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BRWA "kayak tribe" paddling the Battle (June 2020)

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"One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast, a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards.”        ― Edward Abbey 

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"One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast, a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards.”        ― Edward Abbey 

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Moose encounters in the Battle River watershed.

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A few other prairie wild flowers that bring me joy:

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A few other prairie wild flowers that bring me joy:

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Growing up in small-town Saskatchewan, my family and I have always welcomed the arrival of spring by enjoying the multitude of prairie crocuses that dot the hillside just outside of our hometown of Turtleford. These unassuming but incredibly beautiful native prairie flowers teach me so much about what it means to truly be "of" this place. - Sarah

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To truly "reside" in a place, you have to dress for the weather, adapt to your surroundings, work together with the natural systems around you, and build resiliency to the trials and disturbances that will come. At the same time, you can remain soft, gentle, flexible, and vulnerable, sharing beauty and joy with the world. You cannot exist outside of the symbiotic relationships that help sustain your life. You will only survive if you practice reciprocity with the community of which you are a part.

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Wilder Adkins - Side By Side - Lyric Video

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Bruce Cockburn "Red Brother Red Sister" Circles in the Stream

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A Blackfoot Legend: How the Prairie Anemone Got Its Fur Coat

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A Blackfoot Legend: How the Prairie Anemone Got Its Fur Coat

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Wapee shivered and drew his robe tighter around him. It was cold there on the hillside, but the shiver was more of fear and loneliness, than of cold. Always before he had slept in the tipi of his parents, where his father could protect him.

But at last his father had said, “Wapee is no longer a child. It is time he went to the hills to dream and become a man.”

So here he was, by himself, on a hilltop, with great stars above him, the long line of the mountains still sleeping far to the west and nothing about him but a great emptiness.

The morning before he had set out with a light heart. The snows of winter had but lately melted, the sun was warm; and would he not, that very night, dream a great dream that would change him from the child he had always been to the man he was to be? But now the sky was lit by the coming day and all through the night he had lain, not with bright visions, but with dark space and loneliness and fear.

The mountains turned from dark, cold grey to rosy pink, then to purple and last to shining blue, but Wapee still crouched on the hilltop, motionless and brooding. Three more nights like the one just past and he must return to his father and his friends and tell them that he was not a man but only a coward, whom the Great Spirit had found unworthy even of a dream.

The day grew warm and the feeling of great weariness and failure lifted, as it always lifts in the presence of the warm sun god. Besides, Wapee was no longer alone. He had found a friend. Beside him on the hilltop sat a beautiful flower, as white as the snow that was now resting on the slopes of the far-off mountains, before its summer journey to the north land. The flower opened its heart to greet the golden sun and swayed and nodded to Wapee until his troubled mind was calmed by the peace of the blue mountains and wind-washed prairie grass.

Wapee sat on the hillside watching occasional crows pass back and forth, or a hawk wheel far above him, or listening to the stir of growing things beneath him and thinking grave thoughts. So the day passed.

The mountains turned to rose, then grey. The sun dropped down behind them, leaving to Wapee once more the darkness and the stars, but not emptiness, for now he had a friend, the little white flower, near him.

“Little brother”, he said, “It is cold for such fragile loveliness on a night like this. I will lie close and shelter you with my warm robe, but I must not crush you with my big body.”

So while one part of his mind slept and rested, the other part kept watch over the flower.

When the dark of the night was just preparing to meet the light of the day, the flower spoke. “Yesterday, Wapee, you were sad because you had been afraid. He who never knows fear is a fool. The wise man learns to overcome it and profits by it.”

Wapee sat up with a start and bent over the flower to hear better what it might say but the flower only nodded and swayed in the morning breeze.

All day Wapee pondered on the saying of the flower and next night, when he lay down to sleep, he again sheltered it with his robe of fur. Again, just as Morning Star looked out across the prairie, it spoke.

“You have a kind heart, Wapee. It will lead you to great things.”

Next night, still sheltered under the robe, the flower spoke again. “Wisdom and a gentle heart will make of you a great leader. But when you are bowed with troubles and cares remember that on a nearby hilltop you will find peace and warmth.”

Then Wapee slept and saw, dimly, many visions of what was to come when he should be chief of his tribe and his people happy, contented and prosperous.

Before he rose to go to his people he thought once more of the flower.

“Little brother”, he said, “three nights you have comforted me in my loneliness and brought me visions. Tell me now three of your wishes that I may ask the Great Spirit to grant them to you.”

The flower, nodding, answered. “Pray that I may have the purple blue of the distant mountains in my petals, that men may seek my company and be rested. Second let me have a small golden sun to hold close to my heart, to cheer me on dull days when the sun god is hidden. Last, let me have a warm coat, like your robe of fur, that I may face the cold winds that blow from the melting snow and bring men comfort and hope of warmer winds to follow.”

The Great Spirit was pleased that Wapee’s first thought had been for the flower and his prayers were answered. Now over the hillsides thousands of the descendants of Wapee’s small friend face the cold winds of early spring, with the colour of the distant mountains in their petals, a bright sun in their hearts, and a warm furry robe wrapped securely about them.

By Annora Brown (http://plantwatch.naturealberta.ca/choose-your-plants/prairie-crocus/)

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"The prairie crocus (Anemone patens), is the first plant to bloom on the prairie each year. The true harbinger of spring, its mauve petals dot the still drab prairie landscape, often before the last [snows of] winter have melted. The crocus is a long-lived perennial with a thick woody taproot. Individual plants may live for 50 years or more." (http://www.naturenorth.com/spring/flora/crocus/Prairie_Crocus2.html)

"Prairie crocus seems to be generally limited to unbroken prairie. It forms a partnership with fungi in the soil, exchanging nutrients. These fungi are important for its success in dry prairie soils. Occasional fires seem to greatly improve growing conditions for prairie crocus, by boosting the supply of nutrients and sunlight when dry grass cover is removed....The whole plant is covered with woolly-white hairs....The hairs make the plant less attractive to livestock, but just in case being hairy isn’t a strong enough defense, the plant has poisonous properties, too! It contains a poisonous alkaloid, an irritant that can cause inflammation and blistering." (http://plantwatch.naturealberta.ca/choose-your-plants/prairie-crocus/)

Solar Heating, Prairie-Style!
"The saucer-shaped construction of many spring flowers like the crocus is no accident. Neither is the fuzzy centre of the crocus, nor its highly reflective petals. It all adds up to solar heating...crocus-style!" (http://www.naturenorth.com/spring/flora/crocus/Prairie_Crocus2.html)

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Environmental Learning Opportunities Emerging Through the COVID-19 Pandemic:

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Environmental Learning Opportunities Emerging Through the COVID-19 Pandemic:

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Habitat fragmentation and biodiversity loss contribute to pathogen spread.

We need ecological as well as economic safety nets.

We must promote and support ecological expertise (the virus is not an enemy).

We must support and invest in globally networked environmental change science.

We must engage in and support intercultural, interdisciplinary, and international cooperation.

Let’s revitalize bioregionalism for the 21st century.

Emphasize the virtues of ecological mindfulness.

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Seven Environmental Learning Opportunities Emerging from the COVID-19 Pandemic

I'm writing this from rural New Hampshire. Although I'm 70 years old and in the more vulnerable category, it is easy (even wonderful) to stay at home when you no longer have to work, when you have an ample supply of food, and you can plant a big garden in the weeks to come. Yet my daughter (a schoolteacher) and granddaughters live in Seattle, a dangerous epicenter, and my son lives in Hobart, Tasmania, which is thankfully geographically isolated. I worry about their wellbeing. I wonder how long it will be before l see them again. I worry, too, about friends who have major health issues and whose treatments will be delayed. And I worry about the extraordinary healthcare workers in my community (and around the world), the stretched social services, the school kids who lack adequate home supervision, the families who live paycheck to paycheck, and the long list of concerns that trouble us all.

I desperately miss the face-to-face contact of daily routines, the warm embrace of friends, seeing familiar faces at the Keene Family YMCA, running into friends at the Monadnock Coop, listening to a ballgame on the radio, the countless and wonderful exchanges that I had so much taken for granted. You can rationalize solitude all you want, and you can make the best of it, but in the absence of direct social contact my moods swing from moments of reflective awareness to waves of sadness. I'm in my head too much, and the only respite is long walks in the woods. As University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins points out in his exemplary video, we are all deeply stressed. It's okay to admit it.

I would like to do something. But it is unsafe to volunteer. Sitting at home, taking walks, playing my musical instruments, playing board games, reading, speaking with friends and family via FaceTime-yes, my wife and I are reasonably self-sufficient. It's one thing when you choose to live that way, it's another when you are forced to do so. In these circumstances, feelings of existential dread creep through the day. Watching the news is a mixed bag. You learn about the extraordinary activities of people on the frontlines, but you also have to endure the outrageous lies, utter stupidity, and lack of compassion coming from some of the nation's leaders. I take solace in the amazing leadership and courage of our healthcare workers, our mayors and governors, first responders, teachers, and the many examples of community solidarity.

I'm writing this essay because I want to contribute to how we think about the inevitable revitalization, regeneration, and reconstruction of our lives and communities. I hope this leads to further conversations about how we can use the creative intellectual, scientific, artistic, and service-oriented resources of our human environmental community. Such conversations are a source of hope, vitality, and resilience in these challenging times.

Here's a list of seven environmental learning opportunities emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic. There's much to be written about each point, and they aren't just relevant to environmental learning. My aim is to generate a list, provide some explanation and resources for each, and then invite Terrain.org readers to continue the conversation.

1. Habitat fragmentation and biodiversity loss contribute to pathogen spread.

Ecological disruption, especially habitat degradation and biodiversity loss, results in unprecedented impacts, both locally and globally. A huge challenge for environmental advocates is to explain the depth and extent of those impacts, especially when they aren't immediately perceived. Over the last several decades, viral pathogens were a manifestation of such disruption, undoubtedly caused by unprecedented human proximity to previously inaccessible habitats. The last few (SARS, Ebola, MERS) were seemingly contained, but COVID-19 is not yet. Now, this dangerous and highly infectious pathogen is causing a global health and economic emergency. Whether it's the wildlife trade, our unprecedented proximity to places where humans never previously lived, open-air meat markets, or the globalization of pathogen transfer, these are ecological challenges-requiring a deeper understanding of ecosystem health and human impact.

See this report by John Vidal writing for Ensia, the recent comments from the UN Environment Chief, and this report on the immune system of bats.

Would enhanced global ecological awareness help us avoid further pandemics?

2. We need ecological as well as economic safety nets.

In the midst of this global health emergency, and the parallel global economic crisis, governments are (mainly) striving to provide economic relief for the hundreds of thousands of dispossessed. Of course, this is a necessity. Many folks point out that these parallel emergencies reflect the egregious lack of social, economic, and health safety nets. For many Americans, the loss of a few paychecks is an overwhelming challenge.

Shouldn't we also call attention to the lack of an ecological safety net? I use that expression broadly to suggest that ecosystem health and biodiverse habitats are crucial for thriving human communities. This is true at the biosphere and biome scale, but also at the level of cities and communities. When the supply chain is challenged, doesn't it make sense to have robust home gardens, whether in a backyard or on a rooftop? What are the other ways that the concept of an ecological safety net can provide relative security and resilience in challenging times?

See, for example, the scholarly article "Plant Ecological Solutions to Global Food Security" for an approach that suggests local and global sustainable solutions. And for a home-grown, local orientation, check out the work of Seeds of Solidarity, one of many such local food organizations. Or review the extraordinary work of Paul Stamets on the potential of tapping mychorizal networks.

What are some other examples of how to construct ecological safety nets in our communities and around the world? And how do we demonstrate the connection between ecological, economic, and health safety nets?

3. We must promote and support ecological expertise (the virus is not an enemy).

There is much discussion about trusting the scientific expertise of health experts, and recommitting our national (and global) agenda to scientific research. Hopefully, there is a growing awareness that disinvestment, debunking, and deemphasizing science is very foolish indeed. We must understand, too, that our best ecological minds are needed to help us understand the causes of viral outbreaks, and then to mitigate them when they reoccur. As David Quammen points out in his excellent interview in Emergence, outbreaks like this will reoccur and we must prepare for the next one.

Viruses serve ecosystem functions. In "The Ecological Virus," microbiologist Maureen O'Malley notes that "viruses have been identified as regulators of planetary biogeochemistry, in which they control cycles such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus-cycles on which all life depends."

It is not helpful, and ultimately counterproductive and anti-scientific, to use war metaphors and to describe our response as "fighting" the virus. Human flourishing in the biosphere depends on both viruses as well as intricate microbial and metabolic exchanges that we are just beginning to understand. As Ed Yong explains in his fine book, I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life, our bodies are microbial laboratories, and our ability to recognize that is also an environmental learning challenge.

Yes, we must do everything in our power to check the spread of COVID-19, to learn how to treat it, and to successfully immunize ourselves. But we must also recognize that we share the planet with viruses and bacteria, and it's essential to understand the codependence of these relationships. Viral pathogens must be perceived as ecosystem challenges, too. We will never fully understand the outbreak without this awareness. Now is a time for all environmental studies advocates to reiterate the importance of teaching about the relationship between microbial ecology, planetary metabolism, and flourishing ecosystems.

4. We must support and invest in globally networked environmental change science.

Nationalist and/or corporate competition to find a cure and/or vaccine is the worst form of tribal capitalism, reflecting the limited capacity of narrow-minded and selfish oligarchs. Using the best networking skills, global scientists have an unprecedented ability to share data, coordinate research, and promote solutions to the COVID-19 epidemic. The free, accessible, and transparent exchange of information and research reflects the extraordinary globalization of science. Equally important is the need for teachers, interpreters, scholars, and journalists who can explain how this research occurs, why it is necessary, and what it can accomplish.

This same process is necessary to catalyze environmental change science. What can we learn from the mobilization of medical and health science approaches that will help us better understand how to mobilize research about climate change, biodiversity, biogeochemical cycles, the migration of peoples and species, and the dynamic, ubiquitous challenges of global environmental change? Conversely, how can the already networked communities of global environmental change scientists contribute to how we think about pandemics? How can we prepare students in every age group to participate in these exchanges, to feel that they have a stake in the outcome, to engage in local science experiments that contribute to global solutions?

Network science promotes a deeper understanding of the infrastructure of these networks and the skills necessary to take full advantage of them.

The paper "Twenty Years of Network Science" in Nature describes the emergent field of network science, what it has learned, and how it coordinates knowledge. Many environmental organizations have been experimenting with "barefoot science" approaches, ways to engage amateurs and experts alike in local observations that contribute to deepening environmental awareness. See this article from the Union of Concerned Scientists blog and check out the work from the Center for Open Science. Another fine example is the citizen science work supported by the Cornell Ornithology Lab.

5. We must engage in and support intercultural, interdisciplinary, and international cooperation.

Although one tool for the global mitigation of the pandemic is the closing of national borders, dramatic restrictions on travel, and geographical isolation, it would be foolish to think that such mitigation can be applied to trade and migration more generally. Undoubtedly, knee-jerk nationalists and demagogues will use the pandemic as an excuse to demonize difference, support anti-immigration policies, and blame the pandemic on other countries. We've already seen this in some of the Twitter propaganda coming from American leadership. Also, the dark, mysterious bots residing in the crevices of the internet will use this opportunity to summon conspiracies and sow discord.

Rather, the environmental message should emphasize that the pandemic requires global cooperation. We must emphasize the contributions of the global, cosmopolitan research community. Innovation, constructive solutions, and the creative imagination require multiple cultural and intellectual perspectives.

This same attitude should be extended to how we think about migration, borders, and trade. Knowledge transfer is crucial to a thriving culture, economy, and ecosystem, and we must not allow the pandemic to fuel the propaganda of nationalism. Environmental learning promotes a deeper understanding of the arrival and departure of species, that migration and movement are the inevitable processes of evolutionary ecology and crucial to the history of life on earth. Knowing this allows us to make judicious decisions about how to trace species migrations (including pathogens and so-called invasive species), knowing which migration corridors must remain open, and knowing how the flow of both peoples and species impacts local communities. Surely this data will also help with how we mitigate the unfolding dilemma of climate change.

In the past few weeks, many city dwellers have fled to rural communities. Those rural communities are fearful of this pandemic-related migration. Both the urge to flee and the urge to restrict are understandable. However, this is a circumstance that could also encourage empathy for migrants that are forced to leave desperate situations. How might this experience help us have more compassion for the inevitable human migrations that accompany environmental catastrophes? And how can it help us build better relationships between urban and rural communities?

See this essay from the Development and Cooperation website on the necessity of global partnership, this article from the Brookings Institute, and a piece from Verge on how migrants are too easily demonized.

6. Let's revitalize bioregionalism for the 21st century.

In the early 1970s, in conjunction with the Whole Earth Catalog, Mother Earth News, and the "countercultural" wave, there was a vital and important back-to-the-land movement. Many of the thriving organic farms had their origins in that era. Many environmental thinkers contributed to the idea of bioregionalism, the notion that ecological and geographic considerations should determine political jurisdictions, including an economics and politics of scale, and an emphasis on what is now called place-based thinking.

For the 21st century, we need a cosmopolitan bioregionalism, an emphasis on place that is inclusive of multicultural communities, connected to global information and transportation networks, but regionally self-reliant for food, shelter, and health services. Given that 55 percent of the world's population is urban, a bioregional approach must emphasize how this can happen in cities, or what is now called ecological urbanism. How can cities be organized so that energy, food, shelter, and health resources reflect local ecological and geographical considerations? How can these resources be accessed equitably? Are there ecological ways to think about the exchange of resources (both cultural and natural) between bioregions?

I have no doubt that the pandemic, as well as the additional dislocations from climate change, will allow for a reconsideration of these possibilities. We don't need lifeboats. We need resilient communities that can work together to provide essential needs as environmental contingencies impact our communities.

A recent Washington Post article summarizes some of the challenges of the pandemic related to migration, although it unfortunately mostly reports on the well-to-do. Check out this article from the Cascadia Illahee Department of Bioregional Affairs about a bioregional response to COVID-19. And have a look at this excellent article on ecological urbanism in Harvard Design Magazine.

7. Emphasize the virtues of ecological mindfulness.

In this time of uncertainty, dislocation, discomfort, and sacrifice, it is a great solace to experience time in the safest place you can be-the great outdoors. It's encouraging to note that outdoor reserves of all kinds are now a destination of choice for people who can't participate in indoor gatherings. Yet many of those outdoor reserves are closed for fear of community spread-beaches, city parks and playgrounds, state and national parks, popular trailheads, wilderness reserves, and campgrounds. Now when there is great demand for these places, many are restricted. What lesson is to be learned from this? We must treasure these places, create more of them, support their functions, while expanding the local, national, and community ecological safety nets of wild places, especially in cities where most people live.

These times also teach us the virtues of a simple life, taking pleasure in the places we live, enjoying the presence of our loved ones, counting on the security of community health and safety, and as Gary Snyder writes in The Practice of the Wild, "taking great delight in the ordinary." What makes you happier-the freedom to consume more stuff, or the freedom to walk unencumbered, to travel without restrictions, to gather with your friends, to dance and play, to embrace and hug your circle of intimates?

These times teach us the necessity of slowing down, staying put, being patient, observing the natural world, looking at the sky, growing food, celebrating local natural history, and the miracle of life. What a contrast that the pandemic is peaking (in the Northern hemisphere) with the arrival of spring, a time of hope and potential, a time of biomass proliferation, the greening of the landscape, the arrival of migratory birds, the blossoming of trees and flowers. We must never forget the great pleasure of observing the natural world, and the extraordinary environmental learning embedded by spring.

These are the foundations of ecological mindfulness-the deliberate gaze of the observer, a recognition of the interconnectedness of planetary life, the participation in cycles of renewal and return, the awareness that humans are dependent on healthy and thriving ecosystems.

Continuing Thoughts

I woke up on this cold, wet, and misty March day, spent an hour reading the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Guardian, and listened to New Hampshire Public Radio. It's horrifying to read eyewitness reports of what's happening in overrun hospitals. I am deeply saddened by the premature deaths of so many extraordinary people. I am enraged at the foolishness of political figures who care more about the business of reelection than the safety of their constituents. And then I feel waves of gratitude for New York City healthcare workers, sanitation workers, first responders, and all of the people who understand that we will get through this with solidarity, resilience, and compassion.

I deeply hope that when we get through this (and we will), there is a reawakening, a common recognition that we must prioritize our lives, our politics, our community life, and that we must confront global environmental challenges because they influence our ability to flourish and thrive. Let us celebrate the environmental community of scientists, intellectuals, policymakers, practitioners, artists, and poets, and rededicate ourselves to the necessity of promoting environmental learning. The morning may be raw, but there are crocuses and daffodils inching their way through the soil. Phoebes, mourning doves, and robins are back. And as I took a short walk, my neighbor rolled down his truck window, and told me that his kids and family are doing just fine.

Header image by ImageFlow, courtesy Shutterstock.

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Environmental Learning and COVID-19 by Mitchell Thomashow * Terrain.org

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Seven Environmental Learning Opportunities Emerging from the COVID-19 Pandemic m writing this from rural New Hampshire. Although I'm 70 years old and in the more vulnerable category, it is easy (even wonderful) to stay at home when you no longer have to work, when you have an ample supply of food, and you [...]

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On Earth Day, photographer Edward Burtynsky reflects on our duty as stewards of nature.

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© Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto/The Globe and Mail

Edward Burtynsky is an internationally renowned photographer whose work traces the impact of massive human systems on the planet.
It feels a little surreal to be commemorating the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in the middle of this unprecedented global crisis. Admittedly, I had envisioned this day much differently, yet with COVID-19 forcing us all into isolation, the message of Earth Day seems more urgent than ever.

My 40-year career as an artist has taken me on a journey around our planet in search of the largest examples of human systems expressed upon the land and sea. I have been to many places that very few of us have any reason to go - the places where we wrest out the things we need from nature to propel our human destiny. My first trip to China in 2002 took me to Wuhan en route to photograph along the Yangtze River, where entire cities and landscapes were being commandeered and flattened to make way for the building of the Three Gorges Dam. So, when the pictures first emerged of the coronavirus lockdown in Wuhan months ago, never did I imagine seeing cities being shut down in this new and devastating way - or that we would soon experience this contagion all over the world.

There's no doubt that the ravenous human appetite to conquer nature has compelled us to encroach on natural habitats and biodiversity in an ever-expanding way, and that this has led us to where we are today - isolated at home, with a new pathogen determined to wreak global havoc. It seems the paradigm has shifted: Where humans once had our collective boot on nature's neck, we now find ourselves with nature's boot firmly pressed against ours.

On this 50th anniversary of Earth Day, I find myself in northern Ontario. This familiar landscape has become hugely important to my career. It's the place where I recalibrate and consider nature, and where I first came to understand that we do not own this land - we merely serve as its steward, taking care of it and passing it on to the next generation. It has become an inflection point for me, a stark reference for when I'm able to go out into the world and see humanity shaping nature at scale through industry, urban sprawl and the sheer impact of the nearly eight-billion-large human population dominating our planet.

Rural Canada has taught me many things, and as I reflect on humanity's impact on the planet, the most profound lesson now is that our reach into nature has gone too far. The global call to action against this virus is a test run for our inevitable fight against climate change. And that time is looming.

© Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto

Over the past few weeks, I have been inspired to go back to my origins of photographing in these natural landscapes - viewing nature as a kind of painting. Looking at abstract expressionism and trying to find that place through photography. Going back to the shrubs and bushes of the forest. Going back to my home, nature.

My hope is that during this time in isolation I am able to create a suite of images looking at nature, with proceeds going directly to support the arts sector in Canada. The arts have taken an oversized hit during these times and will continue to suffer enormously because of this crisis. And yet, it is the artists, musicians, filmmakers and performers to whom we are all turning for catharsis, relaxation, distraction, entertainment and, perhaps most importantly, hope. As the great artist Gerhard Richter once said, "Art is the highest form of hope." Artists now need our support as much as we need theirs.

There will be a lot of pain felt out there over the next months, as we regroup, as we try to gather in spaces and share them together again. I don't know what those next few months will bring, but in this time of isolation and contemplation, I can be assured of one very important thing: The future of life on this planet rests in our hands. There might one day soon be a vaccine for this virus, but there's no vaccine for climate change.

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On Earth Day, photographer Edward Burtynsky reflects on our duty as stewards of nature

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Edward Burtynsky is an internationally renowned photographer whose work traces the impact of massive human systems on the planet. It feels a little surreal to be commemorating the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in the middle of this unprecedented global crisis.

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"Shoulders" by Shane Koyczan and The Short Story Long

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Don't Go Near The Water (24-Bit/2000 Digital Remaster)

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José González - Leaf Off / The Cave (Lyric Video)

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"I wrote this song on my second day of quarantine and wanted to put it out immediately. I don't know if it's a protest song in the classic sense, but it's a protest anyway: against complacency in the face of our world's immense challenges, against the feeling in me (and in many others) that there's nothing we can really do, after all. The song is written from the perspective of my most naive self, but with another admonishing voice coming in for the chorus, using the myth of Atlantis as a warning to myself and to everyone else who thinks there's still any justifiable reason to not be fully awake in our shocking new reality." (Henry Jamison, Instagram post, March 27)

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Musical Echoes

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Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi (Official Lyric Video)

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An Imagined Letter from COVID-19 to Humans

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An Imagined Letter from COVID-19 to Humans

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by Kristin Flyntz

Stop. Just stop.
It is no longer a request. It is a mandate.
We will help you.

We will bring the supersonic, high speed merry-go-round to a halt
We will stop
the planes
the trains
the schools
the malls
the meetings
the frenetic, furied rush of illusions and “obligations” that keep you from hearing our
single and shared beating heart,
the way we breathe together, in unison.
Our obligation is to each other,
As it has always been, even if, even though, you have forgotten.

We will interrupt this broadcast, the endless cacophonous broadcast of divisions and distractions,
to bring you this long-breaking news:
We are not well.
None of us; all of us are suffering.
Last year, the firestorms that scorched the lungs of the earth
did not give you pause.
Nor the typhoons in Africa, China, Japan.
Nor the fevered climates in Japan and India.
You have not been listening.
It is hard to listen when you are so busy all the time, hustling to uphold the comforts and conveniences that scaffold your lives.
But the foundation is giving way,
buckling under the weight of your needs and desires.
We will help you.
We will bring the firestorms to your body
We will bring the fever to your body
We will bring the burning, searing, and flooding to your lungs
that you might hear:
We are not well.

Despite what you might think or feel, we are not the enemy.
We are Messenger. We are Ally. We are a balancing force.
We are asking you:
To stop, to be still, to listen;
To move beyond your individual concerns and consider the concerns of all;
To be with your ignorance, to find your humility, to relinquish your thinking minds and travel deep into the mind of the heart;
To look up into the sky, streaked with fewer planes, and see it, to notice its condition: clear, smoky, smoggy, rainy? How much do you need it to be healthy so that you may also be healthy?
To look at a tree, and see it, to notice its condition: how does its health contribute to the health of the sky, to the air you need to be healthy?
To visit a river, and see it, to notice its condition: clear, clean, murky, polluted? How much do you need it to be healthy so that you may also be healthy? How does its health contribute to the health of the tree, who contributes to the health of the sky, so that you may also be healthy?

Many are afraid now.
Do not demonize your fear, and also, do not let it rule you. Instead, let it speak to you—in your stillness,
listen for its wisdom.
What might it be telling you about what is at work, at issue, at risk, beyond the threats of personal inconvenience and illness?
As the health of a tree, a river, the sky tells you about the quality of your own health, what might the quality of your health tell you about the health of the rivers, the trees, the sky, and all of us who share this planet with you?

Stop.
Notice if you are resisting.
Notice what you are resisting.
Ask why.

Stop. Just stop.
Be still.
Listen.
Ask us what we might teach you about illness and healing, about what might be required so that all may be well.
We will help you, if you listen.