HAPPY EARTH DAY!

How did you celebrate today? (you can tell me in the comments section below) Since I moved to Kauai 2 years ago my life has pretty much become Earth Day every day. Besides working in my garden, taking out the compost, swimming in the ocean, pup-sitting for the new seal pup (YAY), doing my trash pick-up, and going online to click to donate at http://www.care2.com/click-to-donate/ , I wanted to do something unusual. So I decided to plant some trees! It was not entirely altruistic though, as I planted papaya trees so I can EAT them! It felt really good to put a tree in the ground. Very different from all the veggie seeds I plant in my garden.

Forty years ago this day was officially declared as Earth Day to bring awareness to what was already happening in the severe altering of this beautiful planet we all live on. Since that first Earth Day, we have managed to continue altering the Earth more than in all the thousands of years of previously recorded history! Somehow the message of the first day fell on deaf ears for the majority of the world. The things we were doing then to harm the planet we are now doing even more of. How did this happen? Part of it is simply population. In the last 40 years the Earth's people have gone from 3.7 billion to 6.8 billion!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes you read that right. In just 40 years. It took thousands of years to get to 3 billion, but only 40 years to add another 3 billion. WOW. There is no way the planet can keep up with this kind of growth and demand on her resources.

So how do we turn this around? I don't know. But I do know that every single one of those 6.8 billion has choices to make and every single one of us either helps or harms every day. We don't have an option of stepping out of the picture. There is no other planet to move to when we use this one up. So my prayer is that a WILD majority will magically appear that is conscious of how we are altering our home, and that we can shift this avalanche we have set in motion. By the next Earth Day it needs to be an every day thing in people's lives to care for her, not just once a year.

I leave you with an Earth Day haiku:

Let's choose to restore.

Heal the Earth in ALL you do.

In EVERY day.

Let it be so.

Thanks for listening.

FOR THE BIRDS

A new wildlife experience always fills me with ecstasy, and I got one today! I was sitting on the cliffs eating my lunch and watching the whales (I know, I have a hard life...), and heard a quiet thunk behind me. Turned to find myself face to face with a HUGE Laysan Albatross just a few feet from me! These are GORGEOUS and enormous birds. It's like having a bald eagle land on your dinner table. Didn't seem interested in my lunch, but just sat there looking at me. Then another flew in and landed right by the first one, and they began the crazy fun dancing that they do. They bob in opposition, clack their bills at each other, stick their necks straight up and squeak, and shake their heads manically like we would do if we were really cold. HILARIOUS! I just stayed still, squealing quietly with delight, and they didn't seem to care that I was only a few feet away. They are spectacular up close, with the painting around their eyes like an Egyptian Goddess, and their enormous wing span of 6 FEET! They probably could have carried me off, except that they have webbed feet. Hard to grab things with.

These are remarkable birds. They spend half their life at sea, and come to land in the winter to have their chicks, and some nest on the cliffs around Larsens. So they are there every day right now, soaring magnificently, and sometimes buzzing really low over my head! During the summer they go to sea and can stay there floating around for 6 MONTHS! Apparently they have a joint in their wings they can lock in place which allows them to sleep while the air currents just carry them around. Imagine going to sleep near Hawaii and waking up by Japan! Hmmm, where am I this morning?

Flying back from a trip to Oahu just now, I went by a display in the Kauai airport about albatross including a picture of the contents of an albatross stomach from an autopsy. It showed a huge pile of human debris including cigarette lighters and glass and all forms of plastic. What looks like a beautiful mosaic at the top of this paragraph is a picture of the contents of ONE dead bird's stomach. These birds are dying because they ingest so much of our human trash and can't digest it so eventually their stomachs are full and they starve because there is no room for actual food. Wow. Our gift for the birds. And what are we doing about?

How many of you took my challenge to try and get through an entire day without throwing out any trash? And if you made it through one day did you try for more? I'd love to hear your experiences with that. One friend said when she tried it she was astounded at how many times during the day she had something in her hand about to be tossed and wondered what she could do with it besides put it in the landfill. She even started saving bottle caps that can't be recycled to be used as counters and craft items at her son's preschool. Sweet! Be creative in generating less trash! The less we throw out, the less that winds up in the stomach of a magnificent bird soaring over the ocean. We are connected more than we ever realize. We make a difference in the lives of creatures even if we never see them in person. Once you actually make the connection, it changes how you look at everything you do in your day. It ALL has consequences for some other part of Creation. The biggest challenge becomes "how can I stop harming completely?" I don't know if it is even possible in the world we have created in the last fifty years, but I'd like to see how close I can get. These creatures that are SO beautiful don't deserve what we are giving them. So please join me in seeing how close we can get to doing no harm.

Thanks for listening.

POWER IN NUMBERS

Today was a complete joy for me. I got to do my daily trash pick up WITH someone rather than people just watching me do it by myself and not helping. A friend from Oahu who is a HUGE Earth lover (YAY!), was over here with her husband for spring break and she had written and said they wanted to clean a beach with me! Do you have any idea how happy that made me? YES! So today I got to take them to my beloved Larsens. Even though the cutting has begun to make the land above into cattle pasture, it still is an AMAZING place, and I still am holding hope that the rancher will be stopped and the wilderness will grow back. Dreams are powerful. For hours we walked the sand and talked and picked up trash from this morning's high tide, and then we got GIFTS! Two of my "regular" seals were at the next beach up, the Albatross were dancing together, several turtles came by to say hello, and some gorgeous shells had washed up. Nature gives us love even as we dump on her. But you know what? Today there are 3 less bags of trash floating around in the ocean's magnificence. I wonder how much is dumped in her every day and how much is removed every day. I know that more is dumped than is removed, but I'd like to see that change.

Last week I was on Oahu visiting my parents and spent the afternoon with one of my best friends at a beach there. We began picking up trash and in a very short period of time filled a huge garbage liner bag with each of us hauling extra large items that wouldn't fit in the bag. One afternoon, at one beach, on one island. And of all the people there that day "using" the beach, no-one else was picking up trash. How can people look at it and NOT want to help the ocean? It seems so obvious to me that it does not belong to the Earth but to us humans, and we must be the ones to clean up our own mess because the ocean can't clean it up for us. But day after day that is not what I see. I see people just ignoring it. WHY?????? What has happened to people's hearts so that they are not moved to help?

I just read an article on how the number one pollutant on Earth is plastic. And Dave Chameides wrote a blog on Care2.com (go read his blogs!) about how many plastic bags are used EACH DAY. There is a ticker on the blog that is turning over new numbers as you watch, showing the bags being used every minute, and the numbers move so fast you can't even track with them. Plastic bags used and thrown just in the U.S.: 1 million per minute!!!! WOW. So how many of you used a plastic bag today? Were you part of that 1,440,000,000 in just one day? And the number 2 pollutant? Cigarette butts. For those of you who smoke, do you know what is in the butts you throw out? The part that is smoked is of course tobacco and paper, which also has chemicals and pesticides. But guess how many ingredients are in the butts. (this little guessing thing never works because I can't wait while you guess!) 596. Are you kidding? NO. How do they even pack that many in that little thing? Here are just a few of the more toxic ingredients that go into the soil or the water depending on where the butts land when people throw them: Arsenic, Acetone, Lead, Formaldehyde, Toluene, Butane, Cadmium, Ammonia, Benzene. YIKES! Why are these things even in there? Someone must have thought it was a good idea. If you want to read more about it google "ingredients in cigarette butts". And how many of these butts are in our water or soil? 10 MILLION are purchased EVERY DAY!!!!!!! 10 million. One day. Numbers that big just seem impossible to comprehend. But it starts with each person each day making a choice to help or to harm. Do you want to be part of the 10 million?

Here is a great quote by Rolf Halden: "good for a minute and contaminating for 10,000 years.” That one minute of convenience with a plastic bag, or pleasure with a cigarette is not worth poisoning the Earth for thousands of years. I don't know anyone who would say that those things are worth it. But what we say and what we do are different. Isn't it time to bring those into alignment? What about one million pieces of trash picked up per minute! I'd like to see a ticker running for that.

It's time to change these numbers. It's time to make our words match our actions. If we say we don't want to poison the Earth, then stop doing it. Years ago we didn't know how damaging plastic was or how poisonous cigarettes are. Now we do. So do we act accordingly? Or do we just keep doing what we did because change feels too hard? I vote for number one. There is power in numbers, and yes each person DOES matter because you are part of a larger number that is helping or harming. Right now the numbers are higher for those doing harm than for those helping. Which number will your name be added to? Thanks for listening.

RAZING PARADISE

My dear readers, I have been absent from these pages for a long time because I have been heartbroken and stunned. All of my writing lately has been to government officials and land owners, lawyers and fellow Earth lovers. My favorite wilderness in the world is being altered in a horrific way, and it seems none of the people who could be stopping this are going to. But I MUST believe that this is not how the story ends. There must be a light in here somewhere, not just for this place that is so sacred, but for all the sacred places around the world that are being razed. I am reading all the time about ancient forests being destroyed and the people who live in them are either displaced or killed. It seems so far away and hard to grasp, that humanity can treat the Earth and each other in this way. While I don't physically live in this forest that is being cut down, my spirit does. I feel this in my soul. I have read about aboriginal people being so connected to the land that they suffer as it does. Apparently I am a blond, blue-eyed Hawaiian, connected to this land.

Way back in the fall I wrote a blog called Saving Larsens, about how a cattle rancher wants to cut down the forest above the beach and make it cattle pasture all the way down the hill to the sand. Amazingly, he GOT the permit, issued by the government agency that oversees the "conservation land" it is on. CONSERVATION. What part of that word calls for cutting down native plants and smothering the reef in cattle dung? I just don't get it. There have been so many passionate appeals made, and not just by people like me who love the place. Actual authorities in the field. The government aquatic biologist for this island declared the reef to be the most pristine on the island, and stated his opposition to the cattle pasture in the conservation district. They even ignored him, and he works for the SAME AGENCY that issued the permit. How have we arrived in a place in the world where the agencies that are being paid to protect what is left of Nature are making decisions to destroy her instead? There are now 2 lawsuits filed to protect this place, against the agency whose job it is to protect it!!!!!! They need to be sued to do their job???? What a bizarre state we have created in our society.

So aside from laying my body across a tree that is about to be cut, writing letters and making phone calls to every one who might be able to do something, and getting involved with the lawsuit, what else can I do? Pray. I am. And raise awareness about what is happening all over the world to the last places that have not yet been destroyed by humanity. There are so few left. For people living in cities or even rural farmland, the plight of forests and reefs is not something they see with their own eyes, and I don't think they realize how it will affect them if they do nothing. It must somehow be felt in the heart, in order to care enough to do something to help save a place you have never seen. You must FEEL how important it is to retain what wilderness is left in the world, and REALIZE how you affect those places even if you live thousands of miles away. All of our lives are interconnected now with the last remaining forests and reefs on the Earth. If the last of them are cut down and the last reefs die, then we will feel it because we won't be able to BREATHE. Literally. No more oxygen. THEN we will all suddenly want to do something to save them, because we will finally realize we are in fact saving ourselves. And it is too late. We need to realize this NOW. We need to stop razing the forests NOW. We need to stop destroying reefs NOW. EVERY choice we make in our days is a vote to either save or destroy what is left. Treat it as sacred, or disposable. PLEASE don't wait. When you go to Starbucks, when you use shampoo, when you buy toilet paper, it ALL makes a difference. Make your decisions to help save the Earth every day as if YOUR life depends on it. It does. And if you hear about a forest being cut down or a reef being destroyed, DO something, no matter how far away you live.
Thanks for listening, and acting.

TREASURE AND TRASH

When I was growing up on the island of Borneo one of the sheer delights of living right on the beach was searching for shell treasures at low tide. We would walk right out on the exposed reef and pluck the beauty right from it's home. It is amazing how intricate and colorful these shells can be, and they are made by tiny creatures! I have never made anything that incredible. You should see the bowl I made in high school that my Mom still has. I have a very different view now of these treasures from the sea. Makes me shudder to think of what we did as kids, but we didn't know that coral is a living creature and it dies when you walk on it and crush it. We also killed animals by the hundreds just to get their shells for our "collections". Now I pick them up only if they wash up on shore and have no creatures still alive inside them. The beach that I am growing up on all over again here on Kauai has fantastic shells that wash up because the reef just offshore is still so alive. Every day there are people there combing the sand for their daily treasure. And every day I am there combing the sand for the daily trash that has washed up. The ocean gives us beauty and we give her garbage.

It drives me NUTS that people are taking treasure from the ocean but they won't help her out by picking up the trash that has washed up RIGHT NEXT TO THE SHELL THEY ARE PICKING UP! I always hope that teaching by example really works, but I must say it doesn't seem to in this case. The shell pickers often ask me to show them what I am picking up because they assume I am also gleaning treasure. When I show them the trash some just walk away without saying anything, some say "good for you" or some such thing, and a few say "oh I pick up trash too". The voice in my head that doesn't come out my throat says "then why is it all still here???? Oh you mean you pick up every third Monday of the month." I can't say it out loud because how can that possibly go well? But guess what? We create trash every single day. The Earth doesn't get a day off from our onslaught. People take gifts from her every single day, but they don't HELP her every single day. So damaging her 30 days in a month and helping her 1 day a month?

Now take a moment with this picture.
This is what we as humans have done. This used to be a river that gave treasure to the people that live along its banks. We have given it trash in return. When I first saw the picture I thought well that right there is why there is so much washing up from the ocean when rivers like this empty into her. Then a more sobering thought: the U.S. is the largest polluter in the entire world. Some of you reading this are also in this country. This river is NOT in the U.S., so we are polluting MORE than what is in this picture. WOW. Are we willing to choose different habits? Are we willing to create less trash so we change this contribution to the world, no matter where we live?

When was the last time you went through an entire day without throwing away anything? Not one piece of trash for an entire day. Just try it. No, I don't mean store it somewhere and then throw it out the next day! It is astounding what happens when you try this. You become conscious really fast! I live a fairly simple life and I found so many things in my hand about to be thrown out in just one day. If you can go for one day without generating one speck of trash then try for two. Then more.

The other day there was a HUGE pile that washed up in one particular spot on the beach. I began piling it up in the trees so it wouldn't wash back out and I could come back and get it later. There was way too much to carry in my usual grocery sized bag. It eventually filled one of those giant barrel liner bags, and all from one day's high tide. There was a woman who stood watching me for about 20 minutes as I made trip after trip to get it all up past the high tide line. She is someone I have chatted with before so I know she believes that God created all this beauty around us. I got brave and went up and asked her if she would come help me care for God's creation. Are you ready for this? Her reply: "I would if I lived here"!!!!!!!!!! WHAT? I am stunned. I don't know how to reply. She is one of these people who comes for several months in the winter but her primary residence is on the mainland. Well guess what? WE ALL LIVE HERE. We ALL live on this planet. We ALL create trash. We ALL can help deal with it wherever we are. It's not someone else's mess to clean up. It is our mess. Those little kids floating in that river don't deserve an Earth that is even going to be WORSE than that when they grow up.

So let's change what we are doing. Don't ever take a day off from helping. Don't ever just take treasure and leave trash. We've GOT to make different choices before that picture above is the picture of every river and ocean on the planet. So...how much did you throw out today? I'd love to hear what you discover as you try to go through a day or week without creating a single piece of trash.
Thanks for listening.

MEMORY OR FANTASY

The most amazing thing happened today. In a year and a half of swimming at Larsens I have never seen a monk seal in the water, which is quite surprising since I see them there on the beach quite regularly. Well today, the GIFT! I was just about to get out of the water when suddenly there was this beautiful creature, and thank goodness the water was clear today so we didn't bump face to face before we saw each other! They are like liquid, breathing, incense, wafting and swirling through the water. I stopped swimming just to see what he would do, and he swam a big U around me and then just sat for a moment between 2 coral heads looking at me before he swam off. A big adult male that I knew from my seal watches. They are HUGE in the water! They look much bigger than on the sand. Maybe because what I am used to seeing in the water is nothing larger than a sea turtle. It was pure magic. These creatures are GORGEOUS! What a gift. I was so EXCITED I felt like a 4 year old. The rush of adrenaline needs to be bottled for use at a time when I feel low on energy!

For a long time I've had a fantasy about what it would be like to encounter a seal in the water on my daily swim, and now it will be a beautiful memory to cherish. Which brought to mind a wonderful quote I just heard from Jack Kornfield: "The only place you can really love is in the present. Love in the past is a memory, and love in the future is a fantasy." So today I got love in the present. Neither a memory or a fantasy.

Then I came home to an email about 25 uses for coffee filters because you can get 1000 at the dollar store for almost nothing! WOW. And 17 of those 25 were for single use and throw things. Like using a coffee filter as a spoon rest while you cook and then you can just throw it out. Again, WOW. Our throw away society is throwing away Creation. I just read that the amount of paper used just in junk mail in the U.S. is the equivalent of clear cutting the ENTIRE Rocky Mountain National Park every 4 months!!!!! That's not all. The emissions created are the equivalent of 9.4 MILLION cars. And here comes someone urging us to use and throw more paper every single day like that is a good thing. How can this be? Can people really not know that they are destroying forests and poisoning air with these choices? There is SO much information now about "going green" everywhere, it seems like it would be impossible to not know.

But then comes the most difficult thought of all. The email came from people who would say they love God with all their heart. Being Christian, they would also say they believe God created this Earth. So how do you get from all that love, to thinking it is o.k. to promote destroying what God created? Urging people to use and throw more paper every day. I just don't get it. God is not loved when we destroy what He made. The love of God they feel is not in the PRESENT in a decision like that. Maybe they did something to help save God's Creation last week like taking in the recycling, and maybe they have a plan to do something in the future like join a trash clean-up day. So one is a memory and the other a fantasy. But what about love RIGHT NOW? What about Creation in this present moment? (Yes, I'm using my computer right now, I know. So I'm doing harm while I'm trying to help. Crazy. I haven't yet found a computer that does no harm. But I'm looking.)

Whatever your religious or spiritual beliefs I ask you to bring the LOVE of Creation into the present moment. Not just a memory of what you did for the Earth a few days ago or what you plan to do tomorrow. What about THIS moment? Can you get up and go turn off a light or something? I read an article by "No Impact Man" (picture the cape blowing in the breeze), who suggested a period every day where you do NO impact to the Earth. You don't use electricity, drive a car, or use any resources, for a few hours each day. He calls it an "Eco-Sabbath". Beautiful. He has tried for an ENTIRE day of no damage to Creation. My new hero. I wonder if he has super powers to save the Earth. I sure hope so.

So what can you do to be kind to Creation in THIS moment? Not a memory of what you did do, or a fantasy of what you will do. Now go do it.
Thanks for listening, and acting.

MY FAVORITE THINGS

Raindrops on oceans and whiskers on monk seals, bright copper coral and how warm the sand feels, these are a few of my favorite things! (Where is Julie Andrews when you need her?)

In talking with friends and family about enviro things I have been asked a lot of questions about what to buy when trying to be kind to the Earth. So here are some of my favorite products I have discovered, and perhaps this can inspire you to do some sleuthing of your own and try different things. Because I am Mr. Frugal these are all very cheap! There is more and more out there as companies start to step up and offer options that do no harm. Let's keep that momentum going by more people buying these products so companies keep moving in that direction. My dream is that one day ALL things on the shelves will do no harm. Can you imagine if we don't even have a choice to damage the Earth because there ARE no products that do damage???? Hold that thought. Right now the majority of people still choose products that harm, so that is what you see the most of on shelves. Be part of the change. Be someone that demands things that are made with the Earth in mind.

Bar Soap. There are so many delicious options now both in health food stores and "regular" stores and I keep trying different ones (I shop the sales!), but the one I love the best so far is called Chandrika. It is Ayurvedic from India, it's really inexpensive, and smells DELICIOUS! I've seen it at all the health stores here.

Dish/Hand Soap. This was a discovery for me: these 2 are marketed differently but are the same thing! And dish soap is sold for much less. So now I buy a huge dish soap and refill all my hand soap containers. (then you don't keep buying and tossing those hand soap containers either. Win, win.) I've never found a big difference in all the liquid soaps I've tried, but for those of you who shop at Costco they now have their own Kirkland label of dish soap that is 100% biodegradable! YAY! It comes in a HUGE bottle of course, but soap doesn't go bad so it might last me a year. That would be hilarious to buy soap once a year!

Laundry Detergent. I've tried many and again I haven't found a difference in them, but I don't have little kids rolling in mud puddles to contend with, so stains are not something I have to test them on. My favorite right now is Eco because it smells so yummy and Costco sells it as well as their own Kirkland biodegradable brand. Although I don't use bleach, I know there are biodegradable bleaches as well, and PLEASE use them. Bleach is one of the most horrific things you can pour down a drain. Might as well dump pure acid on the creatures on the reef and see if they survive.

Shampoo. For some reason I haven't experimented much with this. From time to time I've received gifts of shampoo and have never liked them enough to go buy them. So for AGES I've used Suave, which is available everywhere. But you have to READ the label. There are only a few of their entire line that are biodegradable. Their "Naturals" line is NOT all biodegradable, but some are. I love the lavender best.

Toothpaste. My all time top of the list is Jason PowerSmile! Funny name, pure peppermint oil that will knock your socks off if you like that sort of zing, and organic.

Hand/Face Lotion. I don't buy separate lotions for different body parts. I think the chemical ones use milder ingredients for face, but when there are no chemicals, what works for one place on your body works everywhere. At least that is my experience. I like Nature's Gate Herbal.

Deodorant. This was a hard one for me. For most of my life I was in a profession where I was SWEATING profusely every minute I was at work, and I am one of those people who STINKS! I know some people smell like roses when they sweat. Not me. Even before I became conscious of chemicals that harm I only found one "regular" deodorant that actually worked for me. Then when I started trying eco ones the whole process began again, and I spent a lot of smelly days before I discovered a roll-on called Crystal. No I'm not just rubbing a big clear rock on my armpit, although I've heard some people do! Here in Hawaii they even sell it at Longs Drug Stores. If you don't have body odor but like to smell good there are many delicious options in health food stores that have no harsh chemicals.

Household Cleansers. I've gone back to the "old days". Baking soda and vinegar do just about any job around the house. With toilets and bathtubs you can sprinkle some soda in (start with a wet bathtub), walk away for hours and let it do its thing, and then come back and scrub it away. Yes you do have to scrub a bit on the bottom of the tub, because it doesn't just burn things away like chemicals do. But it's saving you from breathing in all those toxins as well as them not going into the water where you live. Better for everyone. I've also heard lemon juice is wonderful, but haven't experimented with that yet. There are of course bottled cleansers at the health stores, but the only one I've tried is Simple Green and I don't notice a difference from baking soda in terms of cleaning, and it has a strong smell I don't enjoy.

Sunscreen. I've never tried out "safe" ones because I prefer to be outside when the sun is not really strong or wear protective clothing, but I have seen sunscreens in the health stores that do not put chemicals into your own blood stream (absorbed through your skin) or leach off into the water if you go swimming. Chemical sunscreens coat the reefs where people swim and literally choke the organisms that live there. Thought I should mention it since I live in a sunscreen State!

When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad...I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feeeeeeeeel SO BAD. (big finish) If you don't know the Sound of Music, then you probably think I am totally whacko right now!

If you have favorite Earth-loving products leave a comment so others can try out your favorites too!
Thanks for listening and caring for our Earth in All your choices.