Mary van Balen

Watching dark plumes of oil and gas rise like dirty clouds from the broken pipe at the BP oil site makes me sick. My stomach turns over when I think of millions of gallons of oil fouling the earth every day. The thought that this will happen day after day for months is unfathomable.

Anger rising from my heart is as dark and dirty as the oily clouds. Read More 

PHOTO: Disney
Last night a couple of friends and I spent the evening at the local art theater watching Disney's new Earth Day offering: Oceans.
That it was short on storyline did not present a problem since I went for the images; the movie does not disappoint. I am an ocean soul and treasure every moment I can muster in the waves or walking the beach. I left the movie theater with a more profound respect for the complexity and wonder of the world under water.

The images were breathtaking: an octopus that looks like a silk scarf patterned with gold and brown undulating through its blue world, a leafy sea dragon that is almost indistinguishable from the plants it eats, humpback whales hanging upside down to sleep. The list is endless.

Some creatures travel thousands of miles every year while others that stay put like the leafy sea dragon that cannot survive if moved to a different depth or location.  Read More