On this Earth Day, I’m looking out at clearer skies and breathing fresher air. I can clearly see the mountains surrounding Reno. Everything looks brighter. We have done more for Mother Earth in a few weeks than we have done in the 30 years since I celebrated my first Earth Day. This gives me great hope.
Look what we have done! We have proven we can change our lives in a few weeks. We can collectively come together and make choices that sustain life. I have the strong sense that Mother Nature created this virus as an opportunity for us to STOP, to take a time out and notice what life can be like when we slow down. We are home–getting to know our families, our environment, ourselves. We are reducing pollution, carbon emissions, noise pollution and other destructive impacts on the natural world.
We have a chance now to sit back and observe what we have been doing. What still serves us and the world? What doesn’t? In what ways have we gotten off balance both internally and externally? How have our ways of living caused imbalances and what can we do to create a sustainable balance with all of life?
Mother Nature has much to teach us if we pay attention. For example, check out this amazing video on Biomimicry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf4oW8OtaPY. I love this quote from Janine (the narrator): Life creates conditions conducive to life. How can we create conditions that are conducive life?
I believe each of us has tremendous power to change, and collectively, we can exponentially change our world. We are doing so right now. Let’s not lose this momentum, this chance we have been given.
Mother Nature is in trouble. Our ways of living are choking her and harming our fellow creatures. I read a line in an article I can’t find now, but I resonated with it: “While we are all inside holding our breath, Mother Nature is breathing a deep sigh of relief.”
Here are some articles on what is happening out there:
You can search the Internet and find many more stories and examples as scientists and everyday folks like us notice the changes occurring all over the planet.
Please don’t go back to business as usual after this. Let’s take the chance we have been given to fundamentally change how we live. The very biosphere we and our fellow creatures depend on is in danger. We can do this. We already are.
Looking for some ways to help? Check out these sites:
https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2020/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Puv0Pss33M
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/ocean/earthday.html
Here is another beautiful video of the Apollo 8 astronauts talking about seeing our beautiful Earth from space in 1968.
https://emergencemagazine.org/story/earthrise-film/
Blessed Earth Day to us, our fellow creatures and our amazing Mother Earth
Amazing pictures/videos. Yes, we can take the positives that we are learning from this experience and use them for good………and, when this is over, we can rebuild what was lost in perhaps a better way.