SuperWeed

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to report that our well may be failing. Well failures in our area have been coming closer and closer to the sanctuary and, from the crazy way our pump was acting Friday and the very low pressure today, it looks like our well is about to be the next to go dry.

I need to write how I feel about this in order to shake off the torpor that drought, heat, and helplessness have induced in me. We had no rain to speak of since 4 July until an hour-long shower earlier this week brought a little relief. The duck ponds have dried up and now look like bomb craters in the middle of the dusty chicken yards. While the dense wild greenery of parts of the foraging yards is still lush, the high-traffic areas that we reseeded this spring have withered and died. The character of the soil in those areas is changing in a way that I can feel when I walk over them but have a hard time finding ways to describe. It’s as if the ground is losing its elasticity and coherence, crumbling from hardpan into powdery dust. I feel a kind of bodily depression every time I feel that ground giving way under the weight of my body.

I look up into the relentlessly dry sky and feel helpless beneath it. I start to understand how the drought-crazed Abraham could have come to believe that a jealous, angry sky god was demanding his fealty. I think about all that I know about drought-driven migrations that brought patriarchy to Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia in successive waves of violent conquest 5,000 or so years ago.

Migration. Yeah, I want to get away myself. The drier it gets, the more my body wants to get up and go. I don’t want to leave the animals behind. No. I want to load up the dogs, cats, ducks, and chickens and caravan us all to the mythical land of water and no worries.

And, listen: It’s not so bad for me. Unlike some of my neighbors, I’ve got the money to buy bottled water if I need it. If we need to dig a new well, I can raise or borrow the many, many dollars that will cost. Meantime, the county’s giving away non-potable water for washing. Worst case scenario: Spend a few weeks washing from a bucket and lugging jugs of bought water out to the chickens while sitting on the waiting list for a new well. Lots of people have it lots worse. Water tables are dropping all over the world and climate change is worsening the crisis.

I’m writing about my own feelings not only because doing so helps to relieve them but also because paying attention to your own sorrows can help you have more empathy for the sorrows of others. It’s a myth that having empathy for yourself is selfish. Actually, the opposite is true: People who dismiss their own feelings are much more likely to be dismissive of the feelings of others. Conversely, thinking closely about what you feel can help you to achieve a deeper understanding of what other people might be feeling. I feel a helpless animal panic when I look at the dry sky? Maybe if I multiply that a hundred times, I might begin to imagine what it feels like to be a drought-stricken refugee. I feel the weight of the animals who depend on me to find them food and water? How much more terrible the burden must be for a mother who truly doesn’t know where she’s going to find what she and her children need.

Of course, they can’t drink my empathy. But maybe my more acute awareness of what water shortages might feel like to the people most affected by them will energize and enliven my water-related activism.

I have, indeed, been thinking about what it might feel like to be somebody else. While carrying four gallons of water into the house yesterday, I thought about how heavy water is to carry. (I think about that on winter mornings too, when frozen hoses mean that we have to haul water in buckets out to the chicken yards.) I thought about all of the people — girls and women mostly — who walk miles every day to haul home the household water. I’ve been thinking a lot about how something like that limits your life. How many bright girls are right now lugging water instead of going to school? How many women will never share or act on the things they’ve figured out on those long walks because it’s always time to start walking again?

And that’s just the drudgery of daily life in impoverished, water-stressed regions. The trauma is much more terrible for women facing acute water emergencies. Then, everybody — including every other woman who would otherwise be your ally in the struggle against racism and patriarchy — becomes your despised competitor for desperately needed resources, your enemy. This report from Sudan gives us just a glimpse of the tragedy.

The World Resources Institute predicts that at least 3.5 billion people — that’s half of us — will be struggling with water shortages by 2025. Nonhuman animals suffer too. They also must walk further and further to find more and more polluted water. What can you do? Fight with all your might against water privatization and for water conservation. Interfere with the industries that waste and pollute water. And, of course, do what you can to lessen your own water consumption and contributions to global warming. For sure, install low-flow faucets and drive less. But remember, animal agriculture uses more water than all other forms of human activity combined and also contributes more to global warming than transport. Eating one hamburger is the equivalent of driving 20 miles and then taking 17 showers. For Gaia’s sake, whatever else you do, go vegan too.

July 29th, 2007 | Category: Gender, Interconnections, Sanctuary, Trauma, Water | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL