Earth Hour Journal

So it is Earth Hour. It's hard to sit in the dark, only using candlelight, when I know that electricity is only a flick of a switch away. I know that I am not alone, and there are millions of others around the world today doing the same. As I walked home tonight, arriving in the middle of Earth Hour I saw a hotel with it's lobby lights turned off, and they had a violinist in the lobby playing by candle light. I smiled when I saw it. Even a business can realize the power and importance of this moment. All around the world human kind is coming together, as as single race...no race, no religion, no national borders, no politics, no class or wealth...we are just one single human race. A single species which in order to ensure our survival, has come together putting all of our differences aside to say "We care".

It is quiet, apart from the noises of the city. I hear sirens, the sound of the rain falling, horns honking, people coming from the local bar shouting. All the while I am in my home on my couch writing this by the light of only a few candles. It is quiet...so quiet I hear the loud purring of my Siamese cat as she sits contently by my side. I can't help but to think about how at one point in the world, before we had electricity, before cell phones, before computers, before the internet...that this is how we lived. Humankind would gather at night, the only light by torch, candle, or fire...but nevertheless always a flame. It's is very interesting to me how amazing a simple flame can be when you watch it. They flicker so magically, some slowly others fast and wicked. Some tall, some short and barely there....yet all share one thing in common, that gentle shimmering glow. So beautiful and underappreciated, except when we wish to set a romantic mood.

The gentle glow changes things as we know them by daylight. Shadows cast their patterns on walls and ceilings, my lamp for example makes an image which very strongly reminds me of a mandala. The orange tint of the flame causes my silvery greyish feline companion to look golden and black, as the flickering flames reflect in her deep dark eyes.

Saving our planet is important. I am proud to be a part of this global event. I feel strangely connected to the millions upon millions around the earth that are doing just as I am. I do not know these people, yet in this single shared moment we are a family...bound together by our hope that we can save our home....Earth.

I wonder what my friends are doing at this moment, what thoughts they are having as they partake in this event. I wonder what my girlfriend is Hawaii is thinking right now, who she is talking to....what the air smells like there. I wonder what the light of the tiki torches look like upon her mocha skin. I wonder what the skyline of Chicago must look like with all of its magical concrete towers illuminations stripped away against the moon and the cold rain. It is particularly cold tonight.

I feel peaceful...a strange comforting peace which I rarely feel. The feeling that only accompanies an action greater than one's self. Together as a single planet we set out to collect one billion participants in this event...to say to leaders of the world, that we must save our planet. I hope more than anything, we did it. We must save her...Gaia. She is our only home, and without her we will surely perish. She deserves better than this. More than just a single moment, we should remember her this way all year, like Scrooge after his three ghosts. We should take to heart Dickens lessons and apply them to ourselves, realizing that if we do nothing....in the end nothing is all we shall have. An empty barren wasteland of a planet which will no longer support us, but instead be wrathful and vengeful...attempting to destroy us so that the natural balance and order can be restored. I am not crazy....the planet is alive...as are all things in nature. There is a natural balance, and we have created the greatest imbalance in the history of our race. No longer can we afford the pollution, the mindless consumption, the massive amounts of waste produced, or even to carelessly leave a light on when we are not in the room.

We must make a change in our lives. I'm afraid of what will become our Big Blue if we don't. Can the Earth survive another 10, 50, or even 1,000 years at the rate we are destroying it? Surely, I shall not be around to see, but I hope for the sake of my children to come and their children and their childrens children that along the way somehow we come together as one and realize the errors in our ways and begin to protect our planet. Perhaps only history knows the answer, but maybe, just maybe tonight could be that night...the night when we came together and stood as one, to tell all of the world...save our home...our planet....Earth.