Celebrating Earth Year

Mother Earth appreciates the little things in life. Every little thing we do for her has an affect, and when we appreciate her and treat her with kindness she responds in kind. We nourish her, she nourishes us; we sustain her, she sustains us. It's a beautiful butterfly effect of sorts, where if we just flap our wings, we can inspire positive change within our world and truly make a difference.

A great thing about Earth Day is its ability to make us more aware of our surroundings. It gets us thinking about what's going on around us, and urges us to look up from our iphones and ipads and realize that there's a whole world happening right around us, and it could use our attention.

 Earth Day is every day, and to reinforce this in our lives and really make an impact on the earth every year, each of us here at Soul Flower has decided to make a lifestyle change for 1 year to help lighten our footprint, and tread a little lighter on Mother Earth. For every month that we succeed at keeping our goal, Soul Flower will make a donation to an earth-friendly charity at the end of the year. We haven't chosen a charity yet, so if you have any recommendations please let us know in the comments! :)

Some of our Earth Year goals written on recycled paper leaves :)

As for our goals, here is what each of us is tackling for our Earth YEAR:

Peggy: Going to start and keep up with my compost.

Mike: Going to cut back on my fish consumption to once a week. Also going to get a rain barrel. 

Maddie: Going to start making & using my own eco-friendly cleaners. 

We put our leaves by our desks as daily reminders! :)

Mary: Going to cut back on my water use; shorter showers, no needlessly running the tap. 

Shanny: Avoid  using those restaurant Styrofoam containers 

Leiah: Will be shopping at different farmer's markets in the area and buy local.

Jacqui:  Going to eat vegetarian on weekdays.

Jenn: Removing all toxic chemicals from the home and making her own house cleaners, including things such as toothpaste and shampoo.

Chad: Going to make compost bins from some cedar that I removed from my deck and get composting.

Joe: Will eat meat-free two days a week.

Rachel:  No meat during the week, with the exception of fish and eggs. 

Jessica: Eating wild edibles every week that I have foraged or bartered for. This would exclude tomatoes that I can take from a garden, but would include the purslane likely growing in the garden that was not intended to be there. Mostly edible wild plants found in natural settings would be the source, though. Items can be fresh, frozen, dried, canned, pickled, whatever! Extra points for invasive plants!

Are you making a lifestyle change this year to lighten your footprint? Feel free to share it with us!

Peace,
your buds at Soul Flower