To the children I hope to someday raise:
I am so sorry if the world you are seeing and inheriting is a ghastly one. But I hope that is not the case. I hope your lungs are full of nothing but the freshest oxygen, that you talk to flowers, that the honeybees are thriving, that Florida is not underwater. I know that generations before me have raped the Earth, and I know that it still happens today, despite our best efforts to stop blowing the tops off of mountains, stop pumping oil under the Great lakes, stop burning fossil fuels in the name of progress. But I fight every day, every single day, for you, the inheritors of Earth.
It’s why I stood proudly at Standing Rock when the Water Protectors put out a call for activists to stand beside them in unity to convey the importance of our sacred land and sacred ecosystems and the water that gives us life. It’s why the coffee I’m drinking right now is in a ceramic mug, with coffee beans grown sustainably and with fair trade certification, and don’t use the much easier plastic disposable k-cups. I’m far from perfect. Not every choice I make is always clean for the Earth and its critters. I know that. It’s not easy to be sustainable in American society right now; in fact, I would say it’s downright impossible.
But Life is the most resilient phenomenon I have ever encountered. It has pervaded through five global mass extinctions and continues to come back, regrowth, every time, taking magnificent and awe-inspiring shapes and forms, from mice to elephants to strangler figs. I know that she is bruised and aching right now, but we will take care of her, nurse her back to health. I’m not sure all of the beauty of life will make it through, but I hope a lot of it does. I’m trying. I study the Earth. I’ve taken classes that taught me how to meditate with it. I teach environmental justice to younger students and interested community members because it’s unfair that marginalized human populations bear the brunt of environmental degradation. I march for Climate Justice.
I want it to all be here, for you. For everyone. For all living beings, not just people.
It is the sweetest sight to see.
Love,
Rachel
