Earth News July 2025

 

EARTH: Earth Action, Reflection, Theology, and Hope Sacred Creation: Justice Flows Down Like Water "You visit the earth and water it; you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide the people with grain, for so you have prepared it."(Psalm 65:9) In every spiritual tradition, water is a sacred, live-giving element. In Hinduism, rivers like the Ganges are personified as goddesses and cleanse sin. In Judism, a mtikveh is a ritual bath used for purification. In Christianity, baptism is a sign and seal of God’s covenant of grace. But in many parts of the world, the future of water hangs in the balance. Climate change is causing droughts and floods, and threatening our oceans and seas. Meanwhile, under the current administration in Washington, waterways across the U.S. are poised to lose protections from pollution and reckless developement. It’s only natural for the 2025 Earth Care Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas to focus on water, a scared resource without which life woudn’t exist. Attendees can look forward to being enlightened, inspired, impowered and renewed in their work for Planet Earth. Be sure to sign up for the October conference, register for the August 19th webinar, Living Waters for the World, and read on to find inspiration before your journey to Little Rock. Eric Diekhans Editor Conference Registration Living Water In Is a River Alive?, a simple questions from Robert Macfarlane’s young son leads him on a profound exploration of what it means when we see water as a living being. Read More Finding Peace In Tumultuous Times Feeling bombarded by bad news about the environment? We all need a place where we can recharge and find peace. In a Earth Care Conference workshop, Dr. Rebecca Langer offers tools to reconnect with God. Read More Poetry by Nancy Corson Carter TUBING IN NEW RIVER (for Hubie) Beer cans rust, leather shoes crumple Under the bridge where the farm kids dive, laughing; Your neighbor is selling the pasture for houselots, His hired tractors are mucking the ford. In the shallows our suits snag and we’ve got to push; Yet feldspar under muddy water glistens, The garbage-eating snails intend purity; In deep stretches, the river takes us and we dream. That huge rock etched with lichens— Trout spiral, mute in its shadow; Under the great oak soon scarlet with autumn— Hairy moss covers the rounding stones. It’s hard to have it clear and clear, love; I hate it when the weather turns and I get chills Halfway home and I don’t want to walk. You said a kingfisher lived near; I wish I’d see him . . . . I came here with anger, but the water says “peace”; If you can’t forget, maybe you can forgive, So I help pile rocks to let the dammed river sing, Plot down in the tube and stop dragging my feet. from DRAGON POEMS Call and Response A 2008 study at the Carmabi Foundation in Curaçao, Dutch Antilles, found that baby corals swim toward sound made by animals on a home reef. An October moon swells, luminous with life soon reflected in Earth’s tropic waters: her magic blue light increases unique protein genes that   click coral clocks ON. Then a sperm-and-eggs orgy of annual mass spawning effervesces the seas with tiny larvae; true to long-ago coding they swim for their lives toward the choiring calls of a mother reef’s refuge. What thwarts them most is human-made noise like pile-driving, shipping, seismic testing, and drilling. Their imperiled enchantment may give universal warning: what saves them is song; what they must do is listen. from A GREEN BOUGH: POEMS FOR RENEWAL T i n t a g e l fabled birthplace of Arthur In Merlin’s cave Under Tintagel’s rock We stand as pilgrims In a holy place. Deep Earth shrives us, Swallows our misdeeds; The booming surf Pours absolution. A stonestepped brook Measures the cliffs As we clamber To the summit. In the North, East, South, and West, Coast and sea Dissolve in mist. Above and below us Gulls circle and cry; They’re radiant as doves In beams of sunlight.Bright gorse and daisies Make crowns for our hair; Among the green grasses They weave a fine cloth. A simple picnic We carried in our pockets Becomes a feast At the Table Round. from A GREEN BOUGH: POEMS FOR RENEWAL Nancy Corson Carter, professor emerita of humanities at Eckerd College, has published THREE poetry books, Dragon Poems The Sourdough Dream Kit, and  A Green Bough:  Poems for Renewal (most recent) and three poetry chapbooks. Some of her poems, drawings, and photos appear in her nonfiction book, Martha, Mary, and Jesus: Weaving Action and Contemplation in Daily Life, and in her memoir, The Never-Quite-Ending War: a WWII GI Daughter's Stories. Website: nancycorsoncarter.com The Rewilding of the Elwha River It’s been over a decade since two dams came out of the Elwha River on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Salmon are returning, cougars, elk, foxes and bears roam 800 acres of newly restored land, and the river runs wild, tearing up the road that ran along its banks. For the first time in over a hundred years, the Lower Elwha Klallam tribal members can catch salmon on a free-flowing Elwha.

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