BRATTLEBORO — The photo was one of the first color images taken and shared by our family and featured three little boys wearing top hats and ties posing together for an Easter memory. It became a classic in my family for many reasons.
Each year the trio photo reminds me of so many positive things represented by the Easter season. Good things do come in threes. What does Easter mean to you?
Regardless of your spiritual strength - and I hope it is strong in the loving knowledge that the sacrifice of one living man long ago gives us all eternal peace - the Easter season is a time of renewal and relationships connected to relationships with people and the land.
That treasured Easter Sunday photo taken by my father at my Marshall grandparents' home had a backdrop of a New England mountain just starting to show a touch of green buds.
The year was 1963. It showed three brothers in symbolic poses connected to one another forevermore and to the green grass of our native New England outdoors. It showed me, the oldest, reaching out to Terry, the independent, youngest spirit with my other hand close to my brother Peter's hand.
So much hope, so much spirit in personal ways.
Peter left us after a battle with cancer a few months after this photo was taken. Terry's service to many as brother, friend, volunteer firefighter, athlete, and conservationist ended when he was just 21 in 1981.
Nevertheless, then and forever we remain indelibly connected.
At Easter services all over the world this weekend preachers, pastors, and all varieties of spiritual men and woman celebrated the humble lives we lead each day on Earth connected to the ever-after in heaven.
There's no argument or doubt from me. My brothers Peter and Terry have been my guardian angels for decades.
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One of the best lifetime lessons from the long-ago classic photo comes from the first green grass, tulips, and flowering trees of spring in Vermont and elsewhere. It brings us back to our infinite connection to nature, the guiding and healing force that is so much a stranger to our culture today.
Did you know that Easter weekend also featured a special day this past Friday? It was Earth Day, and incredibly, there was minimal media buzz reminding one and all about the power of nature. We are rapidly becoming dangerously disconnected from a passion and knowledge about the natural world.
The catastrophic events with the oil spill in the Gulf, the ridiculous cost of gasoline, or the Japanese nuclear crisis have not yet awakened us from our apathetic environmental slumbers.
Easter is all about spirituality and the outdoors as a symbol of renewal; I'm not talking about the Easter Bunny and eggs hunts.
To me, Easter delivers positive memories despite the lingering heartbreak of losing two younger brothers.
It means getting into the woods for the start of the wild turkey hunting season. Everything is new, fresh, and peaceful there. I talk to the tall trees and wild birds and say thanks for all that we have. Hope springs eternal.
For most people, it has become such a novelty to enjoy the outdoors regularly. The same majority who suffer from lack of Vitamin D, rising obesity, high stress, and other negatives from their daily routines find themselves addicted to reality TV or computer screens. The balance is out of kilter.
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Back to Earth Day spirit: Here's a pop quiz for the Easter weekend. Do you know who Aldo Leopold was and what he represents?
Aldo Leopold was a spiritual leader in many ways of astute conservation in America. Here are some of his written words of wisdom, so timely for Easter or any season of renewal:
“I came home one Christmas to find that land promoters, with the help of the Corps of Engineers, had drained my boyhood hunting grounds. My hometown thought the community enriched by this change. I thought it impoverished.”
Leopold was a professional forester, sportsman, author, professor, ecologist, and family man. He wrote the above quote in 1947, the year before he died. There is a new film about his life story called Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time.
A blog writer from Field & Stream wrote this about Leopold's story in the film:
“It becomes clear how history can produce, in a kind of forge of events, the human beings that, literally, change the way we see the world. It takes a special kind of steel to put in that forge, too - not the strongest or the hardest or the steel that rings loudest when struck - to produce a thinker and man of quiet action like Leopold.”
My son, Shane Marshall Brown, has a brilliant mind and rare instincts focused on nature. He posted on Facebook not long ago that Aldo Leopold is one of his heroes. That's a great choice, and I am proud of his passion for the outdoors.
Aldo was born into a German-speaking family in Burlington, Iowa about a century before Shane was born on the shores of Lake Champlain - on the other side of the magnificent lake from Burlington, Vt.
Aldo and Shane do share much in common; they know that our Earth each spring and in every season is precious and should be celebrated.
Sadly, it seems to me, Shane's views among his peers seem to be a minority position. His fascinating and frequent posts on Facebook about nature and outdoor issues are rarely greeted with any response from his generation. It's sort of like Silent Spring.
A final set of wise words, written more than 60 years ago from Aldo Leopold, this Easter season says more than anything I could write for my family and my blog audience around the globe.
“Our tools are better than we are and grow better and faster than we do. They suffice to crack the atom, to command the tides, but they do not suffice to address the oldest task in human history - to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.”
“I have only two questions that interest me,” Leopold often said, “People's relationships to each other, and people's relationship to the land.”