“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
- Vincent Van Gogh
My Earth-Loving Journey
S.A.V.E. Students Against Violating the Earth.
Yep, that was 6th grade me. Proud founding member of our middle school’s environmental club. And what a hefty name! My middle school years were filled with planting trees in the school yard, feeding banana peels to our classroom worm farm and distributing “worm pee” (the best fertilizer around!) to many unsuspecting relatives and friends.
Fast-forward to being a new mom, and the earth was honestly the farthest thing from my mind. One night, I watched an episode of StoryBots with my daughter. They were discussing the importance of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! As I put my daughter to bed that night, I realized I was doing diddly-squat to ensure she grew up in a home where we did our part to care for our earth.
Soon we were composting as a family and let me tell you, she “played” compost in her baths at night. It occurred to me as I listened to her play, that children literally absorb everything. I made it my mission that night to do what I could to teach her how to look outside of easy, and convenient and learn to make choices that would improve the earth and show it love.
Let’s talk OVERWHELMED.
My tie-in to calm comes now. As I rushed to make all of the necessary sustainable swaps in our lives, I quickly became overwhelmed. This was going to cost so much money. And so much time. So I took a step back, took a deep breath, and started simply researching. I kept a google doc and wrote down pros/cons of products and ideas as they came across my social media feed. I subscribed and unsubscribed like a mad-woman.
If I was going to do this, I was going to do it for the long haul, and in a calm-loving spirit.
Spring came and that’s when it hit me a second time. I needed to love MY earth, just as much as the planet earth. When Earth Day came, my daughter and I celebrated by picking up trash around our property. There was a lot, as we had built our home the fall before. We were holding trash bags at the far end of our property and kelt down to her and said “Can you hear it? The Earth is breathing a little bit better now.”
That thought alone gave me so much comfort. I started treating my property differently. I started literally hugging trees and talking to the beautiful plants in my garden. As a kid, I would sing to my flowers, why should I stop that as an adult? It was in these tiny moments that I started to love the world, the earth in a new, calm, and easy way.
Let’s show some love.
I have an easy task for you this week. I promise, I will go more in depth on the sustainable swaps we’ve started to make, in later blogs. But I didn’t want to turn this one into ‘buy this!’ ‘swap that’ ‘spend money!’. Ugh what a turn off.
So my ask to you is this. Are you ready? I want all of us to literally hug a tree. I challenge you to take moment the next time you are outside to let yourself gaze at the beautiful world around you, bend down (or reach up!) and shower a tree, shrub, or if ur lucky, little flower, with some love. Thank them for the life-sustaining oxygen they provide and tell them ‘ur rooting for them!’ (turns out, trees LOVE puns!)
Let’s show the earth some love! If we love our lands and waters, then bringing your own bags into a store, or opting for no take-out utensils won’t feel like a chore, it’ll feel like a privilege to care for something you love!
Peace friends.
Carrianne Nackers
Artist/Founder of The Happy Apricot
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