Yesterday at 8:30pm was the planet's moment to honour the Earth by turning off electric things. I, and millions of others throughout the world, joined in. The wave travels around the world as different countries get to 8:30pm
I turned everything off and lit a candle thinking, as I always so at the start of Earth Hour, that it'd be too dark to do anything, to read, to draw, etc.
Then the light from the one little candle settled down. It soon started bouncing off the walls in the room, and everywhere became filled with a lovely, soft, gentle and still light.
Earth Hour does so much. 187 countries joined in this year. Since it started in 2007 when Sydney was the only place to do it, 7000 cities now join in. It's symbolic of course, but what a symbol - 187 countries care enough about the environment to do something official, because it's the big things that are usually lit up and that fall into darkness for an hour that really make us all think.The Kremlin turned all it's lights out amongst other buildings, in Paris the Eiffel Tower went dark, Berlin at the Bradnenburg Gates, Athens at the Accropolis - it's the list of the big tourist spots we all recognise. For WWF to have started something that unites the planet is amazing - we could use a bit of being united, and our planet needs us to get together so that it is here for future humans - our descendants.
Something else. I had once again forgotten how much light one little candle gives out. It's made me think, again, that I maybe don't need all the bright lights and electric things I hardly even notice anymore.
And the other thing. The thing about a tiny light shining in the darkness, touching everything in the room. Darkness doesn't do that - it can be banished but it doesn't spread out in the way that light does.
We need to remember this when our lives get dark. All it takes is a tiny flickering candle, which we can then let settle down by nurturing it. We don't need to think about the darkness, just the flickering light.