Background
When I was let go from my job with the Ichetucknee Alliance, I didn't think my work on behalf of Florida's freshwater springs was finished. But I was puzzled about what might come next. Every time I consulted the tarot cards, they told me to "join heaven and earth."
I floated an idea to do just that to several people I know in the water advocacy community, and most of them replied with enthusiastic agreements to participate. It took quite a few months, however, for the full-blown idea to manifest.
The result of that manifestation was the program "Sacred Springs Stories" that was held on February 6, 2025, thanks to the great generosity of Bob Knight, Haley Moody and the good people at the Florida Springs Institute's Welcome Center in downtown High Springs, Florida. You can see the flyer for the program in the image above.
There will eventually be a video of the program, but I also wanted to post here some of what I wrote for remarks that I made there. I couldn't say everything I wanted to say because of time constraints, but since this was likely my "swan song" for my work on behalf of our springs, I'm posting what I wrote here as a partial record of the event.
I hope those of you who were able to be there enjoyed our presentations!
Opening Remarks
I’m starting this evening by talking about our current zeitgeist, or spirit of the time, to acknowledge how many of us are feeling these days. Here’s a quote from one of the Tibetan Buddhist teachers I’m familiar with—the 16th Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, who talked about living through what he called a Dark Age and how our minds are connected to our environment:
It's called the Dark Age because the more uplifting and meritorious qualities of the human world are diminishing whereas the gross and neurotic aspects of the human qualities are more present and becoming more apparent. One could say that it's like clear water that diminishes or dries up, allowing you to see the mud and clay appearing. This kind of situation has to do with the quality of the human mind.
I assure you that we are here tonight not to dwell on the idea of a Dark Age, but to offer some inspiration, beauty, and upliftment to all of the human minds gathered in this space. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy days to join us. Let’s get started.
 |
| Calligraphy by Joon Thomas |
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.This beginning of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1797 poem “Kubla Khan” may well have been inspired by Florida’s freshwater springs as they were described by William Bartram in 1791.
Over 200 years later, I heard echoes of “Alph, the sacred river” at Rum Island Spring. I had finished swimming and was coming out of the water when I saw a young woman standing on the bank, looking at the spring.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I said.
Her response? “It’s sacred.”
When I first read this quote by Gus Speth, these words jumped out: “The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation. And we scientists and lawyers don’t know how to do that.” (A reference to the human mind, again)
Science—the kind of science that’s done here at FSI and in our universities—is absolutely the bedrock upon which our work toward springs health stands.
But science alone is not enough.
The reflections of the human mind that we find in the social sciences, arts and humanities are just as important for springs restoration as geology, hydrology, and systems ecology—but these human dimensions haven’t been given as much attention as the hard sciences, and that needs to change. Why? Because our springs are living systems and they need living people to join hands with them by doing more than just studying the problems, raising awareness and filing lawsuits.
What Speth was talking about is culture change—changing the mental paradigms of how we live on Mother Earth, one heart at a time, so that we can change the behaviors that are causing damage. Those changes must include the idea that we humans exist in a relationship with Mother Nature who sustains us. Humans and natural systems are interconnected.
When the Gainesville water writer Cynthia Barnett introduced the idea of a Florida water ethic, she too was suggesting culture change.
Another writer, Janisse Ray up in Georgia, stresses that stories are the building blocks of culture. To change our culture, we need to change our minds and our stories—the stories we tell ourselves, our families and friends, and our neighbors.
There are some thinkers who are even starting to say that it is relationships, not atoms, that are the building blocks of the universe—but that’s a topic for another time.
This gentleman is suggesting that stepping outside our culture may give us new perspectives, new ideas, new inspirations. As you listen to our storytellers, please think about how you think about our springs and about the stories you tell about them, and how that is either similar or different from tonight’s stories.
Can we tell stories that include the kinds of relationships we have with water? Stories that rejuvenate our hearts, minds and communities as well as our springs? Stories that weave our fleeting earthly experiences with the timeless spiritual truths we know to be sacred?
We won’t tell you how or why you should consider something to be sacred; that’s for each of us to decide. Just know that there are many different reasons that places can be called “sacred.” One of those reasons is that people sometimes have extraordinary or even paranormal experiences at some spots. These experiences occur in all the world’s cultures and you may hear some examples tonight. Because these experiences can neither be proven nor disproven, we encourage you to listen with open minds and to understand that the importance of such experiences is revealed through what they mean to the person who has them.
One of my spiritual teachers has suggested that to inspire real environmental change, we must evoke new emotions in people. After each story, there will be a pause of one minute. Please hold your applause until the end of the program and please use that one minute as a kind of meditation, to open yourselves to inspiration or to think about what feelings or ideas came up for you during the presentation.
(to be continued in Part 2)
