Nature is calling, actually sputtering through the smog and smoke. But few are listening, as the majority of us have our heads bowed to our phones, aka lifeline.
It’s hoped that in celebration of Earth Day Wednesday, many of us would have gone offline and gone outdoors to enjoy and celebrate this very planet which gives us life.
Maybe you went for a walk and took in the beauty of spring, with all the blossoms and greenery emerging, listening to the sounds of birds and smelling the fresh blooms (or in the case of us allergy-sufferers, broke out in a rash and wiped tears from our pollen-stung eyes).
Or perhaps you’ve been getting down and dirty gardening. Despite this recent allergy I’ve developed, all this early spring gardening has been so fulfilling. In fact, they say gardening is good for the soul. In my experience, nothing compares.
It’s like raising children, their beauty and stamina make you so proud, and these kids don’t talk back, only need to be cleaned up after a couple times year and are considerably gentler on your wallet.
For me, the garden is a particularly enriching place to be due to the connection it provides with my mom. As a professional landscaper, mom didn’t just have a green thumb, she had 10. Gardening was her art, her love, her passion.
So much so, that her wish was to have her ashes sprinkled in the gardens of all of her loved ones, including the garden she built at her home. So when I was cleaning up around the marker in her garden recently, it was only fitting that a little finch was fluttering about nearby. It might sound a little crazy or far-fetched if you don’t believe in the whole reincarnation thing, but I honestly believed that bird was my mom. Even my daughter ran over, intrigued by the “pretty birdy” and it re-inforced my thoughts as I saw her eyes light up, just like they used to when she would see her Nana. Obviously that’s my subconscious yearning to be with my mom connecting me to her in real life. Then again, who knows for sure? Either way, I’m sure that’s not the last sign of mom I’ll see.
“Those we love don’t go away, they walk beside us every day,” a grief verse that says it well.
That’s the thing about Earth, there’s a lot of magical things it can create. Which is why our mothers always taught us to take care of it, so our children and future generations are able to enjoy it as much, if not more than us.
“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children,” says a proverb thought to be an ancient Native American.
Perhaps on Earth Day, you celebrated by doing something to preserve our world. It could be as simple as finally using that recycling bin (hint, hint, you know who you are) for its designated purpose. And just because Earth Day is over, doesn’t mean your efforts have to end. Hence the Earth Day Every Day campaign.
Earth Day is about making a change that will have a lasting effect. Reducing your carbon footprint is the drive behind 2015 Earth Day, specifically cleaning your commute.
The goal is to get each Canadian to reduce their carbon footprint by 20 per cent by 2020. Since transportation accounts for 24 per cent of our carbon emissions, that’s where people are being urged to cut back.
Some extra incentive is our country’s poor efforts to tackle GHG emissions. Canada currently ranks 55th out of 58 countries, ahead only of Iran, Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia.
Maybe our faces are buried too deeply in our phones and tablets to see it, but change is needed to ensure our Earth can continue to be the magical place it is today, tomorrow. So if we can put our devices down for a bit each day and see just what our world has to offer, perhaps the more inspired we might be to change.
