April 22, 2026 - Earth Day
Every morning, I wake while the world is still quiet.
My window faces east, and at the equinox and solstice, the sun rises directly across from me, as if it's keeping an appointment. My first thought, every single day, is a prayer of gratitude. For the sun, warming this planet, feeding every green thing through photosynthesis, making life on Earth not just possible but extravagant.
For the air, oxygen and carbon dioxide in perfect, improbable balance, that fills our lungs and moderates our climate. For water, that original nourisher. For soil, which takes what is old and rotting and transforms it, without judgment, into something new and beautiful.
I know I'm not alone in my immense gratitude for nature.
Virtually every indigenous culture on Earth got there first. They have always understood something that modern civilization has struggled to hold: that we are part of nature, not its boss. They express this through prayer, ritual, ceremony, honoring the four directions, the seasons, the reciprocal relationships between all living things. And they back it up with practice. Taking only what's needed. Never harvesting 100% of a plant so the species endures and others, human and non-human, can share in the abundance. Managing forests with controlled burns that mimic what lightning and time would do anyway, keeping ecosystems in dynamic, living balance.
This is not primitive thinking. This is sophisticated systems wisdom that took millennia to develop. We would do well to study it.
The concept of Right Relationship is at the heart of it: the understanding that humans are embedded in the web of life, not elevated above it. That our flourishing depends entirely on the flourishing of the whole. That gratitude isn't soft, it's accurate. It's the correct response to the reality that Earth gives us everything we have.
At Essential Oxygen, this isn't just philosophy. It's why we do what we do.
When I first asked "What would nature do?" about my failing oral health, nature answered: oxygen. In rainwater. In rivers. In our own bodies. Oxidation is how the living world cleans itself, without toxins, without synthetic residue, without harming what it touches. That insight became our mouthwash, our household cleaners, our entire product line. We try to follow nature's lead, not override it.
And through our Planet Positive Initiatives and Revillaging Wildwood Glen, our bioregional hub in Novato, we're trying to model what it looks like to be a business in the right relationship with its community and its place on Earth.
This Earth Day, I'm not asking you to despair about what's broken. I'm inviting you to do what indigenous cultures have always done: give thanks, pay attention, and act accordingly.
The Earth is not a resource. It's our home, our kin, our source.
Thank you for being part of this with us. To read more about small actions you can take in your home read here.
With love and fierce hope,
Kate Linforth
Founder & CEO, Essential Oxygen
B Corp | Woman-Owned | Planet Positive
