Earth Day is an annual day on April 22 to heighten awareness of the need for environmental protection. The April 22 date was adopted by the United Nations in 2009 and is celebrated in more than 192 countries. The concept was first put forward by John McConnell in 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco. It was later sanctioned in a Proclamation signed by Secretary General U Thant at the United Nations.
It’s a day when all of humankind can come together in celebration and concern for this remarkable ‘little rock’ on which we are hurtling through space. It’s a weird thought, as Alan Watts, put it, to think of ourselves rotating around the sun on a planet so green and blue. And the more one thinks about it, the more one feels inclined to offer gratitude for the wonder of existence.
The eco-system that sustains us is delicate and fragile. It behooves all of us to treat it with care and not to take it for granted. The predations of modern consumerism need to be regulated and converted into sustainable lifestyles that are not based on selfishness, shortsightedness and greed. Earth Day is a reminder to us of our responsibilities to the future.
Earth Day is something one feels that Shinto should be backing whole-heartedly. It’s international rather than national. It’s environmental rather than political. It’s concerned with the future rather than the past. Celebrating the sacredness of the world we live in is a first step towards rectifying our abysmal treatment of the environment.
Nature-based religions like Shinto surely have the potential to help humanity reclaim respect towards the planet as the mother from which we all emerge. You’ll often see the Japanese flag flying at Shinto shrines: let us dream of a day when they’re replaced with Whole Earth flags and, to borrow John Lennon’s phrase, ‘the world can be as one.’
Harmony of man and nature
Gratitude for the blessings of nature should be a fundamental part of human consciousness
In this article in Green Shinto, John Dougill proposed the Whole Earth Flag as a Shinto alternative to the Hinomaru of Japan or any other national flag. This is a beautiful ideal for Shinto to do as it clearly moves beyond the nationalism of State Shinto and proposes an global Shinto with its focus on Great Nature.
A further thoungt, however, gives me to propose the Flag of Earth (http://flagofearth.com/) that was designed by James Cadle as it incorporates the sun and the moon along with the earth and in its way acknowledges Amaterasu O’omi Kami and Tsukiyomi no Kami as well as our earthly home. It also gives Shinto an opportunity to embrace Great Nature as a universal source of study and inquiry scientifically as well as spiritually as one supports the other.
Just my tuppence worth.
Nice idea, Charuko, thanks for that. I wasn’t familiar with the Flag of Earth…