8 GROUNDCOVER NEWS APRIL HOLIDAYS All About Easter DENISE SHEARER Groundcover vendor No. 485 Easter is a great holiday for children and adults Easter can be celebrated all of April Easter is a pretty holiday Easter is a great time for people to learn to love ourselves and forgive others Easter is a great time to celebrate God and Jesus, too, of course Easter is a great time, too, to have an excuse to enjoy some candy and goodies Easter is a great time to dress up and look the best way that we can. Easter is all about the fun, the candy, and the Easter bunny Because God and Jesus made all of that for us to enjoy. Sometimes it rains on Easter, but enjoying Easter outweighs the rain. It reminds me of the movie and song, “Singing in the Rain” April showers bring May flowers I hope everybody’s spring springs up something good in their lives, including myself. APRIL 3, 2026 Water EleMental: Fire, Earth and Air EARTH DAY PLANNING COMMITTEE As it’s been said, “So above, as below.” We mimic the Earth — Gaia — in every way. Our bodies’ circulatory systems are like the creeks and rivers, carrying in nourishment, carrying away toxins. Our bodies are bundles of energy, with many forms of ‘fire.’ We manifest as bodies in the physical, as all beings, and all things. And full circle, we release emotionally, releasing the energies we collect, as does Gaia. And ‘she’ does this in many ways — some of which are destructive: tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, to name a few. These are all ways to bring balance, as our bodies do with fever, exhaustion, chills and bursts of energy. There is a strong connection between the elements. Water evaporates from the action of the great fire in the sky, our star, the Sun. That same water falls to the ground, on our Earth and that physical element known as dirt. It dissolves into component elements, atoms and such. This makes way for release of these components — for change. Change is inevitable for energetic renewal. We can sense the energy of nature — in our healthy forests, a beautiful pristine beach, or a cliff overlooking a great chasm. We become one with nature when these same elements or aspects of our being — mental, physical, spiritual and emotional — balance. Some of these changes are natural, some are induced, through the actions of many. So are there too many of us, or are we simply conducting ourselves in a manner unfit for our level of consumption? Or is it in the way in which we go about serving one another? Or do we lean more toward taking from one another, leaving each other and our waste behind — as previous civilizations have?! Let’s not get too deep into that history, the ancient history that seems to have been buried deep in the layers of earth here with Gaia, as we plow on through while turning over the dirt to find remnants here and there. And the legends of these past civilizations become myths as the records of that history become obscured and corrupted, destroyed and stolen. Shall we look at this closer as we plow on? With practice, we can now work toward balancing the equations to reduce and minimize the negative effects of our ways of business as usual! So, on to practical applications of sustainability; permaculture, intentional community, cooperatives, collaborations, spiritual growth and development, study and practice … Many are the ways in which we can observe rather than reinvent the wheels of progress toward sustainability. Sustainability of our ways and means of dealing with each other in a wholesome fashion, balancing the aspects of our BEING. And let’s remember how that ‘being’ relates to the being known as Gaia, with ‘her’ connection to the ether, the ethers, the source of spirit — from our limited perspective. These aspects and these elements can be attributed to the directions. Although everything exists in all directions, each has its own orientation, once again — according to our perspective upon this little planet. Much of our water is locked-up in the ice to our north here on our North American continent; the fire energy originates from the Sun arising from the east every day; a great concentration of earth lies to the south from our Great Lakes perspective; and the air normally blows in from the west. And I would like to leave off quoting from James Taylor’s song, Fire and Rain: “Well there’s hours of time on the telephone line / To talk about things to come / Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.” Let us not lose this great opportunity of flying machines falling By Amanda Gale, Groundcover vendor no. 573 to pieces on the ground as we rush through the economics of scarcity. Let’s live in the gift of life within the context of “Sacred Economics,” as spelled out so eloquently by Charles Eisenstein … and so many others. These exchanges we make are meant to be a construct of our spiritual aspect. How often do our ways and means of manipulation and the forces of war, religion and corporate structures stand in the way of or destroy our spiritual ventures? Attend some or all of Earth Day Week, a variety of events April 19-25 at the Ann Arbor Commons. More in the next Groundcover.
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