his campaign. It’s the equivalent of ‘burn the forest’ if the biome is swapped. The indigenous people who lived here till 200 years ago, lived in symbiosis with the wetlands. The colonizers made it a ranch land. Then a farm. Then a suburb. ‘Protect the swaps’ can now never become a rally cry. After the recent floods, it has become my silent prayer. Someday soon, as the Forestry chapter at Citizens Climate Lobby strengthens, the prayer is on track to become a tangible action plan. We are gathering strength in numbers – experts, poets, educators, citizens, council members, lawmakers and activists. For now, armed with the cutest puppy as my partner, I learn. Today, she teaches me to see beauty of the swamp and the life in it.
Reading. : I go to the other, hold out my begging bowl and ask them to fill it with their beauty.