Earth day 2012

Sunday, April 22^nd:from Grassroots to Global

The first Earth Day was celebrated by 20 million people across the United States on a Wednesday in 1970. The tradition has now grown to over a billion people in 180 countries thanks to an idea from Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin.

Everywhere people inhabit the earth; environment and climate create the cultural richness we all lavish in our travels—the diversity of food, clothing and shelter. Take, for example, the reindeer people of northern Mongolia, and the Asmat people of New Guinea; there’s a reason why one doesn’t run around naked in the Steppes eating bananas or wear reindeer fur-lined boots in the swamps of Indonesia. Planet earth is home for all cultures. If we don’t pay attention it will crumble at the foundation.

Modern technology can help us disconnect from our environment. When it gets dark, we turn the electric lights on. Without that switch, do you think you’d go to sleep earlier? We’re all guilty of taking advantage of those conveniences at one time or another.

Personally, I gage my awareness of the rhythm of the earth by two things. The first is being able to locate the constellation Orion in the night sky. The second, knowing the current phase of the moon. If it takes me over a minute to orient myself with those things, I know it’s time to slow down and take a deep breath.

Speaking of breathing…rooted in the White Mountains of eastern California is the world’s oldest living tree. Methuselah has an estimated germination date of 2832 BC which makes it 4,843 years old this year. The exact location of the great basin bristlecone pine is kept secret for the trees protection.

For the next few days, I’ll be a visiting Naturalist teaching at a nature preserve called Turtle Island. Its founder, Eustace Conway, upholds the philosophies of Thoreau who said, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Vagabonding is living deliberately, don’t you agree?

This Earth Day, take a moment to pause and observe nature.