Babies resemble the earth itself. I think about this while I watch a two month-old sleep. She’s all tucked up, a rounded sphere. She’s so delicate, so malleable, so susceptible to outside influences and yet so sturdy, so constitutionally sound, so complete.

My job as a parent is to nurture her. Part of this nurture business is to let nature—development, time, and personality—simply unfold. While there’s garden work required—feeding, grooming, admiring, keeping warm—there’s also the need at times to envision her as stretch of wilderness and leave her be. Sometimes, parenting literature refers to this as benign neglect . Or, let the kids play . The garden and the wilderness each require an ethic of stewardship, and to me, stewardship assumes amazement. Indeed, I’m in awe of how such tiny, buttery soft creatures become active citizens, not so differently from how I marvel each spring when cold, dark, wet earth yields and flourishes. This week, our baby started to actively coo, initiating conversations. This week, she grabbed hold of my hair. Around my neighborhood, clumps of crocuses trumpet spring colors before the grass has returned to green. The ground went from brown and snow white to brown and purple, brown and flowery white.

One thing that happens when you’re caring for a baby is that you end up taking time to notice minute details, a curled fist or the flash of a tongue exploring just ahead, shallow breathing, or lint collected in the folds of a neck. This past weekend, twenty-four cities and many people in other places as well celebrated Earth Hour. This action—on a Saturday evening from 8-9—was extremely simple: people turned off the lights. Some people gathered to do so; others stayed home, flicked away overheads and lit candles instead. Like the upcoming Earth Day (April 22^nd marks its 28^th year), one goal of designating specific time to focus upon this planet is to slow down enough to experience appreciation for the place that holds us and that we must hold ever so dear. For an hour, for a day, as a newfound (or longstanding) habit, it’s critical to see what a beauty we’ve got here. As my little baby reminds me these days, until you take notice the baby/earth you cannot truly appreciate babe/earth and until you appreciate baby/earth it’s impossible to be a compassionate custodian. With children, we all know that while the necessities of food and shelter are critical a small person cannot thrive without love, attention, limits, laughter, and concern. Ditto for the earth. Turning off lights or driving a hybrid car, recycling, composting, building a “green” house or any individual action cannot actually stem climate change’s momentum. No tipping point can come about solely from rote actions, new routines or greener technologies. The collective will must turn towards sustainability. At the risk of sounding sentimental or corny or new age-y, the kind of change required absolutely involves our hearts, and must engage our passions and our compassion. I believe organizers dreamed up Earth Day, Earth Hour, and Step It Up, with the realization in mind that we all need opportunities to explore our feelings of concern about and appreciation for this plane before we can tap into these beliefs and affirm our priorities. These epiphanies must be writ large, because while on the one hand, the changes required are extremely personal; on the other hand, this kind of revolution truly takes a village.

At my house, Earth Hour began with a wailing meltdown; our five year-old, scared of the dark, wanted the lights on. Eventually, he and his papa and baby sister went off to watch a DVD of the Planet Earth series in a room illuminated by a thick candle. But when he first protested, I felt momentarily frustrated by his tantrum. I’d wanted a pristine, perfect Earth Hour. Kids rarely make perfect any hours. They are imperfect in the most wondrous ways.  He’s the one who races to the light switch to be the biggest energy saver in the household. My real Earth Hour comes often as I marvel at his industry, seeing that he’s already becoming a steward.