🌍 September’s Rivers, Rhinos & Resistance
Environmental Justice as Sacred Care
Every September, the Earth calls us to remember our place in her story. On World Rhino Day (Sept 22), World Rivers Day (fourth Sunday in September), and World Environmental Health Day (today), we are invited to pause to honor animals, waters, and ecosystems and see environmental justice as sacred care.
At Love Before ALL (LBA), we believe climate and ecosystem justice is not simply a scientific issue; it is deeply spiritual and relational. To love each other is also to love the rivers that sustain us, the soil that feeds us, and the species whose survival is intertwined with our own. Environmental love is collective wellness, and stewardship is not an option, it is belonging in action.
Rivers as Lifelines
Across cultures, rivers are more than bodies of water; they are lifelines of memory, sustenance, and spiritual renewal. From the Ganges in India to the Mississippi in the U.S., rivers have nourished civilizations, carried songs, and borne witness to history.
And yet, rivers are increasingly polluted, dammed, or overdrawn. Communities living near polluted waters often Indigenous, rural, or low-income, suffer first and longest. This injustice echoes what we lifted in “Earth, Home, and Healing” (April 2025): environmental harm is always tied to racial, economic, and systemic injustice. Clean water is not a luxury, it is a birthright.
Rhinos as Symbols of Resistance
On World Rhino Day, we honor a species that has survived for millions of years, now endangered by poaching, habitat loss, and climate change. Rhinos remind us that when ecosystems are exploited, communities, both human and animal, are pushed to the brink.
Protecting rhinos is more than sentimentality. It is about safeguarding biodiversity, which in turn sustains balance for all life. In the same way, protecting our ecosystems is protecting ourselves. Environmental resistance is not separate from justice movements, it is part of them.
Environmental Health Is Collective Health
The observance of World Environmental Health Day reminds us that the health of our air, water, and land directly shapes the health of our bodies and communities. Children breathing in polluted air face higher rates of asthma. Communities living near toxic waste experience higher rates of cancer. Flood-prone neighborhoods suffer trauma that ripples across generations.
Neuroscience teaches us that environmental stressors like extreme heat or unsafe air trigger the brain’s stress response systems, leading to heightened anxiety, depression, and long-term health disparities. When we ignore environmental harm, we ignore the human nervous system itself.
Acts of Sacred Care
Environmental justice begins with collective acts of sacred care:
🌊 Protect the Waters: Organize or join a river clean-up in your community. Small actions ripple outward.
🦏 Stand with Species: Support conservation groups protecting endangered species like rhinos, whose survival sustains biodiversity.
🌱 Invest in Environmental Wellness: Advocate for policies that reduce toxins, expand green spaces, and protect frontline communities most impacted by pollution.
🤲 Practice Environmental Love Daily: Use less plastic, plant native trees, and honor land by giving back what you take.
From Resistance to Renewal
To care for rivers and rhinos is to care for ourselves. To resist environmental destruction is to resist systems that exploit both people and the planet. To honor environmental health is to affirm that wellness cannot exist for some while others live without clean water, breathable air, or safe ecosystems.
This September, may we move from awareness to action. May we honor rivers, rhinos, and the rhythms of the Earth as relatives to protect and not as resources to extract. Environmental justice is not separate from human justice, it is a sacred practice of belonging.
đź’› With Earth-rooted care,
Your Curious Cultural Architect
