Thursday, May 30, 2013

Paul Hawken on optimism

Hello,

I hope you are well.  Did you get any of the wonderful rain we had over the last few days?  Here in London, Ont. we had over 6 cm over 2 days ... quite a lot ... altho' we'd had almost no rain for the earlier part of the month.

I've just run across a great quotation by Paul Hawken, and wanted to jot it down for you and for myself:

"When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.”


Which makes a short post, but a good thought to sleep on.

Very best regards,

Why's Woman 

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Transition movement ... moves because of the people

Good morning,
(early, early morning!)

I hope you are well and happy, with something interesting ahead for today.

If you live somewhere that needed rain, I hope you've gotten some.  Here in London, Ont. we finally had a bit of rain on Wednesday, and some more today.  I haven't yet checked what was gathered in any buckets 'round the garden, but I got gloriously wet while out on my bicycle and it was a lovely thing after the hot weather of the last couple of days.

Last evening I attended a gathering out at The Living Centre, an eco-spiritual centre not far out of London.  Sally and Christine of Transition Guelph were down for a visit, talking about their experiences setting up a Transition group.  We who came from London and Middlesex County had a good visit and heard the kind of stories that will keep us going.

In its shortest description, the Transition Movement is about the resilience of communities, about the ability to adapt to stresses that might come from changing fossil fuel resources, climate change and economic stress.  Beyond this, it is about people who have visions of a future that is kinder to the environment and to people, where resources are not throw-away in the way they are now ... where we have learned again to do more things for ourselves and each other, using fewer resources, and using more local resources.

Everyone at the gathering agreed that more and more people we know have a sense that our contemporary pace of constant rush is too much.  People are hurried and stressed, expected to get more stuff all the time ...
...where do people get the money for cell phone set ups and the non-cable t.v. options that let you tape many shows at the same time and record 100 movies (or something)?  If one person records 4 shows every evening, when is that person going to find the time to watch the shows?  It could become some sort of electronic hoarding ... altho' I suppose it would take up less room to have dvds or memory sticks scattered around ...

...got distracted there about the tv and movies ... I've seen too many of the dumb cable versus internet commercials lately.

Back to Transition ... change. 

How will we come up with visions for 2030? 

Are you able to dream of future?  Have a vision?

I'd better get myself to bed ... do some dreaming in a more literal sense.  I can't seem to tpe two words without a typing mistake.

Best regards,

Why's Woman



Transition London Ontario: www.transitionlondon.ning.com
The Living Centre:  www.thelivingcentre

Monday, May 13, 2013

Photographer's daughter posed as five strong, real women

Hello again,

The world heard my plea for something positive and strong. I was just browsing a news site and found ...



Photographer Jamie Moore's daughter Emma just turned 5.  Ms. Moore took photos of Emma dressed and posed as 5 different strong, influential, real women.  This is a wonderful contrast to the story in the news about Disney changing one of its characters so the princess doll will be older looking and sexy.

One of the real women Emma chose to be is Jane Goodall (certainly one of my heroines), with Goodall's quotation:  "My family has very strong women. My mother never laughed at my dream of Africa, even though everyone else did because we didn't have any money, because Africa was the "dark continent", and because I was a girl.   ... what you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make."

Moore's photos don't copy ... so please check out http://www.jaimemoorephotography.com/2013/05/09/not-just-a-girl/ to see the wonderful photos.

Thanks Jamie Moore and thank you Emma, for ending my day more positively. 

Best regards,

Why's Woman

Gardens and bees

Hello,

I hope this note finds you well.

Over the last few weeks I've been doing a lot of gardening, at my own place and for other people.  I'm continually amazed at how every bare space fills in with something growing and green.  This is what Nature wants to do: grow, expand, cover territory, be green. 

I've still got swaths of dead nettle in some vegetable beds, letting the blooms feed whatever insects happen by.  The lilacs are coming into bloom, and holding up under the drop in temperature we've had.  The pear tree bloomed, was pollinated we hope.  The apple tree is blooming , absolutely covered in bloom which has not dropped in the overnight hover-on-zero C temperature.  The crabapple tree is blooming with a much darker pink blossom. 

Suddenly we cannot see across the yard and across the street beyond any more.

Nature wants to create beauty, life.

And this evening's news on London's CTV channel just carried an item about a beekeeper living near Melbourne whose bees started to die within hours of the farm next door spraying its corn with a neonicotinoid pesticide. 

I wonder how long it'll take for the test results to come back, and if the news will carry a confirmation that that pesticide is what killed the bees.

The European Union has just put a moratorium on some of the neonicotinoids.(altho' I've got a feeling it won't take effect immediately, so there'll be a use season ... need to check)

What will it take here in Canada?

Who are the people who develop the chemicals and the business systems that are bent on destruction of a world which only wants to grow and be green?

Over the last few weeks of not posting I've been reading a lot of different things, thinking about a lot of topics ... a lot of sad, depressing news on many fronts. And I've not had the energy to post or write or think. 

Gardening is good to maintain a hold on the green and growing goodness that's out there ... helps me bide my time until the energy (the anger? the determination?) comes back.

... and did I say how much I love compost?  Layers of green and brown, a bit of water, and billions and billions of micro-critters transform vegetation in such a way that billions of other micro-critters living at the interface of soil and roots can transfer life to plants.

It is all flow, one living organism.

We're such a small part of it, with too much power to harm.

I'd better just keep gardening.

Best regards.

Why's Woman