In my back yard…

More like 600 feet below us to the east, beyond our back yard and nearly viewable in winter’s leafless forest. (We’re perched at one of the highest points in Battle Creek.)

This video was taken 4 miles to the west of our home, 22 miles downstream from Marshall, Michigan, site of the spill of 800,000+ gallons of crude oil.

The caustic smell is lifting here and was less noticeable downstream in Comstock, Michigan. There’s a dam between Battle Creek and Comstock where Morrow’s Pond sits. They released water there this morning, according to one of the residents we chatted with at Merrill’s Park this afternoon. Will contaminated water linger there? Will it affect the power plant?

Pondering wildlife on the pond. Nature still sparkles in the oily water. Send love.

LOVE!

Karen

And if you want to participate in wildlife rescue along The Kalamazoo, here’s a link to the Battle Creek Enquirer article with information.

The way she goes ~ Michigan oil spill

Stream at Bridge Park, Kalamazoo River, August, 2009, Battle Creek, Michigan

My views on the oil leak in Marshall, Michigan, less than 20 miles from my home, have morphed from a curious intellectual review of the symbolic nature of this occurrence to irritation at the unsavory smells permeating the air here, now wondering how long this will affect daily life. My heart has gone out to my gulf coast friends over the past few months, but now I have my own example of what it’s like to experience crude oil uncorked in places you wouldn’t expect to find it.

So I look for the best possible way to view this frustrating situation, knowing there is always a solution unfolding. I let my mind wander, pondering Law of Attraction. My calm mind is more likely to see new possibilities…

• The people living in south-central Michigan had an intense focus on the Gulf Oil Spill, attracting a smaller disaster to our own locality for review and response.
• The people living in Michigan had an intense focus on transforming oil dependence on our planet, thereby attracting an event to invoke a powerful response among the populace, fueling innovation, legislation and new solutions to our human energy needs.
• The people living on our planet desire a change in the global dynamics of energy exchange and commerce, and the crises were attracted to our nation because the souls capable of providing innovation to create new solutions to satisfy this desire for change are more easily brought together in this locale.

These ideas place an emphasis on looking forward and finding solutions: Our world, a virtual lab of intention, attraction and realization of goals seeded by thought.

• This situation manifested and it must be accepted. I can see the rivers as beautiful and vibrant, knowing the earth is a self-healing organism. I see earth and all its waterways as whole and healed, willing to see beauty in the crude-ness of it all.
• The situation can strengthen one’s ability to see beauty in sludge. The oil is from the earth, as yet unrefined, and the earth has the capacity to deal with this disaster. Can we accept this as natural and love its earth nature, smelly, goopy, toxic as it is? If we feel responsible, can we forgive ourselves for making this mess?

Crude oil is natural and it’s toxic to flora and fauna. I must accept this. I know resources exist and are ideas are being generated to deal with this situation, as many talented and inspired humans exist to bring new solutions to life.

So how do I feel about this? Mostly, I sense progress is afoot. Yes, I wish it weren’t in my backyard (the smell, the toxins, my well) but I am glad to be near to witness how our region handles this. I am getting goosebumpy… innovation is at hand and we must believe it. Getting our panties in a bunch will not help soothe the nation’s anxiety about oil.

Sometimes she goes, and sometimes she doesn’t go. Yesterday, she didn’t go the way we planned, but she’s going anyway. She’s flowing down the Kalamazoo River past my neighborhood on the way to Lake Michigan and I am sending her love along the way.

UPI Article: Enbridge to cleanup

UPI Article: River moving quickly from storms

Pipelines, current and planned, in North America