April 22 was international mother earth day. As far as common sense goes, every day is a mother earth day. This is because we do not occupy planet earth for just one day but from birth to death. Yet, in this fanciful age of modernity and rush, it is a done thing to celebrate one day in a year to remember what we should nurture every minute of our lives, like health, or nature or peace.
April 22 was designated by the UN General Assembly as International Mother Earth Day through a resolution adopted in 2009, with the first effort in this regard, going back to the UN Conference on the Human Environment in 1972 in Stockholm, 27 years after the end of World War II and the formation of the United Nations.
With the creation of such a day to commemorate the earth, the world environment day was marked out for June 5 alongside the UN Environment Programme.
Let us now rewind the clock to look how ancient cultures, rituals, spiritual traditions and general life patterns commemorated, honoured and respected this patch of land that we all occupy, albeit, briefly, lasting till we return to it, as ash or human fertiliser.
The earth is a living, breathing consciousness. Apart from humans who kill for an inch of land, wage war on the slightest provocation and demarcate themselves based a small piece of coloured cloth called a flag, the earth is an eco- system of multifarious identities that look different based on the diversity of the raiment it wears – in all its glory. It is clothed in deserts, rocky terrain, in green and blue oceans and in rainbow colours of sustenance. Humans are part of this brilliant finery. As the clothing of the earth weaves and meanders in subtleties of gossamer difference, there are humans that look similar overall, but are different in average features, colours, height and build. The same goes for animals.
Unity in diversity
An elephant in one terrain will be angular and its ears a particular shape while in another geographical location an elephant will be rotund. An edible tree or a plant in one segment of the earth will be almost the same but looks and tastes different. A human being too will be essentially the same. He or she will have red blood in their veins. Nevertheless, true to the mystery of the myriad manifesting earth, will differ in structure or colour and be somewhat varied in attitudes, habits or customs as per their habitation.
Every single culture, tradition, diet, belief and ritual, though we proudly call them our own, based on our small patch of land termed ‘nation’ actually is a legacy of the earth. The copyright owner is the planet. The earthmoulds the prototype of who we become. We cling as tenaciously as the root of a slowly but surely growing plant that absorbs all of that is the earth and becomes its representative.
Religious leaders such as Moses, Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohammed was born into harsh, arid land with severe sandstorms and minimum vegetation. Men and women whowere part of the dessert landscape feared, respected and loved the beauty of its golden arduousness, appreciated the oasis of water that would spring up after testing the enduring limits of humans. The desert had a fierce grip on its children and like the desert they could be magnanimous but judged fellow men rather severely, respecting animal life except when they had no other option but to kill to survive. This is akin to the rest of the pulsating rhythm of life where almost every creature is both the hunter and the hunted.
Both the Bible and the Quran, the Holy Books emanating from desert land, cite that God permits man to kill to eat. Indeed common sense would tell us this; that in a desert with date palms and scant vegetable produce, that desert animals would be needed to give up their life for man; life itself being one synergy of sacrifice of sorts.
A culture of utmost ahimsa could not rationally develop from such a terrain when survival of human life was entwined with the dangerous whims and fancies of the desert and the hunger and thirst it could bestow.
Adaptation
In contrast, Mahavira and Buddha and countless other great sages and hermits were borne out of large swathes of immensely fertile land near the Indus valley (hence the coinage of the term Hindus, initially meaning the people who lived around the Indus valley). This land had flowing rivers and lush greenery, very much like the description of paradise in the Quran. Here verdant abundance surrounded man and he could be gentle and kind. His tryst with nature was limited. Of course mother India that spread across much of South Asia blended into areas of desert aridness but these were not in large proportions. As such it was possible for non violence preaching lifestyles of Jainism and Buddhism to emerge from the bosom of this lush earth.
The earth is celebrated in countless ways across nations many days of the year in various festivals, especially in April.
Sri Lanka celebrated what we identify as the Sinhala and Tamil New Year. This celebration is in fact universal. In Bangladesh, it is known as the Bangla New Year. In Nepal, as the Nepali New year. In USA, Japan and Korea, cherry blossom festivals are commemorated in April, signifying the advent of spring. Overall, countries across the world hold many celebrations during April involving the earth and the sun that mark a new cycle – a new beginning where the rainy and cold clutch of winter is finally unclenched by the young and robust spring. This is to the earth – a new year.
Although climates may vary across the globe, spring – when the sun seems benevolent and birds are more chirpy than usual, is a commonality to almost every part of the planet.
In Hindu and Jain tradition, the Akshaya Tritiya festival falls on April 22. This is another word for spring festival signifying eternal prosperity. It signifies joy, hope and fertility.
These festivals are considered auspicious for new beginnings such as investments and marriages and are occasions of great joy. Interestingly in the Hindu custom Akashya Tritiya, is also a day of remembrance of loved ones who have died while also commemorating women, married or unmarried, who pray for the well being of the men in their lives. With minimum effort, we can easily see that by incorporating the remembrance of those who have died and celebrating women and men, that this festival is about acknowledging the end that comes with life while also lauding the concept of fertility which is symbolic in commemorating men and women and the earth.
Celebrations
We can thus see that what we celebrate as Balgla, or Nepali or Sinhala or Tamil New year is also a glorification of the new potential of nature that unfolds with each passing year giving us hope and teaching us lessons about generosity, kindness and forgiveness that the earth signifies.
Every miserable action that we carry out against the earth with the so-called scientific knowledge we have amassed, such as gagging it with plastic and poisons, the earth forgives despite showing its occasional wrath through cyclones, tsunamis, earthslips and landslides.
We humans have over the years transgressed from obtaining from the earth our sustenance respectfully, becoming a species which rape, poison and forcefully exploit, basking in superiority, quantity and speed. Where the world till a few centuries ago managed its knowledge, livelihood, construction and entertainment within the confines of protecting nature and without violating its own existence, we have today become rote machines of instant consumption. The strangest thing is we know not why we are doing it – why we fill the earth with discarded things we have stressed so much to buy and then call it garbage.
Caught in this quagmire, we still, in consumerist stupor, commemorate world earth day and probably have a gala event to honour it with a significant share of one time plastic water bottles, forks, spoons and what not.
April 22 is also the spiritual festival of Eid, which is celebrated by Muslims – a festival involved in man giving some reprieve to his food related gratifications, spending time in fasting, charity and purifying his heart in prayer. In doing the ritual worship of zhikr Muslims touch their forehead to the earth. Any human who has done this ritual, (regardless of whatever the religious branding), would know the immense mystical energy that emerges when one’s third eye area hits the raw earth.
Nature centric doctrines
Interestingly, while many easily connect Hinduism and Buddhism as nature centric doctrines, few would connect Islam to be so. Many would not know that the Quran stringently specifies man’s duty to nature and that kindness to animals was adhered to, to the maximum possible level by Prophet Mohammed, to the extent where he is known to have got down from his horse, because he felt that the animal was exhausted. It is said in Islamic scripture that a man who filled water in a shoe and gave a dehydrated dog, found his place in heaven for this act of merit.
Regarding the protection of the earth and what is in it, the following which appear in the Quran is self explanatory. “And He has cast into the earth firmly set mountains, lest it shift with you, and made rivers and roads, that you may be guided,” (Qur’an, 16:15) and “ And do not desire corruption in the land. Indeed, God does not like corruptors.” Qur’an 28:77. “Eat and drink from the provision of Allah, and do not commit abuse on the earth, spreading corruption.” (Qur’an, 2:60).Humans and their Responsibilities:
Pertaining to the sky and beyond it is stated as follows: “And we made the sky a protected ceiling (canopy), but they, from its signs, are turning away.” (Qur’an, 21:32)and “Do you not see that Allah sends down rain from the sky and makes it flow as springs [and rivers] in the earth; then He produces thereby crops of varying colours; then they dry and you see them turned yellow; Indeed in that is a reminder for those of understanding.” (Qur’an, 39:21).
Almost coinciding with the traditional new year commemorated in Sri Lanka and elsewhere, the resurrection of Christ was celebrated by Christians the world over. This again is synonymous with the concept of what is everlasting- nature in pristine form can be ever lasting in resurgence - as is the purified soul – the transient energy of refined action can never be destroyed.
As in Islam, one could, wrongly assume that protection of the earth and its creatures were not highlighted by Jesus. Nature is signified in many parables of Christ. The following words of Christ could be a direct message to us blinded by our addiction to production and consumption where we have made of economics an earth destroying industry, the fangs of which rip us and the planet we sojourn.
“Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns— and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? (Mathew 6; 25 - 27)
Supreme intelligence of nature
A secular interpretation of this verse would be that man being part of nature is looked after by the supreme intelligence of nature and that we need not ruin ourselves and the earth for the simple, natural process of life.
The modern justification that keeps the poisonous chemical industry surviving the world over and killing man and earth, is the man made ‘scientific’ fear that man would die of starvation ‘because the earth can no longer produce as it did for some four billion years.
This fear brings anxiety for some, profit for others and a toxic, warped, abnormal death for planet, insects, birds, animals and humans.
Hence, as we commemorate the Earth Day, let us look at ourselves and the dichotomy we have bound ourselves into. While we glory in our exclusiveness as nations and communities we forget that without the earth we are nothing. Much of the earth is sinking and crashing, due to how we have treated it. It is likely that much of the planet would have sunk and nations such as Sri Lanka completely under water in about two hundred years. This prediction may be the same for many nations. Yet, the world spends much time squabbling as to which one of us is more superior. We forget that even to humour the childishness of our petty pride that we do need a ground to stand on.