Day 88 9/21/13: Wetsuits, White Sharks, & Whiskey

by in Animal Welfare, Diving, Inner Turmoil, Memory and tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The smell of wet neoprene has already joined the ranks of dusty hay, lilacs, and library bindings in my sense memory hall of fame. Evocative of pools–and soon the ocean. It’s been a week since I last used the wetsuit and it still isn’t dry. I suppose it doesn’t really matter since I am about to walk off the side of the boat into the ocean, but I find myself worrying about all sorts of things as I prepare to leave. My mouth feels slightly dry.  A byproduct of caffeine or Mild Terror?  I’ve packed ginger pills for nausea and a flannel sheet for the sheet-less bunk on board the boat which will sail from the quaint port of Oxnard, but I wish I had a little flask for whiskey.  Last week we read “Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor” in class and I’m not thinking of  sharks so much as the endlessness of the ocean, how border-less it is, how impossible it seems to me that people can actually create boundaries between national and international waters.

But I’d better can the poetry for now, and get on to more practical concerns like packing….and signing this petition to place covers on boat engines to protect great whites who follow cage diving boats in South Africa.

Day 87: 9/20/13: The Lemon Sharks of Jupiter

by in Activism, Animal Rights, Animal Welfare, Environment, Marine Conservation and tagged , | Leave a comment

You know what really pisses me off? When people use the word “harvest” to refer to hunting animals. As if bears were wheat or lemon sharks were lemons. Of course, “harvest” is only one of many really awful euphemisms like “animal research,” or “by-catch.”

Maybe the bigger question is why human beings seem hellbent on killing the things that are already disappearing?

For the vanishing lemon sharks of Jupiter Florida, the National Marine Fisheries Service has proposed that the new “harvest” date begin on January 1, 2014  just as the sharks are gathering to give birth to their pups.

Please read this post from Sharksavers and leave your comments for the NMFS asking them not to change the opening date of fishing season.

The comment period closes Monday, so please take action this weekend. It will only take 5 minutes or less!

English: Lemonshark

English: Lemonshark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Day 86 9/19/13: Meditations on a Gaping Maw

by in God, Meditation, Teaching and tagged , , | 2 Comments

I’ve been meditating for a little over a year now. I try to do it twice a day, although I admit sometimes I miss a session or two. But my meditations aren’t limited to those periods that I sit for twenty minutes with my eyes closed. Lately, I’ve been concentrating my attention on this image of a great white. I’ve posted it before. I don’t know what exactly sets it apart from countless other terrifying images of white sharks with tooth-ringed-death-tunnel-cavern-mouths, but in this particular photo, the shark not looks as if it has ambushed its prey (the viewer?) but is itself, startled, surprised.

In my anthropomorphic projection, I read a sense of wonder in the black eyes and open mouth.

As I study this picture,  I remember something from the meditation lecture I went to a month or so ago in which Thom Knoles paraphrased the words of Guru Dev:

Transcend where you are

Go Beyond the field of thinking

Master non-thinking

Then Transcend that

After that my lecture notes are garbled, excited. Words like “simultaneous,” “integrate,” and  “alternate” fill the margins.

When I go beyond thought (thoughts largely involving “terror” and “death”), what is there besides the creature itself?  If I go beyond thought, am I then allowed to take in the silence of the shark, its essence, which feels a little like cold sea water seeping in under my skin?

Yesterday, I had students respond to E. O. Wilson’s famous line, “In a deeply tribal sense we love our monsters.” Why do we love them? I asked the class, scrawling their ideas on the board. “Because they are free,” someone shouted. “We want their freedom.”

Maybe this solitary project should become a group meditation.

Day 85: 9/18/13: Thank You, Ghost Shark

by in Humor, Pop Culture and tagged , | Leave a comment

I have to admit, after showing Sharkwater to my class with its gruesome finning scenes, reading about the devastating effects of shark overfishing on coral reefs, and wondering if any of my teaching or writing or petitioning or protesting was doing any good at all, I was brought back to life by these amazing spectral GIFs from  the no-doubt horrible tale of cinematic revenge known as “Ghost Shark.”

When I have more imaginative energy, I want to write a more worthy analysis of this multi-layered masterpiece…..

Day 84 9/17/13: Teaching Mammals to Love Fish

by in Animal Rights, Education, Environment, Shark Behavior | Leave a comment

A cavalcade of shark chores at school: plastering the joint with handsome sea-blue flyers advertising Ralph Collier’s lecture, xeroxing piles of articles,  realizing that not everyone is as utterly fascinated with all things shark as I am, although some students seem keen on learning more and one kind soul gave me a shark Pez dispenser.

I realize some of  this lack of interest in sharks is not just disguised fear, but disgust.  Sharks are fish. “Fish are gross,” one girl said. “They stink.” I thought of Jonathan Foer’s argument (I am too tired to reproduce it here) about fish being separated from us–living in the water they retain their otherness.

Another form of distance. Another barrier to overcome.

I described how beautiful the leopard sharks looked when I saw them in La Jolla, their spotted gold bodies rippling in the current. I gently suggested that our associations with smelly fish perhaps originated with the dead sea creatures laid out on slabs of ice in the market or languishing in filthy tanks.

I asked the class to write a few questions to ask Ralph Collier about shark behavior, attacks, etc.

A boy in the front row said, “I want to ask him if sharks have emotions.”

“Great question!” I exclaimed.

Although I felt too embarrassed to admit it, I’m still recovering from the crushing realization that this widely circulated shark-man love story was  a hoax.

Wood, iron nails, pigments

Day 83 9/16/13: Sand Tigers & Sex Ed

by in Education, Humor, Shark Biology | Leave a comment

I marvel at how often discussions of animals illuminate human ignorance.

Why just today I was sharing this fascinating L.A. Times article on intrauterine cannibalism in sand tiger sharks with one of my classes. Although we’d already touched on this evolutionary oddity  (embryos chewing through womb walls to eat their sibling competitors),  I felt the subject deserved another go-round. I didn’t have much to add to the discussion except “Wow. Can you believe it?” until I neared the end of the piece and read this:

“In captivity, an alpha male sand tiger shark will guard a female when she shows signs that she will soon start ovulating.”

At various times in my illustrious career, I’ve been stunned by the dearth of knowledge that males between the ages of 19 and 25 have about female reproduction. Simply put, most guys in my classes have no idea what a period means. When I casually inquired if any males knew what ovulation meant, one fellow answered confidently, “When a girl has her period.” I made the sound of the losing game show buzzer. The girls giggled.

One young man finally explained eggs and fertility in an economical and tasteful way as his brethren looked on like hostages at the Lillith Faire.

I tried to lighten things up by asking the class to imagine if intrauterine cannibalism existed in humans.

I don’t think they quite get my particular brand of humor.

English: Sand Tiger Shark

English: Sand Tiger Shark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Day 82 8/15/13: Out of the Kiddie Pool

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In diving class today, I fumbled with my fin straps far too long,  continually adjusted and cleared an ill-fitting, constantly flooding mask, struggled to re-attach my weight belt and continued to totter and lurch Frankenstein style while trying to swim with my tank. In other words I assumed I would definitely be setting up some additional pool sessions.

Imagine my surprise when my dive teacher Greg said, “You did well today. We just get you a new mask and you’ll be ready for the boat trip next weekend.”

The shark is my friend“You think I’m ready?”

I removed my mask, hoping my face wasn’t smeared with snot.

“Yep.”

Leaden anxiety rooted me to the spot.

I looked at the faded portrait that hung over the pool: a gaping, tooth-ringed mouth of a great white  framed by a porthole.

I uttered a silent prayer to the great fish: You’ll protect me, right?