Celebration For a Small But Important Planet

Celebration For a Small But Important Planet

by Harold Gilliam 

We celebrate the earth.

We celebrate the seas that give birth to life.

We celebrate the green plants that give us breath.

We celebrate the waters that flow upon the land,
and the air that envelopes the planet.

We celebrate the ocean, fount of all life.

We celebrate the microscopic diatoms that float in  the green waters, and create life-giving oxygen.

We celebrate the whales as they rise and sound in their hemispheric migrations, and shoals of salmon as they cruise the far seas and come home again for the act of procreation in the streams of their birth.

We celebrate the ground swells that rise into ridges, curve concavely into white churning thunder, bursting on the headlands, spreading on the beaches.

We celebrate the bays and estuaries and marshes where the waters of the land meet those of the sea, where life emerged into sun and made its first halting advance on the shore.

We celebrate the great storms born of the impact of warm and cool air masses far out on the moving ocean, lashing the coasts with rain, washing the cities, making fertile the valleys, whitening the mountain slopes and the high granite ridges.

We celebrate the seasons. We shall observe the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. We shall hold high festival of the winter solstice when the sun begins its long return northward, at the summer solstice when the sun is at its climax, the days are long and bright and the currents of life are at the flood.

We celebrate the sunrise and the dew of morning on the grass.

We celebrate the coming of night and the rising of the constellations.

We celebrate the grassy prairies and the dry plains and deserts where life is thin and the ribs of the earth show through.

We celebrate the migrations of the flocks and the rhythms that send them down the semispheres from the arctic to the tropics and back again with the sun.

We celebrate the trees, each wind sculpted cypress of the ocean shore, each redwood of the ferny coastal canyons, each maple and aspen and high pointed fir.

We celebrate the rich valleys where grapevines grow in furrowed fields and peaches ripen to sweetness in the summer sun.

We celebrate the bending grasses and the grains, the chaparral on the hillsides, the acrid odors of sage and manzanita, the ferns of damp canyons, and the mesquite of inland deserts.

We celebrate the poetry of the earth.

We see perfection in the parabolic flight of a single white egret, in the flock of a million shearwaters skimming the offshore waves, in the trajectory of a mountain waterfall. in the symmetry of an oak leaf.

We celebrate the soil, its millions of living organisms, its fungi, worms and bacteria that nourish the living plants, providing food for animals and men.

We pledge ourselves to the defense of the earth, of its air and waters, of the life that moves upon it. We shall defend it from the assaults of machinery, from the noxious gasses, the toxic wastes, the subtle poisons . . . from ourselves.

We shall come to the earth not with devices of destruction but with respect and humility, to guide our machines reverently upon the land.

We pledge ourselves to preserve, from encroaching pavement and omnivorous bulldozers, the soil of which our food has grown, the wild beaches of the ocean shore and of rivers and lakes, some forests where the whine of the chainsaw will never be heard, some valleys where animals graze undisturbed in the sun.

We shall respect the processes of the earth, the long cyclic chemistry that restores the soil and renews the waters and replenishes the ambient air.

We shall abet the forces of renewal. We shall conserve the precious materials of the planet.

We shall waste nothing.

We shall return organic materials to the soil, recycle the metals and the paper and the water.

We shall preserve ample areas of our land, not for development or exploitation, but for the replenishment of the species, that we may learn from nature its rich complexity and diversity, its checks and balances its perennial search for new possibilities, that we may perceive supernal beauty, feel a sense of community with all living things, and create a society in harmony with the earth.

We shall take from frenetic urban pursuits to contemplate a cloud, a tree, or leaves of grass, to behold creation as it takes place before us each day, that we may know wonder and exaltation, and join with all men our brothers, in celebration of the fellow creatures with whom we share this planet.

We cherish the hope that men will lay down their arms, and join in reverence for the earth to build anew the habitations of the human spirit.

We invoke the prayer of the Navajo;
"that we may walk fittingly where birds sing, where the grass is green, our mother the earth -- our father the sky."

We join with the Taoist poet;
"I shall dwell among the green mountains . . . my soul is serene."

We sing with the Psalmist;
"the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork."

For all these we give thanks--
for the turning planet,
for the flowing waters, for the moving air,
for all plants and trees,
for all creatures that move upon the land,
through the waters and the air.

We celebrate the nourishing earth-- our home and the abode of our children forever.