Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day is, depending on where you live, or where you grew up, 25 years old, or 45 years old today! In Canada, Earth Day is officially celebrating a quarter of a century of creating awareness of the fragility of our planet, and love of nature. The first Earth Day took place across the U.S. on April 22, 1970.  Those of you who grew up in the suburbs of Vancouver, Canada, where Greenpeace was born, will remember Earth Day activities in school in the early 70's.  

I was a young teenager, when our school held its first Earth Day event.  The whole school participated.  I saw my very first multi-media sound and light show in the darkened gymnasium, and it made a massive impression - not just the message, the medium too!  This was the time before video, so film and slides and spinning lights were projected onto a giant screen (or was it a couple of bedsheets stitched together?)  I saw images of pollution that I had never seen before.  Warnings about the frightening future of our planet, were offset by information on what each of us could do to clean up the environment.

For many of us, gardening is part of that movement towards creating a healthier world.  Planting a tree, restoring an old rose garden, growing your own vegetables, are all ways to make a difference not only in your own life, in the lives of those around you, too.

My cousin Ruth, and her husband have created a solar powered organic farm, which provides them with an abundance of food throughout the year!  My Aunt Lise grows vegetables, and market flowers, and in her younger days, kept hives of bees which produced amazing honey.  While I have had great success with flowers, I have not inherited the gene for producing great produce.  My puny, mealy balcony tomatoes are laughed at by squirrels and birds, and my blueberry plant produced only a tablespoon of berries (just enough for one bowl of morning cereal).

A garden can create a place of peace and harmony, even in the midst of one of the busiest cities in the world.  So it is with this tiny piece of paradise, just steps from a major intersection in Toronto, Canada.  Every time I look at this photograph, "Bumble Bee in Bee Balm", I can almost smell the sweet fragrance of a Summer day in the country, and hear the sound of the bee humming through the morning's work.

I took the picture while on a short walk through the park next door, at a time when I was caring for both my late husband who was diagnosed with liver cancer, and had just been placed on the liver transplant list, and also for my elderly mother who was paralyzed and bedridden.  I know many caregivers around the world.  What we all share, is love for those in our care, and a need for a quiet, serene place to go (even if it is only in our heads).  It is restorative.  Rejuvenating.  Creative.

Almost all of the photographs I have taken over the years, have been taken in the park next door.  It is a place for volunteer gardeners; young mothers teaching their children about butterflies and the fragrance of flowers; elderly couples resting on benches under the rose trellises;  office workers on their lunchbreaks;  even brides and their entourage getting their wedding photographs taken.  Gardens enrich our lives.

In honour of Earth Day, begin planting a garden...or, if it is still too cold, begin planning one!    

For more information on Earth Day, www.earthday.org

For the curious:  The Bumble Bee may not be a Honeybee, however, it too pollinates plants.  The brilliantly coloured Bee Balm is a member of the Mint family, and was used in Native medicine as an astringent.

Photo Credit:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated