July 6, 2012 - Connect the dots. When you view the news regarding the Gulf of Mexico this past month, you can't help but feel we're under a terrorist attack down here. The use of Corexit has been documented and seen from Louisiana to Florida. Including a large number of fish kills, and two newly reported stories regarding human health.
THERE ARE FOUR PARTS TO THIS VIDEO
And here's a story of another fish kill in Miramar, Florida on July 18, 2012:
THE FOLLOWING VIDEO WAS PROVIDED BY: Melissa Carter Neidert
Seascape Resort in Miramar Beach Florida. This was taken today at 7:00 pm. Over the past year we have lost our turtle population, then we watched our ducks disappear, and now our fish are dead!
Wikipedia actually has a page dedicated to, “Denial.” The simple definition of denial is the disbelief in the existence or reality of a thing (like oil). Kind of reminds me of that Shaggy song, where he got caught butt naked, banging the girl next door, on the bathroom floor. But he continues to stick to his story, by constantly repeating, “It wasn’t me,” to his girlfriend.
A second type of denial is minimisation. That’s where one might admit a fact, but deny the seriousness. The third is a the kind of denial where the subject admits both the fact and serousness of a given situation, but denies the responsibility, called projection. Thus, denial is a negative characteristic.
Addicts are a consequence of denial. It plays an important role in recovery, via the twelve-step program. And the American Heart Association blames the delayed treatment of heart attacks on denial. Furthermore, the first of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grieving is denial; then anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. So you see, even victims are not immune to the disease of denial.
But when your self-preserving denial begins to cost innocent people their health - I call it lying! What happened to the Gulf of Mexico hinders on the unforgivable. Not simply because it happened, but because of how the general population behaved afterwards. They were way more concerned with how many tourist weren’t on the beach, instead of how many were on the beach. The oil spill itself tore apart at my very soul; the beach stank, it was gnarly, and there was nothing natural about it. I have lived the five stages of the grieving process. Moving well past denial and into acceptance.
Fact: the oil is still here. It is not safe to swim in Gulf, due to the dousing of toxic dispersants, as well as Corexit. Where there is oil, there is a lethal dispersant of some sort. That’s what makes the oil sink. There are oil matts along the shoreline of the Gulf Coast. And there are toxic pockets throughout Pensacola Bay, as reported by Marine Biologist, Heather Reed to The Pensacola League of Women Voters, on May 7, 2011. Although there are different types of crude and a variety of toxicities attached to each, what Heather Reed describes coincides with what Dr. Riki Ott (Exxon Valdez Spill in Alaska) describes in her book, Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$, at page 243: “Without oxygen, the oil had not weathered and it still contained measurable levels of PAHs - over four parts per million in the mussel tissues and ten times that in the underlying sediments.”
Ott also warns the word “Weathered,” is often used, by the industry, to downplay the toxicity of oil that is still harmful. And as I mentioned in my blog before, Dr. Ott reported the highest concentrations of PAHs were found, “at the waters edge at the lowest reach of the tides,” adding, “the residual oil in the intertidal sediments was potent enough to kill test animals for two years” (at page 195).
Now tell me, with the “Facts,” that I just presented to you, do you truly believe it’s safe to swim along our coast line here in Pensacola? It seems to me, if you support tourism in this area of the Gulf, and you continue to tell people it’s ok to eat the fish, and swim our waters, or sit silently by and allow this sick behavior of greed to continue, then you are contributing to the deaths of thousands of people, and you are no different than the Germans who allowed Hitler to rule.
Be Real! You live with dis-ease when you deny, lie and pretend. Only when we accept the truth can we begin to heal ourselves, as well as the Gulf of Mexico. The truth being, she needs our help, not our denial.
A Japanese entrepreneur named Masaru Emoto conducted experiments and published six books from 1999 through 2007 that claims the human consciousness has an effect on the molecular structure of water. Water being the most receptive of the four elements, Emoto researched his theory by taping words to the glass containers. For example, he would tape the word “Love” to a glass bottle of water, and then freeze it. He would then tape the word “Hate” to a glass bottle and freeze it. Then Emoto would compared the crystal structures. The crystal that was labeled with the word love, responded white, shinny and pretty. But the crystal labeled with the word hate, responded yellow-brown in appearance and rather deformed. Emoto also analyzed water that was exposed to music and prayer. He took water from Fujiwara Dam, in Japan, which appeared brown and pretty much shapeless when frozen. He then had a Buddhist Monk pray over the same water. When crystalized it was white and looked like a perfect snow flake.
Considering the human body is 70% - 90% water, Emoto’s experiments prove that what we say and think has a profound effect on ourselves physically, as well as on our environment. This also indicates that there is a possibility that we as a collective could “think” a polluted body of water clean again. It’s said that this has been done in Japan. Three hundred people led by a Buddhist Monk gathered around a polluted stream and focused on the water healing for an hour. Fifteen minutes after the meditation, the water became visibly clearer.
There are many who challenge Emoto’s theory’s, just as there are many who challenge us along the Gulf Coast. This is my home, and I refuse to be a victim. Please, when you are at the beach doing whatever, put a little water in a glass container and take it home with you. Talk to it. Tell the water you love it. Sit it by a pretty picture. Pray over it, sing to it daily. Then the next time you go to the beach or wherever you got your water, take it with you and pour it back to where it came from and let the healing begin.
Instead of spending hours on the computer, take some time out of your day and meditate on the Gulf. Feel and love with your heart; heal her. Bring the bad parts back to life. Because the power of thought is everything. As she heals, you will heal too.
On June 7th, the Pensacola News Journal reported that a large number of sand dollars were washing up from the sound side at Ft. Pikens. On June 18th, we went out to investigate further and found hundreds of BLACK and broken sand dollars. Sand dollars are suppose to dry out white. These were long dead and had been sitting in the sun for quite a while, but they were black. I believe this phenomena supports Marine Biologist, Heather Reeds statement earlier this year, on May 7th, when she told the League of Women Voters that there were toxic pockets of curde oil in the Pensacola Pass as well as in the bay/sound areas.
The beach is like a living being. Some parts are more favored than others. Over the years I’ve drifted from one spot to another along the eastern part of Pensacola Beach. East of Portofino Towers that is. I prefer the natural beauty over the family/tourist oriented areas. Before Ivan, it was beach number nine; the Gay and Lesbian beach along the National Seashores. There were no porta-pots to pee in. So we use to open the car door, and another person would hold a towel across the open area of the door, so you could take a squat, without anyone seeing you drop your shorts. That’s when I discovered that most people peed in the water. Even the dudes. I never understood that. Why pee all over yourself and pollute this gorgeous water we were all playing in? Then again, the parking lot began to smell like urine it baked in the hot sun.
Then Hurricane Ivan came and wiped the road out to Navarre. Our new little home on the beach became the double parking lot area that actually had a bathroom and shower area, as well as life guard station. It was the last parking lot, before the road turned to sand. We dug gigantic holes in the sand, while looking for shells. We hit the mother load that year. Eventually we started pulling into the smaller of the two parking lots, and taking either of the two walk out that lead out onto the beach. What’s known as walk-out number thirty today is the beach that Celia and I were married on. I look back on those photos now and think, what a gorgeous afternoon. Most certainly, we were standing before God, barefoot on sacred ground. The sand was so white. I wonder if I’ll ever see it that pure again?
The last couple of years, before the BP Oil Spill, we found ourselves worshiping heaven on, what’s know today as, walk-out number 27. All along eastern area of the Pensacola beach, I have left little gifts and mementoes to honor this endless wonderment of creation. Sometime at the end of February, or the first of March 2010, we stepped out onto the beach, and something didn’t feel right. I was so afraid they had done something to the water. Celia kept telling me, no it’s just the way it looks today. Which was a logical conclusion, if you’re a person who relies only on your sight. The water was rough, so it wasn’t unusual for the surf to look dark, like reservoir water. When we left that afternoon, I remember thinking, I hope she’s right. But I could not dismiss the sadness that tore at my gut.
So, I took the feathers that I collected from the beach, and added them to a piece of palm that I had decorated and burned symbols to. And on Palm Sunday, I took it to the beach and said my prayers. I asked that the beach be protected from harm, as well as the people who visit here. Thinking along the lines of a possible hurricane, not knowing at the time that I was praying for protection against the biggest oil spill in American history.
Even now when I think back on my little piece of heaven splattered black like a slow creeping cancer, my tears I can not hide. “Yes, it could have been worse.” This is what we say down here, as if the words were a mandated prescription that cures. Still, another summer will come to pass, and again I will find myself disenchanted at the poison that lurks in the beauty that lays before me. Another stolen season of fresh shrimp and oysters sizzling on the grill, with interludes of fresh salted kisses from the Gulf, as the white caps softly brush upon my face. I miss rolling in the waves like a child being tickled. And like a mother caring for her child there were times when she healed me. Now I pray that she heals. And some day she will.
But right now, the Gulf is still being raped. There are over 3, 858 gas and oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico alone. You drive along the Mississippi and Louisiana coast lines, and it looks like a third world country. Shipyards and pollution scattered all up and down their shores, like they have no pride. These are the poorest states in America, and the oil cartel uses this to their advantage. And every American should be concerned, because this our land. It belongs to us. All of us. I’m not writing this blog for me; I’ll be 48 years old. I’m writing for you and your children, and the generations to come. Contact Congress. Even if it’s a representative of a state other than your own. Let them know your aware of what’s going on down here, and you don’t like it. We have to get these oil companies out of the Gulf! It’s not impossible. I don’t buy it for a minute.
