Slowly Down the Road to the Cemetery

The picture below was taken this morning three years ago, on the River Ganges in India. We did not want to camp next to a corpse, but it was the last suitable place before night fall, after a long day of paddling. The River Ganges runs through the Gangetic plain, home to over 700 million people…almost a seventh of the entire human population.

 

Now... three years later, our shop is located a few doors down from the gates of the famous Bonaventure Cemetery. Not a day goes by without a  slow moving funeral procession passing along.

It strikes us that our most valuable commodity on earth is time. Our most precious resource is water, and the most fun is often spent with friends and family. As kids we know this to be true, but as we get older we get swayed and pressured by the madness of adulthood in the 21^st century. It’s not until we are stretched out on the death bed that we remember the simplicity of what life was about all those years ago.

We do need a revolution. Not the bloody kind that creates more sorrow, misery and regret, but the kind of revolution where nobody shows up. Nobody goes to work, no bills are paid, no money is spent, no bombs go off, no trees chopped down, no animals made extinct, no chemicals dumped into our rivers and oceans. Rather, we all grab our canoes, kayaks and sail boats, our backpacks and bicycles, our hiking boots, our fishing poles, bows and arrows, and head off into wild nature with ourselves, our friends and families.  We are soon reminded of what was important then is even more important now. We are losing our minds because we are losing our mindfulness.

Of course, the Ganges River is the most polluted river in the world, but did you know the Savannah River is the 4th most polluted in the USA, and it is only going to become more so with the harbor expansion project.  Clean water is everything to all life... always has been, always will be. They are not sending spaceships to Mars looking for food or oil… they are looking for water.

So the revolution goes like this: Support your local Riverkeeper. Move slowly in nature and hang out with friends. Be Happy.