It’s 2007, and I am hitchhiking across Australia with my daughter, Makyziah, and we are finally leaving Perth, headed to the small coastal town of Esperance. I know nothing about this town—I just like the name of it and that we can experience the Antarctic Ocean there.
On the way, we stay a couple days in a town called Kalgoorlie. I quickly learn that everybody here is related to gold mining in some way, and that most of the miners are working at what’s called The Super Pit. At the half-stay, we make friends with Gordon, a man from Papa New Guinea, and he gives us all the details and even a tour of this Super Pit. Gordon confides to us that he hates working at the mine and thinks it is ‘not good,’ but doesn’t know a better way to provide for his large family. He travels and stays here for several months, works non-stop, goes back home to Papa New Guinea, then repeats the cycle all over again.
Gordon drives one of the four “shovels”— the gigantic equipment used to scoop up the earth, each of which cost ten million dollars and uses 4,000 liters of fuel per day to operate. The Super Pit is three kilometers long (1.8 miles), over one kilometer wide, 400 meters deep and growing by the second, as it is blasted 365 days of the year, both day and night. Sixty tons of explosives are used to blow up an area so Gordon can take his “shovel” and scoop up 685 tons of dirt.
We are looking over a fenced ledge at a labyrinth scar and what looks like Tonka toy trucks down in a pit. But in actuality, these are the ginormous three million dollar hauling trucks, bringing up the massive scoops to be sifted, and there are 30 of them. Gordon says driving one is like being in a two-story house, looking out from an upstairs window to steer. Each tire is made to last for over 4,000 hours and costs $25,000! Another layer of shock jolts through me as I contemplate this squander.
Only sixteen ounces of gold, the size of a golf ball, will be extracted from this virgin 685 ton scoop. Some other by-products like nickel will be taken as well, but the majority of the earth is then driven down the road to a dump. We go there, and I see 3,000 acres of this gold-less waste: dirt, timber, rock, pipes, plastics, with the tips of these rubbish piles twenty to fifty meters high (60-150 yards). I don’t know what else to do but pray for our sins. I look down at the gold ring on my finger and know I am part of this madness.
The Super Pit PR has gone to great lengths placing kiosks and billboards all around, ensuring everyone that environmental cautions are of course in affect; that the mine’s effects are self-contained and not harmful to the greater environment; that of course only sustainable practices are used to obtain the gold and they are “proud to be making a caring impact for a brighter future.”
We leave the Pit and return to the half-stay to make dinner, but I am still trying to digest what I just witnessed and recover from this slap in the face of industrialization. The short-term, profit-driven pressure of the present economy obliterating the long-term health of everything else. Here in Kalgoorlie, the whole town, and henceforth the entire current community, has been built upon mining gold. All the interplay of human livelihood and relations is entwined in this work. I can’t say anything negative about this mine- they are the mine! Particularly since I have no offerings for other means of income. Yet it is clear they will work themselves out of work, as well as clean air, water and soil.
I conjure up the image over and over of the town’s people rallying together and saying, “No! We will not support and work in environments that have such dire consequences on our health and the planet’s health. We will join together to create a new, more harmonious reality.” Permaculture was birthed right here on this continent, after all.
It’s night and we are falling asleep under those amazing Australian sky stars, talking about the fate of the planet and I feel so sad. Makyziah says we should ask for a shooting star to come, so that our well wishes would be granted. Within moments, a shooting star flies through the sky! Makyziah says, “Sometimes, all you have to do is think on something, and you can make it real. Make another wish, mama, don’t give up.”
The Super Pit is still growing and growing. We are still acting like it’s an infinite world. I still fly jets to visit foreign places. I drive cars. I use technology with rare precious metals. I buy things that have single-use plastic. I still wear gold. I cannot point the finger.
But I am working it, consciously, from every angle.
If you don’t take care of your body, where will you live? If we don’t take better care of our world, where will we live? Over 80 years ago, Franklin Roosevelt warned us: “The nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself.” I have had folks tell me a range of things when I express my environmental concerns, like, “Jesus will come back before earth is uninhabitable,” or “It’s not that bad-what are you talking about?” or “We can live in man-made biospheres,” or “We will have found a way to inhabit another planet when that time comes.” But if we are going to live so short-sighted now and ruin creation, then wherever else we go we are destined to do the same.
Yet everyday we get golden opportunities to make a difference. Just by how we choose to live. What’s mine today? What’s yours? Are we taking them? But please, whatever you do, be awake. Stay awake. Be a witness. Don’t deny it. Feel the sorrow and keep showing up with hope and love. I’m making a wish for a brighter future everyday, and putting action behind it, too. Because I will never give up believing that we hold the solution to the problem we have made.
Mary Morgaine Squire
12/9/23
Hi there, dear reader, thank you so much for being a part of Earth Devotions, this little seedling creation that hasn’t fully unfurled nor has had time to bloom—but it has sprouted and is alive and growing! From week to week, I am not certain what will come out of me onto this page, but I do know it will always include plant gratitude and a piece about the human plight in these crazy times of earth changes, with reminders, inspirations, shares and reflections on how each and everyone of us plays a role in the story of Earth. Together, we weave the future with our thoughts, words and actions.
I don’t know, maybe some of you don’t find this to be your cup of tea and don’t want a weekly email about Earth Devotions? It’s hard to read my readers so feedback (leave a comment or like this post) is welcome and you can always unsubscribe. I do this namely for three reasons: 1)I HAVE to express myself through writing to stay sane, and 2) If my passion for plants, earth stewardship and conservation can fuel anybody else’s passion, then it’s worth it to expose myself through writing. And 3) We have a large farm that my husband and I manage, and it takes a lotta moolah to keep it maintained, so I hope this can be an income stream to go towards maintaining the gardens and grounds- a big THANK YOU to my paid subscribers- you are a gift to this land.
~Love Letters to Our Plant Allies~
Peppermint
Mentha piperita
Lamiaceae
Dear Peppermint,
I write to you near Winter’s Tide, when your teeny, tiny leaves are hugging the ground, and although you’re still around, you are holding tight until the spring comes again. I can really relate. When the severe cold comes, your leaves do disappear altogether, but I have figured out a way to still meet you in the garden and bring you in for tea. I pull up some of your shallow roots, the ones that are always headed over to the yarrow patch, and deadhead some of your dark, dried seed. The robust feeling these parts of you give me is dearly appreciated. You awaken me. You open me up. Not like black tea. It’s different, I can’t explain. Thank you for sharpening my senses and gifting me awareness of my body, especially in my gut.
Years back, I scooped a shovelful of you from up in our cove where you were planted near the creek over 150 years ago, and brought you down here to live in our gardens. You have been happy here and multiplied. Since then, I have gathered more than a hundred shovelfuls of you to pot up and give away or sell. I love that you are so old yet can renew yourself annually and keep living well. Impressive. I see how you prefer those moist areas, with a little shade.
When I pick a delicate, finely-toothed leaf off your purple-red, square stem to nibble on, I immediately feel refreshment. It must be wonderful to always have a pleasant smell. Since we humans do not, we like to make toothpaste, mouthwash, toothpicks, breath mints and soap flavored with your essential oil.
You have over 200 close family members in your Mentha genus, but did you know you are the most famous of all the mints? You might even be the only herb that makes its way into banks! Even if it’s just your volatile oil wrapped in sugar, you rest in glass bowls, free for the taking, while money goes back and forth, back and forth. May I make a request of you, Peppermint? That when people suck on you in these places, you remind them to seek out time in the garden and wood?
Thank you for quelling nausea, being palatable for children, helping ease headaches and making the best after- dinner digestive tea. It is good to write to you because I am remembering that you also help cool the body internally, and I am going through menopause and having hot flashes and could use your support. Thank you, Peppermint! In taking time to reflect on your ways, I’m really remembering just how much I appreciate you!
In the warmth of summer, your dainty, pink flowers make me and the bees happy, plus a lot of other insects and plant lovers. I like the way you attract me but repel mosquitoes and mice. I forgot about how I could recruit you to help keep them out of my house, by strewing you near the cracks and entrances.
Oh, Peppermint, what is it like being a plant? Being you? Please tell me more of your secrets.
Love,
Mary Plantwalker
-If you are needing to spice up your life this winter, I highly recommend Jade Alicandro”s, of Milk and Honey Herbs, Spice Rack Medicine Winter Online Series Enrollment is open until December 13!
-I just learned that
of Woodspell Apothecary is also over here on Substack ( I am slow in figuring this platform out!) She is an inspiring gardener and graphic artist & has a gorgeous apothecary both online and a brick and mortar in Michigan. She also produces an impressive gardening by the moon planner called Lunica, and I am proud to say I have a piece in the 2024 edition, “The Art and Science of Bitchcraft.”-And I leave you with an old favorite breakfast recipe, a good winter porridge!
Oh hi!! So glad you're here too, and thanks for the shoutout, it was an honor to have you work on the planner. Looking forward to reading more of your words :)
Having spent my teenage years in Central Florida watching the phosphate mines destroy acres and acres and acres of land, leaving behind radiation that resulted in many of my classmates dying from rare cancers, I felt anguish at your descriptions and details of gold mining... My husband grew up in coal mine country and had family members who earned their living working underground. He, too, spent his time working in the mines, but left as soon as he could.
How heart wrenching our choices as humans are... It's so easy to flip a switch, pick up a plastic container, buy a new dress, or run the tap without catching the runoff to water our plants, flush our toilets, or water our pets. It's simple to drive through a fast food chain and select non-living foods that fail to nourish our bodies, hearts, and souls. Or to justify that $7 coffee because it is "fair trade" without considering the carbon footprint of transporting it 3,000 miles from the "small family plantation".
Until humans are willing to postpone gratification or do without, I fear these industries will continue to thrive. It is inconvenient to avoid companies who make it so easy to one stop shop, but their contribution to unfair and inhumane working conditions and the wholesale destruction of natural resources should make us all the more determined to not darken their doors or click on "buy it now" because there is free delivery.
Change begins with one person and one choice at a time.