Monday, March 30, 2009

Mercy Mercy Me (Further Notes From Exile)


Pressure drop, oh pressure, pressure gonna drop on you...
Toots & the Maytals

...the Caribbean’s been kinda funny this week...not its usual placid self...incredibly windy, with waves that’ve wiped out whole sections of beach in the short time I’ve been here, battered sea walls, and, a night or two ago, caused a concrete deck to collapse down the beach, leaving these giant tree-pole-thatched-umbrella things lying in the sand....if it were always this way, I wonder if this region might’ve given the world hardcore and thrash-metal instead of reggae and calypso...

One minute after dozing, I thought that I was blazing,
My blood it was a boiling, I said it was amazing...
Peter Tosh

...a couple days ago, the sea puked up mounds of seaweed, detritus, and lots and lots of plastic trash all up and down the beach...unpleasant, certainly...then, maybe one root of our ecological crisis is that we don’t see our waste enough...we put it in plastic bags, put the bags in plastic cans, take the cans out to the street, and it’s gone...we think we’re “green” or “eco-conscious” because we dispose of our massive quantities of factory-synthesized products and seemingly limitless non-recyclable and generally completely unnecessary product packaging responsibly....who among us, in our unspeakably wasteful modern lifestyles, isn’t just asking to get barfed on by the ocean?

Oil wasted on the oceans and upon our seas, fish full of mercury,
Oh, mercy mercy me, oh, things ain't what they used to be...
Marvin Gaye

...of course, if I wanted to be a totally pretentious yoga dude...which, of course, I don’t...I could also use this as a metaphor for those mindwaves Patanjali talks about stilling in the Yoga Sutras (in some translations, at least)....first, ya gotta let ‘em rage...let ‘em spit up whatever trash is in there...bring it out to be seen....in the end, hiding your trash never works...it always winds up spread out all over the beach when ya least expect it...

4 comments:

Lana Gramlich said...

You're still there? Here I thought you were back already...My bad!
As for the garbage on the beach, this article might help explain the problem, unfortunately. When I read it (AFTER I'd booked our own cruise,) I was pretty depressed.
Ummmm, actually, DON'T read that. Breathe slowly & calmly & repeat after me, "Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmm."

Anonymous said...

Is that art work one of yours? It's very good and captures how stormy your weather must be. Not quite the sunny bliss I was picturing for you. It is tragic what is happening to our Oceans ... it serves as a warning that we are next. All this rubbish and clutter ... I have no idea what it's all for. We can all get along without it.

Lydia said...

I was reading the Yoga Sutras yesterday, retreating in the recliner during a rain-and-hail storm!
Thought-provoking post, Dr. Jay.

Kim said...

The fact that we're able to hide the unwanted is exactly why we don't take as much of an interest in taking better care of the world around us. There are a lot of people I know who should be forced to look at a beachfront full of trash. Myself included.