Hello beautiful women,
A few years ago my acupuncturist, Bea Hammond, said something that stuck with me. Bea was getting a home solar system installed and her primary reason was that she didn’t want her son asking her why they didn’t do anything to help curb global warming; she remembers asking her parents why they didn’t do anything to help/fight what was happening in Nazi Germany. Bea was raised in Germany and has been in the US for 34 years now. Nazi Germany gave rise to the Holocaust (and more) and 17 million people died, and millions more inactively watched.
At the time I had a hard time understanding her comparison – it seemed so extreme. But guess what, we installed solar panels last year, because like Bea, I don’t want my children asking me why we didn’t do anything to help curb global warming; the Earth that they will live most of their life on will absolutely be a harsh place, not the place that we know, and certainly not the place our parents and their parents knew.
Mother Earth is ragging, rightfully so, and who knows what life will be like, what it will feel like, 20 years from now. But what is certain is — it’s going to require ALL OF US making significant changes in order to (hopefully) leave future generations an inhabitable earth. At very least, our efforts will be seen through the eyes of our children. They are watching us.
I love what this article in the NY Times said: “There should be no shortage of motivation. Solving climate change presents humanity with the opportunity to save civilization from collapse and create aspects of what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called “the beloved community.” The work would endow our lives with some of the oldest and most numinous aspirations of humankind: leading a good life; treating our neighbors well; imbuing our short existence with timeless ideas like grace, dignity, respect, tolerance and love. The climate struggle embodies the essence of what it means to be human, which is that we strive for the divine.
Perhaps the rewards of solving climate change are so compelling, so nurturing and so natural a piece of the human soul that we can’t help but do it.”
This quote talks about what stems from living a conscious life, one that recognizes and values our connection to one another and being part of the whole, and in order to grow this concept – we have to begin, or continue-on, living in respectful relationship with the Earth – because this relationship benefits all.
Our relationship with the earth is a direct reflection of our relationship with one another. If you care for me and mine you care about our safety (including related to natural disaster) the quality of our air, our water, our food, etc., and you do your part to enhance that safety and quality.
Think of the possibilities if we started caring for and loving others in this more expansive way.
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My birthday wish (it is Sunday the 21st!) is that every person who reads my words here will choose to live more consciously when it comes to relationship with self, other, and the Earth.
What can you do better that positively affects all others – and more specifically, what can you change that will help our Earth in crisis?
I’d love to know, please do share if you want your declaration to be heard.
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Because I don’t want my children questioning the way we lived as they aged, and I want them to understand that their actions impact the whole – we try to reduce our carbon footprint in various ways and we worship Mother Earth. We have been a single car family for the past 15 years, we purchased a home near bus routes and bike paths so that my husband could commute or ride to work. We have decided to stay living in a small home in part to reduce our consumption of natural resources and to stay living well within our means. We updated our ancient furnace, AC, and water heater for better energy efficiency this year. We xeriscaped our front yard over a decade ago and have not watered those plants, at all, in over 7 years. I let our grass die in our back yard and only watered our garden. We NEVER idle for more than a minute (why are people still doing so?!), we buy organic and biodegradable products and small farm raised meat, we don’t use pesticides, my girls’ lunches are packed with washable/reusable containers, we wash our zip-lock bags multiple times – and very rarely purchase them, we have reusable shopping bags and never accept plastic grocery bags, we use cloth napkins, we don’t purchase single use plastic water bottles, and we recycle, reuse, buy used, and adjust. To be honest, our investment in living more consciously is where most of our money goes. We invest in conscious living – which benefits you too. And my primary motivation in this expense is – I don’t want my girls asking why we didn’t do anything to curb climate crisis. I want them to rest in knowing that we did our part, and I want them to continue on in that vein as they age.
I am not trying to toot my own horn, because believe me, we could still do better. My goal is an electric car within the next couple of years AND to get better at reducing waste…packaging has me so perplexed and frustrated. I also want to be less lazy with composting and picking up litter, more brave asking people to stop idling, and cognizant of earth friendly companies to do business with. .
I tell you all of this because it is going to take you doing your part too, and you asking those around you to also change their ways for the better.
We have been lazy in our caring for the Earth, really lazy…which ultimately means we’ve been lazy in caring for each-other.
I have this fantasy – that every person on the Earth started worshiping her in lieu of their religious gods, or at least equally. Honestly, if this happened, climate crises would not be an issue, and future generations would experience a less toxic world. The earth would not be a temporary place with our focus being on the afterlife, we’d recognize what a gift it is to live on this magnificent planet with all of her natural beauty and life giving resources, and we would respect and worship the Earth in all the ways we claim to respect and worship our gods. ahhhhhhhh….... allowing the expansion that this fantasy offers my soul feels realllly good…..
Okay – stepping off of my soap-box.
Wishing you a beautiful weekend – what a gorgeous week we have had here along the Wasatch Front. I’ll be spending my birthday weekend nestled in Lamb’s Canyon with my family. To those of us that live among our stunning Wasatch mountains — aren’t we lucky souls!?
Big LOXE,
Monica