Eva’s Soles

Eva’s Soles
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I am revisiting a blog that  I wrote back in 2011 when I was traveling from the Yucatan to Belize. It was my second time visiting my friend Eva. She had been living in Mexico for many years and was my good friend Alison’s Mom. The first time I visited her I realized she was no ordinary Mom, and I was meeting a very special person in my life. I amuse myself sometimes by leaping out into the Universe not knowing where I will land, yet I always end up where I need to be. That was how it was meeting Eva. This time on my visit with her she took me to a remote  beach down a dirt road. She said she hadn’t been since before she was married. It was a rocky beach that looked like someone had sneezed a truck load of cake sprinkles as far as the eye could see. As we got closer we could identify each “sprinkle”  as someones lost flip flop, bottle cap or fishing net. The colors had changed from brilliant neon to washed out turquoise and soft yellows.

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Eva was shocked. She said the last time she visited, there was nothing but grey rock and salty spray. Now the Debris littered the entier beach. Surprisingly there was an abnormal amount of flip flops, or in  Spanish slang, “Chankletas”. We came to the end of the beach where there was an outcrop and the spray shot forth against a tall rock. The urge came, and we felt compelled to embrace the ocean where she met the land. 

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Walking back we dreamt up a fantastic idea for Eva. She could educate tourists and locals about Marine Debris. There was enough drift wood, line and shoe soles to make a demonstration center at the entrance of the beach. She could sell garbage art and talk about how the currents circulate trash all over the world. We would call it “Evas Soles”.DIGITAL CAMERA DIGITAL CAMERA

It was along this vein of spreading conciousness that our next adventure took place. It was my last night. I had wondered outside for some fresh air, I decided to climb an almond tree to get a better look at the moon. A loud slow moving garbage truck passed right next to me. I could almost reach out and touch the workers, but they didn’t see me. In fact it made me realize that even if they had looked at me, they still  wouldn’t have seen me. We only see what we expect to see, our reality is a dream that we allow ourselves to believe, not what is really there. I wanted to wake people up, I wanted to get their attention. That led to this idea of “Ojo”. We were going to write a message to the world and send it in a magic bottle. The message came as brain storm from my new friends. We would write down our names and our abbreviated stories. The directions included “ if you find this after April 2020 please mail it to…” it also included “ if you find this after Dec 21, 2012 we know that we all made it!”. The label on the bottle said “Ojo”, the Spanish word for pay attention. A very concise and simple way to get a strong message across.

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I don’t know if any one will actually find this message. If any one does find the bottle will they notice the label? will they actually open it? Say they do, will they follow directions? Not likely, but if they did, and threw it back into the ocean and if someone did mail it back to me in 2020, then we would get to see the journey this bottle took through the Caribbean for 9 years. We would also see if people looked payed attention to trash. Inevitably the bottle would wash up on some beach where trash collects. Is that trash removed, or even noticed? Many odds are against this experiment, but it’s a magic bottle, and I believe that there is more than just science describing our world. The true power of our message is our inner-connection. We are connected by more than ocean,  air, and the life on this planet. We are connected on a level that we can’t explain, only experience when we leap into the uncertainty of the the universe fabric.DIGITAL CAMERA

It is now 2014,  3 years later. A lot has changed since we sent our magic bottle on a ride. Most significantly my friend Eva passed away. I found this blog recently and decided to post it in honor of our last adventure. I feel that she is still on that adventure in the bottle. Exploring the ocean currents, meeting strangers and opening their eyes and hearts.  Some things are timeless, and there is magic and mystery happening every day in front of our eyes.

My final words in this magic bottle are of hope. I hope it does get found, and the stories get written and heard. I hope that we can find each other and come together as one community in 2020 and see the faces behind the stories. I want people to empower themselves and question their actions instead of blindly following the herd. The governments and the corporations are not going to save the world, we are. We can’t wait for some miraculous solution,  we are the solution. Be the example you want to see in your community and the world will slowly change around you. Live with a purpose!

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If you like this blog and you want to be apart of the magic bottle ride, write your story, and tell everyone how you are making a change for the better in your community.

Mahalo,

Liv

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