Page 161 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015
P. 161

Dark Matter: Women Witnessing - December, 2015 Issue #3 - EXTINCTION / DEVOTION






Chesapeake Blessing Walk would at least follow the Appalachian Trail in the mountains of 



Virginia, Maryland or West Virginia. Alas, a quick superimposition of the two maps in Photoshop 


reveals that the A.T. neatly bisects the Bay Watershed.





Gradually, others join the walk, women and men. They too hear the song of the Chesapeake. 


Together, the people walk along shorelines of sand and stones, of hard paving, manicured 



lawns and tall marsh grasses. They say blessings and sing prayers, perform ceremony and 


gaze upon the Chesapeake and her many tributaries in wonder. They converse with the spirits 


that dance in the sunlight on the water’s surface and with the shifting tides in the depths below.





Rather than choosing between shoreline,



rivers, or watershed perimeter, why not


walk it all? Why not here, there and


everywhere? It’s the least we can do,


after the last four hundred years of


ignorance. We have the science-based



advocacy, the citizen activist teams, the interactive web maps to track stream health and bird 


and butterfly migrations. We have the license plates and highway signs and storm drain stencils. 


Why not keep going and try everything that comes to mind, get all hands on deck? What have 


we got to lose? The places we love just might save us. Or at least they will change us.






As we walk, pray, and sing our blessings to the land and the water, we feel our own bodies and 


hearts becoming more whole and vibrant. When we return from our walks, we raise oysters and 


restore the grasses that have been lost. We plant trees and care for streams in towns and cities 


far from the Bay’s shores. Some of us tend gardens; others turn panels to the sun and blades to 


the wind. We walk and sing and share more. Our dances cause more cracks to appear in the

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