Today is Blog Action Day

From the Blog Action Day site:

On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.

Spread the word.

What's there to write about "the environment" as an issue that hasn't already been written?

Your unique perspective.

Here's mine.

Over the past several years, I've developed an odd fondness for ants - those busy little insects that get bad press for invading people's picnics and causing general mayhem in suburbia. Let me tell you how it started.

When I lived out in the country a few years ago, I'd often sit on my front step during the summer to enjoy the broad prairie view and the little flower garden I'd planted in the front of my cabin. It was then that I noticed the ants who'd congregated in that space.

As a former city slicker, my first instinct was to get rid of them - only knowing their reputation as tiny supposed weapons of mass destruction. But, as I spent more time just watching their daily activities, I discovered a new found respect for those little annoyances (as I had previously thought them to be) and found a certain meditative quality in just enjoying the oversight of their many travels and food gathering efforts around my sidewalk and garden.

Around the same time I had read a book about Buddhist monks in Thailand (if I recall correctly) who were involved in building a new monastery with the help of some westerners. The site they had chosen, as they were all soon to discover, posed one small problem. Once the ground was broken, the monks discovered a plethora of worms which, of course, they could not kill according to their belief in the sanctity of every living creature. So they decided, to the amazement of the westerners, to move the worms to a new location. Obviously, that was going to be a huge task. In the end, because of the enormity of such an undertaking and the construction delays it would cause, the decision was finally made to find a better location for the monastery - leaving the worms to their original home and satisfying all involved.

That attention to something so seemingly insignificant moved me.

I suppose if you could interview of a few of the ants I had the chance to oversee today, they'd say they remember this human as one who was a little too eager to be "helpful" ie. trying to rescue them after it rained by poking too many holes in their hills to free them from their freshly covered underground bunkers; attempting to hasten their food delivery efforts by pushing whatever they'd found to feast on just a bit closer to their doorways, leaving them confused in the process; opening vent holes after they'd already begun their fall hibernation. Not exactly the brightest spot in their daily lives at times. But I hope, if they were capable of thinking such a thing, that they would have seen me as a friend - not a foe - a creature concerned about their well-being while trying to give something back to them for the hours of serenity they had given me.

Fast forward a few years to life back in the city in a rental property where the owner is not one of those enlightened or appreciative of the presence of ants on his back patio and imagine my horror when the hills came under chemical attack at his hand. I had already spent my time with them, once again rescuing them after the rains (wiser about being more gentle this time around) and had found them to be a great distraction from the city's noise, pollution and general busyness around me. A welcome bit of nature in a harsh world.

When I told Chemical Landlord that I liked the ants, he said they were a nuisance for him because their underground activity caused his patio blocks to shift . Once again, I found yet another reason to admire them. Imagine the power of such a small, dedicated community that their work could actually move large pieces of concrete. Being a political junkie who had witnessed the crumbling of democratic principles perpetrated by the Bush administration and other right-wing authoritarians around the world, what struck me was the power a well-organized, cohesive and focused movement could have against our own huge blocks of human concrete - the stumbling blocks towards true progress and peace.

When there is little hope to be found and when hope has become overrated in these times, crushed by powers that seem invincible while being made a mockery of by those who have given themselves unprecedented authority over all of our actions, I was able to see at least a glimmer of what might be if the much vaunted idea of communal power could be harnessed. I say this while unfortunately observing that the massive amount of dedication and just plain caring needed to move those blocks in America just doesn't exist on the scale of what those ants could teach us if we really chose to emulate them.

So when I think about "the environment", although I'm as concerned as the next person about the large issues we need to tackle together and do what I can to take it easy on the planet, what I choose to take away from my relationship with the small environment that surrounds me is an appreciation for what others might tend to miss and what I ignored for too long: the power of small things that can have a huge impact on how I view how I live, the lessons I can learn from the habits and interactions of the tiniest creatures and how I can apply them to actually make a difference.

Our environment includes everything that surrounds us and we have a lot to learn from it if we choose to watch, listen and think. It is a reciprocal relationship. All we need to do is to appreciate how deep that goes, draw some inspiration and use that experience to save it - and us. And, when we do that, the attention realized by the give and take moves beyond simple actions like recycling cans, using less fuel and turning off the lights to something more profound and real: the realization that our environment has the answers. All we need to do is be mindful and act on what it is teaching us at all levels in our lives.