Between a Rock and a Soft Spot

Happy Earth Day!

Don’t you just love our big old planet Earth?  I woke up this morning and looked out the window and just felt so grateful to be here.  The first of my tulips have popped, the first leaves have appeared on the tree across the street, and a lovely cardinal pair were collecting bits of branch off my Russian Sage bush for what I imagine will be a most lovely new home. 

There’s so much here to celebrate – the trees, the flowers, the birds, the animals, the rocks – everything!

I wondered why the date of April 22 was chosen for Earth Day, and it turns out it was piggybacked on an earlier celebration, Arbor Day.  Arbor Day seems to have different dates of observation based on location, but in any case it’s celebrated by planting trees.   I’m an unabashed treehugger so any encouragement to plant them meets with my delight.  And I’m betting Mama Earth enjoys it too.  I always image her holding on to the roots of the beautiful trees with great love.   And the trees growing ever upward to catch bits of the sky.  Everyone playing in harmony and joy.

Crazy amazing fact:  The oldest piece of the Earth’s crust ever discovered is a zircon crystal from Australia that’s 4.4 billion years old.  Isn’t that mind-boggling wonderful?  I love thinking of Earth as a giant rock, and although of course I know she’s so much more, it’s still great fun to celebrate the rocks. 

And I certainly am doing some major celebrating here.  Yesterday I was gifted with the most wondrous box of rocks.  I’ve mentioned my love of holey rocks many times, including here.  And so when beautiful blogger, animal communicator/artist Harmony Harrison offered to send me one gathered from her area in Oregon I was over-the-moon delighted. Little did I suspect that a veritable treasure trove of magic would appear on my doorstep. 

While admittedly this is a terrible photo, it matters not.  Surely you can get an inkling of the wonderfulness here – holey stones, and fossil impressions, and a fossilized shell, and a bit of petrified wood magic.  Swoon!  I’m so excited to welcome these new friends.  I’ll certainly be spending time today listening to their stories.

Here’s another fun thing I plan to do today – take a selfie and be part of this project.  Maybe you’ll be inspired to join as well.

This morning I sent out my annual Earth Day snail mailing – a limited edition love letter celebrating our beautiful planet and those she supports.  I made a few extra this year.  If you’d like a copy just leave a comment saying so.  If they are more requests than copies available, I’ll do an old-fashioned hat draw for the winners.

So tell me – what do you most love about our beautiful planet?  Doing something special to celebrate Earth Day? Hug trees?  Talk to the stone beings?  Do tell – you know I love to hear.