Veteran’s Park, Monterey, California
Earth day fifty-two. It seems odd that we only have one day a year dedicated to celebrating our mutual mother earth, and it’s barely acknowledged. Shouldn’t it be a holiday honored like Thanksgiving or New Years’ day, a three-day weekend, a feast with family and friends, maybe even a party … at the very least.
It’s so easy to feel separated from the natural world. Right now I’m sitting in a house with central heat on a cold spring morning, watching the new green push out from every tree and plant. I can’t help but feel cast out from the garden. How could we have allowed our modern lives to separate us from our true nature? Where in the day do we make time to connect, to phone home, and put our bare feet in the grass?
What do I really want to say on this Earth Day? I’d like to urge you to take a walk in a park, take a deep breath and identify what you smell, listen for the birds and count how many you can hear, hug a tree and see if you can feel its personality, sit in the sun and let it soak into your bones. Clear your mind and see how much of it you can feel.