Live with Earthity

As cells in the body of Vitae-planeta, we have common responsibilities to our fellow cells, and that means to other people and to nature. Vita calls upon us to be good neighbors and good environmentalists.

Here are some things you could do to live with Earthity:

• Reduce meat consumption, particularly red meat. 
• Use public transport over motor vehicles or walk, cycle or use innovative new low-energy transport modes. 
• Get solar power for your home that connects with the grid or uses batteries to store energy. 
• Make your home energy efficient. 
• Support the efforts of environmental groups. 
• Eat organic foods grown locally to reduce chemical use and transport energy. 
• Wear non-synthetic clothes as synthetic microfibers get into the water ways. 
• Get plastic out of your life as much as you can, particularly single use plastic.
• Do your part to euthanize the fossil fuel industry by getting fossil fuels out of your life.
• Learn about the First Peoples of your region as traditional owners have knowledge of how to live in balance with nature and have much to teach us Western
   People.
• Do a carbon audit of your life and cut your carbon emissions to zero.
• Do a waste audit of your life and cut your waste to zero. 
• Turn your lawn into a forest or a farm. 

Given that climate change and biodiversity are the two biggest threats to Vitae-planeta, these could be the focus of your attention. 

There are many ways to support Vitae-planeta including removing plastic from beaches, climate activism, developing new technology, or researching who's responsible for bad governance and holding them accountable. There are many ways to support Vitae-planeta.

Supporting environmental efforts should not come at the expense of human well-being, and vice-versa. 

Ideally, a cause could foster more than one benefit. For example supporting women to plant trees in developing countries helps to eradicate poverty, sequester carbon, and improve biodiversity.

Seek to make your Vitamission as as impactful as possible.

There are many ways to acknowledge Vitae-planeta. 

For example you might shake with a shrubbery, salute a tree, or say "Hi" to a cloud. You might even hug a tree.

This may seem like a bit of frivolous fun, but it does nonetheless keep Vitae-planeta in the forefront of your mind. 

Feel free to create your own Vitae-planeta gratitude routine and share with others. 

The more we acknowledge and give thanks to Vitae-planeta, the more we come to realize that we just can't live without her. 

Why is the Full Moon Special to Vita?

A Gathering of Like-minded People

The rise of the Full-Moon presents a great opportunity to gather with people of like mind. It also provides a peak experience - the Moon Illusion, see video below - that can be shared, and this helps to bond people together.

Joins Us Together
The Moon is a great leveler of humans - it joins us together across space and time. The Moon looks the same, no matter where we are. A Full Moon in Malaysia occurs on the same night as a Full Moon in Australia, for example. The Moon has looked the same to all humans over the entire course of human history. So, when Shakespeare wrote “The moon's an arrant thief, and her pale fire she snatches from the sun” he was referring to the Moon that looked identical to the Moon that we see today.

Visible Reminder
The Moon offers a visible reminder that we do not just live in a constructed society, but we are part of an ancient archaic natural system that has been here long before us.

Reminds us of Life
The Moon is dead, inert, and lifeless, reminding us that life is the exception, not the rule, in our solar system.

Mystery
Viewed from Earth, the Moon is exactly the same relative size as the sun. This can be observed during a full lunar eclipse, where the Sun is hidden by the Moon, but the Sun's corona remains visible. Also, the rotation of the Moon about its own axis has exactly the same period as the rotation of the Moon around the Earth, and this explains why the Moon always faces Earth with the same side. Are these cosmic coincidences, or is there some complex physics at play? The Moon’s mysteries give us pause to consider the complexities of our world.

Influences Life
The Moon has a huge influence on living things as the influence of its gravity moves trillions of ton of sea water around, causing the rise and fall of the tides. The Full Moon floods the night with light, making landscapes and seascapes visible in the dark. So, every time you see the Moon think of Earth.

Renewable Energy
The tides, caused by the influence of the Moon's gravity, can be harnessed to provide clean renewable energy. The Moon reminds us to turn off the fossil fuels and turn on the renewable energy.

New Year is an arbitrary date. After-all, when is the natural beginning and end of a circle? There isn't one. So, around the world, cultures ascribe different dates to the beginning of the New Year. 

In the West, we celebrate New Year on January 1. Few people realize that this is actually a monogod celebration. 

Vita believes that it is auspicious to celebrate New Year on a date that advances the conversation about Vitae-planeta and the Verdant Age. 

This might include a Solstice or Equinox, or Cosmos Day, the day that Earth is in syzygy with the Sun and our Galactic Core. 

Or it might recognize an Anthropogenic event that is significant to Vitae-planeta, such as the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch.

Vitans are encouraged to invent their own New Year date.

Foundation Pod New Year

Vita's Foundation Pod celebrates New Year on 16 July. The minute of the end of one annual cycle and the beginning of the next is 9.29pm Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST).

9.29pm AEST 16 July

At that time in 1945 in New Mexico, USA the first nuclear explosion was detonated - the Trinity Bomb Test. This event is significant because radioactive contamination from atmospheric bomb tests has been identified as a potential chemical marker of the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch, and this was the first such bomb test.

Why is it relevant to Vitae-planeta?

The beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch is the point at which humans overtook Vitae-planeta as the key driver of Earth processes.

It is fitting to align the Earth New Year with the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch, as Vita seeks to help foster the creation of a subsequent era, where humans thrive in synergy with nature. We refer to this subsequent epoch as the Verdant Age. The sooner that starts, the better.

Commemorating the bomb test is also appropriate because there are many prognostications about the world ending in fire due to Climate Change, Armageddon, Nuclear War, etc. These ideas are widely circulated in movies and by many religious institutions.

It is therefore refreshing to create a narrative in which the fireball occurs at the beginning of the story, and leaves the end date for humanity to be decided deep into the Long Future.

Complimentary Pods are invited to accept the Foundation Pod's New Year date or to propose their own. The choice of their New Year needs to be backed by a rational justification of how this date relates to Vitae-planeta.

Cosmos
According to the 2016 paper The New World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness about 30% of humans will never see the Milky Way from their homes due to night sky light pollution. 

Artificial night sky brightness is a feature of human activities caused by the over-spill of light from homes, business, streetlights, motor vehicles, factories, oil production facilities and fishing vessels.

Vita believes that being able to see the Milky Way at night is an integral part of the human experience, and this night sky pollution is an important psychological component of the global sustainability crisis. 

Vitan's should contemplate the cosmos as this helps to develop an appreciation of what lies above Vitae-planeta.

What lies above Vitae-planeta is a vast expanse of space that is a frigid -273 degree celsius. Not a very welcoming environment for life.

To manifest this contemplation, if the opportunity exists, then Visit a place where artificial night sky brightness is minimal or zero to view the cosmos.

Under the night sky, it is possible to view the Milky Way and contemplate the vast scale of the Universe. This helps to frame in people’s minds the distinctive nature of Earth as a planet with life. It also helps to demonstrate the important role that Vitae-planeta plays in maintaining conditions suited to life on Earth. 

Vitans ought to contemplate volcanoes as they represent the place on the Earth surface where what lies below Vitae-planeta becomes visible.

This contemplation might be advanced by actually visiting a volcano. However, there is an ecological footprint to travel (consider your Earthity), and volcanoes can be dangerous; so one might simply ponder volcanoes and lava through a book of a website.

What lies below Vitae-planeta is a bubbling cauldron of molten rock, at a temperature of around 1,000 degrees Celsius. 

The takeaway message of these contemplations is that Vitae-planeta is a very special creature that is able to maintain internal temperatures within a narrow range despite the extremes on either side.

• Sustainable - The White Horse is believed to have been created about 3,000 years ago, dating back to the end of the Bronze Age. It has survived the Romans, the Dark Ages, World War I, World War II and countless storms and political cycles. Therefore, the horse is a symbol of something that endures - something sustainable.
  
• Zero Carbon - The horse was built by hand in an era that precedes the widespread use of fossil fuels and is thus a carbon neutral artwork.
  
• Symbolic - The design of the White Horse is highly symbolized and speaks to a primal connectivity with nature that has been long lost from Western culture.
  
• Popular - The White Horse has been continually maintained for the past 3,000 years and it has become part of the cultural ceremony. If the White Horse is not maintained, within a few years it will become overgrown with foliage and will become invisible on the landscape. The White Horse is managed by the British National Trust who oversee an annual event called the Chalking. The public is invited to the Chalking and every year, thousands of people visit the White Horse to help in its maintenance. This is performed by pounding fresh chalk into the old chalk with a hammer.
  
• Mysterious - Very little is known about the White Horse, in particular why is was constructed, who constructed it and what it was subsequently used for. Another mystery relates to the fact that the White Horse can't be seen in its entirety from any location on the ground. This is because of the undulating shape of the land it is on. It can only be seen in its entirety from the air. Given that the ancients who built the horse would have had no airplanes or drones, they are unlikely to have ever actually seen their creation in its entirety.
  
• Physically Large - the White Horse is about 110 meters in length. This means that it is visible from a great distance and a large number of people can be adjacent to it at any one time.
  
• Simple - the White Horse is a simple design, built simply. It was produced by excavating soil in the shape of the horse and filling it with chalk.
  
• Natural, Local Materials - the White Horse is made of chalk which is an inert, non-toxic mineral found in abundance in the region.
  
• An animal made of plants - The chalk of which the White Horse is made, is itself composed of mineral calcite that forms from the accumulation of coccoliths produced by coccolithophoes - tiny marine phytoplankton. Thus, the White Horse is made of phytoplankton - marine plants. The dark material that surrounds the White Horse is grass - terrestrial plants. Thus the White Horse is an animal symbol literally made of plants. This clearly shows the symbiotic nature of animals and plants.
• You can visit the White Hores. Your visit might coincide with the annual maintenance events called the Chalking. See British Heritage website for details.

What is your White Horse?