LIGHT

This is my favorite time of the month at Larsens. (the beach I practically live at...) After the new moon, every day at sunset the moon's light is already in the sky and keeps getting bigger and bigger until the night of the full moon when she rises right out of the ocean at sunset! She comes out all orange and magical and HUGE. Astounding. I don't know anything more beautiful in this world. And I get to be there over and over for the spectacle. Tonight she is about 2/3 full and because she is already in the sky when the sun goes down, the light never goes dark, it simply changes colours in gorgeous ways. So before I left the water tonight I lay in the sand watching how her muted colour created mystical worlds where the sun before had been splashy and brash, on the same canvas. Mesmerizing. If you ever come visit me you must plan to be here for a full moon!

I love the word "light" in the title of this blog spot. When Thom created this site for me and we were brainstorming about a title I got excited about what we came up with. Two things came to mind: shedding light on something, because I hope to illuminate in my blog what is happening to the earth as I see it; and light at the end of the tunnel. Hope for Eden and what we have done to her, if people are willing to make different choices. But then I was talking about this with my little sister (no fair how come she gets to be in almost every blog???), and she had yet another take on the word that made me wild: "going" light on Eden, as in treading lightly, having a light footprint. YAY! I LOVE that. So all three. Illuminate, bring hope, and go lightly. That is what I want to do with this blog. My wish put out there to see what happens. Sometimes wishes come true.

There is an AMAZING book called The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight that I have learned so much from. Please read it. The title comes from the concept that oil and coal are actually stored LIGHT! Plants store energy from sunlight, and when they die and are buried that is stored sunlight. What a beautiful concept. And when we mine the oil and coal we are releasing energy from ancient sunlight. Isn't that gorgeous? Here's the thing: when we have mined all the stored sunlight, we will be forced to go back to living on CURRENT sunlight, and everything we have created in the last few hundred years is based on a supply of stored light. What happens when that runs out? Current sunlight won't support the numbers of people on the earth and all the things we have created that run on oil and coal. So we have got to start LOOKING at this before the stored light is gone. I had never thought about this before reading this book and there is SO much information in it I never knew.

So dear readers, I would love to hear from you. What illuminates, brings hope, or inspires you to "go lightly" on the planet? There is a comment link at the bottom of the page you can click on. Below where you write your message, there is a drop down menu to put in your name, or anonymous if you don't want me to know who you are!, and then hit post.

Illuminate, bring hope, go lightly. All three. Thanks for listening.