On April 22, 1970 Earth Day officially began. Although I know we should be honoring the earth everyday, and I think a lot of people do. It is like Valentine’s Day — we all know we should be showing love and compssion everyday but sometimes we need a little nudge and reminder.  And I love that our Mother Earth has at least one day for her — we got mother’s day for our biological mom. My mother has a background in Biology, the step-father who raised me was a marine biologist. Together they instilled in me a reverence for nature and an awareness of our natural environment. Because of my extreme fondness of Earth and nature it surprises me that my earliest memory of Earth Day is when I was a teenager.   I grew up in Los Angeles, an urban environment surrounded by lush nature — the National Angeles Forest, the San Gabriel Mountains, the Pacific Ocean, the Santa Monica Mountains, various canyons and in-between pockets of natural habitat. On this particular Earth Day, there were booths set up in the arroyo and there I was in my youth, blue tie-dye shirt, Birkenstock sandles, and my highschool sweetheart by my side — it was a blissful day to see so many people gathered to honor our mother.

Today as the awareness of our Earth, the depletion of resources, and the pollution of water, becomes more widespread, the need for Earth Day, the nudge towards preservation, becomes more apparent. All year long we all contribute in our way: recycling, buying local, bringing bags to the store, not buying plastic but using bulk, etc. And like other “holidays” we go out out of our way to do something to celebrate and I ask, what are you going to do different today to honor the planet you live on? This Earth that gives you food, shelter, clothes and life. One of the best things you can do is rest and in that process allow mother nature to rest and regenerate.  Restore energy back to you and to nature by unplugging from technology for a few hours, take a long walk and breath in the spring blossoms, clean your home and donate unwanted items, garden — even if that means planting one bulb in one pot, read from natural light near the window. There are many things that can be done from donating hours to planting a tree or drawing in the sand with your kids.  What will you choose to do? Whatever you do, enjoy it and smile radiantly at everyone around you.