Perhaps draining the swamp isn’t such a good idea…
Today, February 14th, is Valentine’s Day, a universal day of love. But is there something more to Valentine’s Day than overpriced roses and chocolates? Let’s discuss.
The Greeks had seven different words for love which you can read more about here if you are interested. The cliff notes version goes like this:
eros — romantic passionate love;
philia — intimate, authentic friendship;
ludus — playful, flirtatious love;
storge — unconditional, familial love;
philtautia — self-love;
pragma — committed, companionate love; and
agápe — empathetic, universal love.
I’d like to focus on the last one, agápe, something in very short supply at this time in our collective history. Agápe is the love of everything: God, nature, our dogs and cats, the people who drive us batshit crazy, the glorious sunrise, a beautiful snowfall, anything in the world and beyond. If we’re ever going to get back to balance on this planet, we all need a little more agápe in our lives, and perhaps a little less individualism, but that’s a topic for another blog post.
This post is about swamp love. So what if the Greeks didn’t have a word for swamp love? A lot of them lived on islands; it may have been a given.
There are four types of wetlands in the U.S. and one of them is a swamp. The other three are marshes, bogs and fens. All are critical to clean water since wetlands serve as nature’s own little wastewater treatment plant.
While the regulatory definition of a wetland is complicated, the average person recognizes wetlands as wet and mucky places that hold standing water, i.e., not a housing developer’s favorite track of land. Therein lies the tension.
