Our loyalties must include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth

Parabola Magazines Facebook status update today:
Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group. Initially our loyalties were to ourselves and our immediate family, next, to bands of wandering hunter-gatherers, then to tribes, small settlements, city-states, nations.

We have broadened the circle of those we love. We have now organized what are modestly described as super-powers, which include groups of people from divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds working in some sense together — surely a humanizing and character building experience. If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth. 

Many of those who run the nations will find this idea unpleasant. They will fear the loss of power. We will hear much about treason and disloyalty. Rich nation-states will have to share their wealth with poor ones. But the choice, as H. G. Wells once said in a different context, is clearly the universe or nothing.

–Carl Sagan, "Cosmos," Random House, 1980, p. 339

Happy Earth Day friends.

"All the peace and happiness of the whole globe, 
the peace and happiness of societies, 
the peace and happiness of family, 
the peace and happiness in the individual persons' life, 
and the peace and happiness of even the animals and so forth, 
all depends on having loving kindness toward each other." 
Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Happy International day of peace today. Spread it far and wide! Be it!

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. Jimi Hendrix

Have you seen the movie HOME?

Wow is all I can say. It is just incredible. This is the most visually stunning movie I have ever seen in my life. And so informative. It is a movie about the earth. Our home.

This is the best documentary I have ever seen. Watch in full screen. Even if you were a climate change denier you will be mesmerized and will learn so much.

A link is HERE

Namaste...

I love love love my computers. But their impact on the world? not so much..

Lets face it... none of us are going to give up our computers! But it's good to know some facts and ways to lessen their (and our) impact on the environment. And we'll save money too! Yippie!

I was surprised a a lot of this stuff so decided to share.

(all these facts taken from a cute little book simply called "how to reduce your carbon footprint" -by joanna yarrow)

Some sad facts are:

-The IT industry accounts for 2% of CO2 emissions which is the same as aviation

-Over 31 million PC's are thrown away worldwide each year.

-The average PC takes around 2 tons of chemicals, fossil fuels, and water to produce, generates around 220 lb of CO2 per year, and is junked after 3 years.

-The plastic alone in each PC requires nearly 2 gallons of crude oil to make

-It's estimated that an average PC is in use for 4 hours each work day and idle for 5-6 hrs

-If you leave your computer on overnight you'll waste enough energy to laser print around 800 pages

-Only about 15% of the 250 billion -worth of power used by computers worldwide each year is spent actually computing-the rest is wasted while idling.

Some tips I just learned this morning are:

-If you need a desktop choosing one with a flat LCD (liquid crystal display) screen uses about 30% less energy than cathoderay monitors.

-Laptop computers consume up to 90% less energy than a desktop

-If you upgrade your existing computer instead of buying a new one, you could save around 500lb of fossil fuel.

-If you set your computer to enter power saving mode after 10 minutes of inactivity-this could cut its energy use by 60-70%

-Its best to shut off the computer if we aren't using it for a hour or two- it's a myth that computers use a lot of power to start up.

Namaste fellow yogi's!

Yoga for the feet

Those of you who come to my classes know that I focus on the feet a lot. How important they are in grounding us, how the lower body meridians both begin and end in the feet and how important the health, openness and happiness of our feet is to our place in life. The earth has a natural flow of electrons emitting from it constantly. One element of this is called Earth Chi (Qi) or Earthing.

Here is an article by a much loved Teacher of mine Bernie Clark (whom I studied Yin Yoga with). Bernie knows a great deal on the topic.

At times there can be so much going on in our lives, so much energy going out of us that we can lose this connectedness. Stretching, massaging of the feet and toes, and really feeling our feet and the connection they make with the earth can sometimes ground us in way that nothing else can. Now that the temperatures have dropped and the winter is approaching we we're less likely to be barefoot and it is through our feet that we gather Earth Chi. Remember there is always Tadasana (mountain pose), and of course getting outside in nature no matter the season. When you need to ground yourself just pause, connect, and feel your place in the world.

And take care of your feet!

In this video Todd Caldecott (website here) interviews the lovely Alix Rodrigues of Greenroom yoga on the feet. Greenroom Yoga's website is here

community and garden are two really beautiful words.

Not really sure how, but my (neglected) garden plot still manages to put food on our table. I haven't been around the garden much the past few months but hey...it happens to all of us. That thing called life! Now that summer is winding down I will be making the garden much more of a priority again. Luckily for us here in BC we can garden all year long and grow much of our own food. Here are a few pics of the garden this morning. Every garden is just such a heavenly place to be. In spite of my neglect I've still got lettuce, potatos, beets, peppers, squash, basil, cilantro, thyme, parsley, chives, pumpkins, rosemary, onion...I can't even think of what else right now. Soon I will also have eggplant, and hopefully a few carrots. I am looking forward to growing garlic this year as well. Hope I don't miss the boat again on the planting of the garlic again! Really can't recommend enough, growing your own food. It is truly something I wish I started doing long ago for countless reasons.

what will be our jack-o lanterns!

Heres a little tidbit on reducing your carbon footprint

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I picked up a little paperback book from the check out isle and how it had quite a few tips on reducing your carbon footprint that I hadn't thought of before. Just this morning while half asleep, for the very first time I was aware of how much water I was boiling for my coffee and the energy it takes to do so.

I only boiled what I needed. That may be something that most people already do, but the truth is my kettle gets filled whether I am making a cup of tea, or a pot of coffee generally. Out of habit I just fill my kettle every single morning without thinking.

From now on I plan on being more mindful of this.

The little book says that completely filling the kettle for one cup of tea releases an unnecessary 125 cups of CO2. May not seem like much of a deal but every little bit makes a difference inlightening our Carbon Footprint. I"ll keep sharing new little changes I am making on my blog. I'm of course doing all the obvious things but there is always more we can do.

Namaste.

This little book is a gem.

I was standing in the check-out line (with a bunch of stuff I didn't really need) Embarrassing but true. I do it very rarely as I do not like to shop and never have. But for some reason the other day with the rain, I got it in my head that I needed to prepare for winter and do it asap. So some new rain-boots and rain-gear was needed, as well as a few other items I know I didn't really need.

As I was standing there waiting in a huge line up I spied this little paperback book.I opened it up and immediately saw so many things I did not know. I thought I was in the "know" with a lot of this stuff but I guess I'm not. Some of these tips I am surprised I have never heard before (or had the common sense to figure out on my own)!

As time allows I'll post some.

There is always so much to learn with any topic I suppose, and none more important than our glorious planet. If we wreck the earth where shall we go?

My partner and I have made countless lifestyle changes over the years as I am sure most of us have, but there is always more we can do. Super painless changes that will not only save our earth and precious resources...

but changes that you you barely notice that can save us money.

If you see this little book in the bargain bin pick it up! It cost me 99 cents.

You can give it to your child to read (it's a very easy read) although I am sure that kids today could all write books on the topic!

At lease I hope so.

I've gotta fly for now but I look forward to posting little tidbits from this woman's book. Her name is Joanna Yarrow and she resides in the UK.