As we enter the last month of 2020 I look back and review. What happened?
How did it make us feel? How are our animals within our homes or yards doing? How are the rest of the animals across the planet doing?
It looks to me that some species are thriving. The birds and insects have been using the empty skies and clean air to go about their business in peace.
Other creatures are being hunted to death on the quiet behind the screen of the coronavirus. We see conservation programmes struggling for funding and poachers make the most of reduced patrols. Small animal rescues are also taking the brunt because of the lack of donations and closing down. People just can’t run them without outside support.
There was a flurry of social media posts about swans and dolphins being sighted in the canals of Venice, not true. Another about a group of elephants sauntering through a Yunnan village in China, stating they got drunk from corn wine and then passed out in the tea garden, also another imaginative story that wasn’t true.
National Geographic reported, “The swans in the viral posts regularly appear in the canals of Burano, a small island in the greater Venice metropolitan area, where the photos were taken. The “Venetian” dolphins were filmed at a port in Sardinia, in the Mediterranean Sea, hundreds of miles away. No one has figured out where the drunken elephant photos came from, but a Chinese news report debunked the viral posts: While elephants did recently come through a village in Yunnan Province, China, their presence isn’t out of the norm, they aren’t the elephants in the viral photos, and they didn’t get drunk and pass out in a tea field.”*
Are the animals really thriving during this pandemic?
The truth is they’re not. Some are even suffering greater hardship.
“I think people really want to believe in the power of nature to recover,” says Susan Clayton, a professor of psychology and environmental studies at the College of Wooster, in Ohio.
Mother Nature will go on, she’s powerful and has existed long before we showed up and will continue long after we’re gone.
But what about the other animals, the ones being trafficked, hunted, exploited, removed, sold, abused? What about the trees and the plants? What about the ocean that stores the large quantities of carbon?
- When carbon dioxide CO2 is released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, approximately 50% remains in the atmosphere, while 25% is absorbed by land plants and trees, and the other 25% is absorbed into certain areas of the ocean.
- Colder regions are capable of absorbing more CO2 than warm regions, so the polar regions tend to be sinks of CO2 (see the North Atlantic and Arctic)
- By 2100, much of the global ocean is expected to be a sink of CO2 from the atmosphere.**
We’ve turned to nature to keep us sane and supported during this Covid-19 experience and there’s the belief that nature has thrived.
Yet despite this belief, it’s estimated that forest loss alerts have increased by 77% since the global pandemic began.
Rather than rest on our laurels that Nature is doing great we need to remember how much better we felt with Nature’s support and step up to do all we can to return the love and to find ways to act in her best interest.
Our individual actions matter. Our collective actions matter.
Connecting with the Animal Kingdom, I feel the animals are working hard. There is tension and there is great peace.
There is an understanding with some and confusion with others. Not all are equal in their wisdom.
And there is still light beaming down on us. Reminding us, nudge by nudge, of who we are. Who we really are.
More than flesh and bones. More than identity and emotion. There is Spirit inside us. As there is with every living being.
Some day, I hope some day soon, we, the human species, will come to an understanding of our truth. And then the world will change, because we change.
We choose to change.
We find a willingness to change and we see and understand that change is not only possible – it’s essential.
We remember how to be an ecosystem. A cog in the evolution of life.
And then the planet, the Great Mother, will rejoice and will we all return back Home.
Home to our universal conscious connection as part of all that exists.
Home to our hearts.
Home to our truth.
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With kindness and grace,