Between Two Fires: Earth Day to Beltane

Eadar dà theine Bhealltainn. The Highland Scots honored the ancient traditions of May Day by casting juniper boughs upon two bonfires, then passing between them for purification and luck.

These days, our planet Earth could use a bit of both.

Here are a few things you can do to celebrate both Earth Day (April 22) and May Day/Beltane!

1. Declutter and donate. As long as you're spring cleaning, do it right! Be ruthless and get rid of anything you haven't seen, touched or used in more than a year. Don't just pitch everything, though. Your local Goodwill, Salvation Army or homeless/domestic abuse shelters can use:
   
   Furniture
   - Clothing & shoes
   - Small appliances
   - Toys, games and books
   - Older but still functioning computers/laptops
   - Unused toiletries leftover from when you went crazy at that last 2-for-1 sale
   
   
2. Recycle all those cardboard Christmas gift boxes you've got stuffed under the bed. (Yes, dear hubby, I'm talking to you!)
   
   
3. Your local chapter of the American Association of University Women or Friends of the Library might appreciate your old books.
   
   
4. Send your used paperback novels to soldiers serving overseas.
   
   
5. Plastic grocery bags - there's a reason these are being outlawed in some states. Please don't throw these out with the garbage - save them and drop them in the collection box many grocery stores have their front doors.
   
   
6. Oh, but keep a few to stuff in your pocket to collect trash on your next walk in the park.
   
   
7. Take a stand against climate change and observe Earth Hour. Turn off electrical appliances, lights, computers, etc. for one hour. Do something crazy, like, um...talk to your kids and your spouse! ;)
   
   
8. A great project for schools, churches, scout troops, etc. - Earth Day Groceries Project. "Borrow" paper bags from the grocery store (ask the manager), decorate them with earth-friendly messages, and return them to the store to be given to customers.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
   
   
9. Put your talent to work! Contribute a photograph to the Earth Day State of the Earth photo project.
   
   
10. Learn about kid and pet friendly, toxin-free cleaning products. Can't find these in the store? Make your own!
    
    
11. Take a hard look at your overstuffed linen closet (come one, admit it, you know you have one!) and take out at least half of what's in there. My guess is you've got more towels and maybe sheets than you need or use. Your local animal shelter would love to have them! Here are a few more ideas.
    
    
12. Save a few tin cans from the recycle bin and make Tin Can Herb Pots.
    
    
13. Don't throw out that broken wooden chair - or that half a can of leftover house paint. Make a Faerie Chair!

Happy Earth Day and Blessed Beltane!

Carolan
www.carolanivey.com

Earth Day, Paranormal Style

While some were gallivanting around Pittsburgh with lusty cover models and the glittery romancelandia elite, yours truly has been cooped up inside with cranky children allergic to the blossoming spring and still yammering to get out, out, out. Never mind the itchy eyes, the dribbly noses, the sneeze after sneeze after sneeze. (Repetitive sneezing is personal pet peeve. Why isn’t one enough??) I also have to contend with an environmentalist sibling, who spends the month of April running amok with “Earth Day Every Day” tattooed on her forehead, harshing on my consumerist good times. We do pretty well at our particular ground zero, recycling like mad, taking our own shopping bags to market, driving a hybrid and eating low on the food chain. But I am sure we could always do more. Just ask my sister.

So, in honor of Earth Day and all those willing to get off their duffs to clean up this grimy planet we inhabit, I bring you…….saving the world, one paranormal romance at a time.

1. How about those aliens? What if, instead of coming to Earth to score with nubile young ladies, they were here to share awesome perpetual motion technology? They probably feel sorry for us, puttering around in our archaic combustion engines and drinking out of petrol-plastic.

2. We all know pixies have been hoarding special flying dust for ages. They could distribute it globally, you know, not just with badly-behaved hooligans who refuse to submit to parental authority. If we could fly ourselves around, we wouldn’t have gridlock or (as much) smog.

3. An elite new hazmat team is tackling the toughest environmental clean-up sites on the planet. Impervious to poisons and radioactivity and weirdly long-lived, these guys and gals are protecting our environment and seem like the ultimate heroes. There’s a catch, though: they’re vampires. And they expect to be paid in blood.

4. The ocean--the Earth’s final frontier. Long known as a renewable resource of algae and seaweed that could feed millions, it is also home to selkies, who would be the perfect seaweed and algae farmers. In fact, with their underwater instincts, a selkie scientist could probably figure out how to engineer a water-purifying algae that really puts the hurt down on aquatic pollution.

5. Powering our homes, appliances, factories, electronics and so on takes a lot of fossil and other fuels. While the aliens may or may not have shared their perpetual motion technology and the pixies eliminated our need for cars, we still have to turn on our computers. And this is where the ghosts come in. They emit special electrical fields that tend to make electricity in the vicinity to haywire, but only because we haven’t harnessed it! Employ them to hang out in reconfigured power plants and we can do away with many polluting power sources forever. Ghosts are, after all, an endless resource, as long as there are people.

6. Invasive species can play havoc with the natural order of things, such as the I-am-not-kidding feral camel in Australia (also feral goats), cane toads, wild boars or European starlings. Set the predatorial shapeshifters such as werewolves and weretigers loose with instructions to hunt! It will allow our hairy friends to get their fill of running and biting while helping out the environment. Just be wary when hunting cane toads--they may cause hallucinations.

7. Another source of energy in case the perpetual motion and ghost power plants don’t work out is geothermal. To produce electricity, one must tap extreme heat sources beneath the planet’s surface, a job demonkind is especially well suited for. Having toasted their hides (and souls) in the flames of Hades, installing and maintaining geothermal plants will be like vacations for them. We just have to convince their current boss to let them moonlight a little closer to the surface of the human dimension.

8. Despite the pixie dust allowing people to locomote without cars, it may still be necessary for some smog-producing vehicles or factories to exist. Dragons, with their fiery breath, could fly patrols that sear the smog right out of the air (such as in McCaffrey’s awesome Pern series), turning dangerous particles and pollution into harmless ash that fertilizes the forests and fields.

***

How do you think our paranormal friends could contribute to the Earth’s longevity? Aside from not continually trying to cause the end of the world, that is.

Jody W.
A SPELL FOR SUSANNAH--Available now from Samhain Publishing
http://www.jodywallace.com * http://meankittybox.blogspot.com