ANOTHER DAY

Thinking about turtles hatching down in their nest, 2 feet deep in the sand, maybe deeper, then having to literally swim up against gravity, through sand to discover what the the new day has in store. It reminded me of a piece I wrote several years back about the “Waking-up” experience. It is so turtle-like. Not a flash of insight, more like a slow stirring of consciousness; awareness overtakes the void and you sense your own being. However long it takes depending on how exhausted you were and how well you slept, puzzle pieces begin to fall in place. “Oh yeah, I’m warm, it feels good. . . but I’m in a strange place. Oh yeah, Baja, we came to herd turtles.” Then total recall swooshes like the studio logo at the beginning of a movie. Wondering what I want most, the comfort of my warm bed or coffee, I know that life is good and I have at least another day to look and learn, to laugh and cry. It’s nothing al all like waking up needing to pee but then that scenario is far better than the alternative.  

Buddhism with its bent for reincarnation is far more complex than what we Occidentals might presume. The view that humans die and come back as someone or something else is not news. What eludes us is, believing that coming back to a human circumstance that is better than the one we left behind is short sighted. After all, Buddhist belief is that human experience in predicated on suffering. It may be far better to come back as a worm or maybe even a sea turtle. Lack of intelligence would be a blessing. Whatever, wherever one’s station in the food chain it would simply be, not lamenting your misery. Even worms seek pleasure and avoid pain, if you want to think of it that way but they don’t have a thought process so they don’t suffer. Buddhism is more about enlightenment through accepting the unavoidable and less about growing ambition and achievement.

So I’m left this morning with the obvious dilemma, as I watch our tiny turtles slide out with the tide, which of us is better off? But I am neither Buddhist nor sea turtle. I’m stuck with what my parents gave me and my fate is with that bumpy ride, for as long as it will have me. It is not a choice. Loss of habitat, industrial fishing and plastic in the sea; they all combine, putting sea turtles at risk, more and more. All sea turtles are threatened, some are endangered.  They don’t know it but I do. If they go extinct, what does that mean to us? What if dinosaurs go extinct . . . they did and we have taken their place. 

I’ll be checking in down on the beach in an hour or so, at the greenhouse with its 30-some transplanted nests. The last two days have been with no hatching/emerging action. Even if the turtle was sentient, it would have no memory of day light, its siblings or what crawling through dry sand requires. But it will be compelled to crawl toward the sound of waves breaking on the sand and the smell of salt air. Like yesterday, I’m hoping for a break-out day with maybe a hundred new Olive Ridleys to release this evening. If we don’t get them, they weren’t quite ready yet. I can wait another day.