Mirth.
“As my self-restraint arm wrestles my mushrooming mirth for control, I flash what I hope is a reassuring smile at the family on the blanket near mine. Maybe they would giggle along, if only I could explain o them about the geese. Kids like funny sounds, right?
But I’m clenching my teeth so hard, in a failed effort to contain my own cackling, that I can only snort, “geese!” Which might have sounded like “cheese!” or “bleach!” I can’t really say.”
Magic Beans.
“For all that I have read and heard and considered, the whole issue of GMO plants has been but an abstract topic of intellectual debate up until now. I aim to avail myself of this opportunity to get an up-close and personal experience with the “magic bean” plants. I tiptoe into the midst of the field, a nursery full of drowsy green heads bobbing in the breeze like babies so sleepy they can no longer hold up their noggins. These tiny tots hardly seem the source of so much acrimony. I wedge my seat between rows and recount my woes . . .”
Premature Celebrations.
“I’m waving pom-poms, cheering for the wax worms—and for Bertocchini’s curiosity. Before I can celebrate them with an expensive beverage that might ferment in France, a counterview pops up.
Oh, why does there always have to be a counterview ruining my moments of premature celebration? I like to blame the cats for most everything, but I can’t see how to pin this one on them. So, I stick out my tongue, toddler style, then roll it up like a taco and breathe. Another gem from kundalini yoga, it cools down both body and mind. I also relish the smug satisfaction that I’m genetically able to taco my tongue at all (not everyone can). I get my ego strokes where I can.”
Manna.
“Winter is the season when life-sustaining manna, in the form of water, usually falls from heaven around here. Though we sit squarely one week before the start of summer, the bone-dry complexions of my companions evidence the lack of rain over the past few years. Last winter was particularly parched, delivering little moisture to help tide the local flora and fauna over the rainless season ahead. Late spring did surprise us with a drenching rain a couple of weeks ago, soaking us with a single inch of blessed precipitation.
Scanning my chaparral companions, I notice that a few bear a sprinkling of tender leaflets. Perhaps that one inch was just enough to awaken some of the scrubs from the lull that dearth induces. Perhaps a kernel of Hope implanted in their DNA keeps them alive but hibernating during arid times. Perhaps that impulse for life is what nudges the scrub awake when the first rain falls.”
Vow.
“Reclaiming my lawn chair, I draw my daughter into my lap, and the floodgates of my heart open. I whisper a prayer of blessing, honoring the contributions of each of us . . from the hardworking farmers to the parents feeding supper to their children.
I trust that we are all here on purpose, that each of us brings our own message into the world from the Divine. I bless my own resolve to drop the unconsidered judgments fueled by the latest “Act NOW” email blast. I vow to speak from a voice of curiosity first and a place of outrage when warranted by verifiable information. I pledge to sit in peaceful stillness when I lack the knowledge to make an informed judgment. That’s the best I can do here on this night.
My daughter squirms in my embrace and I let her loose, along with all my hopes for the world, to light up the dark sky like the flitting fireflies.”
Wish.
“The White House has erased all mention of climate change from its website. . . State legislators rush to erase the topic of climate change from school science standards. Can anyone spell D-E-N-I-A-L? Or has that word been White-House-washed from the dictionary?
On the one hand, I get it. More than anything, even more than I wish for a self-cleaning kitchen, I wish that the rapid acceleration of climate change wasn’t happening. I wish that more destructive wildfires weren’t decimating our forests, that coral reefs weren’t dying, that storms weren’t growing more terrifyingly extreme, that permafrost wasn’t releasing gobs of methane as it melts, that rising seas weren’t threatening island- and coastal-dwellers, and that those mournful polar bears weren’t starving to death.
I wish we could eradicate all those things by modifying school textbooks. I really do.”
Reverberations.
“The yearning for new life, new creativity, and new self-expression that we both feel has woken us both up.
I collapse back in my chair at this revelation. Up until now, my belief in Oneness—that we are each an essential element of All That Is—has been but an abstract construct. That a seed pod and I could be responding to each other so intimately and collaboratively had not entered my imagination. Until now.
Everything we do matters. Everything we say, think, and feel reverberates across creation, and life responds, whether we realize it or not.
I need to sit here a while longer and allow my mind to catch up to what my heart and soul have already integrated . . .”
Confession.
“I confess that I buy single-serving spice packets. I’m just not an intuitive cook, and I’ve never mastered the fine art of seasoning. The certainty of having every single ingredient to season the cooking recipe du jour, all in the proper proportion, makes me feel a lot more confident when I pull out the skillet. Sure, I’ve tried the DIY recipes for taco seasoning and kung pao chicken sauce. My family will attest: mine just isn’t the same. Or even…good.
Plus, all those multi-serving condiment bottles that litter the fridge and pantry, the ones that never got used up, taunt me. Remember when you bought fish sauce for that recipe that no one could choke down? Well, why not give me another go?
The half-full bottles smirk. Hoisin sauce, curry paste, ginger sesame marinade . . . they are all in on it. The packets never stick around long enough to harass me. That’s a quality I appreciate in a friend. With apologies, Earth . . . “
Albatrosses.
"An inky lake trimmed by midnight-blue mountains, the peaks lost in a thick blanket of pea soup fog, drifts into focus. A raft of café au lait-hued Mallards paddle toward the spot on the bank where I picnic with my family. They reach the shore, then slosh through the reeds to ask for handouts. Their congenial quack, quack, quacking pierces the veil of silence. All four of us transfixed by their antics, we forget our travel-weariness.
We forget that we once thought ourselves apart from the world.
The beauty of that moment settles me like my mother tucking my childhood self into bed at night. I don’t have any answers for albatrosses or wolves, but I trust that I’ll have the faculties to take on whatever my soul presents for me to undertake."
2018 Winner of Silver Nautilus Book Award
Read Love Earth Now
Author Cheryl Leutjen’s award-winning book of planetary self-help is a deeply thoughtful, often neurotic, and sometimes comedic exploration of her own efforts to make an eco-contribution.