Earth Etudes for Elul 19 - A New Way to Teshuvah

 by Maxine Lyons

Doing teshuvah means to me being responsible for turning toward my better or higher self to improve personal relationships and as well as performing my share for all beings in this coming year. I feel more responsible to contribute to and join others in actions that promote more beneficial positive actions for climate change.

In that spirit of responsibility and commitment, I am also honoring the memory of Rachel Carson and her impactful and revolutionary book, Silent Spring. She advocated that each generation had to reevaluate its relationship to the natural world as no one had done decades previously. Her important legacy provided insight and scientific knowledge about the future of life and its sustainability, as well as sustaining our human spirits. Her research, writings and actions proved how many chemicals were corrupting the earth and she focused on our self-preservation and for the preservation of the ecosystems of the earth.

In that spirit, she wrote that, "It seems reasonable to believe that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.”

May we each do our as part of our teshuvah to attend to our personal and global concerns.

Maxine Lyons is more energetically responding to local and personal commitments in retirement, as an advocate and activist in several social justice areas. As a retired professional gerontologist, a mother and grandmother she believes it is her responsibility to contribute in her ways to improve life and possibilities for others in a renewed way, informed by Jewish values and kavanot.