In celebration of Earth Day this year we launched #LPAEarthStories, a campaign to draw focus to the importance of sharing personal stories about our relationships with the natural world.

The idea had been brewing for some time, prompted by the growing research on how personal storytelling can inspire us to take action on climate change, such as this study from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

But the immediate impetus for the campaign—aside from Earth Day, April 22—was the work of one of our coaches, Dr. Tami Spry. Tami is a vocal advocate for “being in constant conversation with the natural world” to explore both the personal benefits it brings and how it influences how we and others shape our beliefs and behaviors.

When our 2023 intern, Samantha Bailon, read a blog post about Tami’s work, she was inspired to speak with her and to craft the #LPAEarthStories campaign around a single question: “What personal stories do we tell about our connection to the natural world?” Sam posed that question to LPA team members and coaches, and the stories we shared were alternately reflective, revealing, entertaining and poetic. (See below.)

We highly recommend using some variation of Tami and Sam’s prompting question as a discussion-starter or teambuilding exercise—or to explore the source of your own advocacy for environmental stewardship. As Tami says, that exploration “can be silly or sacred, simple or complex. If it leads to environmental advocacy or in a spiritual direction, so be it. If it means adding another conch to your shell collection, great. The point is: do it.”

So: what personal stories can you tell about connections to the natural world? Share yours in the comments. Here are some of ours.