Earth Month and Abundance

This is an adaptation of my weekly newsletter, Adventures Big & Small. If you want to receive emails like these, click here to subscribe.

I am thankful for Earth Month even if it seems like something of a bandaid after we’ve neglected this planet for so long.

At The Enloe Creative, there are tangible things that come with Earth Month – I just paid my annual dues at 1% For The Planet. I am applying this month to become a certified Marin Green Business. I am rethinking where I source glass for my handcrafted picture frames to cut down on packaging waste.

But the intangible shifts feel more important. Certainly more interesting.

The thing is, we are realizing that the foundations of our modern, western society and economy don’t leave much room for Mother Earth. We’ve created a system where everything we do seems to take us away from where we are. We need to change the whole approach if we’re going to live well on this planet.

And a lot of it starts with scarcity—the baked-in belief that we never have enough. Enough time, enough space, enough stuff.

One of my favorite authors, Robin Wall Kimmerer, writes beautifully about this in Braiding Sweetgrass. Robin is a mother, scientist, and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and she explains that Western economies only function if we believe things are scarce. That we need to compete to make them function. It is essential that we want more.

And she asks…what if we started from abundance instead? What if food and water were seen as gifts from the Earth, not things to be owned? What if we felt full instead of thinking of what we’re without?

And what if—stay with me—that showed up in something as small as how we take family photos?

I used to fly airplanes. That career (and that culture) was all about going somewhere else to get something you didn’t have. Don’t get me wrong, I still fly in airplanes (just got off one, in fact), but being around that industry on a daily basis wasn’t good for my soul.

Family photography is the opposite of that. It is all about what is here right now. It’s about stopping time long enough to say, this is enough. A family photo session is a practice of being present, and the pictures we make are a reminder of the abundance in our lives.

I’ve even been toying with the idea of starting each session with a moment of breathwork or a reminder of presence. I’m still workshopping how to say that without sounding like your yoga instructor, but I think it could be powerful.

Spring is here. The hills are green. The clouds are putting on a show. The ocean wind makes everything feel a little wild and alive.

Abundance is everywhere.

Let’s celebrate Earth Month. Let’s make some pictures.