So Much To Learn

Existence Is Awesome

Blossom next to my balcony

There are lifeforms on earth that are thousands of years old. In Colorado there is a 2 ½ acre fungal mat that is at least 17,000 years old. How can we not consider that that giant mushroom is probably more aware and conscious than humans?

Snow capped Mount Lassen

We are being told that human societies are more alive than redwood groves with trees 3,000 years old. Is that because we don’t live long enough to communicate at their level?

How ignorant must we be to chop down a 3,000 year old living entity to make picnic tables and swing sets that we will use occasionally for a few years?

Connie’s purple shamrock lives on

The society into which I was born seems to thrive on thoughtless behavior and mindless consumption, blissfully unaware that there is a limited amount of stuff in our closed system. All there is is what’s here on this big ball we call earth.

The moon reflecting sunlight tonight

It is a fantastic adventure that awaits us on this magical planet teeming with life, color, weather, smells, sounds and discovery. How do we use this gift?

As a species, we humans treat this beautiful, natural habitat like it is our toilet and trash receptacle.

Most other earthly life probably considers us to be destructive and disgusting, with the exception of some mites, molds, and bacteria who find us quite delicious.

Cherry blossoms on a stick

Thankfully, there are some people who understand the value of what we have here on earth and they are doing their best to save what they can for future denizens and long term inhabitants.

Having grown up in our consumer economy, I am an intelligent, college educated, creative, well read person, yet I spent most of my life blissfully unaware of the damages that my destructive, unsustainable lifestyle did to life on the planet.

A Treehouse resident squirrel

It never crossed my mind that somewhere on this world, people were clearcutting virgin forests to make that extra soft toilet paper I was using to wipe my ass. Even after I knew that was what was happening, I still couldn’t conceive of how horribly destructive clearcutting forests actually is.

All the forest life from butterflies to badgers, from air and water purifying vegetation, from life giving soil, from adjacent ecosystems that are permanently altered, all that damage because we Americans were taught to wipe instead of washing our butts like rest of the world’s civilized people.

Dandelion pokes through chipped redwood

I am still not concerned enough to not use paper or plastic or commercial electric power. I haven’t given up having a car that burns gasoline even though I know that it is the sale of oil that is responsible for the destruction of entire water systems and toxification of fertile land as well as the many wars around the world.

I have lost my taste for meat and stopped eating highly processed stuff that comes in packages euphemistically labeled, ‘food’. I figure clothes should last between 15 and 20 years before they need replacing and I try to reuse stuff like envelopes, boxes, bags.

Now I just need to change the other 99% of my life that is destroying the planet before it’s too late.

Today’s Video;

Happy To Grow Smarter