Join the " OM" Heard 'Round the World
by: Mike Gillette

In the past few months we've seen our share of stories about mankind harming Mother Nature. Now comes something refreshingly different: a day for restoring our relationship with the planet.

Earth Healing Day is an event for people who "care deeply for the fate of the Earth, and want to be good stewards." Its organizers have chosen Sunday, August 15th as a day of collective focus on healing and cleansing the planet.

How will it work? The idea is for people to take an hour, from noon to 1pm, to pray, meditate, chant, and generally share a love for the planet. Just like "the wave" circles around a stadium at a football game, this energy and love will ripple from time zone to time zone, wrapping itself around the earth for an entire day.

To facilitate this plan, the group has built a website, www.earthhealingday.com , inviting people to take part. The site offers visitors everything from instructions on how to host an Earth Healing Day event, to a scholarly history of the term " OM." Visitors will also find recordings of guided meditations, time-zone maps, and the group's goal statement. While the event is spiritual in flavor, the site's authors take pains to make clear that it's non-denominational in nature, and open to people of any and all backgrounds.

Perusing the site, one is treated to inspirational quotes, such as this one from Gandhi: "A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of human history."

This is undoubtedly true. But a skeptical, or even doubtful, mind might ask whether the "power-packed hour of dedicated focus for Earth healing and cleansing" the group envisions can produce this kind of effect. Perhaps surprisingly, recent history suggests the answer is "yes."

In a well-documented case, 4,000 practitioners of Transcendental Meditation convened in Washington, D.C. in the summer of '93. For eight weeks they meditated, collectively intending to bring a positive, calming influence to the area. The statistics from the time proclaim their success, as the violent crime rate dropped a whopping 23% over the period.

An explanation for the change might be found in another quote from the site, this one from Albert Einstein: "The world we have made as a result of the level of thinking that we have done so far, has created problems we cannot solve at the level of thinking at which we created them."

In other words, the solutions we need may come precisely from turning away from the problems surrounding us, and toward our highest, best capacities.

Those interested in joining such an effort should visit www.earthhealingday.com today to begin "creating a collective mind and voice to offer Earth a new beginning."