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

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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