[EcoDharma] Living Earth

[Tairin]

Thank you for sharing Doshin

There is no question that weather patterns are changing. I just said to my wife, in reference to the fires out in Hawaii, how it must be getting harder and harder to be a climate denier. The truth is that human memories are short. You and I share a few characteristics that may help make climate change more obvious to us.

1. we are both on the other side of 50. I think one probably needs to have lived and experienced a little to see the climate change and remember how things were
2. We both have a love of the outdoors, which means we are out in the change. Must be harder for those who are indoors or in their car all the time to appreciate what things are like
3. We’ve live for quite a while in the same place. I literally live no more than 5 km away from any other place I’ve lived. This definitely gives me the perspective of change in this locale

One thing I am noticing year after year is how many fewer bugs there are. Mosquitoes in particular are in an obvious decline here. Used to be you’d be eaten alive outside in the summer evenings Now there seems to be only a few. Also bugs on the car windshield. I can recall as a kid coming home from a trip with out windshield caked in bug guts. Now? Barely any.

Sorry for my rambling but your post just happened to touch on a topic I’ve been thinking about recently


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Doshin]

Yes Tairin we do share experiences over a period of time. I have the good fortune of having lived for 73 years so far and I have been in love with the wild places and wild things since my first memories.

When I began my studies in ecology/wildlife over 50 years ago these changes were being discussed as they had been since the late 1800s. I thought we had plenty of time to change course but then here we are.

Your remembrance of bugs on windshields echoed with my memories. In college I worked at a gas station when they were full service and cleaned windshields of bugs. That need seldom occurs for me anymore. It tells of change. Insects are critical for our survival. Also, as I have related before, during my career as a Wildlife Conservationist it is estimated we have reduced wildlife numbers throughout the world by 67% if my memory is correct. The world has changed much more and faster than I hoped.

Doshin
St

[Doshin]

IMG_0338.jpeg


Did you know today is World Lizard Day?

It has been less than a month since World Snake Day!!!

Doshin
St

[Doshin]

Examples of interdependence surround us when we pause to look. Biodiversity is just that, the interconnections of life with the mosaic of landscape features that support it and drive the evolution of species over time.

Wetlands are a special part of the landscape for me because I spent most of my life working and observing them so I want to share an observation with the Sangha.


I have been observing this (in attached photo) wetland in SW New Mexico for around 25 years. Some years this wetland almost comes to where I am standing and taking the photo, some years it may only fill up halfway, other years it is dry. A couple of years it held water for a year and a half.

This is a Playa Wetland that many driving by would just consider a mud hole. Water from across the landscape drains here and then slowly enters the ground and much evaporates. But it is a wetland and an important wetland. I took the photo with my phone from a distance as not to disturb the birds. Though you have a limited view there are a couple hundred gulls, around a hundred Sandhill cranes and many ducks using it now during the winter

This is a migratory stop over in the early fall and spring for shorebirds coming and going and waterfowl use it too. When the monsoons come in the summer spade foot toads dig their way up through the ground to breed here. Raptors hunt the birds. Pronghorn Antelope and mule deer water here as do so many other species like javelina, coyotes, badger, fox and maybe an occasional elk. A myriad of species use this area.

This wetland is important but depending on rain it is not always wet and benefiting the species. However there are other playas and in some years the rain may find them...not every spot gets rain from a storm. Here in the desert you can watch a downpour miles away while standing under clear blue skies. The perspective to take is these playas are part of an interconnected landscape and species that are able use a playa when is has water and when it does not hopefully there is another many miles away that will be wet.

Doshin
St

IMG_0347.jpeg

[Naiko]

Thank you, Doshin.

Naiko
st

[Tairin]

Thank you Doshin


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Doshin]

The following quote came up on my Face Book feed this morning. It stayed with me and I wanted to share with the Sangha

“if religion was each other? If our practice was our life? If prayer was our words? What if the temple was the Earth? If forests were our church? If holy water - the rivers, lakes, and oceans? What if meditation was our relationships? If the Teacher was life? If wisdom was knowledge? If love was the center of our being.”
― Ganga White

Doshin
St

[JasonC]

The following quote came up on my Face Book feed this morning. It stayed with me and I wanted to share with the Sangha

“if religion was each other? If our practice was our life? If prayer was our words? What if the temple was the Earth? If forests were our church? If holy water - the rivers, lakes, and oceans? What if meditation was our relationships? If the Teacher was life? If wisdom was knowledge? If love was the center of our being.”
― Ganga White

Doshin
St

Gassho,

Jason

Sat Today

[Naiko]

What a lovely quote. Thank you for sharing it, Doshin.

Naiko
st lah

[Tairin]

Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Doshin]

This is a very brief news article about the 2022 State of Birds Report. The report addresses the issue in much greater detail and you can find quickly on the internet. However this recent articles talks about things an individual can do to help. Of course the real issues involve application at the landscape/continental scales but at least here we can contribute in a way.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/03/world/iyw-rufous-hummingbird-tipping-point-extinction/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0X-KuuKESm_EOXQFtwOwLsjGmpJejtfe7tlXYJRtTSJcZ-QVFqHC6xV7w_aem_AUWEvwwKtfg2Q1NQcEfd-LIzqdGpKCPJ-9tYdkeaJRe-6fEpEiFeopxydwfd1DgNkWY

Doshin
St

[Doshin]

Invasive species have major impacts on worlds biodiversity. https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/05/world...%20extinctions.

Doshin
St

[Doshin]

This week in the US Ken Burns’ Documentary The American Buffalo aired on PBS. The documentary is narrated by Peter Coyote (Zen Priest). This documents one of the great tragedies in America.

Throughout the documentary the 3 poisons of Buddhism are so apparent. Difficult to watch if you have any sense of the interdependence of all sentient beings.

Doshin
St/lah

[Kokuu]

This week in the US Ken Burns’ Documentary The American Buffalo aired on PBS. The documentary is narrated by Peter Coyote (Zen Priest). This documents one of the great tragedies in America.

Throughout the documentary the 3 poisons of Buddhism are so apparent. Difficult to watch if you have any sense of the interdependence of all sentient beings.

Thank you, Doshin. I will watch that when it becomes available over here. It sounds like a hard watch, though.

Peter Coyote also reads the audio version of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Doshin]

Kokuu,

It is in two parts (4 hours total) and is very well done. A significant part deals with the importance of Buffalos to the indigenous people who lived for thousands of years with this magnificent animal and how greed of the new Americans had an impact on them with the demise of the Buffalo. People from different tribes contributed to the narrative. I can think of no where else on earth a similar story of such magnitude can be told. I wonder how all but extinction of this species may have been an important catalyst for the conservation movement in the US. This became an indicator to many Americans that the once unlimited amount of the wildlife bounty of the Americas was not unlimited.

Doshin
Stlah