When I was a kid, I lived on an idyllic street in Lansing, Michigan. The street had a soft hill that gently ended at a park along the Grand River. Here the neighborhood kids would play on the swing set and monkey bars, but not in the water. Even then, it was so dirty that none of us dared go near it. Rumors of multiple rounds of tetanus shots and hospital visits kept us at bay.

The Grand River was a victim of factory and car manufacturing plants’ waste from upstream. (Lansing is home to Oldsmobile and many other car part manufacturers.)

At that time, a well-known TV commercial aired, featuring a Native American, complete with a feathered headdress, who cried while watching pollution spew into the water, air and land.

Since then, most citizens have “cleaned up their act,” but corporations continue to dump and spill toxic oil and chemicals. In December, Shanghai ordered all cars off the road because the air was too polluted to breathe. Yesterday, a bill was passed in the NC Senate that makes it a felony to reveal the chemicals that the fossil fuel companies put in the water used for fracking, and there was an oil spill in the Grand River.

I’m tired of others destroying the planet for profit, but I can’t help but wonder if my time would be better spent releasing my negativity to the spirit for healing, and letting others fight the battle. I spent that last eight months writing the book, Earth Sentinels, which focuses on the current environmental concerns while at the same time instilling hope. It was a way of releasing my anger.

I believe that the world is a projection of our minds. So in that sense, all that happens is part of my mind and yours. So what needs to healed is in our own minds. Today, I’ll sit and meditate, releasing all these thoughts of a polluted world to the Spirit for healing. It’s my part, my way, of doing something. And I firmly believe that if enough of us do it, we can change the world.