"I think cars should go extinct, not polar bears!"


Like The Girl God, the new Mother Earth book was inspired by my children. My daughter in particular is becoming a true environmentalist. 

She is both magical and inquisitive. She likes to understand the ins and outs of everything. She can't understand why more people are not working harder to save Mother Earth.  Her voice echoes in my head as I try to sleep at night.

"
But Why Mommy?  Why?"

Sometimes I don't have any goo
d answers. We try to live the best we can. We sold our car and walk everywhere most days. But she wonders about all the other cars lined up on the street as we walk by.  She worries. Recently she told me she didn't think she would live to be 35 because of global warming.  

As we stop to pet each dog along our way, she confides:

"I think cars should go extinct, not polar bears!"


I agree. Not everyone wants to--or can--live without a car. But there is always more each of us can do to help save Mother Earth. This book is my attempt to help change the collective consciousness of our planet. 

I don't want my daughter--or any child--to live in fear over what adults have created.  Zoe Weil said that "the world becomes what you teach" and called on adults to raise a generation of “Solutionaries”. 

My daughter inspires me every day to leave the world in a better place. I hope this book will inspire both compassion and confidence in our children so that they can become Solutionaries instead of feeling powerless.






The book was spurred by so many peopl
e, whose writings have emboldened and provoked me to live in a way that is more eco-friendly. The storyline will be accompanied by quotes and poems  from:

Vandana Shiva, Patricia Monaghan, Raffi Cavoukian, Sue Monk Kidd, Jane Goodall Rachel Carson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Amy Logan, Alice Walker, Winona LaDuke, Ganga White, Kathleen Dean Moore, Book of Wisdom, Jenn Boire, Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee, Molly Remer, Hafiz, Vicki Noble, The Tao Te Ching, Ruth Calder Murphy, Andrew Gurevich, Ursula K. Le Guin, Buddha, Starhawk, Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), Audre Lorde, Cait Johnson, Maura D. Shaw, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Susan Griffin, Arundhati Roy and many more. 

Elisabeth has graced us with some of her most beautiful paintings yet!

Please help us spread the word about this project. We are self-publishing the book, so we rely on Social Media and word of mouth.



“Poets warned us, writing of the heartbreaking beauty that will remain when there is no heart to break for it. But what if it is worse than that? What if it’s the heartbroken children who remain in a world without beauty? How will they find solace in a world without wild music? How will they thrive without green hills edged with oaks? How will they forgive us for letting frog-song slip away? When my granddaughter looks back at me, I will be on my knees, begging her to say I did all I could.

I didn’t do all I could have done.

It isn’t enough to love a child and wish her well. It isn’t enough to open my heart to a bird-graced morning. Can I claim to love a morning if I don’t protect what creates its beauty? Can I claim to love a child if I don’t use all the power of my beating heart to preserve a world that nourishes children’s joy? Loving is not a kind of la-de-da.

Loving is a sacred trust. To love is to affirm the absolute worth of what you love and to pledge your life to its thriving—to protect it fiercely and faithfully, for all time.“


-Kathleen Dean Moore, from “The Call to Forgiveness at the End of the Day”

All paintings by Elisabeth Slettnes

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