How Wild Is Your Iris? Part II

It certainly is a competitive world in the blogosphere. I have been encouraged to be more productive from several different angles! Well, it might be a while before I post here again, but I am here to share a graffiti photo of petro-locura from travels past, and to let you all know that I was a guest on the Environment Show at Redwood Community Radio-KMUD last night. We discussed the work of EPIC and other collaborators to promote conservation and appropriate stewardship of our regions State Parks, especially as Richardson Grove becomes an inconvenient speed bump for the petro-locura that has gripped our planet.

Give it a listen!

PS. We have managed to get coverage of the Patagonia dams issue in the ever so glossy Outside Magazine, both online as well as in a feature article in the print version of their June 2010 issue. Check it out when you can, the article is really quite good and pro-Patagonia.

PSS. And as a last addition to this post, check out this video that is a brief and creative expression of the responsibility that we can choose, or not, to accept for the planet.

How Wild Is Your Iris?

It rained again today, solidly. Though the front has let up, the afternoon is grey, and cold, and we are just barely getting a solar charge for the batteries—and all the while the mixed forest of the hills is drinking up the moisture, the mist, the drizzle, the fog. This later May maritime system is a total miracle of precipitation, diffused light, and celebratory frog song. Unstable as it is, in terms of low atmospheric pressure and heavy weight of h2o on all the flower bearing branches out there, it is still a welcome gift—water is life!

How lucky we are, to have so much good wildness around us, falling today in the shape of rain. Sometimes, though, I wonder—does familiarity breed contempt? Is that why we can get sick of the rain? Or do the elements and special places of nature really seem more potent when they are new? And less significant when one has already seen them a thousand times? What has happened to a person when they are tired of seeing the bloom of the wild irises?

Seeing the everyday splendor of our planet in a late May rain in Humboldt County is a part of understanding the harsh realities that wild nature everywhere is facing. Even though my quiet reality at home is so aesthetic, it is not so difficult to feel the fragilities of our existence when looking at the Golfo de México and the Redwoods (or even back once again to Patagonia!) through the iris of a person who is about to complete seven months of life. What will happen to our planet in the next seven months, seven years, or seven decades? What will Kiara see in her life that I have always feared we would see? Can your iris to the world see the interconnected complexity of the issues confronting the next generation? With which lens do you see the planet, and your place on it? Frankly, while I ask "how wild is your iris?," I know that my wild iris is looking a long ways ahead.

And, because of todays rain, Kiara is smiling every step of the way!

P.S. The first foto is from Cuernavaca, Morelos, México, Kiara's first holiday down south! Though I started this blog what seems to be quite a long time ago, I don't always get fotos up in a timely fashion. Such is the internet for me--too much work and not enough play. Hopefully this post will whet people's appetite for a while, or maybe not? We will have to see...in the meantime, enjoy the images!