Water: The Essence of Life
In England I grew up with fish ponds, but when I arrived in Canada fish ponds
were not a part of the culture. Southern Ontario had its many northern lakes
for people to enjoy the essence of water. I remember my first visit to one of
those northern lakes full of dark depths, mystery, and abundant strange creature
life. As a child I remember the brackish water, the swamp smells, the sudden
splash of a fish tail to startle me as I walked by the shore. There is no doubt in my mind that I have always been drawn to water, just as
entire civilizations before me have been fascinated by this profound element.
The water is our human soul; it is everywhere inside and outside of all existence.
It is the primal substance, the source of all life. It gives birth to all living
things, and provides health and fertility. I have surfed in the oceans, swam in the jungle streams of Latin America, bathed
in the waterfalls and quiet lakes of Ontario, drank from glacial streams high
in the Rocky Mountains, and come home to a still pool in my own back yard. That
still pool, quiet and calm with only the thin trickle of water pouring over
a gentle cascade of stones, draws me as all the other waters do. There is a
magical harmonizing effect at work playfully molding my psyche and connecting
my to the roots of the world, connecting me more closely to the immediate earth,
air, vegetation and the tiny creatures like me who are attracted to the water's
vitality. My pond sleeps now. I've watched the water slowly solidify as the cold inward
crept. I've sensed the temperature by merely watching the ice form leaving a
circle of open water around the bubbler. I've watch the creatures, the morning
doves, sparrows and squirrels come to drink, cautiously treading out onto the
ice to the lip of open water. I yearn for spring and the melting period and
hope for the survival of the fish. Truly the water, liquid or solid, in the garden completes the piece of paradise,
and possibly in a small individual way, recreates that distant garden that we
all somehow spiritually lost.
What Happened to Harmony?
If I gaze back into my childhood I can see snapshots of humanity living in
and out of harmony with the environment. Historically maybe we as humans have
always, from the dawn of time, either been in sync with nature or out of touch
in our efforts for survival. I have memories of Richmond Park near London. England
where cycle paths wound through waving grass, grazing deer, and ancient oaks.
Juxtaposed beside this memory is one of grease-laden driveways leading up to
back lot mechanic's garages where a group of us as young kids dropped by on
a Saturday morning to collect discarded pop bottles for the two cent refund
that would finance our afternoon entertainment at the matinee movies. The rivers
that I swam in as a child, now smell of sewage. The parks are cultivated grass,
broad swatches of barren earth that provide no shelter or habitats for tiny
creatures. There doesn't seem to be any consideration of balance or harmony
in the way we construct our human habitats to fit with the natural one. A subdivision
is a process of raping the land of what is there naturally, trucking away the
top soil to be used somewhere else, building and bringing back other kinds of
topsoil in order to lay down the cultivated grass again. No one seems to ask
about the trees even if they were ever there in the first place. If we can't be the stewards of the natural environment, no one else will.
It is possible to take a building lot, isolate the actual site that the building
will stand on, create a buffer zone or a perimeter where the workers can build,
outside of which is the natural environment which remains intact. There may
be some inconveniences for the workers to work in such a confined area and extra
costs will be incurred, but these extra labour costs will be off-set by the
saving of the environment and the elimination of a need to spent extra money
landscaping a denuded lot. We humans like to control. We don't want to manage and nurture what lies
before us. We didn't make it. It's not our creation. Rather we feel an overwhelming
need to erase everything before us in order to impose our will on the land.
However what is so sad is the fact that we are constructing our own coffins
as surely as we are orchestrating the gradual demise of all living things.
