Mother Earth is not a subfloor

A place to reflect

Meditation Garden

Joelle and I were on the road for Earth Day this year, and as serendipity would have it, we found ourselves in this beautiful location – Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, VA. I've been reading about the center for years, and we would be driving right past the exit. How could we not stop?

As we parked the van, we could see a sign for the meditation garden nearby. We don't even have to ask each other, "Let's go!" Being in nature, away from the noise of humankind, one can hear the trees speak and the animals chatter in blissful daily activity. 

Public policy has taken a sad step backwards in the last year. When the National Park Service has to start rogue social media accounts, the world has become skewed. When pipelines and profit become more valuable than humans and water quality, our priorities are are not aligned with humanity and common sense. 

Humans and the corporations they serve have been treating Mother Earth like sub flooring, merely a base on which to build urban sprawl and capital. 

This year's Earth Day theme is End Plastic Pollution. This has been a wake-up call for even a tree-hugger like me. I've rather naively been assuming as long as I recycle, I'm doing my part for the planet. Evidence now shows that all those items we blithely believe are being recycled aren't making the cut. They are winding up in the ocean, harming marine life. Plastics are finding their way into our food sources and disrupting human hormones, causing disease. Think about single-use plastics – something that holds your food for minutes will remain in a landfill for centuries.

Hidden home in the bamboo forest

We walked away from the garden, a bit more blissful, a bit more mindful, and a bit more grateful for Mother Nature. 

Here's a fun video on straw alternatives. Say NO to plastic. Say YES to pasta.