By james art 
As a child growing up in Pennsylvania, there are several state treasures that you come to Revere, such as Tastykake’s Butterscotch Krimpets, 64 Crayola pastels with a sharpener on the back of the box, soft shelter and chocolate. But no locally produced treat can touch the grandeur of the final icon of the state: Punxsutawney Phil.
Earth’s day always felt as exciting as a child. Although I grew up hundreds of kilometers from Punxsutawney, I remember approaching the holiday with the same bottled hope for a possible snowy day. I always wanted Phil to see his shadow and we would participate in more snow, days spent outside sleds and dinners indoors with hot chocolate. And during the bigger part of my childhood, Phil exported, with forecasts for long winters -though it took me some time, maybe longer than others, to realize that his forecasts are not very scientific. But I still loved tension in the heart of the holiday and the question: What will Punxsutawney Phil predict for the rest of the season?
I will be the first to admit that the day on Earth is also a strange vacation (and some may argue that it is not a break at all). There is pompousness and circumstances, the best hats and tuxedoes, and the myth that there is only one Punxsutawney Phil, which makes predictions for the time of the 1880s. And he definitely takes the cake for the holiday with the most themed Merch. But for all its delightful strangeness, Earth’s day is also rare among American holidays.
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Take a look at an American cultural calendar and you will find that most of our biggest holidays are in operation of our national myth. We note our independence from foreign power and the emancipation of enslaved people. I remember our military achievements and fallen soldiers and honor of American figures such as George Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr.
A number of cultures and religions also leave their imprint with popular celebrations of Mardi Gra, Easter, Ramadan and Christmas, the enthusiasts of the year. But Earth Day is the only popular American holiday that explicitly celebrates our relations with nature and reading the delicate balance of the seasons.
Although many Americans are watching holidays that coincide with large seasonal shifts – Halloween and Diwali near the middle point of autumn; Christmas, Hanuka and Quanza near the winter solstice; Easter and Easter, falling near the Vernik equinox – we rarely celebrate them as such. Even the few civil holidays we have, which are directly bound to nature, do not attract our attention to the change of seasons. The gazebo day goes with a little fanfare or national attention. Earth Day feels less as a holiday and more like a year for our carbon prints. Thanksgiving serves mostly as in the ramp of the shopping season before Christ.
Around the table, Americans thank for decent things like friends, family and health, but few take into account the food on the table and the land that provided it among the things to thank. And none of these holidays marks the seasonal change in the rotation of the earth around the sun.
How is Earth Day Unique
Earth’s day is different. Arriving approximately in the middle of winter, the seasonal half point between winter solstice and spring equinox, historians believe that the day on Earth has its origin from the pre-Christian Celtic holiday of Imbolk, later synchronized in candlesticks. Earth Day is a holiday of nature itself and our place in it. He invites us to participate in an ancient ritual, wondering if winter will continue or whether the thawing will come early, allowing us to start a new cycle of planting, growth and harvesting.
The shift seasons have been an important source of humanity festivities for millennia. The ancient Egyptians celebrated the winter solstice and the seasonal changes brought from the flood season. The Nusturus, the celebration of the New Year, observed in Central Asia, is noted on the spring equinox for more than 3000 years. Some of our most ancient and mysterious megalithic objects, such as the Stone Circle of the Playa and Stonehenge, point to the connection between our moving planet, the rhythms of the year, and the lengths that early people would go precisely to predict them.
In our modern American life, many of us sit at a comfortable distance from the seasons. Our cars carry us in movable indoor spaces, regardless of the season; The apartments and houses are equipped with electric heating and cooling systems that have been sheltered by the most ranked days of nature. We have put more distance between the land that gives our food and the well -lit stores where we get it. At the beginning of our national project, we were people who bet our wealth during the seasons: more than 90% of Americans were farmers. Today, this number is below 2%.
We also live at a time when the Earth changes quickly, and the seasons in North America are also shifting. Spring seems to arrive early, autumn for the late – the growing season of crops is shifting and tormented by a more extreme time. Human life, the life of plants and the life of animals are complexly intertwined with the balance of the seasons. The separation between our daily lives and the change of seasons can make us comfortable, but it can come at a price.
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Earth’s day can be a reminder of this delicate balance. Later, the time of the year is later, when, if you look, the sky remains lighter and the sun rises earlier in the morning. Birds begin their migration to the north, and dawn cares with their songs. And in a relatively vague city of Pennsylvania, a group of people wearing top hats will hold land in the air and try to determine if he looked at his shadow.
So, let’s celebrate Earth Day, in all our bizarre, bizarre strangeness. Let us remind us that we are still in the paws of winter and hope for a moderate spring. Let me remind us that we have not conquered nature, but just made ourselves more comfortable in its domain. And let’s ask ourselves in this decisive turning point, what is ahead? Will it be more than the same or are we prepared for change?
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