Episode #2: 4/22/2020 ~ Recognizing Earth Day's 50th Anniversary

To be fair, we should give thanks to this precious planet Earth every day. But today, April 22nd, in the year 2020, we mark the 50th Anniversary of our global Earth Day celebrations. It’s 2:22 in the afternoon and there’s something about all those 2’s that I’m tickled by. 4/22/2020 at 2:22pm. That seems potent, or just fun to look at anyway. And, this is Episode number 2 so there’s that, too…

The episode is 22 minutes recognizing Earth Day and reflecting on where we are today. It also explores the place we find ourselves as we look to the next 50 years and wonder if we can find our way to the envisioned Ecotopia imagined on Earth Day in 2070. 

I touch on the pandemics role in this years Earth Day as well. Enjoy...

Transcript

Joe Culhane:   0:00
Hey there. Thank you for tuning in, folks. These are unprecedented times we find ourselves way. Had jimson are glad to provide an outlet for ESD for 2030 and help promote education for sustainable development. To learn more, check out Gibson that organ. That's GPSEN.org and if you'd be so kind, subscribe to this here show and maybe tell a friend or 2, too. It's another useful thing to add to our days while we ride out this wild isolation situation we find ourselves all right. Well, thank you again for two from the magnificent Pacific Northwest. This is ESD Sustained me! I'm Joe Culhane and this here is a special Earth Day Birthday episode celebrating 50 years of Earth Day.   

Joe Culhane:   1:22
To be fair, we should give thanks to this precious plan Earth every day. But today, April 22nd in the year 2020 we mark the 50th anniversary of our global Earth Day celebrations. It's 2:22 in the afternoon and there's something about all those two's that I'm just tickled by 4/ 20 to 2020 at 2:22 PM that seems potent or just fun to look at anyway. And this is episode number two. So there's that, too. Before moving along, though, I would like to acknowledge that this podcast is being recorded on the traditional village sites of the Multnomah Cath lament. Colak amiss bands of the chain took to wallet in California, Malala and many other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River. Multnomah is a band of Chinooks that lived in this area. We thank the descendants of these tribes for being the original stewards and protectors of these lands since time immemorial. We also acknowledge that Portland, Oregon, has the ninth largest urban Native American population in the U. S. With over 380 federally recognized tribes represented in. We also acknowledge the systemic policies of genocide, relocation and assimilation that still impact many indigenous Native American families. Today we are honored by the collective work of many native nations, leaders and families who are demonstrating resilience, resistance, revitalisation, healing and creativity. We are honored to be guests upon these lands, Thank you and thanks also to our colleagues at the Portland State University Indigenous Nations Studies Program for crafting this acknowledgement so far this day has been pretty good, considering we're in a pandemic at all. But I have My health is well, as my family here at the house. And I'm sitting on a freshly foraged from the are dandy lion cleaver and minty. Yeah, things are pretty dandy presently and we just got done hanging up the Earth Day signs We each painted yesterday out in the front yard and this morning I participated in a truly powerful kundalini yoga session with one of my wife and I's favorite teachers, Tasia. She has been doing an online live class every day at 9 a.m. Throughout this pandemic, which I strongly recommend checking out if you are into that sort of thing. That IHS the class was honoring this Earth day and this new moon in tourists. That also happens to mark the passage of this here moment in time as well. New moons are an awesome opportunity to set intentions and in general, are a great way to follow in harmony with the regular celestial transitions of our journey through this solar system and the cosmos from here on earth for 15 years now on this date, we have been globally putting some collective efforts together and loving intentions towards this planet We live on giving thanks for her abundance. Taking actions and doing her part to mindfully provide care in a way that, ideally, will allow us to sustain our lives for generations and generations to come. Remarkably, though, at the very same time for these past 50 years. And really for as long as this species that I'm slightly embarrassed in a little bit ashamed to be a part of has an actual fact done a mighty fine job of disrespecting and destroying the fabrics that hold together this magnificently woven tapestry of life on this blue planet. The goal moving forward is for 50 years from now for us to arrive at ICO Topia Day that being 100 years after the first Earth Day, let's just say we've got a lot of work to do moving forward to achieve anything like that. There's a course correction that is in dire need of happening. Perhaps though this global pandemic is just the catalyst to catapult us forward after a deep pause and humbling down period, you know where we find ourselves today and As we navigate our way through this collective initiation period we're in, and that's how I'm wishing to frame my outlook on the future. We have this chance, which always really exist, but specifically right now to take a collective breath, analyze what is working and what is not, and take the necessary steps forward to mitigate the worst of what is to come. And this goes far beyond the concept of sustainability and regain your connection with nature. It is a radical departure from what we've known for generations and even centuries from at least the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. But even further back where this reckoning is required to take place so that we can essentially reboot the systems, but in a drastically different way when they come back online. Is this possible? Do we have what it takes? There are plenty of humans right now, giving it their best go to display very little common sense and a blatant disregard for the well being of their fellow human family as well. It's this planet. Alas, there are countless out there on this new path, finding their threat back to the central focus of this new storyline. practicing forgiveness and finding in the depths the remembrance of what it is like to live in true harmony with this precious planet. E S D for 2030 Education for sustainable development in this next decade is one of those most connected and established organizational efforts to move in this direction. But it is by no means the only. There are a myriad ways to shift these paradigms, and there are numerous groups combining efforts tiu c and create these better stories. It is my goal in the coming episodes and through the life of this podcast to connect with these folks and organizations that are educating themselves each other and all of us, if we can only listen, I, for one, love to imagine this different version of reality. While I also recognize I do not have any clear vision of what that is going to look like exactly or how we're going to get there. But that is perhaps one of the great things of our technological advancements right now. We have never been so connected when it comes to communications and the sharing of ideas. True, there is a lot of clutter and distractions in the way, but we shall overcome these hurdles, find our way around the boundaries of these old systems and come together to celebrate humanity's place in the great, interconnected web of this world. We can do this with compassion, patients, reverence for the youth and elders, and respect and love for one another. Kindness at the forefront race whenever we can muster it. Yes, we will stumble along the way and we can all follow pretty hard. But let us fall forward together while we're asked to stay physically apart. Really? I do feel that this time we're in, this isolation situation is bringing out, You know, that which we didn't wish to see or resisted seeing. Or perhaps some of us out there. We're working on it, doing the work, you know, meditating, counseling, therapy, building the relationships, all that really just important stuff. But right now, as I just pause and think about this really bizarre reality confined in our homes and in this way that none of us have ever really endured collectively before, you know, there are those out there who, like my mother in law, who is a Holocaust survivor, had to endure her mother being taken while she was in hiding with her little sister at only eight years old and the tragedy that unfolded in that time during the war. You know that that's one example. And yes, there's the 1918 Spanish flu and all of that. But right now, right now, what what are what are we in? What is this? I don't know. And I'm not sure. I just know that it's Earth Day And yes, let's let us celebrate Earth Day every day, by all means, and let us take in and not take for granted. But be grateful for all that we have and acknowledge that there are so many so many who do not have, and the haves and the have nods that distance is going to grow. It is growing rapidly as we speak at this very moment, especially here in the United States. So we have challenges we have to face. Yes, we have a environmental ecological crisis. We have this very riel cove in 19 pandemic, and we don't even know when we will actually be safe to relax and hug each other once again and go back into the world. And, you know, combined our energies in the physical realm. But here we are nevertheless, here we are. We still have so much. And yes, as I was just mentioned, there are so many out there who have so little. And here's our chance. You know, everything is being put up to the mirror right now. I had that great talk with Mac last episode, and and I just I cannot help it. Just recollect on the fact that, yeah, I have very, very abundant privileges and support systems in place to allow me to have the comforts I am living with right now and at the very same time. In a couple mile radius. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, who don't have even close to this and the pandemic and the ecological disasters and all those marginalized and oppressed living downstream from the worst effects of the pollution from the big you know, companies, nestle, taking away water, things of that nature. So we have a lot of ways we have a lot. I don't mean to get just political, but I do think that we can We can pause for a moment together and seize this opportunity if we can. Can we can we do it? I believe we can. And I think if you're listening to this, ideally you are of the opinion as well, you know, and it's gonna take a lot, is gonna take a lot of humility. And it's also gonna have to be bipartisan, but not in this political realm as much as we're all gonna have to do it together. And I guess bipartisan is his political language. But what I'm getting at is people don't see eye to eye, and we're gonna have to be creative in the ways that we bring in everyone. So that we address and assess these crises is collective serious issues we're going to confront in the coming days, Weeks, years, you know, the season for hurricanes and floods and this mega drought that the East Coast off south. Excuse me. Southwest, right up into Oregon, is experiencing like all those are factors. But then there's the divides that we have to find that connective point. And I'm just wandering right now, but it's a healthy wandering in that it's Earth Day. This planet is this one precious precious planet that we're all a part of and always connected. Teoh and every human is connected. And every plant and animal bird, the water, air, soil. Everything is in this together. And so here we are. Here we face this opportunity and chance. And as I mentioned, I don't know what to do exactly. But that's not the point. As Muchas we can come up Teoh together with ideas. We are in this together, and I like that There are people out there, you know, including me. With this small effort in this podcast explorer, Ask questions. Fine. The connections established the, you know, just ability through different mediums, including this to inform people and educate people. And I love that this is a free platform that could be shared with the masses. You know, it's it's time we allow the illumination of education and bring everybody together in an accessible, equitable way to, you know, resource based economies and things of the nature of universal basic income. At least while we're still under this capitalist driven global economy is very arguable that we need to scrap that and build a new and yet this is the one we live in. So we will have to find ways to support one another from the government down and from the people up. And that's what we face here on this April 22 2020. An opportunity. A beautiful opportunity. Terrifying. Yes, it's Carrie. Absolutely. And that's okay, you know, I'm afraid. But I'm not allowing the fear to both paralyze me or just push me into complacency. No, now is not the time for that. By all means, we need self Karen. Oh, by all means. We need to find the healthy balance within our own journey, our own lives. And we have to surrender, you know, open our hearts. Forgive ourselves. It's gonna be okay. It's not okay to in life is a paradox. It's a tragedy, and it's divined. Let's just go forward with love. Please. It doesn't sound good. I love a mom, folks. Yeah, love. And let Himmel break you well. Happy birthday, folks. It's 2020 on this Wednesday, April 22. This is Episode two of E S. T sustained me, and I am truly delighted that you've tuned. Thank you kindly. I hope it never becomes cliche to say that we are all in this together because I tell you what. My body, my good friend. That will always be true. Nothing that we do is in a vacuum. Each action ripples out and affects the outcomes of everything else, even in tiny little ways. I'm 38 days into this isolation situation, and I've been doing what I can to peel away the layers in order to find my humble in pure center. It's an arduous journey, to say the least. It takes a lot of personal forgiveness and ability to say I'm sorry to myself and to others, especially toe planet Earth. That was actually what one of the two posters I made said Sorry, Earth and thank you love humans wherever you are on this planet. On this day we celebrate the Earth. May you pause for at least one moment and appreciate that you are utterly dependent on the interconnected systems of this planet. The ecological world is here to support us. It has endured a lot and can only endure so much before it shakes things up to a point that way may not make it through mama. Earth will still be here, but there's no guarantee for us and the millions of species on the brink of extinction as well. I give thanks to this earth and I give thanks to you once again for joining me today. This podcast intro and outro music were by my darling wife, Rachel Robinson. And this episode was recorded, edited and produced by me, Joe calling like she sings so beautifully. Love him. Folks love them all, especially Mama.