Long Walks On Leafy Streets

4/25/2013 Old Pali Hwy, Honolulu, HI

The fresh spring breeze gives a cool yet pleasant embrace as I walk in the morning. Redbuds, Sakura cherries and juneberries are in bloom along the streets while gardens are awake with daffodils and tulips.
The heart has been heavy with sadness from the world during the past week. It is our tendency to color the world as white or black. But nature teaches a stoic peaceful existence that does not know sadness or happiness. How many storms these trees must have seen! Yet they continue to sow their seeds, grow and die. The earth goes through so many convulsions. Many species have come and gone. But every species leaves its mark and continues to live in its evolutionary descendants. We lament the loss of species, native plants and forests and so we must. I shall passionately strive to save them as well.
Nevertheless I try to learn from nature to not spend my days in mourning. I try to remember that ultimately those who work to preserve it, as well as those who destroy it, are both part of nature.
On Wednesday of last week Nicole and I attended a reception for the 2013 Goldman environmental prize winners. I was particularly inspired by Aleta Baun, an indigenous woman from Indonesia, and Nohra Padilla of Colombia. Aleta organized her community to fight mining in their forests. She talked about how the indigenous people think of themselves as part of nature. According to their culture, the earth is like the human body, with the trees being like the hair and the stones like the bones. Nohra organized her fellow recycling women and won a contract with the city to collect recyclables amid threats and violence from the established waste management industry.
On Saturday I volunteered in celebration of Earth Day. I worked in a group led by David Rogner, a young man who walked across America clearing rivers and streams of trash and recyclables. He is currently working on a non-profit to teach people how to do permaculture, transforming their yards to “edible landscapes.”
I felt fortunate to meet these extraordinary human beings. They are truly forces of nature and indeed they carry with them the same stoic, peaceful determination of nature that sees no black or white.

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