EcoBliss: Happy Earth Day

A sight for winter-weary eyes:
a magnificent Magnolia tree near our house.

Tonight, in celebration of Earth Day, we will be eating the first asparagus from one of our back beds. It will only be a few pieces, but that taste signifies the true beginnings of the growing season. We will roast it with a bit of olive oil for about five minutes on 350, a trick I learned from a book by Frances Mayes and the only way I want my asparagus now.

How will you celebrate Earth Day?

Perhaps, rather than restricting the celebration to one day, we could see this as a sort of New Year's Eve of ecological awareness. On this day, we could pick one or two things that we will try to do better or try to change over the next year.

No need to make it something dreary. Remember, change only sticks if it comes from joyful -- dare I say "blissful?" -- intentions.

Some ideas:

**Start shopping vintage. Retro is IN with everything so why not take advantage? Even for new furniture. How about painting something old?
**Share. Basic from kindergarten, I know, but I think we forget how much this could help. We can share music, lawn tools, cars.
**Help. Clean up your park, mow the neighbor's lawn (with your reel mower, of course), do some guerilla gardening -- pop some flower bulbs in somewhere miscellaneous, put in some tomato plants for someone who doesn't have time.
**Find a CSA. Community Sponsored Agriculture is a great way to find yummy food sitting on your porch once a month, and it helps small farmers to keep their farms.
**Challenge yourself. Decide not to eat fast food for the whole year -- or just one week; cook all your meals using only whole foods -- nothing from a box; walk or ride your bike to work in good weather.
**Create community. Eat with friends and neighbors once a week or once a month -- pot lucks are easy; find a piece of unused land and turn it into a garden or fill it with fruit trees; plan a block party -- neighbors who know each other take better care of each other.
**Educate yourself. Identify the trees and the birds whom you see regularly. If you know that the tree on the next block is a Tulip tree and the bird on the telephone pole is a Northern Flicker, their well-being will increase in importance to you. It is the blind eye, after all, that is turned.
**Above all, have fun! Don't get bogged down in statistics and nay saying and the-world-is-coming-to-an-end thinking. This isn't good for any of us. We don't need more depressed people spewing toxic negativity. We need people who can creatively and beautifully imagine a better world.