"Will you teach your children what we have taught our children?  That the earth is our mother?  What befalls the earth, befalls all the sons of the earth.  This we know:  the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to earth.  All things are connected like the blood which unites us all.  Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it.  Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself." ~~Chief Seattle, l855

On this Earth Day, with legislation pending presidential signature to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, I'm reminded of an experience in formative years that helped form my awe and love of nature.

While a youngster, in an urban environment, there was a particularly huge snowstorm one winter that closed down schools, airports, roads...and while i was too young to have any appreciable awareness of the effects on humans of the storm (like lost transportation, airline and energy stocks, futures prices for oil, the value of the dollar), i was forever imprinted by that day's experience.

The noise and filth of human activity were absent.  I looked out the window to see no mud, oil, grease, dirty tire tracks, no footprints, unshoveled walkways. In the silence (minus air planes that were grounded), i could actually hear the snowflakes gently touch down when i went outside to experience this joyful quiet. It was magnificent--the purity of nature--even this micro-scale experience of one smiling child looking around, transfixed by the beauty of it all..I naively wondered: Why can't every day be like this?  Serene, simple, pure...

Years later, I discovered the Lovins' project in Colorado at the Rocky Mountain Institute that came close to making reality of that wishful question, through smart building design, conservation, passive and active solar design.  They (years ago) had already diminished their harsh winter fuel bills to pennies a day. Delightful.  A path not taken by public policy.

I think of the peoples, 2-legged and 4-legged and winged, in the Arctic, who have lived simply and simply lived in the Refuge areas.  The pristine wilderness, some only see as barren sources of profit.

John Muir said it best in a larger context: "God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools."

E Ho'omaluhia Me Ka Honua! (May peace prevail on Earth!)  Alohas, a.s.