Blessed am I to receive, this Thanksgiving weekend, an email from a passionately inspired and immensely proud Newfoundlander and Labradorian - Dr. Phil Earle.
He is amongst a small core of our people who still believes strongly in a fishing future for our province and whose soul is tortured by our falling away from our roots - our "failing path" he terms it. In this email-essay he expresses a poetic reverence for this place we call our home and how it has shaped us and is calling out for our respect and our action . His words will reek of romanticism to those sold on the here and now and with little aptitude beyond the profit margin. To those with a sense of soul, sensitivity, history, depth, respect and vision, his words are indeed the "magnificent truth"...
Hi Kim;
You know, maybe I just don't face the reality of this place... our past, EJ Pratt knew - like we do and feel - that our people were fired in danger and courage, in daring and ability, in self-reliance and venture. This rock and sea that forced us to make a pack with it ... infusing in us, in its process, with a character of love and trust.
The process of the outward journey into the inebriate Nord Atlantic which was really, in our seafaring fathers and mothers, an inward journey into their souls! Fact. How else can you explain how they had the greatest fiber woven into their beings? Tell me?
This reality, this truth, of who we have been, where we came from; and therefore, who we ARE... has another part today in that 90 goddam percent who now live on this island have forgotten this magnificent truth.
Our shame is not the destruction of our fishing resource ... our shame on this island is that we have lost the connection to the soul that made us the greatest seafaring characters and fisher people on earth. We have become a derelict culture.
Not to be taken out of context... but look around NL today... oil, mining, tens of thousands working in Alberta, aquaculture, etc. So are we blending into the melting pot of Toronto or Ft Mac or what Harper wants to do to us as fodder for the nations of CETA? What culture is this ... one like an Indian Reservation?
Our fishery has the ability to sustain a 10-Billion yearly economy, bigger then Norway's and that would completely change our province... restore our coastal heritage, culture and our Souls.
Its not words that will bring the insight and passion that we need to change
our failing path... only the belief in one's heart of what can be - and action from it can make a difference.
phil
