Earth Day is April 22nd.
That's this Friday. I've always liked Earth Day. People get all
concerned about the condition of the planet and want to clean up
trash and stuff. I would be nice to have more of that, but I'll
settle for what we can get.
March 21st, [Monday this year] is International Day of Forests.
Despite this being one of my busiest times of the year, I couldn't
pass up an opportunity to write about forests and trees. [You'll just
have to wait with baited breathe for me to finish up my posts about
dragons next month.]
Like fire that later came to be associated with serpent people's spin off dragons, depending on the people group the myths
came from, serpent people could be good and helpful or cunning and
evil. In some cultures they were both. For example, in ancient Egypt, Apepi, a giant serpent demon
attacked Ra, the sun, while Mehen, another giant serpent coiled around the sun at night to protect him. Regardless of whether they are good or evil, both
serpents and dragons are usually associated with underwater or
underground worlds, often with the roots of cosmic trees. (Niddhogg -
Norse, Mictlan - Aztec, Veles – Slavic)
I
try not to get too religious or political here, since this is an
author's blog about nature and mythology, but this is too apropos to
ignore. If you want to read Pope Francis Encyclical on Ecology yourself, I'll
warn you, like all philosophical, theological, historical and
scientific writing there is a bit of staging and wordiness to it. [I
generally leave the seriously factual stuff to my husband and let my
inner teenager yawn. But I am forcing myself to digest this because I
really wanted to read first hand Pope Francis's view.]
Happy
Arbor Day everybody! A day to celebrate and plant trees is a great
day!
[Characters are from a middle
grade Fantasy Series I am currently working on to make the review
unique and interesting for kids.] |
| Caitlynn |
