Hustling for the airport—queuing up for the flight check in—winding through the maze of security scanning—only to find out that our flight to Heathrow had been cancelled! Why? A volcano had erupted overnight spewing forth a massive plume of ash and grounding the airways over Great Britain and Europe! Not just for a day but an entire week! (Tomorrow we are scheduled to fly out for real this time—a full ten days after our original booking…barring another volcanic blast from the sneaky Icelandic mountain.)

Amazing! An isolated volcano on an isolated island shuts down a hundred thousand flights at the cost of a billion dollars over the Godfather (Europe!) of the west. Score: Volcanos = 1, Homo sapiens = 0. Okay, we’re definitely impressed. Enough already!

Interdependence. Volcanos, ash, winds, planes, continents, countries, people at airports all over the world (todo el mundo) all connected like a spider’s web spreading out and claiming ownership of all it touches.

Irritating but a healthy reminder. Everything is connected. We are all connected—no person is an island—no matter how hard we try! I impact you and you impact me—for better or worse.

The kid’s ride at Disneyworld is right—’it’s a small world after all.’ We are all sisters and brothers (at some level) and the Earth is our home. Time to listen up, recognize our connections, and embrace our ties while we still have the opportunity.

Earth Day, April 22, 2010.