Ma Oceans or Mother Ocean, is an invocation, it is my path to reconnect with the whole. My story began when motherhood dawned and the primal instinct to protect and nurture took hold of my being. I was drawn to the sea in the early days of my pregnancy. As I sat counting the waves on the seashore on the barrier islands of the Carolinas, a wish sprang from my heart. A wish that the universe granted in the form of a being who is one with the sea. For two decades our family has voyaged to far flung reefs all across the Indian ocean in search of beauty and peace. We have been witnesses to the degradation of coral reefs, the extinction of marine species and plastic litter in the most far flung and remote beaches. We have been actively engaging corporations, large and small retailers and the government to stop this massive destruction of our most valuable resources, water and air. Our efforts now need a more formalized platform.
This past year, life’s magical journey took me to the Galapagos Islands. Teeming with life in all its diversity and majesty, the Galapagos show us how man and animals can live symbiotically without harming or fearing each other. There, after swimming with baby sharks in the shallow waters of beautiful Tortuga Bay, I felt a tremendous amount of well-being and a 'yes’ sprang from within me.
Yes, if we are to search for solutions to save our oceans and seas, that answer has to come from deep inside us. Science and innovation must be married with a holistic understanding and a more nuanced approach to problem-solving. Thoughtful capitalism comes with a huge responsibility to make the right choices, for ourselves and for our children. The growing sense of isolation and lack of belonging, in an instantly technologically connected world, is a symptom of a larger societal issue. Try as we might, we cannot hold hands with nature on the current platforms social media has to offer.
Those with means get to travel, hold and attend conferences, and we come back with a fistful of cards and often gain some new understanding and a new insight into solving the planet’s problems. But what about the millions who are living the aftermath of a post-industrialized economy and are disaffected, the youth who in their frustration take to guns and violence? How can citizens be better engaged?
As I meditate, I realize, no matter how successful our veneer, we long to go back to the water, to the womb that sustained us. We, humans and all living creatures, were born of the ocean and the ocean is our mother.
Ma Oceans is a platform which with multiple initiatives will bring a solutions-based approach to solving the key problems plaguing the oceans and human life on the planet.
Our first set of initiatives recognize that climate change is a reality and any initiative that expects to make a long-lasting effect on the environment must address the issue swiftly. The oceans are a sink which are bearing the brunt of human activity specially in the post-industrialized world. Animal and marine species are facing extinction at the fastest pace known at any point in human and in fact pre-human history including during the extinction of the dinosaurs. At the core of all actions related to environmental protection must be this realization, our clock has run down. We are past the point where incremental solutions can create more than a small dent in the damage that the past millennia of fossil-fueled growth has done to the planet.
