April is a special time of year. Not only do we celebrate Hanuman’s birthday with the first full moon of April, but April heralds the beginning of spring and even include’s one of my favorite holidays, Earth Day!
Spring is characterized by the wood element, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine. The wood element is about the energy to take action. This energy is present in all of the beautiful flower buds bursting everywhere. Now is the time to take action, to use the wood energy of spring to plant the seeds for what we hope to recover in the fall.
I contemplated this as we celebrated Earth Day this past weekend. I had some profound experiences that I believe were related to both my deep and incredible love for our planet and the awesomeness of the natural world and also to my intense sadness for the turn we have taken in recent months not to protect our national land, water, air and wildlife.
In Central Virginia, where I live, right at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains, some of the oldest mountains on the planet, Dominion Power and Duke Energy are proposing to build a 600 mile fracked Natural Gas Pipeline from WVA to NC.
This unnecessary pipeline will not only harm the mountains, forests and waterways in it’s path – it will also disrupt the lives of the people living and working along its 600 mile long route and lock a new generation into decades more of fossil fuel consumption.
Our communities have been fighting this proposed pipeline for years, but this past month, Dominion felled a huge swath of trees just minutes from my house, on national forest land, that they seized, through eminent domain.
As an environmentalist, herbalist, yogini and activist, I am spearheading a project which will help rescue Native Plants along the Proposed Pipeline Route. We hosted and recorded a workshop and training which you can watch on the iHanuman You Tube Channel.
You may not be confronted with an environmental disaster in your back yard, but certainly there are issues that are important to you on which you can take action. What will be the right actions you take this year? Where will your wood energy be best utilized?
In Contemplation,
Sara Agelasto