Here are some sweet ways to use Art, Song, Word and more to honor your peeps and others for helping protect our exquisite biosphere. Whether you use your talents to create XOEarth Honors from scratch, or tweak the XOEarth Honors you find here, have a super time cheering on others when they take big eco logical actions.
+ Share these XOEarth Environmental Songs with friends and others to cheer on their eco actions, or to challenge them to to take an eco action.
+ Read or make up a little story, poem or song for an eco friend or associate for their eco action. Especially nice is a future poem, story, song or video that is a cause and effect journey that describes the great things that might happen as a result of the eco action that someone takes. Add your future poem, story, song or video to XOEarth on Facebook and our Open Mic.
+ Organize a little award ceremony where you (and several others if possible) come onstage to honor a person for their eco actions.
+ Offer to give a person a temporary tattoo drawn as an XO (with a human as the X, and the Earth as the O).
+ Draw an XO (drawn with a human as the X, and the Earth as the O) on some used office paper or a page from a magazine, then award it to an eco friend.
+ Invite a friend out to eat, make them some yummies, share a movie or share a concert with them to honor their eco actions.
+ XOEarth Speak for the other lifeforms and future peoples of our planet, tell a cool story about their possible perspective, emotions and gratitude to honor others for their eco actions. More about how to XOEarth Speak below.
+ Sing or play a CD or MP3 with a song that you dedicate to an eco friend.
+ Lead an audience or group in a cheer to salute the makers of a green movie, symposium or other meetings -- even if you were not on the agenda to do so. Be one of the brave XOEarth cheerleaders in your town.
+ Tear-out a picture from a magazine, write "thank you for being sweet to our biosphere", add an XO, and then give it to a friend to honor them for an ecological choice they have made.
+ Draw or paint a picture to honor an eco friend -- even if the picture is only stick figures on a napkin.
+ Tell a good joke when someone takes an eco action. Such as, "May the forest bewitch you" or "thanks for delaying the demise of our biosphere so I/we can...".
+ Put on your XOEarth Man or Woman outfit and then honor others. Checkout XO Earth Man in Boulder for some ideas for your XO Earth gear, or invite or hire him to sing and give out XOEarth Awards at your biz, party or event.
+ Create and tell an imaginative adventure journey or arm-chair vacation.
+ Handmake or buy unique gifts to give eco friends.
+ Ring The Bell for a customer or a friend when they do something eco sweet. Businesses can have a bell, a chime, a drinking glass and spoon, a cow bell or something else for the checkout clerk to *ring* when a customer shows they have taken an eco action. Customer eco actions might include bringing their own bag, bringing reusable containers, biking to the store or donating to a eco charity box at the checkstand. >>
+ Guide an eco friend on a mystery walk, bike or eco ride to an inspiring of fun place close to home.
There are lots of places to find art, pics, videos and music that you can give to friends to thank them for taking ecological actions ::
+ For pics and art, check out Sierra Club's Daily Ray of Hope on Flickr, The Nature Conservancy on Flickr, Greenpeace and Grist.org.
+ For e-cards, go to Nature.org.
+ For videos to send to eco friends honor their eco actions, go to UpWorthy.com, Greenpeace Youtube and NRDC.
+ For music gifts, share the links to our XOEarth environmental songs or download and email them for free.
Throwing a party to honor a person's eco actions or lifestyle is no less relevant than the other things we celebrate and give gifts for -- such as birthdays, new jobs, and holidays.
Used eco wisely, buying something to salute friends or others for their green actions is super fine too -- like a organic tea, a bike light, an organic meal or a movie.
You decide whether its a simple XOEarth Handshake, a song that you sing, a witty thank you note, an environmental award that you print out, an XOEarth party or picnic, something from the junk drawer, or even an XOEarth kiss.
Whatever way you choose, have fun celebrating and honoring friends and others for taking actions to help our planet.
XOEarth Speak for the Biosphere
If other species knew how to thank us for the environmental actions we take to save their homes and their lives, they certainly would.
Therefore, to honor our planet's lifeforms — and its future peoples — it is important that attempt to understand and express the perspective and emotions they could have. By speaking, creating art and make music that communicates the possible concerns, gratitude and passions that our planet's lifeforms and humans of the future might have, every Earth lover can become a representative 'for all the life that loves to live'.
+ Here are some more XOEarth Speak ideas.
+ Speaking for a child or adult in the future that will benefit from an eco action a person has taken today.
+ Cause and effect stories about the possible positive results of an environmental action a person has taken. (Cause and effect is used extensively in advertising.)
+ Speaking for another lifeform that appreciates a specific eco action a person has taken today.
+ Trace a consumer purchase or investment to illustrate how it benefits a person and/or another life-form.
+ Butterfly effect stories that demonstrate how the effects of an eco action can trigger a chain reaction that comes back to benefit the person who has taken the action or made an eco choice.
Speaking for the lifeforms is a creative way to speak, create art and make music to honor our planet's lifeforms and future peoples, and to express the perspective and emotions they could have.
By speaking, creating art and making music that communicates the possible concerns, gratitude and passions that our planet's lifeforms and humans of the future might have, every Earth lover can become a representative 'for all the life that loves to live'.
XOEarth Speak is also a beautiful and fun way to encourage and reward others for their eco actions and choices.
What better way to thank a person that takes an action that protects our biosphere than to speak in gratitude for one of the lifeforms or a child from the future? What deeper way to tune into your creative self and explore other perspectives? What sweeter way to have fun finding one's actor and even dramatic self in order to represent the un-represented.
XOEarth writers, speakers, artists and musicians know that to fully appreciate and support the web-of-life that shares the planet with us, it is important that we try to imagine the point-of-view other living beings might have. For example, if the animals, future humans and other life-forms could speak, they would probably want to thank us for the ecological actions we take that help make it possible for them to exist and enjoy life.
Those who journey and dream into the hearts of our fellow lifeforms and future peoples realize that it is impossible to know exactly what any other lifeform is feeling. However, it is as crucial as it is exciting to understand the viewpoint of others — whether they are human or not — in order to feel the compassion to protect them.
So please join other Earth lovers by 'speaking Earth' everyday to help protect our exquisite and rare biosphere.
Quote The Future - The Butterfly Effect+
Advertisements endlessly show absurd cause and effect scenarios in order to sell their product. Boy buys cool soft drink... soft drink helps boy jump over tall buildings... boy gets girl, friends and/or money. Impossible but it sells.
Artistic liberty, impossible scenarios and impossible cause and effect in advertising is one of the most effective ways to con consumers to buy a bunch of "cool" stuff that is really hurting the planet.
For the sake of our biosphere, XOEarth Speak calls upon all Earth lovers to communicate the possible scenarios and possible cause and effect of one's eco actions (or in-action).
Is it possible that a single fish in the sea can be hurt by a single person who buys a monster house and owns a big car? Of course.
Is it possible that a single moose in the forest can benefit by a person who starts riding their bike to work and using a clothesline to dry their clothes? Absolutely.
For the priceless ecosystems that support us, XOEarth Speak calls upon all Earth lovers to use their imagination and intuition to speak, sing and create art that communicates the feasible positive results of an eco action on a future human or creature.
Please join XOEarth Speak in this thrilling exploration of our personal creativity and possibility for all the life that loves to live, and live to love. Please join XOEarth Speak today by using your heart... and imagination... and logic... for the biosphere.
Quote the animals - speak for a future child.
Boldly translate and speak the possible perspective of your favorite creatures that share this biosphere with you. Bravely imagine and communicate the possible perspectives of a person in the future who would so appreciate the chance to enjoy life and love on this rare jem of a planet.
Representing these lifeforms in your day-to-day life can be a beautiful, daring and fun way to explore one's connection to the wonderful lifeforms that can not speak to us in "human language". It is also a crucial way to inspire others to empathize with other lifeforms and humans, and in turn motivate them to take a stand for our biosphere with their ecological actions and choices.
Even though we cannot know exactly what another lifeform is thinking (including another human), it does not mean that we should not represent their possible perspectives.
Actors boldly and dramatically portray fictitious individuals... and are applauded and often envied.
Other lifeforms that share this planet with us *not* fictitious. Therefore, if you are a lover of the sweet life forms that are around you and enrich your life with their inner and outer beauty, become one of their heroes by speaking for them in an artful and adventurous way.
This equally applies to speaking for the future humans that if they could speak from the future, would certainly ask us to represent them as well.
Although other lifeforms of our planet may experience love and beauty in a *different* way than we do, they nevertheless do love life. It takes a bold person to speak for these unrepresented, but the loving heart aches for this voice. The loving heart can only soar to its highest heights when it is allowed to do so.
I have a small but growing website http://www.recycle2art.com. I am sure a few of my artists may be interested in your mission. Please feel free to join and post calls for artists. - Tammy Banks