Tag: earth day

Earth Day 2025

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

I wish I had something profound and inspiring to write today for Earth Day. I can only emphasize that our planet is magnificent to me. It’s such a gift. I can only say that it makes no sense to me that powerful men destroy this planet and then look for a home on another.

But I have spent so many years of my life anguishing over human behavior and carelessness with our planet. I will be honest. I feel a little more disillusioned than I would like siting here writing about it tonight.

I still have hope though. I have hope that, when things get really bad, humans will say, “enough is enough, let’s work together and figure this out.” I have hope that, even if we don’t, the Earth will heal from our damage and go on to support life that may be so different from our own but that will be so beautiful. Though, really, humans are beautiful, are we not? Flaws are beautiful. But you can be beautiful and be tragic.

I have hope that, at some point, all of the little things we do will add up, and we will replace the people at the top who seem hell bent on creating their bunkers and letting the rest burn, who seem to think that destruction is inevitable because they don’t understand how resilient life is. They have never connected with Nature, and it shows. And we will say “no more, we love our home.” And Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer will be required reading in all classrooms.

It could happen, right? Sometimes–okay maybe most of the time–with humans, we have to break things before we realize we need to fix them.

And, while I am finding hope within my disillusionment, I am going to keep trying to be better as an individual. I will keep things until they break and then fix them if I can or get them fixed if I can. I will never spray chemicals in our yard. I will plant native plants. I will be careful with my water use. I will wear the same clothes over and over, and I won’t buy fleece ever again. I will try so hard not to waste. I will try to live more simply. And, finally, this summer, I am going to put in the clothesline I meant to put in last year but never did, as I struggled with long COVID.

And I will remember how good it feels when I put my hands in the Earth, and I will remember to be thankful for her and all the life she gives us.

Happy Earth Day, friends. Sending love. Please tell me what gives you hope. I could use it.

photo credit: Hans Isaacson, Unsplash

A Poem for Earth Day

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

I have been saving this for Earth Day. Happy Earth Day, everyone! I hope this poem moves you the way it did me.

What Would I Say to You If I Were Dying

James Sands

Perhaps I would say, “That is a melodramatic title,”
but then I would say, and quickly, “I’m really not, 
(just to counter your grandiosity)
not more than the usual, anyway, but
there is a chance you are.”

When the landscape has changed
to the barren architecture of despair,
I will be here.

Still, there is something to be said, I suppose, 
for the going away—the absolute rest, for one; 
perhaps you will end in view of a stand of fall maple
when the sky is orange-yellow turning late October night,
and a great murder of crows will suddenly swirl and swoop
to fill the air and the soon to be bare branches of trees
with black shapes and caws, raucous calls, beating wings, all
just to say no, you won’t be alone;
there will be others at their end too,
so many others—all taken by you.

When the landscape has changed 
to the barren architecture of despair,
I will be here, waiting 
where the moon is a ghost.

 There can be solace in that—for some, I suppose,
and I will wait for those to return in different anatomy
rendered flesh by some future scripted sea, 
where the waters lap rhythmically and silent 
against a shore once more primordial 
preparing an anthem, sonorous, resonant, and vital, 
to the fecund paean of unrelenting life
rebuilt from the stars, nurtured
among the remnants and scars
of your human strife. 

When the landscape has changed
to the barren architecture of despair,
I will be here, waiting
where the moon keeps ghosts
on the acrid night air 
for the smoke that remains
of your madness to clear. 

photo credit: NASA

Green Day

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Day 349 of 365

Today is Earth Day. I love Earth Day. Of course I wish Earth Day was every day, but we’re a long way from that, I’m afraid. Still, I am thankful that some of us are aware and trying to do things to help the dire situation we find ourselves in. I have had some people point out to me that events like Earth Day tend to focus more on the things individuals can do to help the planet, but the big changes needed will need to come from the government level. We need big things to happen. We need regulation and support and some money at the global level to help make shifts in our global economies happen more quickly and less painfully. I get this.

However, trying to do things myself, at the individual level, at least makes me feel useful, and that seems important too.

I grew up in a throw-away culture. It was a bigger-is-better culture. It was a consumerism-is-a-fun-activity kind of culture. I threw away food. I bought way too many things made of plastic. I was not nearly careful enough with water conservation. It has taken me decades to shed some of this thinking and these habits, and I still wish to do better.

Every Earth Day, I try make one little goal I can meet in the year to do better and make my footprint on this beautiful planet a little smaller. My goal for this year is to set up a clothes line in our yard and use it to dry our clothes in the spring, summer, and fall. I have always been hesitant on this issue because my autism makes me really sensitive to textures in my clothing. Line-dried clothing always felt “crunchy” to me, but I researched it and am hopeful there are solutions. I will have to write more and let you know if what I read about works.

In the meantime, I am just thankful for such a beautiful place to live. Maine is such a magnificent state. I love our trees. I recently researched an article I wrote for a local magazine about Maine’s forests, and I learned that Maine is the most forested state in the U.S. and these forests sequester nearly 70% of the carbon emissions from our state. How wonderful is that?

Wherever you are, I hope there is beautiful nature somewhere near you and you get to enjoy it often. And here’s a picture of some of Ron’s beautiful organic seedlings that he is “hardening off” before they go into the garden. Aren’t these beautiful babies?

Happy Earth Day!