By EMILIE PRUETT, guest columnist
Every morning I watch the sunrise. I step outside to enjoy the benediction of birds’ song and I am struck with awe at the ethereal beauty of redbuds and dogwood in bloom, the heavenly fragrance of lilacs, and all the wonderful, lush greenness of spring. I am the thankful recipient of earth’s blessings.
Then I turn inward and ask myself what blessings I bestow on the earth in return. The answer is: not enough, not nearly enough.
The symbiotic relationship we all share with the earth is really much more one-sided than most of us care to admit. The earth gives and gives and we humans take and take and take in a selfish, false sense of entitlement. We demand to have our freedom to live and do as we please without willingness to take personal responsibility for the possible awful consequences of our actions.
Collectively, year by year, we have been destroying the earth, our home.
The earth is now fighting back in its death throes with often violent, unpredictable weather. We are experiencing record floods in some areas and record droughts in others. Hurricanes are becoming both more numerous and more destructive. Wildfires are destroying millions of acres of timber, homes and habitats each year now. And that is just the tip of the (melting) iceberg.
There are 30 percent fewer song birds than there were several years ago, and nearly all of the beautiful butterflies I enjoyed watching when I was younger are gone now. Untold numbers of species are facing extinction very soon, and if we don’t start doing all we can to restore the earth now, humans will be among them.
“All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small” are in desperate need of our help. Join me and my fellow Earth Rising friends and let’s do our part to make EVERY day EARTH DAY!
Emilie Pruett of Brown County submitted this information on behalf of Earth Rising, a new local group with the mission “To learn and share how to tread lightly on the Earth.” Pruett and Earth Rising can be reached at [email protected].
