The Bear

If I get behind one more logging truck or big pickup and can’t see far enough ahead to pass, I think I’ll scream. The speed limit through Georgia is only 55, and I’m on a two-lane highway through pecan groves and cotton fields, rows of peanuts and planted pines, crossing bridges over rivers and creeks, headed to the writing workshop. I gun the red Prius up to 80 mph to pass the big white Ford F350 in front of me with the large black tarp slung across the bed.

As I get closer, my focus shifts and I notice what looks like a mammoth, black, hairy human foot dangling off the passenger’s side of the truck. “What the heck!” I mutter, doing a double take as my car’s speed increases and I draw even with the truck bed.

It’s not a tarp I’m seeing. It’s a huge, hairy, black body, the head—with red mouth agape—hanging off the driver’s side. A bear. Dead. With a large bullet hole open and angry, a jagged ruby wound in the creature’s huge chest.

“Oh, shit!” I exclaim to myself. “Damn!” I grip the steering wheel harder and feel the muscles in my shoulders freeze up. I suck in my breath and work to keep my focus on the road as I pass the truck and its inert cargo while a great silent wail, a tsunami of hot energy, moves up from below my belly and out the top of my head.

I remember the mantra of Chenrezig, the great pearlescent bodhisattva who, unblinking, views the sufferings of sentient beings throughout the worlds—and I begin to chant his mantra that relieves those sufferings, OM MANI PADME HUNG, OM MANI PADME HUNG.

I wonder how the bear died. Was he roaming alone through what he thought was safe forage, looking for berries or honey? Did he feel the wind through the pines, the wind ruffling his thick fur? What were his bear thoughts in the final moments of his life, before the rifle blasted that hole through his heart? Was he aware, in those last seconds, that something had gone awry in his world? Did he feel a giant stabbing pain when the bullet tore away his flesh and scattered his life force, or he did drop all of a sudden to the ground there in the middle of the forest, with the berries ripening and the bees humming and the wind making its wild music in the pines with autumn coming in? What was the last thing he saw? What strange bear image counted as his last thought?

I’m in Georgia, I remembered. Bear hunting is probably legal here.

I feel like I’ve been shot through the heart.

I wrote this piece at a workshop where we were asked to convey an emotion by describing our sense impressions. Do you know which emotion I'm describing here?

An Open Letter to Florida Governor Rick Scott

October 11, 2011

Governor:

Sorry, I just can’t bring myself to address you as “dear.” I hope you’ll understand. J

I just read an article that’s attributed to The Miami Herald in which you are quoted as saying, “How many more jobs you think there is for anthropology in this state? You want to use your tax dollars to educate more people who can't get jobs in anthropology?"

I sure hope you were misquoted, for a couple of reasons. To begin: Every school child learns that subjects and verbs need to agree, and your first sentence reads like an elementary school dropout is speaking. What you should have said was, “How many more jobs DO you think there ARE for anthropology in this state?” But with journalism not being what it once was, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that maybe the reporter goofed here. Stranger things have happened. You’ve probably been involved in stranger things yourself, like that time when you were running HCA Inc. and they settled the largest Medicare fraud case in history for $1.7 billion.

But yeah, I know your mama thinks you’re a good boy. She said so in all those ads you paid for when you bought…oh, sorry…when you got elected governor of Florida.

Now about anthropology. I know a little bit about anthropology because it was my undergraduate major at the University of South Florida; that’s the big school just north of Tampa off I-275, in case you don’t know, because I know you haven’t lived in Florida all that long. I’ll put a picture of something from the school at the top of this article so you can see what it looks like.

This will probably shock you, but I didn’t pick my major to qualify me for a job. I picked it because I loved the subject matter and because it expanded my knowledge about the world and other cultures, and because knowing those things made me a better person and a better citizen of the United States.

By the way, I have to tell you that I love the U.S.A. I was born here—in Texas! where that Rick Perry lives, the one you like so much. My dad served on a destroyer in WWII and my mom was a stay-at-home mom who did the cooking and the housework and baked great pies. While I was growing up, my dad worked in the defense industry and, for a while, in the Federal Aviation Administration. I registered to vote as soon as I was old enough, and I think I’ve voted in every election since then.

Anyway, back to anthropology. Anthropology has a special characteristic that sets it apart from other academic disciplines—the “holistic viewpoint.” What this means is that anthropologists don’t try to understand just one aspect of a culture. Let’s use politics as an example. If I were trying to understand the politics of Florida, I’d examine not just politics but religion, economic systems, social customs, history, languages, health care systems, maybe even the environment, to see if and how each of those things influenced politics. I guess this means I’d investigate whether our politicians were actually representing the people of Florida, or whether they were being paid off by corporate lobbyists to do the bidding of big business. But I digress. J

I loved my studies in anthropology and I graduated with honors. I went on to get a master’s degree in another subject out in California, and I spent most of my adult life working full-time in higher education institutions. No, I never had what you could call a job “in anthropology,” but I sure used what I learned in anthropology in every single job I ever had.

I never made a lot of money, though. I guess this means you will automatically think of me as a failure. But see, that was a choice I made. I wasn’t happy working at institutions where money was the be-all and end-all of existence. I was happier helping people, learning new things, and trying to be of service to the arts, literature, and the environment, because those things are really my passions.

So when you ask “You want to use your tax dollars to educate more people who can't get jobs in anthropology?" I have to answer yes. I didn’t get “jobs in anthropology” but I don’t think Florida’s tax dollars were wasted on me. I don’t think those tax dollars would be wasted on students today, either.

I’ve been a productive citizen ever since I got my bachelor’s degree. I’ve always worked. My education in anthropology helped me to think critically—even creatively—to look at the “big picture,” to appreciate the value of a liberal arts education, to respect people who disagreed with me or held different opinions, to shun labels and sound bites, to think independently, to analyze things, to ask questions and not settle for easy or simplistic answers, and to take seriously my responsibilities as a citizen of my country—including voting.

Oh, wait…something is coming to me. An insight. Could it be…? No. I sure hope not. Well, I have to ask anyway.

Is the reason you don’t want people to study anthropology because you don’t want people like me out here asking questions about you when you run for re-election? And then going to the polls to vote? Now that I think about it, I’m really curious about your answers to these questions.

Looking forward to the courtesy of your reply,

A Word Witch

Old September

School didn’t start, then, until after Labor Day—probably because it was so hot before then that our brains refused to work in un-air conditioned classrooms, and no teacher in his or her right mind wanted to deal with sweaty, unfocused teenagers with greasy faces who stank of sticky 6-12 gnat repellent and raging hormones.

Shopping for school was fun, though. I remember the cedary smell of new pencils, with shavings that curled happily into gray hand-cranked sharpeners that clung to the walls of our classrooms; the snappy click-click of new ballpoint pens and the careful slurping up of thick black ink from glass bottles into old-fashioned fountain pens; the hard bright snaps of shiny three-ring binders; the rustle of new lined notebook paper with holes already punched; the time spent carefully lettering plastic index tabs in bold red, green, blue, and yellow for English, math, science, civics. If I was lucky, I got to pick out a couple of new skirts and blouses, a new snuggly sweater, a pair of soft leather Capezio flats in the year’s latest color, and a fresh lipstick and bottle of nail polish chosen after careful perusal of the latest sultry Revlon ads in Glamour and Mademoiselle magazines.

Orlando in the late 1950s and early 1960s was a sleepy little cow town. The only real shopping districts were on Orange Avenue—where Ivey’s and Dickson-Ives department stores faced off on one corner—and the specialty shops in upscale Winter Park. Drive farther out of town in any direction, and what you found were used car lots, cow pastures, or orange groves as far as the eye could see. No Disney.

September meant weekdays filled with classes and evenings filled with homework, Thursday afternoon pep rallies, Friday night football games with friends, giant floodlights, Coke, and popcorn. September was languid Saturday mornings with the weekend stretching out ahead like a river and, often, Saturday night movies. Sundays were church in the morning, after-church lunch at Morrison’s cafeteria, and late afternoon drives with my parents.

“Let’s go for a drive!” my dad would cry, and clap his hands, and we’d pile into the car just for the fun of driving around, seeing what we could discover on back roads outside of town when the light took on a golden glow and began to slant in shimmery rays through oaks and Spanish moss, through tall pines and spreading orange groves, with the smell of wood smoke from bonfires and cooking fires wisping through the countryside.

Sometime in September, usually right around my birthday near the equinox, we could tell that the quality of light was changing and the weather was shifting, too. Out there on the dirt back roads between Gotha and Windermere, Clermont and Ocoee, DeLand and Cassadaga, early twilight brought a cooldown or even a chill, and we’d reach for the sweaters we’d brought in the car and start murmuring happily about the hot cocoa, marshmallows, and chocolate chip cookies that waited for us at home. On the best of these late afternoon drives, we’d watch the harvest moon come up over the groves, big and orange and brilliant in the smoky blue-dark dusk.

Back then, September was truly the beginning of fall—the month of welcome relief after the long, oppressive summer heat. I’ve never been able to decide what caused my spirits to lift more—my birthday, the new school year, or that first beautiful fall chill. I suspect the answer was “all of the above.”

The memories of those long-past autumns haunt me now, not so much because my parents are dead and buried—although that’s certainly a factor—but mainly because lately we are well into October or even November before we get the fall cooldown that was once September’s hallmark. I live two hours north of Orlando now, so I reckon from past experience we should be feeling fall sooner, not later, but that’s not the case.

Climate change, they say. Global warming, they say. And while there are naysayers, it does seem as if a great majority of the world’s climate scientists agree that something is going on that’s given the earth a fever, and we human beings may be the germs that are causing that disease.

So lately, fall has been a disappointment. My birthdays come and go, and harvest moons rise and set, with no perceptible change in the weather. My Halloween socks lie unused in their dresser drawer until almost Thanksgiving. Instead of sharpening pencils or filling fountain pens and squeezing into a rickety wooden desk chair, I take my seat on a Steelcase ergonomic marvel at my big-screen iMac. It’s not school that occupies my thoughts now, but writing, drought, and the sorry state of our rivers and freshwater springs.

I do still get a rush, though, when the back-to-school shopping flyers start to appear. I think I’ll take a Facebook friend’s advice and do some school shopping next fall and donate what I buy to Stuff the Bus, a local organization that accepts donations for needy students.

Maybe it’s because I’d given up hope, or maybe it’s just a total quirk, or maybe it’s some other reason that I can’t know, but we’ve been blessed this year with what’s felt, at least for a couple of weeks, like an old September. The first break in the heat came just before Labor Day, with another, longer, cooler break—nights down in the 50s and highs in the 80s—a couple of weeks after that. I’ve been tempted to clap my hands and holler, “Let’s go for a drive!” but with gas at $3.50 a gallon, I’ve hesitated.

But tomorrow is the last day of the month, and like a gift, we’re getting a cold front, with forecast lows in the 50s for September 30 and 40s for October 1. Maybe I should throw a party.

Or maybe I should just take a long drive out an old country road. I’ll take a sweater, and I can look forward to a big steaming mug of hot chocolate and marshmallows once I get home. Maybe the fragrant smoke from wood fires will waft like ghosts through the late afternoon sun that glows in golden shafts through big live oak branches and Spanish moss. Maybe I can spot the fingernail-thin crescent moon, just past new and beginning to wax, near the Western horizon. In a perfect world, the moon would ride there accompanied by bright Venus or shiny Jupiter, sparkling like heavenly messengers.

Yup, I think I’ll take that drive, because this might be the last old September I’ll ever have.

Thanks to Forrest Stowe for the use of his photograph, above.

Crying River

fourth largest spring in the world

cave wide as a

four-lane highway

deep as a

five-story building

primeval river

home to Creatures

great and small

real and unreal

alligators in the grass

gill men in their lairs

skinny-necked anhingas dry wings

on baldcypress

yellow-legged moorhens tend babies

on the banks

heron, ibis, cormorant

egrets in young plumage

mer-manatee

cardinal flowers among

wax myrtle, islands of

clear water amid murk

algae-coated eelgrass

“Once so clear it was transparent 120 feet down”

says the ranger

now

cloudy bluegreen water

covers head spring

the ranger says

“overpopulation”

the ranger says

“nitrates”

it will be clear again someday

he says

“nature will take care of it”

we won’t see it

I hear echoes of

my geology teacher:

“If these springs ever get polluted,

it will take thousands of years for them

to get clean”

Would Tallahassee move its spray field

for this wonder?

Couldn’t we all use

less water?

How do we dissolve nitrates, phosphorus?

How do we reverse the damage?

Above the spring

I search for my reflection

See only cloudy murk

And ask myself

Why didn’t I come 20 years ago?

What took me so long?

And I cry, Wakulla

I cry

Wakulla

Bad Romance: Ponce de Leon, Bathing Beauty, and Florida’s Fountains of Youth (Part 2)

Confronted with the wilderness of 16^th-century Florida, it’s understandable why the early Spanish explorers were concerned with taming the land. That taming was necessary, they thought, so that civilization—businesses, governments, towns and cities, agriculture, trade routes and roads, reliable forms of communication—could be established. For civilization to thrive, wilderness—at least a certain amount of it—had to be destroyed.

So from that spring day in 1513 when Ponce first named it and claimed it, wild Florida has been swallowed, first by the Spaniards and then by the French, English, and Americans—up to and including Bathing Beauty and her friends who, because there were more of them, did greater environmental damage than Ponce and the early Spanish explorers could ever have dreamed of.

At DeLeon Springs State Park—where I first encountered Ponce and Bathing Beauty standing arm-in-arm on a large sign outside the park entrance—I came across an old newspaper article titled “Developer Burt Pushed DeLeon Springs Growth.” There’s one sentence in this article that provides the briefest Florida history lesson ever written: “Where Ponce de Leon saw a wilderness, Fred N. Burt saw a great opportunity.” This same history, of course, is also a history of the places we have lost.

So now, in the very early part of the 21^st century, our wetlands have been drained, rivers straightened, canals cut. Golf courses, amusement parks, swimming pools, lawns, and utility companies are sucking up more and more water every day, while water-bottling companies seize opportunities to make a private profit from a public resource. Unregulated fertilizers and septic tanks are leaching nitrates that cause unbridled algae growth in our rivers and streams and, yes springs. Poor Florida has been cleared, dredged, mined, developed, fertilized, and irrigated nearly to death. Paradise has been paved over for parking lots and strip malls. This insanity continues unabated, in part because the State of Florida won’t lift a finger to help; instead, our government seems hell-bent on wrecking all that remains that is wild and beautiful.

And Florida’s world-famous fountains of youth—natural treasures worthy of being a National Park or a World Heritage Site—have begun to sicken and die.

White Springs on the Suwannee River in North Florida and Kissengen Springs in Central Florida were two of the first springs to go dry. Springs that used to be clear, sparkling gems have turned green and cloudy with algae that are choking off the eelgrass and other underwater plants. Swimmers have complained of allergic reactions, probably to toxins in the algae. Ichetucknee Springs has lost about 20 percent of its flow over the last 25 years.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that if we’re going to save our springs, we will have to do it ourselves. We’re going to have to end this bad romance of Ponce de Leon and Bathing Beauty.

**

I’d like to think that if she knew what was really going on—if she didn’t have eyes only for that darkly handsome Spaniard—Bathing Beauty would be shocked at what’s happened to Florida and how our springs have been hurt. I’d like to think she’d feel that shock in a visceral way, as a nauseated knot in her stomach, the same way I feel it. I’d like to think her shock would be enough for her to give up the idea that we can keep on doing what we’ve been doing for 500 years and not lose our fountains of youth forever.

And after she takes her first gasp at what’s happened, I want Bathing Beauty to drop Ponce’s arm. I want her to grab his hand instead, and lead him as fast as she can to the bank of that spring he’s got his eyes on. I want Ponce to take off his helmet and strip off his armor and his boots and his gloves and those silly striped things he’s wearing—yes, even his skivvies. I want Bathing Beauty to lose the bathing suit.

I want them to jump into the turquoise spring stark naked, to feel the cold water take their breath away, to open their eyes to the underwater world around them, to dive and dive again toward the cave where pure water gushes out from porous limestone, to marvel at whatever clarity still remains. I want them, then, to surface, to revel in the sunlight and the water on their skin, the breeze across their faces as they float, finally still, beneath the overhanging trees. And then I want them to swim, to dive, and swim and float again.

I want them to climb from the spring bone tired, but feeling like they’re teenagers who have just discovered this miraculous fountain for the very first time. I want them to make mad, passionate love on the bank of the spring and then go back into the water.

I want them to love the springs as I have loved them—madly, passionately, in the height of summer and the dead of winter and the seasons in between, in the morning and at noon, in the twilight and the darkness, under the sun and under the moon. I want them to feel how sometimes the shock of cold water is the only pure thing in the world. I want them to vow to do everything they possibly can, beginning right now, to make sure that our fountains of youth never fade.

I want them to know this love that never dies.

Bad Romance: Ponce de Leon, Bathing Beauty, and Florida’s Fountains of Youth (Part 1)

They’re an unlikely couple—a hero of the Old World walking arm-in-arm with a maiden of the New—and in their bad romance we can read a story about the waters of La Florida, land of flowers, our beautiful sunshine state.

That’s Ponce de Leon stepping forward out of the 1500s—1513, to be exact—with the pursed-lipped, rigid determination worthy of a manly explorer who is eager to claim new territories for Spain. He is almost totally shielded from the elements: long sleeves and pants to ward off mosquitoes and all manner of biting and stinging insects; boots to protect him from palmettos, ants, sandspurs, and snake bites; armor to deflect native arrows; and gloves to help him hold on to tree limbs as he makes his way downslope through the thick, prickly underbrush that lines our rivers and encircles our springs—those cool turquoise fountains that sparkle like hundreds of diamonds in the sun.

Ponce is on a forward track because he is searching for a singular spring—the fountain of youth—the legendary waters of which, the natives say, revitalize the mind and body and slay the passage of time. He is so focused on his quest that he seems to be ignoring Bathing Beauty.

Clothed in her own skin and the color of the springs themselves, Bathing Beauty in her one-piece suit is a 1940s youthful foil to Ponce’s elder figure. With free-flowing hair and bare arms, legs, and feet, she has consciously surrendered to the elements and to whatever biting, stinging, prickling thing might come her way. She is exposed and vulnerable, but she is not at all worried. She has eyes only for Ponce, her protector, and her small smile hints at her deep regard and affection for him.

Ponce, the darkly handsome Spanish conqueror, could easily be the villain in this story. Certainly he represents the oppression and decimation of the native population as well as the environment. He is alienated by his attitude and attire from the surrounding elements. Perhaps he’s even a cold-hearted lout whose lust for discovery and fame means more to him than the love of this good woman.

And Bathing Beauty—young, beautiful, blonde—could easily be our heroine. She stands united with the elements, her feet firmly planted on the earth, her skin exposed to sunlight and breezes, her bathing suit proof that she will soon immerse herself in water. Her expression radiates a benevolence that makes it doubtful whether she’s ever decimated or oppressed anyone in her short life.

But Ponce and Bathing Beauty have more in common than you might think. He has, after all, given her his arm, and she has taken it. The bad romance has begun.

**

If you had told me when I was growing up in Orlando in the late 1950s and early 1960s that Florida would ever have water problems, I would have laughed at you. But when Bathing Beauty took Ponce de Leon’s arm, she also took on that Old World mindset that the New World and Nature were ripe for vanquishing—a mindset that has continued throughout the five centuries since Ponce first set boot on Florida sand, with heartbreaking consequences for Florida’s springs.

I know about the springs because I’ve grown up with them since I was in the fifth grade, when my family settled in Orlando. It was after that, on a school trip to a park near Apopka—a place called Rock Springs—that I had my first immersion experience. I was entranced by the transparency of this aquamarine world where fish, eelgrass, even sand and limestone at the bottom of the spring were indelibly clear. I was transported to a transparent world unlike anything I had ever seen before.

Even more enchanting, though, was the feel of this water—cool, clear, pure, clean—as it washed over my scalp, my face, my whole body. This was water like no other, water that could refresh not only the body but also the mind and the senses—surely the holy grail of water experiences. It was easy for me, on that day and on many days since, to imagine why people would think that a spring like this one might be the fountain of youth.

That day, I began my own romance with Florida’s springs—a good romance that continued through my high school and college years and even when I moved, for a while, across the country.

I can still name the springs where I was swimming as I marked the different milestones in my life. Sanlando Springs and Wekiva Springs were junior high and high school celebrations. Poe and Ginnie, where I swam in my early 20s, were where I fell completely in love with the springs, doing laps on languid late afternoons with the sun slanting down in gentle beams through the trees, my soul in welcome retreat from the pressures of college and my first real job.

The little hill above Ichetucknee Springs was where a veil once lifted for me, ever so slightly—where I heard the whispers of an ancient, forgotten language carried on the breeze one autumn afternoon, as the shafting sun lit vivid red and gold leaves all around me. Were these the whispers of the Timucuans who would have come here before the arrival of Ponce and his countrymen? I still don’t know.

Even when I lived 2700 miles away, I’d dream about the springs. In my dreams, I’d be swimming like a fish, able to breathe underwater, with clear views of the water around me, the sky above, the eelgrass and limestone below. And I’d wake from those dreams with tears in my eyes.

**

The legend that Ponce de Leon discovered Florida while searching for the fountain of youth has been around for so long that we accept it as true, even though it’s a myth. But myths—especially founding myths that relate to the origins of peoples, cultures, and nations—have a way of seeping into the collective consciousness and pooling there until eventually they begin to flow, unquestioned, into the storylines of history and out of the collective imagination of our artists, writers, and musicians. And the fact that Florida has the largest number of freshwater springs in the world, as well as the largest number of first-magnitude springs, has reinforced the fountain of youth myth for the last 500 years.

For close to 450 of those years, our springs remained primordial, pristine, and pure; they were some of Florida’s first tourist attractions. And if our springs aren’t literal fountains of youth, they are metaphorical ones; the depth and clarity of their cool waters are wellsprings for creativity and for the renewal of body, mind, and spirit.

People still describe their experiences in the springs as “rejuvenating,” “invigorating,” “refreshing,” “fun”—all connotations of youthful vibrancy. But the springs now are not the springs I first encountered some 50 years ago, and the people who are taking their first plunges into springs today do not even know what we have lost.

(to be continued)

Outside the Splendid Dharma Tent and Down the Hill: Karmapa, America, Environment, and Politics

One thing I forgot to say in my previous blog entries was that Karmapa mentioned what he said might be a special relationship that he has with America—how this was the first country he had been able to visit since fleeing Tibet for India, and how it is again the destination of his second foreign trip (a planned trip to Europe fell through in between his visits to the United States). He mentioned that with the uncertainties that surround his ability to travel, he couldn’t say for sure if America would also be the destination of his third trip, and suggested that maybe he should chant a new mantra: OM AMERICA HUM.

I have not been able to shake a kind of eerie feeling I got, along with a thrill, of seeing a photo of His Holiness Karmapa and His Holiness the Dalai Lama in front of the United States Capitol Building during the week-long Kalachakra events just prior to Karmapa’s arrival at KTD. While I rejoiced that these two representatives of Tibetan Buddhism were conferring blessings on many people there in Washington, D.C., I also wondered if they weren’t there to spread those blessings to avert…something (I know not what).

Just today, I heard one of the news analysts on CNN refer to the current debt ceiling/budget crisis not as that, but as “a political crisis.” Two nights ago in his speech to the nation, President Obama stated that although Americans elected a divided government, he didn’t believe we wanted a dysfunctional government. I think about my parents’ generation—my dad served on a destroyer in the Pacific in World War II—and wonder what they would think about a Congress that was so divided that it couldn’t put the best interests of the American people above politics. I think my folks would be horrified, and I am, too. This current divisive climate honors no one—especially not the many, many people who have died so that we could have freedom—and benefits only a very, very few people. Is this really what we want for America? Is this what being a force for goodness and peace looks like?

And it seems that every time I sit down at my computer, I learn about more assaults on our environment—on the elements that Karmapa has made clear support human life—in the forms of attempted rollbacks of environmental protection, increasing pollution, severe consequences of global warming such as the melting of the Himalayan ice caps, and dangerous old and new resource extraction methods such as deep ocean oil drilling, mountaintop removal, hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for oil and natural gas, and exploitation of the Canadian tar sands.

By virtue of his refugee status and his need to travel in order to fulfill his role as leader of the Karma Kagyu Buddhist lineage, Karmapa has to be very careful with the phrasing of his messages; he can’t be overtly political, because that would probably get him banned in some places and severely restrict his ability to travel. But it does seem to me—and I want to make it clear that this is my interpretation only—that when Karmapa said to us at KTD that America has a responsibility to be a powerful force for peace, that he is placing his hopes in us, and that he has the great hope to help us and support us in everything, he was sending us a message: Don’t let the forces of ignorance, aggression, and greed become the dominant forces in the United States of America.

From what I hear from friends who have attended other events with Karmapa since his appearance at KTD, he is continuing to reinforce this message, but in different ways. Friends who were at Kunzang Palchen Ling (KPL), Bardor Tulku Rinpoche’s center across the Hudson River from KTD, reported that Karmapa said that compassion is not just intention—it’s also action.

A friend who was at KPL and at Kagyu Thubten Choling, Lama Norlha’s center in Wappingers Falls, sent me text messages that read, in part: “At KPL…he talked about how interconnected we all are, as everything that reaches our hands is the product of many people. His Holiness (HH) then explained that we should show gratitude to Mother Earth and all beings for their kindness. And he emphasized how Mother Earth provides for us all. At Lama Norlha’s center…he emphasized how so many disasters these days are man made and preventable. In explaining that an empowerment is meant to transform our minds, he said we need to change the way we use our technology and our advancements because of the damage to the environment which, he warned, is almost irreversible. In transforming our mind, HH emphasized that we need to ask ourselves what we can do for the environment. At the conclusion, there was a downpour and a rainbow.” (Italics are mine.)

Compassion is not just intention—it’s also action. We need to ask ourselves what we can do for the environment. These are powerful subjects to consider.

I am left with memories that will last a lifetime, with the knowledge that Karmapa lives in my heart as surely as all of us live in his, and with a renewed vow to do everything I can here in my little corner of the world to make sure that what is sacred and special about Florida’s environment is not destroyed forever.

Video recordings of His Holiness Karmapa’s talks are now available via the KTD web site.

May these blog entries bring benefit to the sentient beings who encounter them and to the environment that supports us all. I take full responsibility for any mistakes in the transcription and reporting of Karmapa’s remarks. If you find errors while reading this, please let me know so that I can correct them! Thank you.