Celebrate Oceans

Forget space travel, we have an enormous, almost unfathomable, undiscovered world all around us. There’s something so incredible about the oceans; something quite mind-blowing about the vastness of them. Anyone who has swum out of their depth in the sea might well have encountered that feeling of awe mixed with a mild kind of panic – it is when bobbing in deep dark salty water that we come to know how minute we really are! Perhaps the effect of the salty water encasing us reminds us of our time in the womb, and there is something hugely transformative and powerful about the oceans, with their tides governed by the moon and their vast unknowable depths. Philosophers, poets, artists and boat-people have long mused on this great teeming life mass which has the power to give and take away life. Perhaps best likened to the Hindu goddess Kali, the oceans can be a place of restoration and relaxation, as in beach holidays and snorkelling trips, or of terror and destruction, with tsunamis and storms.

World Oceans Day takes place annually on 8th June, and is a chance to celebrate and honour the oceans across the world. The Ocean Project and The World Ocean Network founded the day in 2002 as a way of promoting education and awareness. On the World Oceans Day website, they offer these reasons to get involved this year:

Change perspective – encourage individuals to think about what the ocean means to them and what it has to offer all of us with hopes of conserving it for present and the future generations.
Learn – discover the wealth of diverse and beautiful ocean creatures and habitats, how our daily actions affect them, and how we are all interconnected.
Change our ways – we are all linked to, and through, the ocean! By taking care of your backyard, you are acting as a caretaker of our ocean. Making small modifications to your everyday habits will greatly benefit our blue planet.
Celebrate – whether you live inland or on the coast we are all connected to the ocean; take the time to think about how the ocean affects you, and how you affect the ocean, and then organize or participate in activities that celebrate our world ocean.

To find out what’s happening near you this World Oceans Day, check out the Events page here. You can also get information about hosting your own event if you can’t find one near you.