The Radical Act of Planting a Tree and a Heart-to-Heart Blessing (Karmapa Pilgrimage 2015, Part 3)

Earth Day (April 22, 2015) dawned grey and cold in Woodstock but thankfully, the rain had stopped and the road up to KTD was dry although the parking lot at the pond was extremely muddy. I drove into the lot slowly and circled around, careful to choose a parking place where I didn’t think my car was likely to get stuck.

Every time I visit the pond I am reminded of my friend Sandra, who was a housekeeper at KTD for quite a few years. I met her and we forged a friendship when she was one of my roommates in the dorm in the old Meads Mountain House the first time I attended a 10-day teaching by my refuge lama, Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche.

Sandra was a smoker and after supper at the end of the day, we liked to walk down to the pond where she would smoke, I would enjoy the scenery, and we would have long conversations about the dharma, our Buddhist teachers, and our lives. I loved the dharma path festooned with prayer flags, the calm water where people have reported seeing nagas, and the looming hills of the Catskill Mountains. Once, Sandra and I even saw a bear foraging for food on the far side of the pond! Sandra has since died of cancer, but I miss her still and remember her as one of the most spiritual people I’ve ever met—pure in her devotion to her teachers, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and His Holiness Karmapa, and eager to live a life completely devoted to high-level dharma practice. I hope that is possible for her now.

Back to present time. I was going to KTD on Earth Day morning because I had learned about a scheduled tree-planting ceremony with Karmapa the day before, in a chance conversation with one of the security guards at KTD’s gate. As I hiked up the hill from the parking lot, I was thinking about that serendipitous conversation when I noticed something unusual—little tiny blobs of white falling from the sky. I looked closer and yes, it was snow! I was hiking up to KTD through a softly falling flurry of snow. In April!

The tree-planting ceremony was an unofficial event that had not been publicized at all, as far as I could tell, because the crowd was extremely small. Even standing outside the roped-off area within which Karmapa and his party would be seated, I thought that this was probably the closest I would ever be to him. And because it was not an official event, we were permitted to take photographs. Several press and official KTD photographers were working within the roped-off area in front of the small group of us who had come for the ceremony, but those people took care not to interfere with our sightlines. I was able to get some good photos, including some of the photographers themselves.

“The usual suspects”—some of the KTD lamas and staff members—were there, as well as representatives of different faiths (Zen, Christian, Jewish) from the area in and around Woodstock. Some of the Woodstock Town Council members were there too, including the councilman I’d met at the Inn on the Millstream earlier in the week.

His Holiness Karmapa, attired in red robes and sporting the sunglasses that I always think make him look wickedly handsome (“wickedly” as in “extremely,” not as in “evil”), had unfortunately caught a cold and didn’t speak, but Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche addressed the small crowd briefly.

As Khenpo’s remarks were being interpreted, I was standing directly opposite Karmapa. While I couldn’t ever tell exactly what he was looking at because of his shades, there was one instant at which his face was turned toward me and I felt what I can only describe as a completely unexpected bolt of powerful energy shoot straight from his heart into mine. Was this Karmapa’s blessing? I don’t doubt it. For the Tibetans, “mind” resides in the heart, not the brain, and it is from the heart chakra that we generate bodhicitta—the wish for all beings to become enlightened. Talk about my heart being opened!

When the time came to plant his tree, Karmapa was not shy about getting his hands dirty. The tree, which looked like a small Japanese maple, had graced the stage at the Ulster Performing Arts Center in Karmapa’s earlier appearances, and he carefully tended the placement of soil around its roots and then applied a generous amount of water.

Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche’s tree, which looked like a small fir or other evergreen, was being carefully tended by Rinpoche’s own helpers when Rinpoche—who is over 90 years old and now walks with a cane—approached and used the cane to shovel dirt onto the tree’s roots.

The ceremony—on the surface so short and simple—was, for me, a deeply moving experience, and not only because I palpably sensed Karmapa’s blessing.

I think that when great forces are arrayed against the health of the environment—and, by extension, against the human beings who are supported by that environment—sometimes the most radical thing we can do is something simple like planting a tree. Such a seemingly simple act is actually a radical affirmation that lovingkindness and compassion can triumph over the poisons of greed and ignorance.

During one of the 10-day teachings I attended about Machik Labdron and her practice of chod (severance of ego) several years ago, I gained an unshakeable faith in her and in my Buddhist teachers—the faith that, while I must continue to make my own efforts to keep to the dharma path, we are each surrounded by blessings at all times, on all sides, blessings that can make the impossible possible and change hearts, minds and even external circumstances if we do our dharma work and remain open to them. I was certain that it was because of such blessings that I had been led to the tree-planting ceremony.

I pondered those thoughts about dharmic blessings as I took the path back to my car and drove slowly and carefully down the long and winding road into Woodstock. Through the winter-bare trees, I glimpsed the Ashokan Reservoir—one of the water sources for the people of New York City—glinting in the distance. I thought about my own work on behalf of the springs and waters in my home state of Florida.

And I realized that thanks to one true spiritual friend at KTD and a chance conversation with a security guard, I will carry the images, inspirations and blessings of that tree-planting ceremony in my heart for a long, long time.

Some Helpful People and "Rain" in the Rain (Karmapa Pilgrimage 2015, Part 2)

The first time I ever visited Woodstock, I was prepared to like it. I had heard about it from a friend and knew it would be wonderful. I wasn’t prepared, though, to fall in love with it—but that’s what happened. What’s not to love about a place that’s stunningly beautiful, filled with interesting shops, politically progressive, a center for writing and the arts, and the home of one’s spiritual teachers?

The first place I stayed in Woodstock was the place I returned to on this most recent trip—the Woodstock Inn on the Millstream. I first chose the Inn based on a photo I saw on the Internet, and I was thrilled with my choice. I’ve always been somewhat sensitive to what I call “place energy,” and the Inn has some of the most positive, rejuvenating place energy I’ve ever experienced; I describe it to friends as a “vortex of happiness.”

So it was with relief after a long drive up the East Coast, including navigating traffic like I hadn’t seen in a long time outside Washington, D.C., on the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, and having a bit of a white-knuckle experience on the Francis Scott Key Bridge above Baltimore harbor, that I pulled into the parking lot at the Inn on Sunday, April 19, arriving in New York just in time to attend His Holiness Karmapa’s bestowal of the Karma Pakshi empowerment at the Ulster Performing Arts Center (UPAC) in nearby Kingston that evening.

I had originally thought I wouldn’t travel to see Karmapa this time. I had, after all, seen him on his two previous trips to the USA, and money for the trip was tight to nonexistent. But then I heard that he would be giving a talk in Woodstock on Earth Day, and I was hooked—because I’m certain that it’s due to his blessings, as well as blessings I’ve received from my refuge lama, Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, and perhaps even from the energy of Machik Labdron herself—that I am able to earn money in retirement from working to restore, protect and preserve Florida’s fabulous freshwater springs. Karmapa’s dedication to the environment and his teachings about the importance of valuing and preserving it are continual inspirations to me.

Tibetan Buddhist teachers say that obstacles can arise when you are planning a visit to an important teacher and that you should be thankful for those obstacles, because they mean you are purifying past karma. The first big obstacle I encountered was that after hearing the first rumor of Karmapa’s Earth Day talk, I could find out nothing more about it!

I wrote to the KTD office; nothing. I wrote to an official in the Town of Woodstock whose address I found on the Internet; nothing. I asked the lama at Gainesville KTC; nothing. Finally—and in desperation—I wrote to the one remaining person I know who is still living at KTD, and that person kindly gave me the information I needed to solidify plans for the trip. I think of this person as a friend but I don’t know if the feeling is mutual; however, it seems s/he has always been right on the spot whenever I’ve needed help with something or answers to questions. It strikes me that must be the true definition of a dharma friend—someone who helps even a mere acquaintance who can be an intrusive questioner, pushy or even obnoxious in her demands for information.

The Karma Pakshi empowerment was a late-breaking development and I was fortunate to get a ticket in the nosebleed section of UPAC. Karmapa, as always, was magnificent. But the highlights of the trip for me were the two smaller events that happened on Earth Day.

Through a total coincidence—or was it?—I met a Town Council member who was doing construction at the Inn on one of the first mornings I was there. Over coffee in the breakfast room, he confirmed details of Karmapa’s Earth Day talk and we had a good chat about Buddhism, KTD, and the town’s wish to keep the Earth Day talk quiet because the roads into Woodstock can easily become overwhelmed with traffic. Ah! He explained my difficulty in finding out about the event—the Town Council had asked KTD not to publicize it!

Monday, my first full day in Woodstock, was grey and rainy and cold. I mostly hunkered down in my warm, comfy room, complete with electric fireplace, and made no attempt to go up the hill to KTD because I knew Karmapa was giving a talk to KTD’s members and I was certain that access to the grounds would be limited to those people. I did brave the elements to go out for lunch and to visit The Golden Notebook, one of the local bookstores, where I scored a copy of my friend Cynthia Barnett’s just-released book, Rain:  A Natural and Cultural History. I couldn’t resist taking a photo of Rain in the rain at the inn.

On Tuesday, I headed up the hill to visit Namse Bangdzo—the amazing bookstore at KTD that I describe to people as the best Buddhist bookstore in North America—but there were security guards at the gate who explained that the bookstore was closed that day too. Leaning out of the car window, I fell into a bit of friendly conversation with them and they mentioned the Earth Day talk on Wednesday. I told them I was planning to go and one of them added, “There’s a tree planting ceremony here tomorrow at 10 a.m. and everyone is invited; you could come back then.”

Wow—not one but two events with Karmapa on Earth Day! I felt like I had just won the Lotto.

Here's a clip of Karmapa talking about Karma Pakshi at UPAC.

My Heart Is Broken Open (Karmapa Pilgrimage 2015, Part 1)

From the Low Country marshes of Georgia and South Carolina to the high forested banks of New York’s Hudson River…from the warmth of a North Florida April afternoon to morning snow flurries on a mountain above Woodstock…and from the realm of the everyday to magical heart-opening jolts of energy and emotion, my pilgrimage to see His Holiness Karmapa unfolded as I drove up the Eastern seaboard, AAA TripTik at the ready on the passenger’s seat of my tiny blue Toyota Yaris.

On his two previous trips to the USA, I had flown to New York to see HH Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, who heads the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. This time—driven by a strong intuition that several days alone in a car would be good for me and an even stronger desire to avoid cramming myself into a crowded airplane—I decided to drive.

I had made the drive up I-95 several years ago to attend a tarot workshop in North Carolina. Many years ago, I made several car trips back and forth from Florida to Fairfax, Virginia, where my parents were living when my father worked for the Federal Aviation Administration in Washington, D.C. In 1978, I drove alone in a VW Beetle from Florida to California and wound up spending 11 years in the San Francisco Bay Area before driving back, this time in a VW Dasher and with a partner, in 1989. So I am no stranger to long trips in small cars, but this was the first time I’d driven by myself to New York.

When I left Florida, the blooms had disappeared from our plum trees, redbuds, dogwoods and azaleas. In North Carolina, I noticed these trees and flowers were still blooming; in a sense, I was driving backwards from early summer into a second spring. At some points, the vivid new greens that cloaked the trees along the roadside were splashed with pink splotches of blooming redbuds or the white highlights of plums and dogwoods, looking for all the world more like Impressionist paintings than the boundaries of an Interstate highway.

I silently awarded my prize for “most beautifully landscaped I-95 rest areas” to the State of North Carolina. Blooming dogwoods, Japanese maples, azaleas and shaded woods lit by shafts of morning sunbeams were a feast for the eyes. We do live in such a beautiful world, and so many of us take it for granted.

It was somewhere in North Carolina, too, that my world shifted beneath me and my heart opened more powerfully than it had in many years.

What got my attention was a profusion of yellow wildflowers growing in the median of the highway. That the flowers got my attention was not unusual; what was unusual was the route sparked in my memory by the sight of those flowers.

The first person I thought of was Lady Bird Johnson, whose fondness for wildflowers and, in particular, Texas bluebonnets, inspired a whole new respect for these botanical beauties back in the middle of the 20^th century. We have Lady Bird to thank for the wildflowers we enjoy along our roadways today. (For more information, see: https://www.wildflower.org/environmental_first_lady/.)

Thinking about Lady Bird reminded me of my father, who—like Lady Bird—was a native Texan and a lover of nature’s beauty. I remembered the many times I heard Dad complain about the ruination of Florida by developers after we moved to Orlando in the 1950s.

And of course when I remembered my dad, I remembered my mother too. But it was the next memory that opened my heart and brought me to tears.

I remembered something the brilliant Tibetan-to-English translator, Lama Yeshe Gyamtso, said many years ago when I interviewed him for a story I was writing for a newsletter of the group that later became Gainesville Karma Thegsum Choling. He said that when you finally realize the profundity of the dharma—the Buddha’s teachings—you will be filled with gratitude for all your teachers and indeed, for anyone who has ever taught you anything in your life, including the people who taught you to read.

I had understood the lama’s point intellectually before, but driving up I-95 past those blooming yellow flowers, I finally got his point emotionally. Knowing that I was on my way to see Karmapa—the most important teacher of all the teachers I’ve ever had—I felt my heart opening like a springtime bud on a big flowering dogwood tree, watered by tears of joy and thankfulness.

For Karmapa

my heart is broken open

by a field of yellow flowers

memories of the kindness

of strangers

my parents

my teachers

my heart is broken open

with a burst of light

from you to me

my heart is broken open

with the love that never dies

lfm

4/26/2015

“We Were Never Parted”

May 17, 2009

Lady of the Lotus-Born:  The Life and Enlightenment of Yeshe Tsogyal

By Gyalwa Changchub and Namkhai Nyingpo

Translated by the Padmakara Translation Group

Shambhala Publications, Boston and London, 1999

If I had to pick only one book with which to be marooned on a desert island, Lady of the Lotus-Born would be my choice. It’s the story, in her own words, of Yeshe Tsogyal—possibly the first Tibetan of either gender to attain enlightenment, and widely considered to be one of the most important of the 25 closest disciples of Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava).

If Yeshe Tsogyal’s story had taken place in the American West in the 19^th century, she would have been described as Guru Rinpoche’s sidekick. After all, it is Guru Rinpoche—whose energy is said to be still active, if not immediately visible—who is credited with establishing Buddhism not only in Tibet, but also in any wild borderland of dharma practice.

For much of the time that Guru Rinpoche was in Tibet, Tsogyal was with him—studying, practicing, recording his teachings, and achieving realization. After Guru Rinpoche left Tibet,Tsogyal kindled the flame of dharma in her own group of disciples.

As a namthar, or tale of liberation, Lady of the Lotus-Born inspires me on many different levels. It’s the story of her own enlightenment process, told by a woman—so it encourages women practitioners in ways that men’s stories cannot. The book contains some of the most beautiful passages of poetry I’ve ever read. Because it’s a terma, or concealed treasure text that was rediscovered long after it was written, the book has special relevance for later generations of Buddhist practitioners (a characteristic of all terma texts). And at its core, the text is a description of the tantric path and contains many references to key points of tantric practice.

Superficially, Tsogyal’s life story is a thing of Hollywood blockbusters. She manifested in Tibet as an incarnation of the goddess Sarasvati, with the specific aim of helping Guru Rinpoche to propagate the teachings of Vajrayana. At her conception, her parents had a vision that was accompanied by the swelling of a nearby spring into a lake. Her birth, which was “without travail” for her mother, was marked by a rain of flowers and music in the sky.

Later, desiring freedom to practice dharma, Tsogyal escaped from home because she did not want to be forced to marry. Through a convoluted series of chases and escapes, she wound up being married off to Trisong Detsen, the king of Tibet. She met Guru Rinpoche while at the king’s court, and became his consort and principal disciple. And this was only the beginning of her adventures!

Even more inspiring than her story is her poetry. Here, for example, is one of her instructions on meditation:

“Meditate upon the Teacher as the glow of your awareness.

When you melt and mingle mutually together,

Taste the vast expanse of nonduality.

There remain.

And if you know me, Yeshe Tsogyal,

Mistress of samsara and nirvana,

You will find me dwelling in the heart of every being.

The elements and the senses are my emanations,

And emanated thence, I am the twelvefold chain of co-production:

Thus primordially we never separate.

I seem a separate entity

Because you do not know me.”

(pp. xxi-xxii)

There is a long passage on pages 160-162 that is my favorite piece of spiritual literature. It’s a description of Tsogyal’s experiences immediately following the departure of Guru Rinpoche from Tibet. How many of us, when separated from our teachers, would dissolve into self-pity and depression? Not Tsogyal. She went into a cave to practice, and manifested in different forms to benefit sentient beings throughout myriads of realms! I can’t think of a better, more generous way to honor one’s teacher. She closes the passage this way:

“Wherever there is space, five elements pervade,

Wherever the five elements, the homes of living beings,

Wherever living beings, karma and defilements,

Wherever is defilement, my compassion also.

Wherever is the need of beings, there I am to help them.

And thus I remained for twenty years in the great cavern of Lhodrak Karchu, sometimes visible, sometimes invisible.”

The passage gives me chill bumps every time I read it. When I showed my first local dharma teacher, Frances Norwood, this passage, Frances smiled and said, “She merged with the elements.” (In the Tibetan tradition, female energy is strongly associated with the five elements of earth, water, fire, air, and space.)

When Tsogyal herself took leave of Tibet, she did so with the following instruction (p. 206):

“For a time now, while your dualistic minds persist,

It will seem that I have left you, but take heart.

When your dualistic minds subside, you will see that we were never parted.

May health and happiness embrace the very limits of the sky!”

Post-Election Musings & Questions, Mostly About Water

For everyone here in Florida who is disappointed with most of the November 2014 election results:  Our work on behalf of our waters is now more important than ever. I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't attempts to weaken or even nullify Amendment 1. We need to stay strong, remain vigilant, and work together to ensure that doesn't happen. It might seem tempting to give up, but our waters and Mother Earth need more than that from us right now; they need our strongest efforts and our highest talents. If you haven't already done so, please find a way to get involved with the issues that most closely touch your heart. You can and will make a difference! Thanks for considering this.

As a counterpoint to the previous pep talk, I acknowledge that this is the question that's going to keep me awake at night:  When the middle class is gone, the environment is in ruins and the economy collapses for good, will we band together to help each other out or will it be every man for himself?

And of course, there is the water to consider--our sacred springs and the rivers they feed.

NASA just came out with a study that identifies a global groundwater crisis that threatens our food supplies and our security; see:

http://www.nationofchange.org/2014/11/02/nasa-bombshell-global-groundwater-crisis-threatens-food-supplies-security/

Florida is not immune to aquifer damage. The Floridan Aquifer that supplies the drinking water for most of North Florida has been falling since the 1930s. One estimate I’ve heard is that the aquifer is dropping about one foot every decade, which doesn’t sound like much until you realize that for every foot the aquifer declines, the layer of saltwater underneath it rises 40 feet. A falling aquifer eventually leads to dry wells, dry springs and rivers, and saltwater intrusion—and our springs and we humans suffer as a result.

One message I’ve gotten from the 2014 mid-term elections is that we cannot be effective water advocates unless we acknowledge and work with the ideas that our water problems are political problems and have broad economic implications.

I think we need to be having some conversations that we’re not having, at least not widely.

Here’s one conversation starter:  How do we create growth and jobs in a way that's sustainable and doesn't wreck our water and our land—the environment that we need to sustain us? That seems to me to be a key question.

Annie Pais and Stewart Thomas developed an interesting model of a creative economy when I worked with them at Florida's Eden. Their idea was to make North Florida a center of ecotourism and creativity as opposed to a sacrifice zone for agriculture and industry. Here's a graphic that puts some of those ideas in tangible form:

Something else to consider is that the people who are requesting and receiving large water use permits believe wholeheartedly that they are entitled to those permits and entitled to do whatever they want with their private property, even if their actions may cause negative consequences (dry wells, dry springs) for their neighbors and our area's natural systems.

Given the almost-godlike reverence with which the concepts of "private property" and "individual rights" are held in our society, is there any hope of balancing those ideas with "responsible land stewardship" and/or "responsible water stewardship" that acknowledges—in the same way we all agree to follow traffic laws—that there are some things we must NOT do in order to avoid catastrophic damage?

And if there is hope of such a balance, how do we inject the idea of "responsible stewardship" into a culture that is initially resistant to that concept?

So often, water conversations end when the idea of "private property" is invoked. It is important to remember, however, that water is not owned—it is not "property." It is permitted. Is the fact that someone owns land an appropriate rationale for allowing water use that may have negative impacts on our natural systems or others' wells? Could Florida's water managers do a better job of making this distinction by invoking the idea of "responsible stewardship"? (Of course, this idea would have to be clearly defined to avoid its being co-opted.)

Could the idea of “responsible stewardship” then become a precursor for recognizing that we should be managing our waters as a public trust, the same way we would manage a financial trust fund for our children?

I encourage you to think about these ideas and, if possible, to create ways to begin a conversation about them with agriculturalists, public utility representatives, industrialists, business people, and elected leaders—because unless we can make those people our allies in the search for solutions to our water problems, we will not find solutions that are acceptable to us or effective for our natural systems.

The photo at the top of this post shows a dry Spirit Pond in Cassadaga, Florida, on Halloween 2014. Here's how the pond looked four years ago, on October 30, 2010:

How to Save a River and Its Springs: A Primer for Election Year

For Householders

Lose your lawn. A lush, manicured green lawn is not appropriate for Florida’s climate or Florida’s waters; lawns use too much water and require too much fertilizer and pesticides. Quit fertilizing, quit watering, and cancel your lawn chemical service. Replace your lawn with native or Florida-friendly plants.

It’s okay to replace your lawn in stages, but quit fertilizing and watering it now. If your homeowners’ association objects, tell them that Florida-friendly landscaping is part of state law. Florida Statute 373.185 prohibits government entities and homeowners associations from enacting or enforcing any governing document to prevent homeowners from implementing Florida-friendly landscaping (FFL) principles.

Do everything you can to save as much water as you can. Calculate your water footprint, then do some research and decide what changes you can make immediately, in the short term, and in the long term. Remember to account for the foods you eat. Why? Because some foods are very water-intensive to produce (beef is one example). Here’s a good water footprint calculator:

http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=cal/WaterFootprintCalculator

If your diet consists of water-intensive food products, you don’t have to change it immediately. Even small changes, such as having one meat-free day a week, can help.

For Family Farmers

Realize that no one in the water advocacy community wants you to lose your livelihood, especially not if your family has been farming for generations. We simply want to save our springs and rivers. We don’t believe that family farms and clean, abundant water are in opposition to each other. We do believe that we should all be working together because farmers need clean, abundant water too. When we point out problems, realize that we are not attacking you. We’re simply identifying problems and we want to work with you for solutions—not drive you out of business. Let’s work together to get rid of the “us vs. them” mentality.

For Factory Farmers

Do the crops and/or animals you raise require the intensive use of water and fertilizer? Is your farm a polluter? If so, be a good citizen and make responsible land use decisions. Use some of your big bucks to (1) change the crop you’re raising to something such as longleaf pine that is less damaging for our water, or (2) relocate to an area of Florida or the U.S. where the aquifer is confined and your farming practices will not contribute to the destruction of our water supply and our recreational waters.

For Everyone

Get outdoors. Visit nearby lakes, rivers and springs. What do you see?

Learn where your water comes from.

Learn where your water goes when it leaves your house. Do you live in a springshed? Which one? If so, you have extra responsibilities to care for our water.

Realize that there is a finite amount of fresh water in Florida (and on the planet) and that alternative water supply projects such as desalination are expensive and often carry unintended consequences. As a taxpayer, do you really want to foot the bill for such projects if you don’t have to?

Understand that the health of our lakes, rivers and springs reflects the health of the aquifer that supplies our drinking water. If surface waters are damaged, that damage can also affect the aquifer. Our water problems are not just aesthetic issues; they are potential economic and public health problems. Dirty water is bad for business and bad for people. Save the spring, save the river/Save the river, save the aquifer.

Think about how we should be managing our waters. Should we be using them up as fast as we can? Should we be using them as sewers to dispose of our waste? Or should we be managing them conservatively as a public trust, the same way we would manage a financial trust fund for our children?

Conserve water, because that is the fastest and cheapest way to make more water available to lakes, rivers and springs. Remember that “conservation” and “conservative” come from the same root word and that conservation of our natural resources is a conservative value.

Abandon the use of fertilizer and other outdoor chemicals that cause water pollution.

Understand who is responsible and accountable for the conditions of Florida’s waters. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) is the agency responsible for water quality. The directors of the water management districts (WMDs) are responsible for water quantity/water use permit decisions.

Realize that whoever is the governor of Florida appoints the head of FDEP and board members of the WMDs.

Remember that there are many powerful and well-financed special interests that have absolutely no interest in Florida’s changing the way it makes its water-related decisions. If there is an “us vs. them” scenario regarding Florida’s waters, it is these special interests arrayed against Florida’s citizens and the people who come from all over the world to enjoy our waters and the “Florida brand.”

Educate yourself.

• Learn about Florida’s hydrological cycle and how we depend upon rain for our fresh water.
• Google “Floridan Aquifer.”
• Find a local water advocacy group; read their website; attend a meeting. What does the group identify as the major water problem in your area? What are they doing about it?
• Identify your regional water management district and attend a meeting to see how water use decisions are made.
• Google “Florida Constitution, Article II, section 7.” What does it say?

Understand that at this point in our history, Florida’s water problems are political problems because our elected officials, influenced by powerful special interest groups, can dictate to our water managers whether our water laws should be enforced or ignored.

Get involved in the political process, because that process that now determines the health of our waters.

• Educate yourself about local and state candidates and where they stand on water issues.
• Go to candidate forums and ask pointed questions. Examples:  “What did you do in 2014 to improve our waters?” “If you didn’t support the Florida Springs and Aquifer Protection Act, why not?” “If you took no action on this bill because your party leadership told you to wait, why was kowtowing to that leadership more important than standing strong for our waters?” “What specific commitments will you make in 2015 to reverse the damage to our lakes, rivers and springs?”

Remember that our lakes, rivers and springs cannot speak; we must speak for them.

Register to vote.

VOTE.

Repeat all actions.

Never give up.

How to Kill a River and Its Springs: A Textbook Case

Ignore the part of your state’s constitution that mandates preservation and protection of its natural resources.

Wait 42 years before trying to determine how much water the river and springs actually need to stay healthy.

When making decisions about water use permits, use water models that are completely wrong for the environment in which those permits will be issued.

Once permits are issued, don’t include in those permits information about the maximum water use allowed; instead, bury that information in a supplemental document.

Once permits are issued, don’t monitor water use because if you do, then you might have to enforce some rules.

When you finally get around to trying to set minimum flows and levels (MFLs) for the river and the springs, use cherry-picked data to make sure that big water users won’t have to change their behavior. Instead, tell householders to cut back on watering their lawns.

In fact, never tell big permit holders that they are going to have to change how they’re using water. Instead, let them write rule language for you and be glad their lawyers show up in court to help you out when your actions are challenged. You can even let those lawyers run the show in the courtroom!

When landowners want big new water permits even though they admit they only want them so they can sell their land at higher prices, issue those permits anyway. Don’t worry about opening the floodgates for big new water permits. Florida has plenty of water, right? People and permits aren’t the problems; all our rivers need is a little more rain.

Find ways to avoid taking any action to save the river and its springs, even though that silly state mandate to preserve and protect natural resources is still a nagging thought there in the back of your mind.