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.