Galveston Island, where I got my first 2nd-degree sunburn.

I feel that I should have something profound to say about the horror that is unfurling in the Gulf of Mexico.  I grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast, an hour from Houston, close enough that we had access to fresh-from-the-ocean shrimp and oysters and close enough that family members still spend most Saturday mornings salt-water fishing.  I’ve never been all that fond of beaches, and having grown up in what amounts to a giant swamp plagued with hurricanes and mosquitoes (not sure which is worse), I was thankful to move further inland.

I’ve seen the images of oil-drenched birds and balls of tar, and I’ve watched BP’s continued failure to really give a damn about anything but the bottom line; I’ve watched the same people who resist government regulation of big business bitch about how the President should Do Something Already; I’ve seen the same maps of the spill and projections of its impact as everyone else.  But really, what can I say about all of that?  What outrage can I articulate that hasn’t been written already?  What sorrow can I wax poetic on that doesn’t already have every adjective in English draped over it?

There’s nothing I can say, and really not much I can do.  I’ve sent money to animal rescue organizations, but it’s not as if I can sell my car and buy a hybrid, or even walk or take a bus to work given where I live.  I can’t leave my job to go clean muck off pelicans.  I can send small amounts of money, and that’s really it.

The idea of sending “healing energy” toward something as vast as this almost seems like an insult to its magnitude.  Happy thoughts aren’t going to fix this…and my usual position that every little bit helps just doesn’t feel honest in the face of what our society’s insatiable greed has done to the ocean, to its life, and in turn to ourselves.  That’s not to say that these small efforts don’t help; it’s just that I feel like all that talk of healing energy does more to assuage our own feelings of guilt than it does to help the Gulf.

I don’t agree with people making their living dragging hundreds of tons of living creatures from the ocean so that Red Lobster can offer its two-for-one Shrimp Fest special, but I certainly understand how many livelihoods have been devastated by this, and I mourn that as well.

Seeing the sadness and conflict on people’s faces when they talk about the birds drowning in muck reminds me very strongly of how I felt when I first saw footage of the kill floor of a slaughterhouse.  That overwhelming sense of guilt and disgust, that anger at the injustice of it all, that need to do something—anything—to help, even if it’s just to remove ourselves from the system, turns people vegan every day.  I can only hope that instead of putting their blinders back on, as so many people do once exposed to cruelty toward animals, those who are outraged and saddened over the disaster in the Gulf will take that energy and do something besides rant on blogs and point fingers.

Although I admit the idea I saw on Facebook to plug the hole with Sarah Palin does have its charm.

What should we do?  What am I going to do?  I wish I knew.  All I can really think of at this point is to contribute as much as I can toward the cleanup and rescue efforts…and to lean my head against the Earth Mama and beg her forgiveness on behalf of my entire species.

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