When I was growing up in suburban Chicago, my mom was a collector of books. She was a collector of books, and antiques, and artifacts. To my mom, everything she touched and collected had personal meaning. She collected and collected and collected - and would take me with her on these collecting excursions. The butt of the joke here is that she collected so much that the things that she was collecting no longer held as much personal value to her. So, the more stuff that she collected, the more meaning she lost. Eventually none of the things that my mother collected held meaning for her. So she started selling them.

One of the books that my mom had collected was an edition of Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring”. This was a book that I think my mother grew up with, she was born in 1959 and the book was published in 1962, by writer and environmentalist Rachel Carson. Silent Spring is a book that talks about the dangers of pesticide usage, and also talks about how the use of the chemical pesticide, DDT, was poisoning soil, and in turn - also poisoning animals, and people. Essentially DDT was disturbing ecosystems and Carson saw a potential trend - that this new chemical “DDT” could mean the invention and usage of other new chemicals, which may or may have similar adverse effects on the environment. Carson was not just a writer - she was seeing into a potential trend and forecasting into the future. Carson was a proverbial canary in a coal mine.

Carson’s book “Silent Spring” was taken seriously by the government at the time. Because of Carson’s writings, the Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA) was created, as well as the Clean Air Act and the National Toxicology program. President Kennedy took Rachel Carson’s book and insight seriously.

People who disagreed with Carson said that, like someone who tends towards hypochondria - her findings were not that important and just “causing fear about the usage of chemicals”. As we step into 2025 and trudge through the smog of the 21st century, however, we have already begun to see the effects that chemical usage has had on animal and human life. One example of this is oil spills - sixty years later. Carson was trying to warn humanity 60 years ago about the potential consequences of our reliance on chemicals and technological progress. 

Chapter 1 of Silent Spring is entitled “A Fable for Tomorrow”. A Fable for Tomorrow illustrates a small town in America and retells a story about a “strange stillness” that overcomes the town. It paints an eery picture of a post-chemical America. In her warning, Carson speaks of the town and makes the claim “It was a spring without voices”. It was a spring without voices.

As we trudge into this brave new world, I can’t help but think of how each day we are creating a spring without voices, through the decisions that we make as a collective in regards to our treatment of mother nature. What are we silencing in order to keep up with the violent pace of modern life? What voices in the natural world have we actually run over with our vehicles, and what voices inside of us have we silenced? Carson speaks of a “strange blight that crept over the area, and everything began to change”.

I believe that Carson’s words are especially relevant now to all of us. The more we silence mother nature, the more we silence the parts of us that are inherently survival oriented and have the capacity to - if not reverse the damage that we have caused - at least stop causing harm to the planet. We have already caused irreparable harm to the planet and we will continue to do so as long as we are blind to the words of seer’s like Rachel Carson. 

These are the words of Rachel Carson, written on page 3 of silent spring:

“The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with browned and withered vegetation as though swept by fire. These, too, were silent, deserted by all living things. Even the streams were now lifeless. Anglers no longer visited them, for all the fish had died. In the gutters under the eaves and between the shingles of the roofs, a white granular powder still showed a few patches; some weeks before it had fallen like snow upon the roofs and the lawns, the fields and streams.”

No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.”

Carson wrote these words 60 years before wildfires engulfed the seemingly untouchable city of Los Angeles, she wrote these words in 1962. Rachel Carson’s book points out the role that humans play in environmental degradation and how the choices that we are making in the present moment are effecting the architecture of the 3D world we will step into tomorrow. Like web developers, we are creating 3D models of our own world every single day. How can we create a 3D model that respects and restores the environment? Rachel Carson points to the role that free will plays in either the preservation of a beautiful world or a creation of a terrible one. Nature has given us so much. We have to ask ourselves -  Are our actions worth the consequences?? Do we really want to live in a world where spring is silent?

As we continue on with our daily lives in the 21st century, I think it is very important that we practice detachment towards materials such as plastic, detachment towards fast fashion, detachment from technology usage. Our daily practice is more than “asana” and it can always extend to an awareness of our environmental footprint. We should reflect on the actions that are taking daily and think of the images that Carson paints. What are the birds asking of us? Spring is here - and as we are planting flowers and taking walks and basking in the warmth - let us listen to the bird songs while they still remain. We are the creators of our own reality.