Happy Earth Day 2017

Earth Day 2017 and so many wonderful things going on to help us reawaken our connection to the sacredness of the living Earth.

An afternoon in the relative quiet of our little south facing front garden provided all the inspiration and sense of connectedness I needed to sustain me for Earth Day this year.

My three children, two delightful teens and one sweet preteen, my dear two and a half year old nephew and I all passed a wonderful afternoon digging about clearing out remnants of last year's garden and planning for this year's expansion. So many little discoveries awaited our curious, sometimes patient, unearthing.

Eight honey bees busily pollinating the early spring bulb bluebells--which we almost didn't plant last November. A large box of mixed bulbs, a late but most welcome gift, and the bluebells themselves an afterthought in the garden really, but so very welcome to the busy bees this day.

And a nest of three slumbering queen Bumblebees coiled in little earthly beds beneath a sandstone foundation stone lining the side of our driveway.

Many, many earthworms of assorted sizes and one very large dew worm.

A white cabbage butterfly fluttered by and a Tree Swallow swooped deep swells of sky high above the trees behind our house.

An Osprey called out its high pitched ode to spring returning to its nearby nest platform after feeding in the pond down the road.

A powerful Raven made the parents of an incessantly chirping baby crow in our neighbor's evergreen windbreak pretty nervous for a short time. Then it was off like the clouds and they all settled down for a while.

"It's a pretty hard day for digging outdoors today" was my little nephew's take on the afternoon. He dug in our little bed for a solid hour and a half, with a pleasant seriousness only his father could better, studied the honeybees, ran and played catch with his cousins, tree climbed, swung in the hammock, yelped out for all to "Come see this one guys" when in his very earnest digging he dug up a plump dew worm which was 9.5 inches long. We had the tape measure outside because we were planning our garden redo. We are expanding our little front edibles garden because our gardening efforts of the past five or six years have proven so delicious and bountiful that we are undertaking the joyful planting of even more good things to eat at the request of our two very interested, oldest kids.

Life is strange and wonderful. I thought of many things during our happy little afternoon outdoors together. The circle of life was not far from my mind as I played with my little nephew in the soil and thought of my dear sister, his mom, who is 31 weeks pregnant with her second child and eagerly awaiting meeting their new little person.

I thought too of my ninety year old grand aunt whose end of life party we attended last Saturday and who passed away yesterday afternoon amid the tearful farewells of her loving family. She will be buried in the graveyard down the road from my house, and hers, early next week. She comprised an interesting combination of spunk, generosity and warm graciousness. 

Life is precious -- all so precious and all so deserving of our mindful and loving attention.

This dear Earth can hold us in a myriad of ways, us the myriad of creatures that we are. But, and this is a big But, we must take better care of this tiny, sacred orb. The lives of so many utterly depend on our realization that the Earth is not here for our taking but for the caring and sharing of many creatures for years to come.

Special thank you to all my dear outdoor companions today--for helping me remember to keep close to the Earth, and to my son for so willingly teaching us all about the wonders and ways of the creatures we saw today. It never fails that when I take time to pay quiet attention to the living world, I am duly rewarded.

Happy Earth Day 2017
In Gratitude,
Jill MacCormack