Let's hear it for our Mother (as in Mother Earth)

Stunning Statistic of the Week:


$20 billion: Size of fund BP has agreed to create to pay for claims associated with the Gulf oil disaster.


$239 billion: BP's sales and other operating revenue in 2009.


$9 million - $14.5 million: The value of stock in oil and gas companies held by members of the House of Representatives and Senate who are charged with oil and gas oversight.
 
No, that headline was NOT just a "come-on" -- I just began with the above info as an attention grabber (of both my readers of this here blog). 
 
Now for positive words of encouragement, from The Intender's Code mailings -- a worthy piece to think on this weekend...
 
The Earth is a live entity...  and she responds to to you as you respond to her

I love Mother Earth. I can't tell you why, I just do. She's part of my calling, my purpose for being here, and somewhere along the line I realized that I'm supposed to leave her in better shape than I found her.

That's what the Native Americans of old did. When they left a place where they had been living regardless of whether it was overnight or over the season, you couldn't even tell they had been there. In other words, they cleaned up behind themselves. Wouldn't it be great if we all learned to clean up behind ourselves? Wouldn't it be great if we began to notice how nice it is when we come into an area and it's pristine, beautiful, and inviting because the previous inhabitants took the time to clean it up? When you've moved into a new home where the previous owner took really good care of it and cleaned it thoroughly for you, weren't you appreciative? Didn't you respect them for considering you, the next people to live there?


Leaving our environment as clean as we found it is a trait that's largely been forgotten in our world today. This pertains not only to our homes and campsites, but to our entire Earth as well. We're leaving it to our children. Wouldn't it be nice if we left them a place that is better than we found it? Wouldn't they be more apt to look back upon us with respect and gratitude for the good works we had done?

But, of course, that is generally not what is happening in today's world. We are busy making messes - environmental messes, nuclear messes, economic, political, poverty-ridden, battle-strewn messes - as fast as we can. Clearly, when we wake up and truly care again for our Earth and all her inhabitants, one of the very first things we will do is clean up our messes, beginning with our own backyards and moving outward from there. It will be a glorious day when we see people coming out of their homes and gathering together to clean up the streets and grounds in their own neighborhoods, picking up the scraps of paper and cans and plastic that we take for granted today. To me, some of the greatest heros of our time are the ones you see with black plastic bags slung over their shoulders, walking along the streets, roads, beaches, and byways bending over and picking up the trash. There is a man who walks Torrey Pines Beach in San Diego everyday doing just that. He is as tan, healthy, and vital as it gets, and I am sure that nobody pays him to do it. Because of him, the beach is one of the prettiest in the world and people flock to it to experience the feeling of natural beauty that is there. He is my hero.


I think the main cause for our mess making mentality is that we've forgotten that Mother earth is alive. We tend to get so caught up in our work and in our own minds that we neglect to look around and see that, like us, she is a living, breathing creature who wants only for the well being of herself and her children. And, like us, she feels and responds to her immediate environment based on her ideals. She wants to grow and glow and thrive and evolve to her highest potential, no different that we do. It is a great truth that when we begin to help her in earnest - even if it's to bend over and pick up a piece of paper from the side of the road - she will see to it that our lives are made all the better because of what we have done on her behalf. She will help us as we help her.