Envirovision

Roger von Butow

“The person to whom the mystical is a stranger, who can no longer

wonder and stand in raptness, is as good as dead.”

-- Albert Einstein

In today’s climate of politically correct appearances, it’s difficult

to find anyone who’s not an ‘environmentalist.’

Southern Californians, criticized by both ourselves and outsiders as

all facade and very little substance, are even more strident in their

rhetoric. One mantra that is disturbing in this seemingly vacuous

avalanche of verbiage is: “We all want the same thing.” Perhaps we should

be asking ourselves questions instead of paying lip service lacking in

deeds.

Where is our work product? Do we really have redundant goals or

objectives?

A true environmentalist has a personal relationship with the air, sea,

land and all things (great or small) that dwell within. This requires

active participation. We learn to live “within the world,” as Spinoza

noted, not watch it voyeuristically from the safe haven of our cars or

homes.

Successful associations, whether business or pleasure, require

compromise. Long-term marriage partners know this, as do marital

counselors. This “C” word is not bad -- it is integral in the evolution

and commitment necessary for prolonged connectivity.

Finding a rattlesnake on a trail, we don’t kill it, we walk around it.

A bee flies into the house, we escort it back to the great outdoors. A

spider in the garage? Give him/her some steerage, some room to do the

pest control work that God intended. In some cultures, arachnids are

venerated because they do the spring cleaning of small insects year

round! We accommodate the symbiotic, we do not find ourselves at war with

the holiness of our environs.

Personally, I’m experiencing a hot and torrid affair with a much older

woman. About 5 to 7 billion years older, if scientists are correct. She’s

got incredible valleys, a great set of peaks, and there is no end to her

fathomless oceans and mysterious ways. Yes, she’s got a few wrinkles, but

these add character to her visage.

Incestuous, but legally so, Mother Earth is an ever-changing female,

in many ways as unknowable as the face of the Creator. She never

disappoints, and is endlessly surprising in her seasonal variations and

displays. If variety is truly the spice of life, she is the ultimate

“Spice Girl.” Go into your own backyard -- aromatic, pungent with the

indigenous sage and wildflowers, is there a perfumiere who can surpass

her scents?

She is the wild child your parents warned you about. Unpredictable.

“Wilderness for its own sake,” as Arne Naess, the father of deep ecology

would say. And isn’t this what draws you to her, as if she were an

electromagnetic vortex, stronger and more inevitable than gravity itself?

Embrace her, and you embrace the maximum complexities of life itself. Her

mood swings are symptoms of her diversity, the formula for success that

produced all biota. The perfect “significant other,” don’t be embarrassed

or hindered in regards to sharing her. Hold her close to your heart at

night, wrap yourself in her warm glow. Know that she needs your help if

she is to survive for your children’s children. If you’ve fallen from

grace with her, renew your relationship. Love and protect her, as she has

done, and the planet may yet have a future.

* Roger von Butow is the Founder of the Clean Water Now! Coalition and

Co-Founder of the South Orange County Watershed Conservancy. He can be

contacted at rvonbutow@cleanwaternow.com.