Thank you to Catherine Nelson, the visual artist who created this beautiful image of Planet Earth.
Happy Earth Day. These words are so hard to say with true enthusiastic feeling when reports of climate change keep sounding the alarms, and we are literally watching the demise of our home in slow motion. Despite the dire situation we are in, we can’t give up and we can’t go on with business as usual. Every time we look at a newborn baby of any species, we have to care enough for their survival and future. If selfless conscious living isn’t your modus operandi, you unfortunately will care enough when your own survival is threatened. Guess what? It already is. The scary thing is many haven’t connected the dots and in a way are like the boiling frog fable.
The concept of interdependence is so important to the survival of the planet. It really is the the secret to living harmoniously on this planet, but we have strayed so far away from the laws of nature, that we have forgotten our part in the tapestry of life. There are so many books and scientific articles on this very subject, especially on Earth Day. I hope you have a chance to read some of them and understand just how urgent living consciously is for you personally, and the need for global change and action is. Today on Earth Day I share inspiration + wisdom + tools, so you can begin to live a life of interdependence with the planet earth you call home. Before I share, here is what interdependence means in the context of living on earth…
Interdependence is mutual dependence between things. If you study biology, you’ll discover that there is a great deal of interdependence between plants and animals. Inter- means “between,” so interdependence is dependence between things. We often use interdependence to describe complex systems.
Below is a five minute video featuring Diana Beresford-Kroeger who is a world recognized author, medical biochemist and botanist. She has a unique combination of western scientific knowledge and the traditional concepts of the ancient world. Orphaned in Ireland in her youth, Beresford-Kroeger was educated by elders who instructed her in the Brehon knowledge of plants and nature. After you view this five minute video, I promise you through understanding ‘trees’, you will understand the concept of interdependence and why it’s so important to our species. You will be inspired by the film ‘Call of the Forest’–The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees’ and you will never look at anything living and growing the same way again.
You can bury your head in the sand and not watch, but what if a change in your mindset could change the course of deadly climate change and save our planet? We can’t grow and evolve unless we change, and we can’t change if our mindset is closed and fixed. Below the film are a few books I thought you might want to read and share with your friends. Each share inspiration, wisdom and tools for cultivating wellness culture. These selections are not hard core books on the environmental crisis we are facing. We are scared enough. The books selected will hopefully inspire and motivate you to come back to nature, and live more harmoniously with our living planet we call home. If we all begin to live interdependently we can create the impact needed to save our planet and slow the effects of climate change. I will end here with a few words from Diana which speaks to my conscious mind and heart, and I hope it does yours too.
The Bioplan is the tool to mend the holes in the fabric – so that forests will be planted, the seas will have fish and marine life, the air will have more oxygen and less carbon dioxide.
This is the pledge of mankind to share this planet because it is our divine contract to ourselves and to all others.”
~Diana Beresford-Kroeger
Laura Connolly, Founder of World Wise Beauty
INSPIRATION + WISDOM + TOOLS
Turn Every Walk into a Game of Detection
When writer and navigator Tristan Gooley journeys outside, he sees a natural world filled with clues. The roots of a tree indicate the sun’s direction; the Big Dipper tells the time; a passing butterfly hints at the weather; a sand dune reveals prevailing wind; the scent of cinnamon suggests altitude; a budding flower points south. To help you understand nature as he does, Gooley shares more than 850 tips for forecasting, tracking, and more, gathered from decades spent walking the landscape around his home and around the world. Whether you’re walking in the country or city, along a coastline, or by night, this is the ultimate resource on what the land, sun, moon, stars, plants, animals, and clouds can reveal—if you only know how to look!
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
New York Times Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book and a Washington Post, Time, Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018
“The best novel ever written about trees, and really just one of the best novels, period.” ―Ann Patchett
The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of―and paean to―the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours―vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.
“The time for stepping up and protecting our planet is now. And this book is an easy, enjoyable place to start.” — Moby
It’s time to put your good intentions into action. It’s time to give a shit — about your health, your footprint, and your planet.
Give a Sh*t guides you through the transition to a kinder, healthier, more conscious, and sustainable life like no book has done before. With a humorous and nonjudgmental tone, savvy eco-friendly lifestyle expert Ashlee Piper walks you through easy-but-impactful shifts anyone can make to live and be better every damn day:
- In your home – Room-by-room guidance and tactics for a chic, affordable, sustainable living space, no matter where or how you live
- In the kitchen – 20+ unfussy, quick, and delicious plant-based recipes for every life occasion, from pantry staples like White Witch Almond Milk to exciting everyday fare like Walnut Chorizo Tostadas to kick-ass desserts like Jamocha Silk Pie
- In your closet – Advice for building a polished, ethical wardrobe in a world of fast fashion
- In the mirror – Beauty and grooming tips and DIY products (from skin care to foundation to, ahem, ladytime provisions) that are safer, natural, cruelty-free, and, best of all, effective
- In the wild – How to maintain your values (and your moxie) at work, in your social life, and when abroad
Give a Sh*t isn’t a manual of restrictions — it’s a practical handbook that meets you where you are and finally harmonizes doing good with living well.
A pioneering scientist writes of the benefits of forest bathing and the fascinating ecological and pharmaceutical properties of trees – the inspiration for the documentary Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees
Renowned scientist Diana Beresford-Kroeger presents an unforgettable and highly original work of natural history with The Global Forest. She explores the fascinating and largely untapped ecological and pharmaceutical properties of trees: leaves that can comb the air of particulate pollution, fatty acids in the nuts of hickory and walnut trees that promote brain development, the compound in the water ash that helps prevent cancer, aerosols in pine trees that calm nerves. In precise, imaginative, and poetic prose, she describes the complexity and beauty of forests, as well as the environmental dangers they face. The author’s indisputable passion for her subject matter will inspire readers to look at trees, and at their own connection to the natural world, with newfound awe.
In her essay collection, the beloved author of High Tide in Tucson brings to us, out of one of history’s darker moments, an extended love song to the world we still have.
Whether she is contemplating the Grand Canyon, her vegetable garden, motherhood, genetic engineering, or the future of a nation founded on the best of all human impulses, these essays are grounded in the author’s belief that our largest problems have grown from the earth’s remotest corners as well as our own backyards, and that answers may lie in both those places.
Sometimes grave, occasionally hilarious, and ultimately persuasive, Small Wonder is a hopeful examination of the people we seem to be, and what we might yet make of ourselves.