April 22, 2020
Today is the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day. 50 years ago today over 20 million people marched in different places in the United States and on Washington to demand clean water and clean air and celebrate and acknowledge this good earth. Today people all over the world march and fight against environmental degradation and the devastating effects of man-made climate, and envision and create pathways to happier, healthier, ecologically sound, environmentally sustainable communities. This year we won’t be marching shoulder to shoulder and hand-to-hand because of the global Corona Virus pandemic, but we will nevertheless acknowledge the extent and multi-faceted nature of the problem, commit to working together to create pathways toward a local and global ecological reconciliation with the earth, and celebrate and affirm are deep inter-connections with the air, water, sun, soil, plants, mushrooms, trees, and animals.
I am a teacher, outdoor educator, storyteller, father, grandfather, friend, local community member, global citizen. Together, one step at a time, we can turn this around and we can create happy, healthy, environmentally sound communities. There is room for everybody on this train. It doesn’t matter what you do, where you live, what your skill set is. Just like the natural world is all interconnected, the problem itself is interconnected. Economic inequality, racism, the mis-education of our youth, the commodification of culture, and our deep alienation from the land are all nodes of a local and global crisis. But we have in our hearts, minds and hands the power and the wisdom to change all this. “We have to understand who we are and where we fit in the natural order of the world because our oppressor deals in illusions. They tell us that it is power, but it is not power. They may have all the guns and they may have all the racist laws and judges, and they may control all the money, but that is not power. These are imitations of power and they are only ‘power’ because in our minds we allow it to be power.” ( from John Trudell’s 1980 speech “We are Power”).
As a teacher I am supremely confident in the basic goodness of the children I teach and in the goodness of the earth. There is no shortage of compassion, altruistic appreciation, loving-kindness, or knowledge, but we have been profoundly alienated from both our power and our wisdom. Together, inch by inch, we can turn this around. We have every opportunity. We can learn how to love the earth again, how to take care of each other and collectively solve our common problems. Art and science, critical and creative thinking, utopian and pragmatic re-readings and rewritings of the history of the present, spirituality and emotional intelligence, physical agility and wellbeing, all have to be conjured, cultivated, marshalled and deployed, wherein each person can contribute their own natality to the ongoing project of a cultural renaissance, and whereby the vast, interconnected, inter-community of all living and non living things on this good earth can be affirmed, acknowledged, celebrated, preserved and reimagined.
Are you down? Let’s talk. Let’s get together before it’s too late. Things should start to get interesting right about now!
The story of the week, the story for Earth Day, read from atop of Hobbamock’s jaw in Sleeping Giant State Park, is “On the Day You Were Born.” At a very granular level as parents, grandparents, teachers, scientists, artists we need to cradle children in the natural world, especially children who grow up in the city. Children who grow up imbricated within the natural world, the cycles, processes, events, plants, animals and trees that shape the earth, will learn to care for the earth with a spirit of gratitude, generosity, curiosity, and love.
The song of the week is This World is so Fucked Up ( But I’m Never Giving Up On It) by Michael Franti and Spearhead. We ain’t askin’ for money
We just wanna make change
We do it for all of the people who need it
‘Cause they got a voice and a name
I can’t believe how we livin’ today
I got this anger and sadness and pain
They can build walls but we can build bridges
And we can be part of the change
thanks Charlie! Sharing!