Bill McKibben warns that the warming, waste-laden, depleted planet that today supports 7.25 billion people is not the same lovely orb that awed the Apollo astronauts more than forty years ago. With the first photos of Earthrise, the collective impression that people held of the Earth in relationship to the rest of the universe shifted. Joseph Campbell said in an interview, "With our view of earthrise, we could see that the earth and the heavens were no longer divided but that the earth is in the heavens. We can no longer look for a spiritual order outside of our own experience." The current condition of our home planet--and our consciousness of it--calls for a new and relevant image. Simply editing the old Earthrise photo by shrinking the veil of white clouds covering the blue sphere or depicting the planet as charred or shriveled will not do. Such images suggests that Earth exists separately from Earthlings. We need an image of this beloved home of ours that takes into account our changed relationship with it. What do you think? What is the new image of the Earth that can guide us as we move into our future together? Send your ideas and/or drawings or photos and we'll include them in the next Radical Joy for Hard Times print newsletter, which will come out in December.
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