The Deva of Sand Creek

My family and I had a picnic at a new little spot we discovered along Aurora's Sand Creek, a nook that actually has some sand and water that is safe (in terms of its depth and speed) to wade in. We brought aqua-socks, snacks, water, sand toys, and a couple of plastic bags in which to collect garbage. It's a lovely little spot with raccoon prints along the sandy bank and what I later identified as Bullock's Orioles playing in the trees. Well, there were red ants. And a leach (on a plastic bag, not a person). On the other side of the bank ran a chain link fence that my husband identified as belonging to the prison. But here on our side of the fence my daughter played in the water and we filled a grocery bag of trash to carry away. We left the garbage with some other trash on the truck of some volunteers planting cottonwoods along the banks of the creek. I felt proud of the lessons my daughter received about caring for the land and exploring natural areas.

I miss water. I grew up near Puget Sound in Washington State; my husband grew up on Green Bay in Wisconsin. When I told my daughter I was glad she was getting a chance to play in the water, that it was strange to her daddy and me that she doesn't have much water to play in, she said, "Why? That's not our home." I felt sad, but also interested at her sense of place and matter-of-fact perspective.

While she played with her dad, who wore the baby in an Ergo carrier, I sat in a little eddy of calm and tried to sense the spirit of the place. I couldn't. Usually I can tap into the deva or spirit of a place instantly. I closed my eyes and called out mentally to it. Finally, with a lot of concentration, I got the sense of a far-off being. It felt hard, cold, spiky. I felt the willow branches and the rocks, but also metal and sludge. It didn't want to converse.

Later we went over to Bluff Lake, a pond near Sand Creek with a trail and a boardwalk stretching out over the cattails. Volunteers run outdoor education programs here, and neighbors like to use the trails for jogging and dog walking. Swallows darted over the water, a grebe gave a scratchy call from the reeds, and red wing blackbirds swooped past. I wondered if maybe my difficulty in sensing the spirit of Sand Creek was merely due to my (maternal) exhaustion. But when I reached out to the deva of Bluff Lake, it came back strong and clear. I got a sense of how this basin of water serves wildlife. It feels calm, bright, an oasis. That it had done so for a long time.

When I got home I looked up the history of Sand Creek and Bluff Lake. I discovered that Sand Creek was an irrigation ditch and that part of it downstream from our little spot was once a Superfund site. That stray bullets used to be found in the creek behind Bluff Lake nature area from the prison. That the water contains lots of heavy metals. That Bluff Lake had been closed off when Stapleton was an airport, that part of it had been a dumping site for extra airport concrete, and that heavy rains washed de-icer from the airport into the lake. The lake is a natural wetland, not an irrigation reservoir (from what I could tell). The history explained to me the energy of the places. Bluff Lake is and has been for some time a respite for animals, if somewhat ignored and abused by humans. But Sand Creek feels like an embittered indigenous person because that's what it is. Shoved there, polluted, shot at, ignored. Only now is it being restored, slowly. I'll be curious to see how the energy of the place changes as the newly planted cottonwoods grow in, the garbage is picked up, and no more heavy metals are dumped into the water.

The feeling of the creek makes me sad, but I try to focus on what we are doing to restore a long-abused stretch of land. This creek feels like a key part of the restoration of Denver and Aurora, the waterways of which were mostly crafted by humans and abused, but that are now being restored as opportunities for valuable interactions with nature. The energy of Sand Creek and Bluff Lake reflect the energy of the whole area, which is awakening to the impact we humans have on the land (and water) and how we can make informed, respectful decisions about our interactions with them.

Global Paradigm Change - How You Can Help

I've begun corresponding with a like-minded woman who has founded a homeschooling community in Bellingham, Washington. She felt moved by my book Voices of the Earth, especially when I write about the Whatcom Creek explosion. She said about her work, " I am intuitively feeling like this organization is on the cutting edge of a new educational paradigm that will be embraced once the shift I am sensing on the horizon takes place." Then she asked if I felt the same shift coming.

I do feel such a paradigm change brewing. Not so much on the horizon, as it were, but more underground, like an earthquake gathering energy. Most people hunger for this change. Many are afraid of it. Some are so afraid, they resist it as if their lives depended on it. Which they do. Earthquakes, like birth and death and growing pains, can be scary. They change the lay of the land. They cause tsunamis (it occurs to me that labor contractions should be compared to tsunamis - a wave that rises, takes over completely, and then abates, bringing change). Or maybe a better metaphor would be a forest fire, raging through the brush of our psyches, leaving a smoldering land ready for new growth.

What would this change look like? My dream and hope is that all people would feel each other and the earth more deeply, and that our actions and decisions would come from that awareness. A simple idea, perhaps, but just imagine what would have to change. The center of how we live on earth would change. Education, politics, business, construction, transportation...... and it already is changing. Local community groups dedicated to setting up urban food, green transportation, and social justice initiatives can be found across the world. Think tanks, institutes, and non-profits also create global change, like the Institute for Social and Environmental Change. Small groups like my new friend's Free Range School are also a crucial part of the shift of global compassion.

What can you do to help this change? You and I are the doulas of global change, helping our species birth a new us. Look the change in the eyes and breathe deeply. Little actions can make a big difference:

• When you plant anything - carrots, lilacs, maples - say a prayer of thanks and blessing.
• When you reuse - cloth bags, cloth diapers, water bottles - recycle, or choose less, you are making a difference. Take a moment now and then to feel into the change on a bigger level. What do these actions mean to the soul of the earth?
• Teach children about ecology and caring for the land. Take them to streams and rivers and the ocean and the mountains. Pick up trash. Bring offerings to the natural spaces you visit - cornmeal, a bit of your own hair, or a sprinkling of herbs. Offer these gifts in thanks and blessing and teach children to do the same (just by doing, you teach them).
• Listen to your dreams. Pay attention to your hunches and intuitions. Feel how we are all connected. Feel how the trees and soil and air and sun all matters. You matter.
  

These are just a few thoughts. I'm sure you can think of others. The point is to connect, open, and live consciously and compassionately, on step at a time.

We are the blood of the earth, and the earth is in our blood. Aho, Ase, Amen.