The Walrus was My Tipping Point

My First Silkworm Diaries Post

“The time has come,’ the Walrus said,

To talk of many things…”

…..Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There

Prelude

Before I officially begin, I’m going to anticipate a question you might have when you read my post. I imagine you asking me, “Why did you write about walruses in your first Silkworm Diaries post?”

My answer? It's because, in my life, the walrus and the silkworm have become inseparably connected. I don't think I can explain why silkworms have become important to me unless I first share what I experienced with the walruses.

One evening, I sat in my soft bed and I witnessed a walrus in incomprehensible pain.

In a pre-twilight morning, at the end of a sleepless night in my dark living room, I moved my fingers rapidly over my clicking laptop keyboard, learning about the possibilities of silk as an eco-friendly fiber.

The morning I discovered silkworms seems to have never ended. Silkworms inhabit my thoughts and my time every day now. In contrast, my experience with the walruses lasted minutes. But I'm certain my life and the lives of these tiny silkworms couldn't have intersected if I hadn't seen the walruses.

The impact my smallest actions can have on the planet has never been more clear to me than the moment I learned about the walruses. Far away from human civilization, their species is acting out a historical drama. It wasn't long ago that I was clueless about them. Now, I'm crestfallen. Now I can see that my day-to-day actions create the backdrop for their drama, no matter how far removed my body may be.

Becoming aware of the walrus's plight had the effect of carving out a concrete freeway in my brain where before there was a dusty trail. That freeway always leads my thoughts to the same destination: conscious action.

It was in that space of consciousness action that I found silkworms.

My attempts to understand the connection my actions have with the earth and it's creatures is at the heart of this blog. I'm hoping these diaries will be a catalyst for positive change in my life. Whether they change your lives....well, you can decide for yourselves whether your lives need changing.

The Walrus

I am forty-five minutes into “Frozen Worlds,” the second episode in the Netflix documentary, “Our Planet.” I glide over ocean waves and descend toward a Northern Russian seacoast, where the waves crash onto a beach. Or, at least, I assume there is a beach. Surely there must be something supporting the thousands upon thousands of walruses that quickly fill my screen. But I can scarcely see land between all their bodies.

Three decades ago, in my teens, I watched dozens of what I call “nature shows” with my wildlife-loving older brother. But I’ve never seen anything like this before. In the late nineteen eighties, as I curled up on my family room couch, the stage was being set for the drama I am now watching, but the actors hadn’t yet taken their places.

Today, the narrator is David Attenborough. His voice is melodic and soothing but I detect a wistfulness in it that tells me I am watching a tragedy unfold. “Over a hundred thousand walrus,” he tells me, “have hauled out of the water onto a single beach. They do so out of desperation, not out of choice.”

I learn that their natural home is out on the sea ice but that the ice has retreated away to the north. This is the closest place to their feeding grounds where they can rest. In these crowded conditions, they are in constant risk being crushed by a sudden stampede. The young are particularly vulnerable.

To find space away from the crowds, some of the adults struggle up tall cliffs. This, says Attenborough, is “an extraordinary challenge for a one ton animal used to sea ice.”

I see them tensing their muscles, working their bulky bodies up to higher ground. Their skin looks thick, rough, and often pink and raw. Their weight causes rockslides that carry them backward, so their progress is slow. They only cover ground because they don’t stop straining to get higher.

Now I can see them perched in precarious spots on the cliffs. Their movement disturbs the rocks on the clifftops. I hear sharp cracks as rocks spill down the face of the cliff. The echoes mingle with the neighs and snorts of thousands of walruses, the mournful cries of sea birds, and the gurgling, crashing sounds of the waves below.

I brace myself for what is coming. I can feel my stomach clench and an electric tingle runs through my body.

Attenborough continues. “A walrus’s eyesight out of water is poor but they can sense the others down below. As they get hungry, they need to return to the sea. In their desperation to do so, they fall from heights they should never have scaled. ”

As he speaks, I witness them lose their grip, slip, and finally tumble. Their bodies bash against the cliff face many times before they finally collide with the rocky beach. Dozens of them lie among the sharp boulders. Many of them are still alive. Sickened, I feebly try to comprehend their pain and fear and to accept that what I am seeing is real.

The camera rests on the face of a dying walrus. His eye is red. His skin and his whiskers look incredibly rough but I want to reach out. I want to close my eyes and rest my hand on him. The never-ending slosh and gurgle of the ocean water mingles with the piano and violins that play in the soundtrack. The earth is adding its voice to the lament.