Bee-In for Earth Day 49

John’s been hard at work this spring getting hive boxes and frames ready for new bees, the first of which were introduced to their snug home on Friday. As you’re probably aware if you’re reading this blog, bees are struggling. We lost most of our hive last summer to a bear in early June—much earlier than bears normally roam—and the remaining bees died during a very cold snap in February because they couldn’t generate enough heat to protect themselves and the brood they had recently laid. Between chemical pollution, habitat loss, invasive pests, and a changing and unpredictable climate, it’s tough to be a bee, and tough, too, to be a beekeeper. So far, our new hive is off to a great start and will be joined by others soon.

I’ve written about Earth Day before, including in this video excerpt from A Bushel’s Worth, so for this blog I’m sharing tips below for writing about your own Earth Day experiences. But for now, get out and enjoy this beautiful 49th Earth Day!

To write about your Earth Day experience, start by recalling details through consulting a photograph, journal entry, newspaper account, or website, if you have them. If not, memory will do.

Record the facts: jot down when and where the experience took place, who organized it, and who took part, as in this example from “The First Earth Day . . . and Still Counting” in my book, A Bushel’s Worth: An Ecobiography: “On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day, I was a student in Mr. Osborn’s fifth grade class at Sherwood Elementary. . . . [We] decided to join the first Earth Day celebration by turning the hard dirt outside our classroom into a beautiful garden of grass and flowers.”

Next, fill in the setting with a little more context about the event’s origins or goals. Tell us why you or other organizers decided to celebrate Earth Day in that particular way: “Between the Vietnam War and the dawning awareness of environmental degradation in the late 1960s, sometimes the world seemed a pretty dark place. But in Mr. Osborn’s fifth grade class, we students felt the hopefulness of a world blooming with new and exciting possibilities. . . . All it would take, we thought, were some shovels and a few seeds.”

Now add what happened by recounting the actions taken. Whether the celebration was an organized public event or a private, informal occurrence, what exactly did participants do? Take us there, including dialogue, if relevant. In my story, for example, I write about showing up to school with tools (the girls even got to wear pants, normally not allowed in 1970’s Greeley, Colorado!): “With rakes and hoes in our young hands, we scratched tiny furrows in the soil to plant our hopeful seeds. A little water, a little weeding, and we would have our first Earth Day garden.”

Following the story of your own event, consider what your Earth day celebration meant to you. What did you learn about the environment and the ecological challenges facing the planet? Moving from the close-up scene of your own event to a wide-angle view of the world in which your event took place, consider issues or problems that provided a background to your Earth Day. Even within a global perspective, individual campaigns like banning plastic straws or limiting meat consumption target localized actions. Write about how your actions and attitudes fit in the larger Earth Day mission.

If you have participated in more than one Earth Day event, compare and contrast them. This year is the 49th Earth Day! How has it changed over nearly half a century? What themes or projects have garnered public awareness? For example, at the first Earth Day, water and air pollution and endangered species took center stage, while today, human actions leading to a changing climate are seen as a much bigger threat to the earth than anyone could have imagined in 1970. Another shift can be traced from an emphasis on preservation to adaptation? How have you seen Earth Day change? And how have you changed your awareness and advocacy over the years, too?

Finally, reflect on Earth Day itself. Given the immensity of the problems facing the planet, should anyone bother to celebrate Earth Day anymore? Should its goals be educational, scientific, political, and/or adversarial? Does commemorating Earth Day just once a year change policies and attitudes toward the environment and our role in it? Or is it a feel-good event that allows us to look away from the planet on the other 364 days of the year?

Whatever your story, think about how you might share it as personal memoir, testimony, or political opinion. Whether you write for yourself or for others, your Earth Day story is part of a planetary record of living here on earth.

Emerge

Subscribe at the right of this page for a monthly post with writing explorations at the end for creating your own ecobiography.

March is a month of intermittence. On Colorado’s Front Range, the weather changes daily, often mid-daily, from sunshine to rain to snow and back again.

March is also the month of emergence. After the dormancy of long winter, plants and animals wake up to spring’s warmth and light, an arousal reinforced for humans by the “spring forward” of clocks.

Walking around the farm these days or weeding cool beds in preparation for planting, I search for green. Poppies and daffodils reach for the sun. Tiny leaves of mint and thyme unfurl along roots and stems. Fall-planted garlic pokes through grassy mulch. Rhubarb propels its brainy head above a deep mat of autumn leaves.

With longer days, the chickens have started laying again in earnest. I laugh at myself for thinking that daylight savings time has made a difference in their productivity. Chickens respond to longer daylight, for sure, but do so quite separately from our mechanical and digital manipulations.

Near the bridge by the flower beds, my grandson and I find a hole an arm’s width in the grass fifteen feet from the edge of the ditch now flowing with snow melt. Muskrat, most likely, which means its burrow cuts under the bank much farther back than I would have imagined. We are disappointed not to be greeted by a furry neighbor popping its head out its back door, but we think it’s cool a creature lives under our feet.

All these signs of emergence promise growth and regeneration of the natural world. Early spring—late March and April on the anthrocentric calendar—is a time of emergence for humans, too, at least those who live in a climate where the seasons make a difference. Warmer weather and longer daylight brings more time outside as we shed heavy coats and boots and the ennui of cold and dark. Many of us celebrate a spring holiday of renewal in faith or love. Ever the optimists, farmers start seedlings in the greenhouse.

I have to admit I need a little shove in March to get myself back out into the world again. January and February are quiet times for me when I write, organize, read, and stay home by the woodstove as much as possible. March is my transition to a very busy summer and fall with farming and writing, not to mention recreation with family and friends.

But March also gives me a chance to emerge a bit at a time, taking my cue from the weather. When sunshine beckons, I keep an eye on the sky, not trusting the forecast. Spring snows don’t bother me as I prolong my respite by the fire. But finally, I awaken to find flowers blooming and the first spinach ready to pick in the fields. By my late March birthday, I’m ready for new plans (I’m an Aries, after all, so dreaming up the next big project is part of my MO), with winter forgotten behind me.

Ecobiography can examine the influence of the natural cycle of seasons on human activity and the plants and animals with which we share an ecosystem. Thinking of the transition from winter to spring as emergence brings an opportunity to consider what is new in our lives, as well as observe the changes such transformation plays in the natural world around us.

Writing Exploration: In a short essay or journal entry, write about your experience of spring. As the days grow warmer and longer, in what ways do you experience the transformation from winter to spring? From dark to light? From cold to warmth? From quiet times to busy-ness? From solitude to social ties? From root stew to fresh garden salad? From fireside to patio?

As you write, think about words that evoke a sense of emergence. You may have noticed I’ve used some in this post like “propel,” “awaken,” “transition,” and “renewal.”

Next, write about the ways spring brings new interactions with the natural world. What do you observe in spring that was missing in winter?

Finally, reflect on the idea of emergence. With this change of season, what are you emerging from? And what might you be emerging to?