I remember in 1970 preparing for this new event called “Earth Day” in Art Club in school in Wisconsin.
I made a mobile of images like the planet Earth and the recycling logo. I felt I was doing a good thing by bringing awareness to pollution of the air, earth, and water and what we could do about it, like recycling. That is about all I understood about Earth Day at the time.
Origin
You see a Wisconsin senator, Gaylord Nelson decided to take action on his long-held concern about the deteriorating environment in the United States. He recruited others and gained national media attention:
Earth Day inspired 20 million Americans — at the time, 10% of the total population of the United States — to take to the streets, parks and auditoriums to demonstrate against the impacts of 150 years of industrial development which had left a growing legacy of serious human health impacts.
earthday.org/history/
Groups that had been fighting individually against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness and the extinction of wildlife united on Earth Day around these shared common values. Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, urban dwellers and farmers, business and labor leaders.
By the end of 1970, the first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of other first-of-their-kind environmental laws, including the National Environmental Education Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the Clean Air Act. Two years later congress passed the Clean Water Act.
Serious Human Health Impacts
Fast forward to today, 55 years later. Here I am a Naturopathic Physician, dealing with those health impacts of an increasingly toxic world.
I use tools such as Biotherapeutic Drainage and Replenishing Minerals to bring us back to balance by eliminating effectively from toxic accumulations.
My mentor Dr. Zach Bush is a champion of regenerative health and food systems, starting with the soil and her microbes.
His Global Health Education site offers a plethora of information from Nutrition, GMO’s, Glyphosate to the Virome and What Happened Last Year, to the Innate Immune System, Sleep and Autism.
He founded the Regenerative Agriculture Farmer’s Footprint which offers this pdf of ways to support the Regenerative Movement such as to reconnect with the land and support your local farmers.
Beyond the Physical
A bold statement: You are Nature remembering itself.
We must remember that our bodies are built of elements from the Earth: minerals, organic molecules, microbes . . . everything came from the Earth. We cannot deny we are contiguous with the Earth from this perspective. We are even moment to moment exchanging gasses, oxygen and carbon dioxide with the atmosphere.
We gain our energy from the sun, directly and indirectly through what we eat, plants who directly converted sunlight to carbohydrates, and animals who also ate the plants, all living on planet Earth.
In the last 12,000 years we have built cultures that separated humans from the Earth, and there lies the root of our pathology today.
We can start to regenerate now with awareness of our place Nature and of the rhythms of life as evident in the seasons.
In this dawn of the age of Aquarius, we are loosening the top-down governance and finding our place on Earth as Earth. This is the end of the arrogance of trying to bend Nature to our will, as it is impossible. “You cannot fool Mother Nature” This is evident in antibiotic resistant organisms and the need to use more pesticides and chemicals the more we have modified Nature. No more.
It’s Not About Us
As part of Earth, we function as the neurons connected as the mind of the Earth when we are in our inner knowing.
It is not about our evolution; it is about the evolution of planet Earth.
Earth has survived cataclysms, ice ages and warmings, mass extinctions, and so much we cannot imagine over time. She will not be destroyed by us. Neither will she eliminate us like vermin, because it is not a war of her against us. Humans are part of the evolution of the planet and we are her crown species as we are working together in discovering who we can become.
This is what Earth Day has come to signify for me now. Our humble place on the planet is part of her like other species, rocks and energies. And yet we can honor her like no other since we are designed as multi-dimensional beings and function with her in those dimensions beyond the physical.
Take Action
Just as my action in 1970 was to make a mobile according to my level of understanding, I call on you to take action for Earth Day in whatever way is appropriate for you today.
As mentioned with the resources above, you can join the Regenerative Movement in whatever way makes sense for you like buying food from local farmers and voting with your dollars in whatever you do.
Do whatever you can to feel at one with Nature, for surely, we are. Put your bare feet on the grass, hug a tree, get your hands in the dirt gardening. Look up at the vastness of the sky to appreciate where we are living.
This might mean getting away from our artificial environment, phones and screens, and breathe fresh air and feel the sun on our skin.
This might mean educating yourself to the toxins in the world and how to harmonize with them and choose differently.
This might mean closing your eyes to meditate and lose yourself to gain a wider perspective.
Join me this Earth Day in going beyond lip service to environmentalism to becoming the Earth in whatever way possible.
