Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day is generally a contemplative time for me. Last year I wrote an article in defense of the concept of Earth Day, and today I have some thoughts to look back upon later, perhaps when Earth Day is  as much as 100 years old.

I read a quote earlier as I was perusing Facebook: 

Rachel Carson

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts." -- Rachel Carson. 

This struck me, especially after something I heard the other day following an Earth Week movie screening. We had just finished the film A Sea Change, a documentary about ocean acidification, climate change, and our addiction to fossil fuels. A biologist from the Center for Biological Diversity answered some of our questions afterward. I personally wondered, and often wonder, what can actually be saved. There is so much talk of positive feedback loops spiraling the climate out of control. Then there's the fact that we're only now seeing the effects of the carbon we emitted decades ago - and it's already pretty bad out there. 

I know I'm supposed to be idealistic and endlessly optimistic as a twenty-year-old college student. But it's easy to get discouraged and lose hope. It really is. 

So I am absolutely indebted to an older man who spoke up during the Q&A with some words of wisdom. He reminded us all that it's not really about the outcome. As environmentalists and activists, we create a lot of goals for ourselves, and tangible ways to measure our success. But the world is never going to be "fixed" or "saved," so it would be foolish to equate success with achievement of our goals. Rather, it must be about finding peace and enjoyment in doing fulfilling work. It's about surrounding yourself with people who are genuine, passionate, kind, and just plain fun to be around. It's about being happy on a day-to-day basis - making time to "contemplate the beauty of the earth." 

I am lucky in so many ways. I live in Berkeley, where I can get to breathtaking views, redwood forests, and oak-studded chaparral hills just by taking a quick walk. All I need is a quiet hike along the fire trail to feel at peace. I allow my senses to tune in to the earth, as I breath in bay laurel, grow goosebumps in the wind, step bare feet into soft mud. Ecosystems and all their inhabitants exhilarate me - and ecosystems aren't hard to find at all.  I don't have to go far from my apartment to encounter  what Carson describes as "reserves of strength." 

I am also endlessly lucky to be able to work with amazing people. I can't say this enough. Last spring, I stumbled across the California Student Sustainability Coalition, and my life won't be the same again. I spent a weekend at their convergence in Davis, and when I left, I thought to myself, "I don't know much about this organization, but I know that I have to find a way in - because these are the people I want to get to know." In that moment, I never dreamt that I would have a family of student activists that stretches across the entire state of California. 

I can't imagine my life on the Berkeley campus without the friends I've made in the Sustainability Team. I look forward to meetings because I know they will be filled with laughter and good vibes. I've made so many of my closest friends through both of these organizations. The people I know through the CSSC and STeam are the people I am meant to know. 

Campaigns and projects and goals are important. Very important. They are the drums that provide rhythm for our lives. But that deep-down happiness, that smile that can't be stopped, that "ubuntu" feeling that comes from a hike through a redwood grove or sharing a meal with dear friends - that is success. That is what makes the earth worth fighting for in the first place. 

So maybe instead of chasing environmental victories, I'll start chasing that feeling. I get the sense that both chases will lead me to the same places. 

Thoughts to guide me until the next Earth Day. 

The Grand Canyon

Day One

Eyeballs inadequate for the type of depth perception this place requires. No, Dad, it is not like I imagined - more vast, more mysterious, more unperceivable. Shades of red, brown, blue, gray. We flock as tourists to this cosmic entity, unsure of what it is, but sure enough to call it a "National Park." I struggle to see the bottom, to see which way slops up, which down. Vertigo. Side conversations about our lives, jumping photographs, drinking bleach water from my camelbak, the smell of sunscreen mixed with pine. The crows are the only bodies in the air above the canyon, giving a frame of reference for my eyes to focus on. 


We flock here, and so they developed. How is my experience affected by the volume of people, roads, cafes, gift shops? Subliminal messages litter the sublime. 


Day Three


"Scenery"
From the Rim Trail, 
the canyon is background
a painting, an exhibit to look at
static, 
but easy to get lost in during
an extended stare. 


South Kaibab 
pulls us into the canyon
into its heart and soul

depth changes
and changes
new information revealed
to my senses
more mysteries exposed and questions
to never answer. 


I allow the canyon to swallow me whole,
the belly is warm and sweetened with
Indian Paintbrush and Utah Agave. 



Day One


I gather with many others after sprinting, giddy, to Hopi Point, a known spot for watching the sun slip behind the Grand Canyon. Sitting on cold granite in company of tourists, ravens, wind, layers of metamorphic and sedimentary history; we all converge to watch the sun fall. We render ourselves vulnerable, malleable, affected by this passing of time, this mark of change ever the same. 
I am silent and pensive, awestruck. The raven dances over the canyon, the canyon deepens into navy-purple, the tourists press their shutter buttons over and over again, continuous until the sun's ultimate goodbye. All of our rhythms converge, locked into time and space, dictated by the sun-star. 


Right here right now is the ONLY sunset that has EVER existed. We sit together at the center of the universe. 


[It is hard, perhaps impossible, to speak of the Grand Canyon without cliches, and so I submit. I suppose this is because the Grand Canyon, sculpted by ancient and modern forces, also sculpts our collective consciousness as human beings - we experience much of the same. ]