I recently read this article in Rolling Stone, and was grateful for the detailed reporting on a subject that I have followed, but not in such depth.  PLASTICS.  We are killing Mother Earth with plastics.

The story is pretty familiar.  Big companies have been using plastics all over the globe, dumping waste into our water and polluting without compassion.  I look in the big plastic recycle bin in our garage, the one that fills up and goes to the curb every two weeks, and I am amazed at what two people generate.  The paper and plastic is enormous, especially now, right after the Christmas season.  It is all orchestrated by Big Oil.

I have been a monthly supporter of 4Ocean.com for more than a year.  A relatively small donation to their cause, and I get a bracelet in the mail each month.  I've got a dozen sitting near my desk as the two I have on my right wrist have been there for more than a year. Never taken them off.  I wear them as constant reminder to me of the plight facing Mother Earth.  

I support 4Ocean, I recycle... but what we need is huge legislative changes that will protect our earth, especially our water.  Hopefully the Biden administration will move all of us ahead.

God only knows how much plastic we each have in our bodies, micro-particles absorbed through the air we breath and the water we drink and the food we eat.  

The article noted at the top of this post is long, and the plastics that are polluting Mother Earth will last even longer.

Let's do something.  Anything and everything will help.

What does it mean to Awaken? Part Four
 
Awakening to the Natural World
 
I’m yet working with the article "What Does It Mean to “Awaken”?
By Patrick Paul Garlinger via MEDIUM.  Here, again, is a summary from the article.  He writes:
 
Let’s look closer at four key stages of awakening: (1) awakening to the constructed nature of society; (2) awakening to the conditioned nature of the mind; (3) awakening to the unseen universe (what might also be called the realm of the Divine); and (4) and awakening to the natural world. There are no doubt other forms of awakening, but these four are often connected, and each one may inform or lead to another.
 
The natural world.  That is everything that we can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell.  It is MOTHER NATURE herself. It is creation and the natural order by which it is all organized.
 
Some of us experience a deep connection with a part of creation, be it another person, a pet, or a place, or any “thing” else in all of creation.
 
This stage of awakening, which I would likely deem to be the 3rd, not the 4th, is what has grabbed my soul over the years.  Like many of us, I’ve experienced awe on top of a mountain, or by the ocean... or in the most ordinary of places.

In 1973 I hiked up Mount San Jacinto in California.  It was a trip with three high school students working on their God and Country Aware. Awesome.
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