Arctic reflections
'Arctic reflections' by Stuart Yates
Svalbard: one of the world’s last wildernesses, soon to be despoiled by humankind’s lust for material comfort. A land of exquisitely delicate flowers, which is still slowly rebounding from the last ice age, where animals have no fear of humans. The vast bulk of the glaciers, deep silence, expansive skies, seemingly endless ice and the clarity of the air all connect with the experience of a gathered Quaker Meeting for Worship: the experience of touching the pure, universal and ageless immensity of God’s creation, enveloping and supporting us. It is a rare place which humans do not dominate, where we are required to respect nature, where we are just dots on the landscape. It is a still place for being, for receiving God’s blessings in humility and gratitude.
Looking walrus and reindeer in the eye, bobbing about in what felt like a very vulnerable inflatable boat as a humpback whale surfaces a few feet away, seeing a polar bear family up close, falling on the tundra to find it as soft as any mattress, discovering the inches high arctic willow – all filled me with awe at the wondrous and precious nature of all creation. I watched a fulmar for several minutes, framed in the cabin window, rising and falling in tune with the ship. Although an obsessive photographer, the camera, as usual, lying to hand, there was something so powerful, so deep a connection, that I did not even think to pick it up.
Death is, of course, also here, in the form of whale, reindeer and polar bear bones; a reminder of the natural life cycle. We are enjoined to let our lives speak in the brief time we have on earth.
Glaciers, silence, skies, ice, air will soon either disappear or be polluted beyond restoration. Climate change has thinned the ice sheets so that oil exploration and new trade routes are now possible. The pure, cold water will be flecked with oil; the bears will drown between ice floes that are no longer close enough together in the summer; the walrus will disappear again as they did when they were hunted here; the flowers will wither and die.
We have despoiled too much of the earth already. The Arctic wilderness is precious beyond any price. It needs our help to resist big business backed by states intent on asserting territorial and trading ‘rights’.
How might you speak your truth to power?
More words and images can be seen at http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/svalbard-remembered-20120919 as Stuart’s support for the Greenpeace Arctic campaign.
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