Happy Motherfucking Earth Day!

So, it's finally here! All the Earth Day gifts are heaped under the Earth Day tree, while all the old familiar Earth Day songs play softly in the background. In just a little while, the children will wake up and gather round to hear the Earth Day story, unwrap their Earth Day gifts, and look inside their Earth Day baskets to see what Gaia brought them. Then, the whole family, all three or four generations, will head off to church, or temple, or synagogue, or grove and give thanks for our lovely Earth on Earth Day. Finally, everyone will head to Grandma's for the traditional Earth Day feast, followed by naps, football, and lots of happy family time together. Truth to be told, you're almost glad that all the fuss is over. Earth Day ads have been on the radio and tv for months and it seems as if every year, Earth Day gets more and more commercialized and we move farther away from the true meaning of Earth Day.

What? You're kidding?!?! You didn't even know that today's Earth Day? You're not even sure what Earth Day is or what it's for or what you're supposed to do on Earth Day?!?!?! All you have is a vague notion that it's some hippie-dippy tree-hugging relic from the 1970s?!? How could that be? Goddess knows, if ever there were a planet in need of some attention, it's our current Earth. So how did Earth Day turn into a nothing, a non-event, a minor opportunity for politicians to give speeches in the few remaining national parks (after their aides find the one or two vistas not marred by oil wells or old-growth logging -- thanks George Bush, you motherfucker!) about how "Every day is Earth Day!"?????

Well, I suppose there are a number of reasons. But the main one is that holidays in America are only real if someone can make some money off of them. We celebrate Secretary's Day with more consistency than Earth Day because the card companies, florists, and restaurants make money from Secretary's Day -- a holiday that they pretty much invented over the past 20 years or so. Valentine's Day, ditto, although its history goes back a bit farther. Mother's Day, ditto and add the phone companies. Memorial Day makes money for the beach resorts and beer companies and charcoal sellers. And gas stations. Thanksgiving and xmas speak for themselves as orgies of spending and consumption. But Earth Day? I guess the nurseries and environmental clean-up folks aren't too bright because no one seems to make much money off of Earth Day. Hence, it's pretty much gone the way of Arbor Day.

Like so much of what happened back in the early 70s concerning energy and the environment, Earth Day represents, in many ways, a huge lost opportunity. As gas approaches $90 barrel, we can't help but wish that some of Jimmy Carter's energy initiatives, both conservation and development, hadn't been allowed to languish for the past 30 years. Too bad we didn't spend that time getting ourselves off oil and preventing global warming. Too bad we didn't clean up the air, and our water, and our food supply while we had cheap energy to do it with. Too bad we didn't take rational, painless steps to control population such as providing accurate sex education, free safe birth control, and incentives to limit reproduction. As our planet reaches the tipping point in terms of environmental catastrophe, I can't help but wish that the promise of Earth Day had been realized rather than relegated to the junk heap of third-rate holidays.

I was recently re-reading one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems:

Peonies

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open ---
pools of lace,
white and pink ---
and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away

to their dark, underground cities ---
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again ---
beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?

I suppose the question that she asks is the most important question that can be asked here at the beginning of the 21st Century: Do you love this world? If you do, how will you show your love? Here's an easy thing to do. Go order some free trees. (OK, you have to pay for the shipping, but the trees are free). Plant them. If you live in an apartment or condo, plant them in a near-by abandoned lot or park or in a friend's yard. Commit guerrila actions and plant them along highways or beside parking lots. Mother Earth needs more trees.