Modern Boheme vol. 10 | Joy as Climate Change Resilience
Fragrant Jasmine wove around the doorway of my parents’ home in Sierra Leone when my mom was pregnant with me. The striking greenery, star-shaped flowers, and sweet scent are where I got my name and it feels fitting that 30-something years later I’m working to preserve the environment. Even on my way to get iced coffee this morning, I was struck by the flowers in full bloom dotting the sidewalk plots–the urban answer to “greenery”. I couldn’t resist stopping to admire them. What a gift that nature finds a way to brighten everything and remind us to slow down. Stop and smell the roses sounds trite, but in a world where we’re always going and being connected to the globe in the palm of our hand often means being disconnected from the world around us, it’s the perfect reminder.
April is Earth Month and leads up to Earth Day, today. If you visit the official website, you’ll find ways to get involved and online lectures to join. The theme is “Invest in Our Planet” and more than ever we need to shift from pushing the responsibility to future generations and act now. Climate change is here and every day that governments and corporations drag their feet in the pursuit of ambitious climate action is another day we draw closer to lack of biodiversity, loss of species, flooding, extreme weather, and global disaster. It sounds dire and it is. This is the part of the movie where the scientists are chasing heads of state down a hall and trying to get them to listen. They need to listen. We’ve seen how the rest of the movie goes when they don’t.
And yet, I have immense hope that we can avert climate catastrophe and begin to help our home heal and thrive. Joy is a tool of climate change resilience and it’s one I strive to practice as often as possible. Maybe it’s enjoying the flowers on my walk to get coffee or the cherry blossoms along Roosevelt Island. Maybe it’s walking past the sunflowers to seek out a hammock to sway in on Governor’s Island on a warm summer day. Maybe it’s a challenging hike with rewarding views at the top and stopping to admire the moss along the way. Maybe it’s going for a walk and letting the breeze push me out of my head. Maybe it’s growing green onions from kitchen scraps and carefully collecting and dropping off my compost. Maybe it’s keeping track of all of the new leaves slowly unfurling in plants around my apartment. It could be anything. There is so much joy to be found in nature and so much appreciation in remembering that we have never found another planet even close to the richness of this one.
How much joy can you scoop up this week to let bloom within you? How much joy can you let blossom and create the mossy bed of resilience and resistance to sticking your head in the sand or sinking into despair? How much joy can you let spill out of your mouth when you invite a friend to join your local CSA, support your community garden or volunteer with a local organization?
Imagine how much joy we could spread if we all did a little something. None of us can do everything, and none of us should try. If there’s something else we can learn from nature, it’s the importance of symbiosis and the importance of biodiversity. So, you can find your lane by thinking about what brings you joy (is it the ocean, plants, animals, etc?) and finding ways to regularly invest in its preservation. I’ll do the same and we’ll spread joy as far as the eye can see, seed resilience as deep as the soil will go, and continue the good fight of fighting for the health of our planet.
in joy & resilience,
Jasmine