Earth Day has gardens upon gardens that offer up special Earth Day activities for the families. But the real deal to getting a great Earth Day experience is stopping by the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Don't go inside just yet. Take a 20-minute circular walk around the building's natural garden. Begin on the corner of 4th and Independence Avenue. Walk along the path of Independence Avenue as a start to your Earth Day experience, and you will see the different plants from several regions of American and outdoor sculptures. What you slowly see, experience, and feel is well worth the time.
Always Becoming by Nora Naranjo-Morse is comprised of three sculptures that look like wooden twigs, mud, and holes. These three pieces are named on the right Little One, center Father, and left Mother. All three are changed each season by the sun, wind, and rain. Each day they grow a little on their own journey to transform into their next selves. A true representation of our relationship with the land.
On the ground next to Always Becoming is a spiral with ten circles. Could this be the moon? The year? The different phases of our lives? And, what does the spiral have to do with the family of three? This spiral has always been a great conversation piece. I always love to hear ideas from people who are standing around the spiral trying to decide what is the best answer to these questions.
Now that your mind is thinking about your personal relationship and place with the land you walk to the other side of the building where you find water, rocks and fantastic totem poles. You can imagine yourself walking in the woods stumbling across these sculptures. Sculptures that just sit there alone greeting the sun, wind, and rain. Transforming and growing to their next selves.
