First up, hear Thistle greet the listener before Mary ONeill delivers WLRN's World News segment for April 4th, 2024. With Earth Day 2024 approaching, we wanted to express ourselves as individuals in our collective to help weather the storms of climate change on the horizon together. The situation is so dire, that our reflections and feelings about living through the hottest year on record and going into another apocalyptic summer felt important to express. We wanted to reach out to you from our hearts and minds to build our Sisterhood and abilities to break on through to the other side! This month's commentators include in order of appearance in the show: Sekhmet SheOwl Emily Faye Jocelyn Crawley aurora linnea Thistle Pettersen After the commentaries, you'll hear Thistle's song "bike lane", https://soundcloud.com/thistleandthorns/12-bike-lane?in=thistleandthorns/sets/animal-dreams, a song written while on a bike music tour down the west coast the summer of '05 when Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana Coast. We live in a world full of man-made disasters, sisters. Earth Day itself was born of an oil spill disaster off the coast of California in 1969. It's time to get those little boys to clean up their messes and for us to be in charge for a change! How do we make that happen? We here at WLRN believe it is in banding together that we find our weaknesses and strengths and we ultimately weave the strands of our community together into a patchwork quilt that heals hearts, minds, and bodies. Happy Earth Day, dear WLRN listeners and followers! At the end of the show, stay tuned for the WLRN-sponsored We the Women Event promo designed by our team members. We the Women is a women-only camping event happening in the Pacific Northwest this Summer from July 19th – 21st. For more information go to WeTheWomen.World. This month’s cover art was designed by WLRN’s Graphic Designer, Margaret. The following is her statement about the cover: “For the Earth Day 2024 image, I wanted to include an image of the earth and some images of women – with the show being women talking about the state of the earth. I drew the earth image by referencing a NASA earth image, and got textures from an image of a beach, as well as an image of brain synapses. The image of women at the top (which were shadows of women turned right-side up) also includes the texture of the dirt – so it becomes women as part of the earth. Some of the brain synapses add color and texture, remind me of arteries and tree roots (etc.), and become symbolic of consciousness, connection, and life. The silhouettes of women on the bottom – with the part I used being the tops of their hair – also reminded me of landscapes. So another earth-woman connection. I added a blend and combined the layers with various effects on an iPad.”