It’s that time of the month again, and I am due for the Green Moms Blogging Carnival, this time over at Best of Mother Earth. I am supposed to write about gratitude, specifically three green things I am thankful for.
We behave with nature, the same way we might with a faithful lover, when we are forgetting how much we are being given, and how much our lives depends on such constant love. That’s the irony, we take nature for granted, because it’s so good to us, most of the time.
Take a few minutes and . . .
imagine a world without trees, and birds chirping in the trees, imagine the silence, and the scorching sun, and the absence of shade and coolness,
imagine a world without water, as in here:
imagine the air so polluted that you could no longer breathe freely, and would have to wear a mask 24/7, or stay indoors,
imagine . . .
While we may never know such extremes in our lifetime, we may get dangerously close, sooner than we think, if we don’t all change our ways.
Today, I am thankful for the trees, and the water, and the air.
How about you? What do you appreciate the most in nature?
La Marguerite 
I couldn’t agree more about how much we take our earth for granted. We do this with our bodies and the people we care for. You’re right that if we aren’t careful the things that we take for granted just may not be there for us anymore
I love flowers. Their smells, their petals, and how they can make everything look beautiful.
We take mother earth for granted.
I’ve always been an outdoor girl, but as I type this I hear 27 lanes of traffic (I’m not overstating that) go by on the morning comment in Orange County. My ears LONG for birds and crickets and fresh air not laced with exhaust fumes.
Thanks for reminding us about the most basic of all the gifts that Mother Nature provides!
Nature’s beauty keeps me sane and for that, I’m most appreciative.
The fact that life on Earth has evolved to include human beings, continues to amaze me.
The possibility that more and more of us human beings are actually beginning to wake-up and behave ourselves in alignment with nature’s guidelines/limits, provides me hope.
Recently, I was privileged to participate in some of the Bioneers’ conference as well as the OSN Sustainability Camp. Engaging with passionate, intelligent and action-oriented people about how best to prevent/manage the global, life-threatening crises we’ve been producing, is like opening up a whole bunch of really cool presents on one’s birthday.
For the sake of brevity, here are just a few highlights from each of last week’s work/celebrations:
Bioneers:
* Janine Benyus (Biomimicry)
http://www.biomimicryinstitute.org
* David Orr (Ecological Literacy)
http://www.davidworr.com
* John Warner (Green Chemistry)
http://www.beyondbenign.org
* Paul Stamets (Mycological-Bioremediation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stamets
(I also got to hang out for a set of afternoon sessions with my fellow Dot Earthling Elizabeth Tjader = that was fun!)
OSN Camp:
* Sailesh Rao
(recognized me from Dot Earth’s “Meet the Neighbors”)
http://www.climatehealers.org/home.html
* Michael Maranda
(suggested “How to be a good ancestor.”)
http://www.catcomm.org
* Jean Russell
(thank goddess for this woman’s clear kindness)
http://nurturegirl.net/
* Curt, Lonny and the rest of the Appropedia gang
(kindly keep up this celebratory good work, y’all)
http://www.appropedia.org/Welcome_to_Appropedia
I met dozens of other amazing individuals doing extraordinarily good work and yet I feel the need to keep this post brief.
Great question, Marguerite!
Ciao for now,
paul
Paradigm Shift
I agree. We do (far too often) take Nature for granted.
That said, I think part of the “solution” involves a paradigm shift.
The reason that Nature seems so nice to us, often, and often feels so good, and looks beautiful, and so forth, is not that She shapes herself to us, or defers to us, or will “forgive” us and adjust to us if we mess up.
In that sense, She’s not like a faithful lover.
We humans, of course, have been shaped (through evolution) to live in, be reasonably comfortable in, and do “OK” in our corner of Nature and in the current Earth environment.
If we moved to the Sun, we wouldn’t think of Nature as so comfortable. Likewise, if an organism living on some far-away star, far different from Earth, visited here, it would probably think of Earth as fairly harsh and not “beautiful” to it at all.
I’m not saying this to suggest that Nature isn’t wonderful. She is, of course. I’m saying this to suggest that we shouldn’t fool around with making our current environment imbalanced or doing things that would change it, for example, change the climate. If we muck things up, we won’t find Nature to be as forgiving as a faithful partner might be, or as we might want her to be. Nature won’t listen to us if we simply complain and plead. “Please, please, give us your old Self back!” She may well say, “Forget it. Too late.”
In short, we have been shaped to fit comfortably in our current environment, i.e., in the ranges of Nature we’ve been blessed with. Nature doesn’t shape herself to us, defer to us, care about us, and She won’t be forgiving.
Leonardo da Vinci was a reasonably smart guy!!! He once wrote:
“Necessity is the mother and teacher of Nature. Necessity is Nature’s theme and its inventor, and it is the eternal restraint and rule.”
And here’s some wisdom attributed to Aristotle, although I don’t know if Aristotle ever wrote it in this way:
“The physician heals, Nature makes well.”
Stephen Hawking has warned:
“We won’t find anywhere as nice as Earth unless we go to another star system.”
And here’s an interesting one from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“The violations of the laws of nature by our predecessors and our contemporaries are punished in us also. The disease and deformity around us certify the infraction of natural, intellectual and moral laws, and often violation on violation to breed such compound misery.”
It’s autumn in these parts (mid-Atlantic U.S.), and I’m reminded once again how beautiful Mother Nature is. The colors are spectacular this year, the leaves abundant, and the brisk air a great refresher. Just lovely.