Yes, I'm a somewhat slow learner... not growing up a religious person per se, I'm just beginning to see the links between the Winter Carnival that I heard so much about in Quebec, the Saint Paul Winter Carnival we love so much, the Mardi Gras of New Orleans and Carnival of Rio and Trinidad that is now celebrated so vehemently in Belize, Miami-Broward, Toronto and throughout the Caribbean.
It's incredible to see the emergence of such amazingly vibrant colors and textures on incredible engineering designs expressing sailors, flowers, fire, birds, butterflies and bugs! Trinidad Carnival Queen Competition For the first time, I'm learning the history of carnival and connections to cultural, ecological traditions marking the scientific cycles of seasons change. Even the correlation between Valentine's Day and carnival traditions are surprisingly relevant to our increasing desire to play mas.
Agriculture. That basic necessity for food and water is at the root of what still drives our motivation to participate in community even today.
So in an effort to ensure that our access to safe and healthful food and water will improve rather than deteriorate, we take notice and action on current events and steps to the future. Clean water is one of those primary building blocks of life. Right now, it's our responsibility to clean up our mistakes, and train ourselves for a future that protects water as a basic right of humans and the natural world.
Obviously, besides air, food is the next basic element that we need. And to protect our food requires us to fully comprehend and defend the complex and interconnected systems that contribute to our ability to access safe, healthy food. Pollinators. Climate. Biodiversity. Hydrology. Harvest. Distribution. Seeds.
These are milkweed seeds. We brought them to last week's Martin Luther King Day Parade and celebration. Because these seeds represent a human decision to take action. In this case, action on behalf of one family to encourage others to replant this single source of monarch caterpillar food. That butterfly that is now endangered due to habitat loss and pesticide pollution. That plant ecosystem that once sustained aphids, ladybugs, ants and butterflies... that no longer exists as expanses of fields holding fuel for the seventh generation of monarch before their great annual journey south and north across this great continent... I remember those many, many monarchs... gathering like orange maple leaves changing over a frosty late summer evening on the north shore of Lake Ontario... And I intend to see the day when my children get to witness those monarchs en masse, following the cycles on a path to safe, clean food and water across the lap of our beautiful earth mother once again.
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| Milkweed seeds by Adrienne Chadwick |
