So, after 12 million or so of us save US Democracy by showing up at one of the more than 3,000 No Kings rallies today, Saturday, March 28, we might feel like deserve to have a night off. But I’m afraid we still have work to do. Once we’ve rescued American Democracy, we need to turn our focus to Saving our Planet. (For more information, https://blissfullu.com/2026/03/23/i-hope-you-will-join-us-in-the-no-kings-3-0-protest-this-saturday-march-28-to-enact-the-3-5-rule/).

It just happens that Saturday, March 28 is also the scheduled date for Earth Hour. Started 60 years ago in Australia, it has become an international event sponsored largely by the World Wildlife Fund. It generally considered to be a symbolic gesture to show global solidarity for environmental protection by turning off all unnecesary electrical lighting during the hour of 8:30-9:30 PM in each locality. The idea is for all of us to turn off our lights and spend some time thinking about Mother Earth and how we could do a better job of caring for her.

My family has participated in this for many years, usually featuring a homecooked vegetarian meal by candlelight featuring local organicish food I got from the Cary Farmers Market that morning (Earth Hour is traditionally held on the last Saturday in March). Here was our dinner last year:

Which was prepared from these local items:

I think it is a special opportunity to celebrate these two events together on Saturday, March 28. I’m expecting the No Kings rally to be packed with people and signs and chanting and such. All the ones I’ve attended before have been high-energy, uplifting mass gatherings aimed at defending our US democracy and rights as American citizens. But Earth Hour is more of a quiet reflection and opportunity for gratitude for the beauty and wonder of our planet. And, of course, the whole day starts off at the Cary Farmers Market, which represents both a beloved community for me and also for making food choices that are healthy for me and my family as well as for the Earth. So it will be a busy day, but a really meaningful one.

One other thing I notice about this 60th Earth Hour, held during the 250th year of American Democracy. Some people complain that this is only a symbolic event that doesn’t change anything (although increasingly the World Wildlife Fund encourages related environmental protection activities prior to the day itself, especially among schools and child-related organizations). However, our spiritual tradition believes to change things in “the real world,” we first have to change the thinking and belief system that produced the results we don’t like. Of course, environmental policy is one of the many things the rally attendees will be marching for. But we also need to take some quiet time putting positive energy into taking care of our environment.

And one last thing. Earth Hour was never designed to massively reduce electrical consumption. But some studies have suggested that energy usage during that hour in participating areas, mostly cities, drops by about 4%. As I wrote earlier, there is this concept of the 3.5% rule that has shown in the past that when public resistance to a government has reached that level that resistance overcomes the leaders or policies they were protesting. The similarity in number is a funny coincidence, isn’t it?

Except that I don’t believe in coincidences…