Conservation

It is Earth Day. I didn't do anything particular today to celebrate, but really it's the little lifestyle things that make all the differences. How I conduct my living is the measuring stick. May we continue to reflect and adjust.


I can post about my first caving experience in Missouri in honor of the day set aside to remember our responsibility to stewardship.


I wrote the following paragraph after getting back from my first caving trip. I saw endangered Indiana bats and Cave Salamanders in the first cave I went in. In the second cave, I participated in a cave restoration or "cleaning" project. I wrote to reflect on that experience:


"The moment occurred after being in a cave for almost three hours. It was a special moment. The feelings and insights that accompany moments like these are, like the moments themselves, becoming rare – even endangered – due to our fast-paced, busy, individual lifestyles. I am talking about, for a moment, becoming overcome with the connectedness all humans have – the root and simple fact that we are all, each one of us, human, Homo sapiens. We are connected to the many people that have come and gone, the billions currently among us, and the even-more-to-come. Now, I am not a philosopher, just a caver and conservationist; but, I think many know what I am talking about. I know the several new people I met at the cave do. We all came for a common purpose – to restore a cave. We had many different backgrounds, life-stories, and, yes, political allegiances; and yet, that all washed away as we brushed and rinsed away graffiti in the cave. Cleaning a cave isn’t glorious – it is hard labor; it doesn’t directly save a cave animal, and requires patience; but it is rewarding. By conserving something that I can’t claim as my own, something I myself didn’t ruin or mess up and something I may not ever see again, I partook in something bigger than myself…connecting myself to several new cave cleaning colleagues and even to the broader human species and the world we inhabit. I am just two weeks into my new position at the MDC, a greenhorn, and I have come across the best award I could ever receive – the feeling of and reminder of being alive and a part of the human race, all evil-corrupt actions put aside. This happened while doing conservation work. Anyone can experience a moment like mine! If you don’t know what I am talking about, please, participate in a cave restoration trip!"

I am the red flanel dude in the center of this photo... we are looking at a wall in the cave with paint and scratch grafitii.