By Jim Hines
In our seemingly hectic and violent world, we all need to seek the positive power of nature to heal us and to give us strength and hope for the future.
I work in a world which is filled with people who are hostile to the point of being violent to protect all which is wild, like sitting in a public hearing in Utah to protect national public lands and most of the people around you are wearing guns. But I cannot not allow the hatred of those who seek to destroy our planet and her wild creatures destroy me.
Which do I do? I garden, grow enormous beds of flowers to cheer me up and I take any negative feelings which have entered my mind to be released from my physic by starting seedlings in the greenhouse, nurturing them along as they grow.
I also spend quiet time absorbing the healing energy of our natural world...watching deer graze in an open field, sitting by a flowing creek, touching leaves of grass, walking on the beach, seeing amazing birds fly through the sky and then I know there is goodness in our world.
Our adversaries in our work to protect Mother Earth will never, never stop us from doing the positive work we need to do to be the voice for our voiceless earth and voiceless wildlife. But there are times (a whole lot of times lately for me) when we need healing, we need to slow down and take a personal inventory of what we have done and just what we need to do to save something which must be saved, Gaia, Mother Earth.
So when our work to protect the environment gets overwhelming, step outside like I do into the world of a blooming garden, or into a wild natural world where all things are amazing and all things are possible.
Allow yourself to be renewed, recharged and reconnected.
YOU are the hope for the WILD!