Love your Mother Earth

PHOTOGRAPHER: Letters to the Editor

As you know, Mother Earth, Earth Day is today, April 22. On this day many of your children join together to celebrate you. We Earthlings engage with others in projects to clean up our litter and waste, to plant trees and flowers, and to care for our corner of this planet that we call home. There are so many ways to do this, so many opportunities. You must be very excited and heartened to see us being good stewards and kin to the rest of creation. On this day, we pay attention, we take responsibility, we look at the harm we have caused and we work together to heal some of these hurts.

Then Monday will come. For many of us, awareness of this amazing web of life will fade away fast. We will return to our habits of wasting the resources that you provide for us. We will refuse to recycle. We will plunder and squander the habitats of our kin creatures. How can we begin to live in a way that makes every day your day?

For us who live in Schenectady, a gift to you would be to recycle. In my neighborhood, I see very few recycling bins out on “trash day.” There is lots of garbage that will go into your belly, the Earth (you know, we call this the landfill). Your children need to see that recycling is so important, especially since our “landfills” are filling up and we will need more of your precious space to dump our stuff. We need to realize that one use throw-away products are so wasteful.

Another gift to you would be to stop littering. I live near Central Park. The amount of trash that is tossed on the ground makes me cry. I can only imagine how you feel.

So, dear Mother Earth, enjoy your special day. We can only hope and pray that more of the members of your human family will make everyday Earth Day.

LINDA NEIL

Schenectady