Today is Earth Day – will you heed the global cry to love our environment?
Our planet is home to seven billion people, yet destruction of it – our only home – continues. Are we that arrogant or so myopic to believe we’ll be the one exception to landing on the universe’s endless list of extinct species?
Here in my hometown, Toronto, rapid urbanization contributes to feelings of imbalance, uneasiness, and we’ve become more anti-social, not knowing how to treat one another. Ask any local downtowner of more than five years about the toll that comes from living / working where on-going building destruction, endless scaffolding, heartbreaking tree excavations, daily dust storms, noise pollution, road congestion, the infestation of new high-rises and exploding populations is considered normal: Toronto, while beautiful, is toxic deep inside.
We are each stewards of this planet. Stewardship – carefully, responsibly managing and caring for something of great value – is entrusted to all of us by virtue of our birth and living our lives on earth. We must nurture nature like a parent cares and guides a child they love unconditionally.
My mother’s sister takes stewardship so seriously she once threw the brakes on her car, stopping traffic, while she shocked passersby, reading an inflamed riot act to a teenager she’d spotted recklessly dumping their garbage -a knap-sack’s worth – onto a flowering community planter, ignoring the trash can next to it.
You don’t need to be that rabid. Join in on large group efforts, or do your lone wolf thing; small is mighty. Let these ideas spark some earthy inspiration of your own:
• Green your space. Adding just one new plant into your home (whatever size / budget) or planting a tree or new shrub on your land, are simple luxuries that increase life and beauty for you, and needed support for the planet
• Dog lovers: Pick up litter along your stroll and let that act become a loving gift you give the earth every dog walk
• Parents: What’s their understanding of the planet they’ll inherit? What does your example teach about stewardship? If their school doesn’t have an “edible” playground, could it?
• Beauty junkies: Your skin and the planet will shine brighter when you drink your 8 daily glasses of water per day from and eco water bottle, not plastic
• Smokers: Carry a small elegant holder for your butts and place them in that to dispose of later. It’s beneath you to tossing them wherever
• Community-based environmental stewardship like habitat restoration, land conservation, and park and community gardening, is a fast-rising movement you can join.
As we grow or restore the bonds between us and this life-place, we become part of a much-needed spiritual process that unifies people, promotes reciprocity, renewing you and the world around you. You’re in a relationship with the planet as a whole, and with the small place on it you intimately occupy. It’s incumbent on all of us to make that relationship ethical and loving, enjoying the beautiful knowing that what we give out will unfailingly return to us, ten-fold.
* A version of this post originally appeared in PostMedia’s 24 Hours where my Spirit & The City column runs weekly.
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