Earth thoughts 111-121

Earth thought 111 of 365: Our dream-like states spread out, and don't matter, on ecological time. Bad weather in our head clears into clear skies. The shakes run and tumble and then are part of rough nature, roped and rooted as it is. Our characters smooth out over decades, like rocks under water.

Earth thought 112 of 365: Powering down means living simply. This is not so hard to do, but it involves some tricks. One of them is to live in a big city. That shares services and reduces total transportation. Another is to fly less. A third is to have fewer kids. A fourth is to demand that law make industry pay for every bit of pollution it generates -to internalize the cost of pollution in our prices.

Earth thought 113 of 365: Today's a day I thank all the people who've helped me become who I am. Gratitude is an ecological virtue, too, because not only people but our planet have helped us become who we are.

Earth thought 114 of 365: Moral heroism needs new categories when it comes to environmental problems. Many come from tragedies of the commons, or from organizational decisions that put the future incrementally at risk. Moral environmental heroes need not to stop a bullet with their bodies or risk danger to protect human dignity -although they might. They need to be the ones who unlock the patterns imprisoning us, design responsible institutions and make laws in the complex practicality of politics. Our heroic categories are not yet suited to find such people, although they must be if we are to face the greatest risks to human flourishing in our future.

Earth thought 115 of 365: Small houses / live in big ones. / Take the room / upon the room, / your washed bowls / airing nightly on the rack. / Outside, the soil is made of histories, / speechless and unending / for all of human time. / Midnight's chime.

Earth thought 116 of 365: And now by the lake. Someone I love loves lakes. And so I am going to sit by a lake in her honor. So we honor the lake, that is, thank it, unassumingly.

Earth thought 117 of 365: Some days, there's no better way to feel part of the planet than to exercise.

Earth thought 118 of 365: Headaches -the internal ecology clogged in some way.

Earth thought 119 of 365: A loss is a vacuum. Rush to fill it. A loss is a gain.

Earth thought 120 of 365: The Earth seeps into music. We know that. Song & birdsong. But what are the ethical implications of this?

Earth thought 121 of 365: We are, sometimes sadly, sometimes happily, and mostly beautifully, like weather. Character is made by resisting it, but our moods are real, and, just as clouds swirl in or clear later, so small things can suddenly aggregate in our souls and become fast moving systems. Love is made of this, and also anger at the diffuse nuttiness of life, and also foreboding, and sometimes -more often than foreboding- the bright salvation of the day, groundless and optimistic like the sun.