Tim Corcoran, founder of Headwaters Outdoors School, longtime OPEN EXCHANGE lister, goes to the heart and soul of Earth Day in this wonderful passage:

Imagine every day is a day to celebrate the earth; when each day begins with conscious awareness of your home. Just as you celebrate your car and your clothes, your cell phone and computer, your ability to buy whatever you might want with plastic cards, imagine that you take the same celebratory joy in your earthly home. Imagine a day when you are stressed or depressed and you get into your beautiful car and drive to a place outside the city where you can hike a short distance and sit beneath an equally, if not more, beautiful oak, redwood or maple tree and listen to the caws of ravens or the screech of hawks. Imagine such a place where you can find the comfort and solice from a harried day; a place where you can connect with yourself again; a place that replentishes and fills you with gratitude for all that you have been given.

As Earth Day approaches, I remember an incident that still affects me almost five years later. I was driving into Santa Cruz late one afternoon in heavy traffic when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye in the air. In an instant a Red-Tailed Hawk hit a truck and the explosion of feathers rained everywhere. I got off at the next exit and headed back to the site in hope of moving the bird off the road, but sadly, the bird had become the road. I often think about it, as it reminds me of how at odds we are with nature. We can't stop progress nor would we want to, yet the human race is constantly assaulting the natural world. Maybe the death of a hawk seems insignificant, but think about all the animals you see every day that have been struck by cars and lie mangled by the side of a road. What kind of stewards for the earth are we humans? Are we stewards at all?

Do you remember the passenger pigeon, the great auk, the ivory-billed woodpecker, the heath hen or the Labrador duck? Did you know that the California Grizzly Bear so prominently and proudly displayed on the state flag used to roam the shores along the Pacific coast 100 years ago? These birds and bears have all become extinct within the past 200 years. The heath hen used to be a favorite meal at restaurants in this country until 75-100 years ago. They are now gone. Our ocean fish are tainted with high levels of mercury, and our wild salmon populations are diminishing. How long could we survive on fast foods alone?

Our current government has declared war on the environment. No forest or shoreline, mountaintop or sea bottom is safe from the demands of our corporations. Our current president is a willing CEO to those demands. The madness in this short-term thinking is that the human race could be the cause of the next major extinction. The earth has already survived five major extinctions. She knows how to take care of herself even if we humans fail to heed the ever-present signs of her dis-ease.

And why are we so afraid to connect with the earth, to actually have a personal relationship with the animals and trees and plants? The early Native Americans loved the land. Living upon the land and depending upon its plants and animals for survival, for shelter, for water, for their spiritual and emotional needs gave them a personal relationship with all creatures.

The more distant we get from nature and the earth, the greater our unhappiness seems to become. After spending just a couple of days in our outdoors classes, adults come to me with tears in their eyes, released from a self-imposed prison of isolation and loneliness. When I tell them that they are simply connecting with nature and their true selves, it's almost more than they can comprehend. The city and the frantic pace of their lives had held them captive until that moment. I marvel at the disconnection created by huge entertainment centers like the Metreon in San Francisco, where mind-numbing music is ladled through a huge sound-system and video games assault a youthful generation already dumbed-down by lack of education, lack of exercise, lack of good food, and alienation from all that should give them sustenance—the earth. We accept that dumbing-down and mind-numbing and we call it entertainment.

The great naturalist, John Muir, died of a broken heart because his beautiful Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park was damned to supply water to San Francisco. He was so close to the land that he actually could feel its pain and its loss. He treasured his relationship to the earth as much as his friendships with people.

When caring people who imagined a world bereft of wild animals and plants created Earth Day, they brought that awareness into the consciousness of a great many people in the world that ultimately do care. How can you make a difference? There are many ways to have a relationship with the earth. There are activists who sit in trees to save old-growth forests; there are many wonderful organizations that will fight big corporations in court, and there are others who plant gardens and trees. Those who live in cities can plant houseplants or flower boxes to connect with the earth. You can even be an earth steward in a concrete jungle by planting flowers around a tree growing from a planter in the concrete sidewalk. Looking up in the sky on a clear, full-moon night and fully taking in the beauty of that moment, even as cars honk their horns, can connect you to the mystery felt by your ancestors. Spend one day a week in a natural setting—a park, a deserted beach, a nearby forest – and imagine what your world would be like if that place didn't exist. Whether you love the earth quietly or loudly, love it wholeheartedly.