Earth Day

I’m here to tell you a story. My parent’s anniversary is Earth Day. Two 2nd generation Italian Americans born in South Philly, city kids, my mom moved to the south Jersey suburbs at 9 and my dad of the Philly streets until he got married at 30. Neither one of them were the tree hugging, crunchy hippie type despite growing up in 60s and 70s America. I think my four siblings would probably agree that I’m the crunchiest of the bunch. Barefoot most of the time and regularly nibbling on, caressing or talking to plants. I think my mom has me labeled in her phone as Stephanie “free spirit Earth child” or some rendition of it. LOL.

I feel it’s a bit poetic all in all. I see my life in part as a journey of returning. Returning to a connection with my ancestors, my lineage, my mother, my Earth mother, my more-than-human kin. Tending and healing those relations is the path that I’ve been pulled towards- with a sustained & ongoing gravity that has woven its way over the years. As ridiculous as an Earth DAY is- in our world where the over culture commodifies and commercializes all things for capital gain, forgetting that there is no capital, commodity, LIFE, without this precious, magical, beating, living Earth that sustains us all, an Earth DAY is such a poetic expression of the dystopia in a way.

And still I feel that there is a bit of poetry in my tiny little story, my existence starting on this day, where two city kids, thousands of miles from their ancestral home, came together in a ritual union that would result in a baby that would learn to remember the earth in a deep and healing way- waking up to the illusion of separation and trying to facilitate and support this awakening in and with others too. Feeling most at peace in the preserved places, the conservancies, the protected, valued, wild lands where Dutchman’s breeches grow and Turkeys strut and show, a tiny character in a tale of many equally important, equally small, equally valuable, precious and temporary beings, wanting more and more to live in a shared world of remembering and waking up to our illusion of separation so we may all come home.

Blessed Earth Day bbs. May we remember. May we return home.

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