GNOUU Earth Day 2011

Shared Service with Community Church UU & North Shore UU
& with UU volunteers from New York, Massachusetts, DC, & Virginia
Under the Tree of Life at Audubon Park
Healing the Waters Meditation
The Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger

One year ago, on April 20th, an explosion rocked the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Millions of barrels of crude oil poured into our Gulf, despoiling the coastline, poisoning nesting grounds, fouling the shoreline, contaminating oyster beds and shrimp and crab and fish habi-tat, putting thousands of people out of work and putting families, towns, parishes, and a whole culture at risk. More chemicals were dumped into our Gulf to counteract the oil.

While we struggle to maintain hope and optimism, we do not know all the implications of the spill and its chemical clean-up. We want to go on with our lives, we long for things to be “normal,” but we worry about the long-term effects of what happened.

On March 11th, the first of several earthquakes hit the eastern coast of Japan on the Sea of Japan, causing a massive tsunami and nearly inestimable destruction to people and property in towns, villages, and rural areas along a wide swath of the east Japanese coast. The quakes also caused catastrophic damage to the Fukushima Nuclear Power facility. To attempt to cool down the reactor, seawater from the Sea of Japan was pumped inside, and allowed to spill back into the sea. Later on in the crisis, more radioactive contaminated water was released back into the Sea of Japan.

No one wants a nuclear meltdown, and the seawater seems like the only alternative. We worry about the future, and about the radiation levels in the water now swirling in the currents of the Sea of Japan.

The Sea of Japan is just a way of talking about the part of the Pacific Ocean that borders Japan. To the north it connects to Russia through the Sea of Okhustk, and to Alaska through the Bering Sea; to the south, it washes Indonesia, and further, Australia; to the east, after flowing around the para-dise of Hawaii, there is North America and South America. Currents carry the seawater around the southernmost point of South America, where it meets the Atlantic Ocean.

The Gulf of Mexico connects to the Caribbean Sea (and indeed has been only half-jokingly called the northern border of the Caribbean), and then to the Atlantic. Closer than the edges of the Pacific, where radiation levels in California are elevated from the outflow from Fukushima, to the east are the Atlantic borders of Europe and Africa. To the south, the waters flow to the southernmost point of South America, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Pacific.

In the middle of the Pacific swirls a giant garbage patch, consisting of plastic debris, chemical sludge, and other waste matter trapped by the ocean currents. Estimates of its size vary, and it cannot be seen from satellite photos since much of it is suspended in the water. But it is huge, and growing.

All the seas of the world are connected; all water is one. Our fragile planet is mainly water with a few land masses. Water is necessary to all life. Our bodies are made of water; in New Orleans, we breathe water. Water nourishes us, refreshes us, sustains us. And yet we ruin it, despoil it, poison it, use it and abuse it.

Let us take time this day to send our healing thoughts and prayers and wishes to the waters of the world. Let us be settled in our bodies, feeling our connection to Mother Earth, and drawing in deep cleansing breaths. With each outbreath, let us send conscious thoughts and prayers of healing to our Gulf – north to the Atlantic Ocean and Baffin Bay and the Norwegian Sea – south to the Caribbean Sea, and on to the South Atlantic – continue around Tierra del Fuego to the Pacific Ocean – and to the Sea of Japan. Let your healing travel on the currents of the oceans around the globe. In your heart, say to the waters, Be well, be well. Resolve that you will be a part of the healing of the waters by the decisions you make with your mind and the actions you take with your body. Be well, be well. Let us be together with the waters; let us be as one with each other; let us resolve to be part of the healing of the Earth and her Waters. Be well, be well.