Spring, Earth Day, and Our Roots
Signs of Spring
We welcome the changes that introduce us to April, the fourth month in a twelve-month cycle. The number four silently invites us to connect with our earthly surroundings. The earliest use of the number four is seen in a puzzling presentation of honeybees and honeybee hieroglyphs with four legs, as early as 4,600 years ago in ancient Egypt. The question remains, even to this day, why the Egyptians displayed honeybees with four legs when they actually have six. In many areas of the world, this time marks the spring equinox, more commonly known as the vernal equinox. When you break the word apart, equinox comes from the Latin term aequus, meaning equal, and nox, meaning night. In the spring equinox, light and darkness share a balance through the day due to the earth’s positioning with the sun. Interestingly enough, Egyptians believed that bees were born through the tears of their Sun God, Ra.
The spring equinox usually takes place between March 20 and 21, marking the beginning of spring. Around the globe, spring has long been part of rituals and festivities tied to fertility and rebirth. If you live in California, you might be noticing an abundance of grasshoppers just about now all over the area, a small reminder of the season being ever in shift. In Latin America, every year people gather at one of the prehistoric Maya cities, Chichén Itzá in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, where the sun sets at El Castillo Temple and an illumination begins from top to bottom. As the light of the sun moves, it makes it appear as if Kukulkan is slithering down the side of the sacred pyramid. Though there has not been scripture identified to explain this architectural design, there is a belief that when the sun aligns and sets on this temple, it symbolizes the return of the serpent god to the land, which in turn marks the start of planting season.
The Origins of Earth Day
Earth Day was not created around the idea of this changing cycle of life. Rather, it grew from people waking up to the realities that humans are deteriorating environments globally. Earth Day began on April 22, 1970, but what really took place before pushing society to become more environmentally conscious? These days, April is a month filled with Earth and religious festivities, such as Easter, Semana Santa, and much more. However, what pushed the 1970s awakening relates to the Santa Barbara oil spill of January 1969. The environmental disaster dumped 3 million tons of crude oil into the Santa Barbara Channel, creating a spill that stretched over 35 miles along California’s coast and killed seabirds and mammals. It was a devastating time when the seas were blackened, animals needed solidarity, and people understood the effects power plants had on ecosystems. This massive event brought not only awareness to power plants, but also united different groups that separately fought against pollution, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, extinction of species through habitat loss, and the black markets.
Being stewards of the Land
When paralleling historical timelines of environmental disasters, it becomes apparent that patterns seem to circulate. It was not only a year ago that there were debates about the leakage of tritium from the Indian Point power plant near the Hudson River, and the exposure of radioactive chemicals to the ecosystem and surrounding communities. Tritium is a rare radioactive isotope of hydrogen that occurs naturally, and according to the EPA, it is not harmful externally because it cannot penetrate the skin, yet it can be a radiation hazard if ingested, consumed, or inhaled. Yesterday can repeat, but we carry the wisdom of our ancestors to guide this change in a direction that breeds healthy relations with land, wildlife, and humanity.