Susan Baur
Community Organizer
purifying polluted ponds
After publishing books on oceanography and later becoming a psychologist, Susan Baur began swimming alone in Cape Cod ponds in the company of turtles. For eighteen years and over the course of 1500 miles she searched for moments of wonder which showed her a different reality. All is connected, and all thrives and suffers together. No longer seeing nature as a collection of things to use, but as beings to relate to, she founded the Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage (OLAUG) in 2018 with the understanding that we must restructure our own relationship to nature before we can influence others. The ongoing success of the Old Ladies has convinced Baur that becoming a citizen of Earth’s integrated community is what people hunger for today.
After swimming alone for eighteen years in Cape Cod ponds, I founded the Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage to help the turtles who had helped me see the natural world as one big community of which I was a part. Every year turtles lost habitat as tourists took over more of their ponds. The least I could do was clear these waters of trash. Gathering a half dozen women in their 60s and 70s, we dove in and removed balls, cans, bottles, chairs, fishing lures and, once, a toilet.
However, it was not until the group attracted media attention that I realized our appeal came not just from removing trash, inspiring older women, and reenergizing pond associations, but, most importantly, from showing people how joyous it is to align yourself with the natural world. Inadvertently, I had hit upon a task that immerses swimmers in nature and requires such concentration and such physical stamina that each of the Old Ladies shakes free of the “cage of self” and sees the underwater world through new eyes. Call it wonder, enchantment, or being in the flow, each now understands she belongs to a common world, is supported by a planet-sized community, and is carrying forward the greatest experiment ever undertaken—life on Earth.
“Gathering a half dozen women in their 60s and 70s, we dove in and removed balls, cans, bottles, chairs, fishing lures and, once, a toilet. “
Through OLAUG, we’re encouraging a radical reorientation by immersing women in the beauty of the natural world and giving them such a demanding task that they forget themselves and are drawn into the watery world around them. No longer alienated from nature, they become lovers, not exploiters. All who see us are as surprised as we are by the joy and vitality this releases. Convinced that aligning ourselves with the natural world is the most effective way to preserve Earth, and also that it is easier to scale up joy than guilt or fear, OLAUG demonstrates how to develop the intimate, personal relationship with nature on which the success of all other conservation efforts depends. We hope to start chapters all over the country and perhaps the world. The more happy, purposeful people there are who see themselves as part of Earth’s one community, the better it is for all of us— including turtles.
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