Lunar Observer

Earth Day is the most psychedelic holiday

Nature is wild.

Lunar Observer

Earth Day is the most psychedelic holiday

Nature is wild.
Lunar Observer

Earth Day is the most psychedelic holiday

Nature is wild.

Lunar Observer records upcoming dates of interest: holidays, birthdays, best day to cut hair.

April is the one of the few months not named after a king, emperor, or a god, but after a physical process — aperire, Latin for “to open.” Buds on trees open, jackets open, windows open, caves open (as discussed last week), and life in the northern hemisphere just seems more open.

It's fitting that there are two days devoted to mind-opening substances this month — the 19th is Bicycle Day, celebrating the first purposeful ingestion of LSD in 1943. The 20th is 420, when anyone who enjoys getting extremely stoned on marijuana in a park setting takes extra special care to do so. Bicycle day is named after Albert Hoffman's bicycle — Hoffman was the first person to synthesize LSD in a lab, and took the first dose, following which he had to go home and lie down. He traveled by bike. 420 is named after... I don't really know. Does it matter? That number means weed for some reason. Anyway it's weird that these days are side by side instead of being spread further apart in the year, but what's even weirder is that neither is the most psychedelic day this week. That would be Saturday, which is Earth Day.

Earth Day began in the 1970s, a bizarre 20th century relic of a time when it seemed like continued maintenance of a livable planetary environment was a problem whose solution was a better ad campaign, rather than countering the rapidly deteriorating human psychosis that has swept the planet in the form of global capitalism. At this point in time (the 21st century), Earth Day is like Christmas, it's a quaint festival in which we try once again to remember that being nice is nice any way you slice it. Of course the difference is that if you blow it and you're mean on Christmas, it's still possible to go to Heaven. If you're a cancer upon the Earth, on Earth Day or any other day, you are creating, ensuring, and enforcing a Hell for yourself and others. Also, the Earth is demonstrably real, unlike any afterlife aspect of any known religion.

It's far stranger that there is a raccoon living in your neighborhood than that you're high in a dorm room watching cartoons

So how is Earth Day more psychedelic than acid day or weed day? Because the Earth is insane! It's incredible that there are birds, trees, people, rivers, etc... It's far stranger that there is a raccoon living in your neighborhood than that you're high in a dorm room watching cartoons. The fact that you can safely digest, say, a plum, is more mind blowing than the fact that you can get mildly poisoned and temporarily forget the boundaries of self. Face it, life on Earth is extremely rare and absolutely incredible. If this doesn't blow your mind sometimes you are (I'm sorry but this is true) completely fucked!

No suggestion for what to do on Earth Day other than try to be outside. You don't have to go to the Grand Canyon or the Redwood Forest, and you don't have to scrub crude oil off a baby egret or something, just spend some time outside, and seriously try not to ruin it!

Jacob Khepler is the main writer and publisher of Mothers News. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island.