Susan Feathers

Working on a new essay about Wakulla Springs I happened upon a series of the best natural and cultural history videos of the Wakulla Springs in Florida. Wakulla Springs is one of the world’s largest artesian springs and part  of an underground freshwater network underlying Florida.

In these short videos you will learn about wildlife, the purchase of the springs and building of the famous lodge, the Hollywood movies, Army’s maneuvers there during the war years, and incredible views of wildlife–better than any I have seen before.

Each of the 5 minute videos (habitat, bird life, development – includes incredible footage of the lodge fire, military maneuvers, and Hollywood films from Tarzan to The Creature from the Black Lagoon, to Airport 77, and archaeology of the springs, diving and underwater life)are superbly crafted.

Staying at the Wakulla Springs Lodge is a true Florida experience.

Check it out.

In October of 2004 four friends and I arrived in Anchorage, Alaska for a five-day backcountry trek before attending the North American Association for Environmental Education Annual Conference. The five of us were serving as environmental educators in various capacities and we all lived in the desert. So, naturally we anticipated freezing to death and had each spent hundreds of dollars at REI outfitting ourselves for the Alaskan fall weather. Stepping from the plane, we were relieved and surprised by balmy fifty-five degree air! A burly-faced Alaskan explained it was the Pineapple Express—an occasional trade-wind from the Hawaiian Islands that “takes a hard left up the Pacific coast” and blows tropical breezes over the Alaskan archipelago and beyond.

We rented a van in Anchorage after settling in at a comfortable hostel at $25 per night. Leaving behind the confining spaces of our respective workplaces, our female energy, like water, ran free, gurgling here and there. We began a woman’s journey as rich and multilayered as an ancient Tell with its visible present and deeper layers of forgotten pasts. Over five days we melded into a mobile community, sharing deeper aspects of our lives in a natural setting like no other. Along the way other women crossed our path whose life stories fit like colorful pieces in a hologram.

Journal Entry:
Rain makes popping sounds on our water proof gear, spills down slender Aspen trunks, and makes rivulets between tangled roots that crisscross the trail. Our voices like wood winds – a light rolling melody – play in the silent woods. Around us streams and rivers pour forth pewter-gray waters. [Earlier the ranger explained that Alaska’s glaciers are retreating in the global warming of the Earth, the glacial silt freed in heavy liquid flows.]

Our jackets make colorful splashes of orange, aqua, and sky-blue in the misty green of the forest. White-trunked beech with fall’s last yellow leaves still clinging to their branches, drop a soft, yellow carpet on the earth. We are alert to the presence of grizzlies. One impaled a red salmon from the river with a long, sharp claw at the entrance to the trailhead where the ranger reflected that as far as he knew grizzlies had never attacked a group of five or more. Grrreeeaat, we mumbled. Someone makes a joke about entering the food chain. I am not amused. We come upon a steaming pile of grizzly scat. I am looking behind me often.

We search for velvet brown moose passing behind dense trees up ahead and chat excitedly like kids let out of a school house for recess. Far from our desks piled high with projects, notes, and timelines, far from incessant e-mail and the glow of computer screens we begin a new rhythm.

Up from black stones – Alaska’s bones – emanates a deep vibration, slow and strong, retraining our erratic energies. With the gentle wash of a steady light rain, our false identities drain away. We are swept away in the beauty and rawness of the landscape and the wild creatures that still walk its paths and swim its waters in fair abundance.

The following day we leave the Eagle Pass area where we had hiked seven miles in back country to learn that a photographer and his girl friend were attacked and killed by two grizzlies. The incident happened only a few miles from where we had been hiking. This dramatically confirmed for me that nature does not have our plans in mind as she moves in her mysterious ways. The incident stayed with me the whole ten days we were in Alaska and forever imprinted on my mind that wildness is not a fuzzy bear to play with or a player in our imagined destinies. They are simply in their own homes and they are predators.

Alaska Lesson #1…Lesson #2 came that next week when I listened to scientists from Yellowstone National Park describe the role of top predators in the health of ecosystems based on what they were learning from wolf reintroduction in the Park. These are the bookends then of the human struggle to be safe, to protect livelihood while giving space to bears, cougars, and coyotes.

Alaska presses on the chest with its wild power – though diminished, still vital and instructive.

 

The word dad is said to originate from baby talk, dada, as does mom from mama. What’s more, these words occur across languages and cultures. They must derive from some ancient root that expresses itself in our babyhood as language emerges.

I am not sure when I began to speak, or call my Dad, dada or daddy. I do, however, remember when my own children began to call their dad “dada”. They were both very little and it was about the time they began to try to walk–as they were about to step into the big wide world.

Dads are funny, magical creatures who can sometimes appear as giants and other times as teddy bears.  They smell different than mom. Little girls remember their aftershave and boys remember their sweat.

My dad was gone a lot as a military man. Whenever he was home it was a celebration. He called us four girls and mom his “harem.” I remember how he complained he could never get into the bathroom. Back in the 50s houses had only one. There was always one of us primping in with the door locked. When he did get in he had to wade through our lingerie drying on every hook. His complaints were all in good fun. We all loved him dearly and we preened over him when he would let us. My older sister Bev and I scrambled to be the one to bring him his pipe or a cup of coffee.

All I knew was that dad brought home the bacon. He was the action person. Vacations, graduations, christenings and baptisms, birthdays, and award ceremonies were all made meaningful by his attendance.

Mom perked up when he came home and a feeling of safety pervaded when he was around. With dad there was always enough money and tools or vehicles or machines to do stuff.

He was a very funny person and even in his temperament. It took a lot to knock him off center. When I was in elementary school he would say, “Sure, you can go swimming…but don’t get wet!” When I was twenty he would reflect, “This too shall pass.”

In his latter days on earth, in his 90s, he recited a lot of poetry. One day I recorded him as he sat smoking his pipe by the front windows of his condo. He liked to sit there and watch the “goings on”. Birds, them dern squirrels, and dwellers at Bay Oaks were all under his daily scrutiny.

Here is a short video of Dad reciting a couple of his favorites for me:

 

 

 

I remember distinct stages in my life when time stood still.

The first stage was early childhood living in no measured world except by sunrise and sunset. Hours may have passed while I was deeply engaged in play and exploration, present to the moment only.

During this quietude of mind I was a keen observer of plants, animals, and people and their curious behavior and their lives. I studied my parents, how they spoke to each other and to me and my siblings. I noticed when they spoke to neighbors or strangers—the subtle changes, deference made.

School days ended the quiet world I lived as a young child. I learned about clocks, schedules, thinking about the past and planning for the future. One classroom club I joined was the Busy Bees. I must have signed up for a lifetime membership because the next thirty years I lived the life of a bee in a hive of fellow bees. The continuous hum and bustle of bee life was joy and motivation. There was much to get done and I wanted to learn everything I could about being a bee.

Then something happened that called me away. Deep was that call that drew me to an open field and big sky above. There were sounds: trickling brooks, the cry of a hawk, rustling in the tall grass. The warm sun caressed my hair and skin welcoming me back. Voices spoke within me. I was reminded who I was born to be. I was not a bee, they said. I was bound to be a butterfly.

That was the second period of quietude.

Life sweeps us along in its currents and soon I was bobbing over stones and around isles, racing in torrents and languishing in still pools but always going somewhere without cessation. Then I met an Indian woman who taught me to stop…wait…consider. She had me sew little bags of rose petals by hand and to chant the Rosary. I lit candles, painted golden boxes, stayed quiet in my dark, cool trailer in the roasting desert near Yuma, Arizona. She read from the Upanishads and Sufi teachers, Iroquois saints, and the Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Time had no meaning; the sun rose and the sun set but made no egress or exit through the blanket-shrouded windows of her home. I unwound my glistening wings and fluttered a while.

That was the third period of quietude.

Life then became a walk, sure-footed and true. I chose to be here or there. I wrote about my experiences and read about those of my fellow beings, leafy, furry, scaled, feathered, four-legged and two-legged. Quietude came and went in those days but stayed finally when I turned fifty.

This was the fourth period of quietude.

Quietude took residence in me.

 

 

Under the Sea Wind was Rachel Carson’s first book. It was released in 1941 and quickly became eclipsed by Pearl Harbor and the nation’s declaration of war. Sales were slow. Carson was disappointed. However, she contributed one of the finest examples of American nature writing. The little book of stories later became popular in its genre. I have a thumb worn, beloved copy printed in that year which I fortuitously uncovered at Bookman’s in Tucson, Arizona many years ago. In my Carson collection I also have a first edition copy of The Sea Around Us, the cover frayed and the binding in need of repair.

Why do I treasure these books so much? I believe it is the uniqueness of Carson’s perspective on wildlife and the intricate webs of life to which each is inextricably connected.

Carson did something in Under the Sea Wind that was unprecedented: she wrote adult stories about the life of a particular individual species giving them a first name derived from their scientific name. For example, she begins the book with the story of Rynchops, a black skimmer (Rynchops niger). It is the flood tide when she describes a strange black bird and its mate swooping low over the marshlands. The sun is setting and we learn that Rynchops and its kind migrated up from the coast of Yucatan and are summering on the Outer banks in marshes and barrier islands there. Rynchops drops his huge lower beak as he glides lower over the water, scooping up small fish. Rynchops has remembered this island from previous migrations as a good place to mate and raise the next generation.

Readers are gently inducted into a story – a drama – as real as any account of man or woman, and along the way they are learning about the ecology of the land and growing appreciation for the struggles and triumphs of just one natural character in Nature’s pageant.

While I am aware of many children- and youth-book authors who have written accounts about the life history of animals, I am not aware of any who have repeated what Carson so beautifully crafted when she was still working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There is also something more about her writing: it is superb by itself, an example of clear, forceful language. She will remain my primary mentor for writing. See her wonderful book about the shore: Edge of the Sea. Also, go to Rachel Carson Council to learn about the amazing women who are carrying forth Carson’s legacy.

 

Its hard to know just what to say to our country’s veterans when we are in the midst of uncovering our neglect of their needs. As some have reported, its not new…even more shameful…but with this last revelation that some may even have died waiting for medical services perhaps we will finally put our house in order.

I grew up in a military family. My father was a career bomber pilot and flew 35 missions in the WWII Pacific theater with his wonderful crew of very very young men. (His WWII B-29 is in the header on this page. Mt. Fuji is in the background.)

My children will be at the 27th Rolling Thunder with their father –a combat helicopter pilot during the Vietnam war in the Army’s Americal Division. Rolling Thunder was established in 1987 to litigate for the continued search and rescue of Prisoners of War and Missing in Action. This is necessary because we just moved on after the end of that war, even shaming veterans by our silence and lack of praise for their service in a terrible, terrible war. Each year my children and their dad go, and each year they come back more inspired and closer than ever. See my daughter’s video journal of Rolling Thunder.

My dad passed away in 2012 and we sorely miss him. In the last years of his long life he was still having nightmares in which he smelled flesh burning from low-level bombing raids. 50 year later!

I believe that we are observing a new time during which our country is coming to face the full consequences of war on the best among us. The particular type of prolonged assignments, never knowing when it might be over, and observing your countrymen unaware of what you are experiencing on their behalf…must be enough to drive the strongest man or woman to despair. We Americans are losing our moral grip on important values and practices because we are distracted…distracted by money concerns, overwork, and entertainment.

On this memorial day, let’s renew our commitment to support peaceful solutions rather than armed conflict or drone warfare (a scourge on humanity) and to international actions as a global community when we do have to defend ourselves. Help any veteran whatever age they may be to know that their sacrifice was not in vain. Live up to it by voting and actively working to make this democratic nation more just and compassionate. It will only be as strong and as good as we are. But mostly, on this Memorial Day, take time to honor, thank, or help veterans in your family, neighborhood and communities. I am forever grateful for the men and women who have sacrificed so much of their own personal freedom and happiness to keep me safe.

 

 

 

My good friend Larry Chamblin, active member of 350-Pensacola, has summarized the Third National Climate Assessment which outlines impacts on our region now and in the future. See his notes below. Especially review the “What We Can Do” notes which give us solid direction for community planning and action.

General statements

The NAC affirms that climate change is already affecting every region of the US–including Northwest Florida.

Global warming over the past 50 years is primarily cause by human activities (burning fossil fuels and deforestation). Global average temperature has increased by more than 1.5 degrees since record keeping began in late 1800s, and most of this increase has occurred since 1970. US temperature has increased by 1.3 degrees F to 1.9 degrees F. (NW FL, Alabama and some other areas of the SE US have avoided this warming and have even seen a slight decrease in average temperatures; but projections show the region will not avoid future warming.)

The rise in global average temperature parallels the rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide.

The decade of 2000-2010 was the nation’s warmest on record. Human-induced warming adds to natural climate cycles. (A baseball slugger who take steroids becomes a super-slugger.)

Over the past five decades, natural factors alone (solar forcing and volcanoes) would have resulted in a slight cooling.

Scientists today are more confident of the warming trend of the past and projected warming because they have a greater understanding of the dynamics of climate change and of the US temperature records. (Of course uncertainties remain about some specifics of future impacts.)

Computer models have generally been accurate in projecting melting ice, rising temperatures, rising seas, and extreme weather events. In some cases the models underestimated the changes, including the melting of sea ice. A record low of Arctic sea ice was set in 2012.

Indicators of global warming observed over many decades include the following: shrinking of sea ice; higher sea surface temperature; higher temperature over oceans and land; increased water vapor; higher sea level; reduced size of glaciers, ice sheets, and snow cover. Even if we stopped all emissions today, greenhouse gas emissions already in the atmosphere would continue to drive warming over the next few decades. But choices made today will determine how much future warming occurs.

Projected Impacts

Changing climate key impacts in SE US:
1. Sea level rise poses widespread and continuing threats to both natural and built environments and to the regional economy.
2. Increasing temperatures and the associated increase in frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme heat events will affect public health, natural and built environments, energy, agriculture, and forestry.
3. Decreased water availability, exacerbated by population growth and land-use change, will continue to increase competition for water and affect the region’s economy and unique ecosystems.

Sea Level Rise “Global sea level rise has been a persistent trend for decades. It is expected to continue beyond the end of this century, which will cause significant impacts in the United States. Scientists have very high confidence (greater than 90% chance) that global mean sea level will rise at least 8 inches (0.2 meter) and no more than 6.6 feet (2.0 meters) by 2100.”

NW FL is less vulnerable to the impacts of sea level rise than some other areas, including Miami, and New Orleans. But the impact of Ivan was worse because of higher seas and this region is vulnerable to the combined effects of higher seas and stronger storms.

Projected temperature change In Escambia/Santa Rosa and NW FL, warming to the end of the century is projected to range from a low of 3 degrees F to a high of 6 degrees F–depending on whether we make substantial reductions in emissions soon or continue with business as usual. The hottest days will be at least 10 degrees hotter.

“Extreme heat will affect health, energy, agriculture, and more. Decreased water availability will have economic and environmental impacts.”

Precipitation changes

Observed precipitation change to date reported by the NCA show that NW FL has seen a 0-5% increase (data do not include April 2014). Rapid and substantial reductions in emissions could keep total amount of annual rain in NW FL about where it has been in recent years. However, failure to reduce emissions–business as usual–will likely bring a 10% increase in total amount of annual rain in NW FL and a 20% increase in much of the NE US. NCA projections show that NW FL will experience an increase in heavy downpours of the kind we have recently experienced. Heavy rains have increased by 27% during the last century through 2012. If we reduce emissions substantially in the immediate future, heavy precipitation events (deluges, heavy downpours) will occur nearly twice as often as in the past; if we fail to make such reductions, we can expect to see three times more downpours in future decades.

Hurricanes

The NCA projects a slight decrease in the annual number of Atlantic hurricanes but an increase in the number of the strongest hurricanes (Category 4 and 5). At the center of these hurricanes, models project a 20% increase in rainfall.

What we can do

The National Climate Assessment reminds us that “Americans face choices.” Future impacts of climate change “will still largely be determined by choices society makes about emissions.”

“Global climate is projected to continue to change over this century and beyond, but there is still time to act to limit the amount of change and the extent of damaging impacts.”

“It is important that these findings and response options be shared broadly to inform citizens and communities across our nation. Climate change presents a major challenge for society. This report advances our understanding of that challenge and the need for the American people to prepare for and respond to its far-reaching implications.”

From a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report cited by the NCA says that the higher sea levels projected “increase the frequency, magnitude, and duration of coastal flooding associated with a given storm.”

Local planners need to take into account the combined effects of higher seas and stronger storms “in developing hazard profiles for emergency planning and vulnerability, impact, and adaptation assessments.”

“Mitigation [reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases] and adaptation actions are linked in multiple ways, including that effective mitigation reduces the need for adaptation in the future. Both are essential parts of a comprehensive climate change response strategy.”

Mitigation actions are being taken today but they are insufficient to meet the challenge of increasingly negative impacts. “Both ‘bottom up’ community planning and ‘top down’ national strategies may help regions deal with impacts such as increases in electrical brownouts, heat stress, floods, and wildfires.”

“Using scientific information to prepare for climate changes in advance can provide economic opportunities, and proactively managing the risks can reduce impacts and costs over time.”

“Cities providing transportation options including bike lanes, buildings designed with energy saving features such as green roofs, and houses elevated to allow storm surges to pass underneath are among the many response options being pursued around the country

 A COMPASS OF SORTS

What place is this? I look north as an eagle flies to the backbones of the Appalachian Mountains where rain clouds fill spruce forests. Gentle mist rains down separating grains of quartz from granite faces. Sweeping down the slopes into valleys, I fast forward to witness waters move mountains to the sea. Sparkling crystals settle out onto the floor of a tranquil ocean piling up into the barrier islands of the Gulf of Mexico where I now live.

I look east across canopies of live oaks draped with Spanish moss to stands of tall straight pines that go as far as I can see. Swooping closer, clear springs well upward into the sun. Their round blue eyes dot the land and lead to cavernous passages underground that undulate across the whole continental shelf, a sponge that holds the rain–Florida’s fresh water supply. I see manatees and myriad elegant white birds, and alligators—immobile denizens sunning on cypress logs and mossy banks. The dark Atlantic forms a border.

South of this place there lies a small aquamarine ocean and a current where schools of fish ply the depths and dolphins play and hunt them. Sailboats, ocean liners, fishing vessels, and ships cross this Gulf of Mexico, bounded by the Florida Straits, Cuba, and the Yucatan Peninsula to the south. The Tropic of Cancer runs through it. The ocean current pours trough the Yucatan Peninsula and Cuba forming the Loop Current and exits through the Straits of Florida becoming the warm Gulf Stream current in the Atlantic Ocean. The Gulf produces food for our nation and the world: billions of pounds of fish and crustaceans are harvested each year.

Along the shores of States that have allowed offshore drilling there are nearly 4,000 oil wells. Deep Water Horizon was just one of them activated to produce crude oil for the American economy. This map below may shock you as I was during the DWH tragedy when my community, and indeed the nation, fully realized how much industry impact had taken place under our noses (under the surface of the Gulf) for the short-term gains of oil lease money.

This is a place of warmth, sunlight, rampant vegetation (semi-tropical), Old South mixed with military and snow birds from around the nation. It is a place without true unity, a place still in search of its identity.

Historically Pensacola has flown five flags (Spain, England, France, Confederacy, and United States). The deep water bay draws enduring interest for its strategic advantages. All that existed here prior to European invasion and occupation was little known or even appreciated, yet a native culture long evolved here by the sea.

Migrations of sea turtles and birds from around the world have known its location and character for millennia before Europeans showed up. They still come but in fewer numbers. The place has been shaped by invaders from lands where they had already exploited the natural resources. The Europeans hungered for new land. But the land was not friendly to them, at least in the beginning.

What became known as Florida was inhospitable for many centuries. It geologic, meteorological, and wild landscapes defied occupation. The original human communities who lived in its recesses had learned its strange creatures, wild weather, and poor soil. They adopted a migratory pattern coming to the ocean near Pensacola for fishing and clamming, then retreating into the cooler forested canopies for the hotter months. Their wisdom and art was never sought nor recorded only disrupted and eventually shut out. That is another part of the story of this place.

Slavery is part of it, too, with African and West Indies men and women brought here to help with timber cutting and hauling, fishing, and cotton growing on farms north of the city. As late as 1900 fully half of the city was black and not because the community was egalitarian. Whites ran the show. Blacks were capital, owned and/or exploited. Even to the present, many white residents have a different standard of conduct with and regard for their black neighbors, but they would vociferously deny that. The truth is that Florida harbors some of the worst racists in the nation.

Another important point on the compass for Pensacola, Florida is the community of people who love the ocean and environment for its recreational and economic value. Some love it also for its esthetic value and fewer but stronger are handfuls of residents who defend the animals, plants, and waters of our place with their very souls and livelihoods.

This then is the place where I live and from which my story continues.