Fresh Water-Healthy Lives Mary McKinney Schmidt Writer and Great Lakes Advocate |
| If you have suggestions and comments, contact mary@freshwaterhealthylives.org Copyright 2008 Mary McKinney Schmidt |
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Spiritual Connection Everyone must find their own path to a higher power, to God... and I have found mine. |
From the upcoming Book 1 Recognizing A Spiritual Responsibility to Lakes It is early December and I can hear the winter fury in the waves crashing against the shore. Despite the icy winds and wet stinging snowflakes, I grab my warmest jacket and head to Lake Michigan. I feel like a child on Christmas Eve as I listen to the thundering roar of the waves. My heart races with excitement as I clamor down the path, through the trees and on to the beach. Large rolling waves crash against the sand, spewing white, frothy water into the grey world of winter. I stand there, mesmerized. Surely this is heaven on earth. I realize there are business reasons to clean up the Great Lakes—roughly $55 billion/year in tourism alone. And certainly the health of 42 million people who drink the fresh water of the Great Lakes should be a driving force. But there is something else motivating me to get involved, to do everything I can to prevent the further deterioration of the Great Lakes ecosystem. I call it spiritual responsibility. The Lakes feed my soul and nourish my spirit. I owe it to the Creator who gave us this incredible masterpiece, to restore and protect these waters. My friends ask me if I get discouraged. There are so many issues facing the Great Lakes. “At times,” I admit candidly. But there is cause for hope. Earlier this year Democrats and Republicans actually put aside political bickering, crafting bipartisan legislation to clean- up the Great Lakes. Unfortunately, the legislation is stalled in both the U.S. House and Senate. There is no funding. But there could be…Michigan and the other Midwest states are considered swing states in the 2008 Presidential election. That means we will be inundated with visits from all the Presidential hopefuls. No candidates should visit our region without knowing our political support requires their assistance in funding the clean-up of the Great Lakes! We have a two year window of opportunity. There are millions of people, like me, who care deeply about the Great Lakes but don’t have a lot of time, money or political experience. None of us want to leave our children and grandchildren with polluted waters in which they cannot swim, fish they cannot eat, or drinking water contaminated with raw sewage. But what can we do? Fortunately, 90 environmental, civic and business organizations joined forces with the Wege Foundation to answer that question. Rather than working independently across the region, the organizations pooled their vast knowledge and experiences to create the “Healthy Lakes, Healthy Lives” campaign. Scheduled to be launched in January, the program is designed to educate, energize and engage citizens in the prioritization of the Great Lakes legislation. The group, which calls itself the “Healing Our Waters Coalition”, is also working closely with the Brookings Institution. They plan to publish a report in the spring which will outline the financial return to the nation on the investment needed to clean-up the Great Lakes. The report is designed to spark discussions between Midwest business, civic and political leaders and the Presidential hopefuls. So when I start to feel overwhelmed, I’m reminded I am not alone in this journey to restore and protect theses waters. In the meantime, I tear out every column I write and send it to my elected officials with a little note asking for their help. It’s a start. You can do the same. The more they hear the Great Lakes need to be made a priority, the greater the chance it will happen. A friend once told me, “You are responsible for your efforts on this earth, not necessarily the results.”
neck, I whisper to the Lakes, “I will do my best.” I pray the spiritual power of the waters will encourage others to do the same. |
| Marram Grass, frequently called dune grass, stabilizes the sand, forming foredunes. Other vegetation will follow. Photo taken at Saugatuck State Park. Harbor Entrance can be seen in the background. |
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An Interdunal Pond, Luddington State Park
A Lifetime of Learning Lake Michigan, with its miles of beaches, rolling foredunes, deep troughs and interdunal ponds, and the forests of the backdunes, touch the essence of my own spirituality. It requires a deeper relationship, a greater understanding of the dunes, trees, birds, wildflowers. I have begun a journey of discovery that will take me an entire lifetime.* *A special thank you to all the National and State Park Rangers who have been so eager to assist me. Also of great help have been Stan Tekiela's Field Guides for Wildflowers, Trees and Birds of Michigan; Jim DuFresne's The Complete Guide to Michigan Sand Dunes and Borne of the Wind, a pamphlet written and funded by The Nature Conservancy, U.S. Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Michigan Natural Features Inventory and the Nongame Wildlife Fund. |
| Sleeping Bear Dune (as seen from the top of the Empire Bluffs), is considered a perched dune. Glaciers originally created a large bluff of rock and sand, called a morraine. Winds carry the sand up the morraine, creating a dune on top. The dune itself may be only 100 feet. But when combined with the morraine, it may tower over 400 feet above the water. |
| Parabolic Dunes are the predominant dunes along the southeastern shores of Lake Michigan. Defined by their distinctive U-shaped blowout, the dunes were formed when sand forests were destabilized during high lake levels. Winds off the lake continued to blow the sand inland, creating large dunes as seen above at Warren Dunes State Park. |
| Linear dunes are parallel dunes formed as the water level of the Great Lakes gradually drops. Also called a dune and swale complex, the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore contains roughly 150 linear dune ridges along an area roughly four miles wide. |
To learn more, click on... Spring Wildflowers at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. |
The purple flowers of the smooth aster provide a sharp contrast to the peach and
gold hues of the sumac in autumn. Photo taken on the north side of Mackinac
Island with the sparkling clear waters of Lake Michigan in the background.
gold hues of the sumac in autumn. Photo taken on the north side of Mackinac
Island with the sparkling clear waters of Lake Michigan in the background.