As a child, when we celebrated first Mother’s and then Father’s Day, I remember asking my parents when “Kid’s Day” was. They laughed and said, “Every day is Kid’s Day”. That made no sense to me then but now that I’m a mom I totally get it.
Until recently I felt sort of the same way about our family celebrating Earth Day. Ideally, wasn’t every day Earth Day? Don’t get me wrong -- I wasn’t knocking the objective of setting aside a day to honor the planet. I’ve been just as thrilled as anyone that Earth Day has gained popularity since 1970. But as someone who follows a nature-based spiritual path I already revere the earth as sacred throughout the entire year; Earth Day seemed a bit redundant and I saw no need to make a big deal of it in our little family on that one particular day. We had the whole crunchy-granola-earth-celebrating thing covered all year long, right?
Of course that’s assuming that I actually put the earth in my earth-centered spirituality in the first place. Just being a pantheistic type Gaia devotee is apparently no guarantee that you are earth-friendly. And sad to say I’ve even been to a couple neo-Pagan celebrations where disposable plastic plates & cups were used -- complete with a vinyl tablecloth covering the altar since it might get “dirty” outside. Seriously.
Granted, I think those were isolated incidents of “religion as hobby” rather than any sincere form of nature reverence. Certainly most Pagan oriented celebrations are not so ridiculously hypocritical, but it does make one wonder. How can you be part of an earth-based spiritual movement without concern for the actual planet? And shouldn’t that concern be an integral part of your convictions, isn’t supporting environmental protection issues as sacred as lighting candles and welcoming the changing seasons with ritual?
However my faith has evolved, whatever label I’ve given it…one constant aspect of my spirituality since my 20’s has been my dedication to the belief that the earth is sacred. So, when people who know my spiritual perspective would find out that we didn’t actually celebrate Earth Day, they'd be surprised. I would just explain that it happened to fall close to Beltane, a spring holiday that we did celebrate, so my attention was on that. I would then go on to illuminate all the ways we tried to take care of the earth 365 days a year…the recycling, the reducing, the organizations we supported, our veganism, eating organic, so on & so forth.
But recently our already high level of concern for the dire straits the planet finds itself in has been even further heightened. It’s finally obvious to a larger amount of people than perhaps ever before that the earth could use alot of extra consideration right about now. Earth Day has become a great chance to promote thoughtfulness regarding a wide variety of environmental issues -- always a good thing. So, in my little neck of the woods we are now paying more attention to Earth Day, to participate in this growing positive movement.
Earth Day presents itself as a great teaching opportunity for kids, and let’s face it, we really need them to do a better job than we have of living gently upon the planet. To that end we have used these weeks leading up to it as an opportunity to focus on relevant subjects in homeschooling our 5-½ year old daughter. We’ve explored issues such as global warming, pollution, and the various things we can do about them. For those interested, a great book for that age group is, “Where Does the Garbage Go?” (revised edition) by Paul Showers. Another would be, “Be a Friend to Trees” by Patricia Lauber.
We are also spending some time this Earth Day weekend preparing for Beltane with an eco-friendly focus. On Saturday we are creating May Day “baskets” to give to some of our neighbors on Beltane. These will be made out of recycled Silk Soymilk cartons, painted and decorated by our daughter. We’ll be planting them with flowers purchased from a woman who owns a local nursery and grows them organically. I think this has been a good little lesson for our daughter – for one thing she gets to literally see how garbage piles up, what with all the empty cartons quickly taking over our dining room table! And she also can experience the value of giving something back, both to the neighbors as a gift and to the earth in terms of turning trash into treasure. It’s even been eye opening for us and has me thinking of a way around buying our soymilk to reduce the trash output…perhaps making it at home someday instead.
Anyway, on Sunday my husband is taking our daughter to a nature center where a special walk is planned for children & parents. I’ll be at home with our baby son. Perhaps I’ll slip outdoors and nurse him on a bench in our yard, my own quiet way of spending some special time in nature with him.
I thought we could end the day with an organic Earth Day Birthday cake, the name of which is inspired from the sweet children’s book, “Earth Day Birthday” by Pattie Schnetzler. We can all blow out the candle and make a wish for Mother Earth’s future and talk about ways to ensure that future is tread upon in ways that will leave a lighter footprint.
Along the same lines, in addition to getting out in nature or attending festivals or even participating in green protests, I would like to see Earth Day become a time for making personal earth-friendly commitments, like birthday wishes or New Year’s resolutions – only with a decidedly ecological purpose. Things like promising to switch all the light bulbs in your home to compact fluorescents, no longer use paper napkins, go more often to farmer’s markets to support sustainable and/or organic agriculture, turning the thermostat down in the winter & up in the summer, buying less overly packaged goods, etc, etc. (For other ideas & more info, click here.)
Until recently I felt sort of the same way about our family celebrating Earth Day. Ideally, wasn’t every day Earth Day? Don’t get me wrong -- I wasn’t knocking the objective of setting aside a day to honor the planet. I’ve been just as thrilled as anyone that Earth Day has gained popularity since 1970. But as someone who follows a nature-based spiritual path I already revere the earth as sacred throughout the entire year; Earth Day seemed a bit redundant and I saw no need to make a big deal of it in our little family on that one particular day. We had the whole crunchy-granola-earth-celebrating thing covered all year long, right?
Of course that’s assuming that I actually put the earth in my earth-centered spirituality in the first place. Just being a pantheistic type Gaia devotee is apparently no guarantee that you are earth-friendly. And sad to say I’ve even been to a couple neo-Pagan celebrations where disposable plastic plates & cups were used -- complete with a vinyl tablecloth covering the altar since it might get “dirty” outside. Seriously.
Granted, I think those were isolated incidents of “religion as hobby” rather than any sincere form of nature reverence. Certainly most Pagan oriented celebrations are not so ridiculously hypocritical, but it does make one wonder. How can you be part of an earth-based spiritual movement without concern for the actual planet? And shouldn’t that concern be an integral part of your convictions, isn’t supporting environmental protection issues as sacred as lighting candles and welcoming the changing seasons with ritual?
However my faith has evolved, whatever label I’ve given it…one constant aspect of my spirituality since my 20’s has been my dedication to the belief that the earth is sacred. So, when people who know my spiritual perspective would find out that we didn’t actually celebrate Earth Day, they'd be surprised. I would just explain that it happened to fall close to Beltane, a spring holiday that we did celebrate, so my attention was on that. I would then go on to illuminate all the ways we tried to take care of the earth 365 days a year…the recycling, the reducing, the organizations we supported, our veganism, eating organic, so on & so forth.
But recently our already high level of concern for the dire straits the planet finds itself in has been even further heightened. It’s finally obvious to a larger amount of people than perhaps ever before that the earth could use alot of extra consideration right about now. Earth Day has become a great chance to promote thoughtfulness regarding a wide variety of environmental issues -- always a good thing. So, in my little neck of the woods we are now paying more attention to Earth Day, to participate in this growing positive movement.
Earth Day presents itself as a great teaching opportunity for kids, and let’s face it, we really need them to do a better job than we have of living gently upon the planet. To that end we have used these weeks leading up to it as an opportunity to focus on relevant subjects in homeschooling our 5-½ year old daughter. We’ve explored issues such as global warming, pollution, and the various things we can do about them. For those interested, a great book for that age group is, “Where Does the Garbage Go?” (revised edition) by Paul Showers. Another would be, “Be a Friend to Trees” by Patricia Lauber.
We are also spending some time this Earth Day weekend preparing for Beltane with an eco-friendly focus. On Saturday we are creating May Day “baskets” to give to some of our neighbors on Beltane. These will be made out of recycled Silk Soymilk cartons, painted and decorated by our daughter. We’ll be planting them with flowers purchased from a woman who owns a local nursery and grows them organically. I think this has been a good little lesson for our daughter – for one thing she gets to literally see how garbage piles up, what with all the empty cartons quickly taking over our dining room table! And she also can experience the value of giving something back, both to the neighbors as a gift and to the earth in terms of turning trash into treasure. It’s even been eye opening for us and has me thinking of a way around buying our soymilk to reduce the trash output…perhaps making it at home someday instead.
Anyway, on Sunday my husband is taking our daughter to a nature center where a special walk is planned for children & parents. I’ll be at home with our baby son. Perhaps I’ll slip outdoors and nurse him on a bench in our yard, my own quiet way of spending some special time in nature with him.I thought we could end the day with an organic Earth Day Birthday cake, the name of which is inspired from the sweet children’s book, “Earth Day Birthday” by Pattie Schnetzler. We can all blow out the candle and make a wish for Mother Earth’s future and talk about ways to ensure that future is tread upon in ways that will leave a lighter footprint.
Along the same lines, in addition to getting out in nature or attending festivals or even participating in green protests, I would like to see Earth Day become a time for making personal earth-friendly commitments, like birthday wishes or New Year’s resolutions – only with a decidedly ecological purpose. Things like promising to switch all the light bulbs in your home to compact fluorescents, no longer use paper napkins, go more often to farmer’s markets to support sustainable and/or organic agriculture, turning the thermostat down in the winter & up in the summer, buying less overly packaged goods, etc, etc. (For other ideas & more info, click here.)
Our plans are not grand, not very elaborate. But we are using Earth Day as an extra focal point, another chance to remind us of how important protecting the planet is. Actions, even small ones, speak louder than mere words when it comes to genuinely honoring the earth. She is our mother, She is our home, She is amazing, and She is sacred. Remembering that more often would truly make every day Earth Day.
2 comments:
THANK YOU for this -- what a great blog with thought provoking essays. I enjoyed reading this immensely :)
You're welcome, and thank YOU -- please come by anytime :)
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