Overshoot day: The date by which we’ve consumed more resources in a calendar year than the Earth can regenerate. This year it’s 29th July, on the eve of Lughnasadh. (seen as the beginning of Autumn/Fall in the Celtic, and other, spiritual traditions)
Here’s a little graph to put it into perspective …
I find it interesting, or perhaps ironic, that Lughnasadh is known as a harvest celebration … we certainly are harvesting what we’ve sown.
(If you’re interested in how Lughnasadh/Lammas fits into the grand scheme of things, click HERE for my post on the Wheel of the Year on my Shaman blog)
-oOo-
One final thought about the ‘save the planet’ catchphrase. It’s not our job to save her. She doesn’t need saving, and not from the likes of us. She got along without us very well in the past and She’ll get along without us very well in the future. It’s ourselves we have to save.
Widdershins Worlds 
The planet will survive us, no doubt about that. The sad part is all the other life forms we’ll have messed up on our way to extinction.
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Indeed. 😦
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Nature will remind us of what we have forgotten… even we are just another species, subject to extinction due to habitat destruction.
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She’s certainly doing that these days.
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Can’t say I blame her…
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Nope, me either.
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We can work to regenerate degraded parts of the planet.
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Yes we can! 😀
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Amazing graph; splendid recording
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Brings it home, doesn’t it?
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It does, indeed
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“It’s ourselves we have to save.” Dear god, YES! We’re not being altruistic at all. We’re just trying not to be lemmings. 😦
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A very apt metaphore!
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For have we been here before? Will we return again and as what next time? For perhaps if reincarnation brings us forward into existence, will we be all meeting around a sulphuric hot water vent in the ocean, planning our shell gardens? I still prefer the land, the soil and being in human form or maybe that’s just because that is where I am presently? For there is not much on Earth that didn’t start out here and there’s a saying something to the effect that nothing leaves (well apart from rockets). Questions, questions…
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Hi Soil Bee, welcome to my little corner of the interwebz … questions indeed. 🙂
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On that questions, questions, questions thing, well I just had another thought (I’ve had loads of thoughts about other things too of course, like why isn’t the purple towel on the washing line and where can it be lurking and would a “Congratulations to the happy couple” card sent first class in the UK get to the destination by this Saturday if I post it this morning, and should I start gathering a few things I like the look of from the charity shop in the size I am aiming for on my get fit plan and…) but the thought was a bit of a positive, optimistic, Robin Hood / Navy thing: If there’s been an overshoot, a last warning, like a shot over the bow of a ship, doesn’t that mean there’s still hope and we won’t all have to meet up snuggled around a hot water vent in the middle of the ocean reincarnated as weird crablike creatures?
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I certainly hope we, humans, didn’t screw up so badly this time that Mother Earth can mend all the wounds we’ve given her. The selfish policies of the greedy Gus’s disgust me.
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It’s going to get messy, messy-er, that’s for sure.
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This may have been one of the most poiniont (can’t spell) last things my mother (not mother earth, but still) said before she died at 90 years young “Just do your best”. Who knows what the future holds, we are here now though and those words hold strong.
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Reblogged this on Dropping Pennies and commented:
Most of us don’t know we are overshooting our selves… let alone our planet.
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