Climate Column: Honoring Earth Day
The Argus Courier has asked our Campaign Director, Natasha Juliana, to write a monthly climate column for the newspaper. Here is the April installment:
NATASHA JULIANA
FOR THE ARGUS-COURIER
April 14, 2022
April 22nd is almost here! Are you ready to celebrate? Earth Day tends to be overshadowed by our fabulous Butter and Egg Days parade, which typically takes place the same weekend, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still use this moment to reflect and give thanks.
I noticed the book ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ by Robin Kimmerer was number four on the list of top selling titles at Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma back in February, as reported in this paper. This beautiful story of “indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teaching of plants” offers so many magical nuggets of inspiration it could be considered the perfect place to begin our Earth Day reflection.
“Our elders say that ceremonies are the way we ‘remember to remember,’” Kimmerer states so succinctly. And isn’t that why rituals and traditions are so important? Each birthday cake reminds us to celebrate that we have lived another year as we count the candles and make a wish. Each Butter and Egg Days reminds us of the strength of our community as we rejoice in seeing half the town parading down the street while the other half cheers from the sideline.
Making a ceremony out of Earth Day, in ways big or small, is an opportunity for us to remember to remember how much we love our home, this life-giving planet hurling through space, protecting and providing, year after year.
Liza Eichert is Principal of Mary Collins School at Cherry Valley, one of our Cool Petaluma community partners. When I asked her about Earth Day she had this to say: “It is great to have traditions that reflect the values of the community and remind us of where we want to go.”
Years ago, when Eichert was a teacher at Cherry Valley and my daughter was a student, we worked together on the school’s annual Earth Day Celebration. My family has fond memories of that event and it has helped to shape our values. I still remember that adorable stuffed bear with the head lobbing to one side, hanging on by a thread, that my daughter picked as her “prize” from the collection of hand-me-down toys available after successfully completing the recycle toss game. Eichert has her own fond memories of going to the Whole Earth Festival with her parents as a child growing up in Davis. Undoubtedly, these early experiences influenced her drive to create a fun family earth event at our school.
It turns out ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ is one of Eichert’s favorite books and she returns to it often. There is a big gratitude piece in there she wants to pass down to her students that comes from appreciating all the ways we are interconnected - how the earth cares for us and how we care for each other.
Many of us are quick to profess our love for Mother Earth, but Kimmerer asks a much more interesting question in ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’: “Do you think the earth loves you back?” We’ve been taught to see ourselves as separate from the environment and we can see endless examples of how we’ve been harming the world. It’s hard to move beyond that narrative and imagine another possibility. Kimmerer goes on to explain, “Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.” What a beautiful paradigm shift to embrace!
Kailea Frederick is a Petaluma Climate Action Commissioner, mother, and a climate justice organizer with NDN Collective, having just published a moving collection of essays called ‘Required Reading: Climate Justice, Adaptation + Investing in Indigenous Power.’ For her, recognizing that the earth can love you back is an important shift in consciousness rooted in an understanding of the aliveness of all things, not just humans. Frederick asks, “What if we really understood our interconnectedness and the web of life? How much more rich and alive might our everyday experience be?”
Noting that our current planetary state is degraded and unstable, Frederick encourages us to move away from the framework of sustainability, which only allows us to maintain the status quo, to a framework of regeneration, which allows us to rebuild and replenish all life. “There is so much more potential in that story. There is an opportunity to regenerate whole communities. That is climate justice. And that is really something to work toward.”
These themes keep reoccurring in our climate conversations – community and interconnectedness. This Earth Day let’s remember to remember the value of building our bonds with people and planet.
Natasha Juliana is the Campaign Director for Cool Petaluma. She can be reached at natashaj@coolpetaluma.org For information on how to get involved, visit coolpetaluma.org.