According to The Guardian, more than a quarter of American honeybee colonies were wiped out over the winter, with deadly infestations of mites and harmful land management practices heaping mounting pressure upon the crucial pollinators and the businesses that keep them. More than half of beekeepers suffered unsustainable losses.

To the New Seminole, this is just another sign of the approaching Apocalypse racing towards us. Unless the Outside changes its ways-- and fast!-- we all will be dead before we get to Mars. And we know Mars is no Garden of Eden.

​The question is, "What are YOU going to do about it?"

According to The Guardian, the world is "hurtling" towards a point-of-no-return regarding the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. The question is, "What are YOU going to do about it?"

Grizzly bear No. 211, otherwise known as "Scarface" for his mangled visage, was hugely popular among photographers and park goers at Yellowstone National Park. The 25-year-old bear was illegally shot and killed in late 2015 but it took until now for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks to determine it was actually "Scarface."

To paraphrase Chaucer, this news "slayed me suddenly." Grizzly bears are protected under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Killing an "Endangered Species" can result in a $50,000.00 fine and a year in prison. New Seminole justice is harsher: death by the same means.

Although there aren't any majestic grizzlies in the Everglades, the smaller Florida Black Bear is doing its best to hang on. Unfortunately, the Outside is making that all but impossible. Nearly 20 acres of wildlife habitat are lost to new development every hour in Florida. Roadkill is the number one cause of bear death in the state (over 100 bears are killed on Florida roadways each year).  

This is why we fight for Gaia-loving species everywhere.

This is why my fight is more personal: Nokosee, my husband, the father of my child, and my lover-to-die-for's name means "Bear" in the Seminole language. So when I see Nokosee or just think about him, I think of the bears out there trying to hang on against a world that is for the most part indifferent to them. Or like us, the New Seminole, a world-- the Outside-- that wants to kill them.

All of us are endangered species. The Gaia and the Inside has us to fight for them. Who or what is looking out for you?

Gotta love The Nooksie.

That's what I call Nokosee when I'm feeling all love and cuddly. In the beginning, he didn't like it. He thought I was making fun of his name. He didn't know I was calling him that cause I was falling in love with him. I didn't realize it either. Anyway, he surprised me when he sang it to me at my wedding reception hidden deep in the Everglades, twisting Bikini Kill's "Rebel Girl" lyrics to make it work. His dad had kidnapped The What-- one of the biggest rock bands of all time-- when they were crossing the Alley from Tampa to Miami to perform at my wedding, but Nokosee's song to me was the best thing of the night, and the biggest surprise for sure. 

Actually, the biggest surprise came a little later when an F-18 Hornet strafed us along the Alley when we let The What go. But that's another story and it still can't compete with my memory of my man singing to me in the Everglades.
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I was sure I had all the answers then, when I was 17, but I didn't. Call me stubborn, but first I had to get burned to a crisp by the Everglades, shot at by redneck poachers, make the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List, and run barefoot and pregnant at 18 through the Everglades as big bad Uncle Sam tried to bomb me and our little rag tag group of New Seminoles to smithereens before I figured it out.

Or at least think I have. Falling in love with Nokosee helped. Having his baby really helped.

This is my blog to explain it all to you-- and to me-- the best that I can; to show you why I cared enough for Gaia, Nokosee, and Haalie to risk it all. 

As Dylan said many moons ago, "Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."
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