NOT just a virtual revolution

The Single Most Important Robert Reich Clip You Can Share Today

2011-11-25T01:20:00.000-08:00

The Single Most Important Robert Reich Clip You Can Share Today

Back after a long time away

2011-11-09T00:09:00.000-08:00

Well, where do I begin after such a long diversion from this Blog thing. I guess I will begin by saying that I have never in my life felt so perfectly connected to every aspect of existence on earth at this time. I have always been a huge believer in perfect manifestation. You only get out of the jar what you put in. If your goal is to seek truth and wisdom, that that is what you will find. The more you believe in bliss the more blissful you will be. The act of true healing only comes when you are ready to be healed or when you are able to heal those around you. Which, might I add is not ones full responsibility but is an ability, with that being said, practice makes perfect. I have taken such a long break and so much has happened since I have last written. I would like to continue and it would be lovely to empower any single person through the writing of this blog so I will attempt to regularly contribute my truth.
About six months ago, I was helping my dear friend clean his home. He runs the local yoga studio in the town I was residing in for quite some time. He is a very good friend and agreed to make the trade, yoga for house cleaning, which I am quite good at cleaning, given my extended dates with brooms and mops. I was at his home and we were having a conversation about reaching, reaching for something that is deep in the soul. Everyone has it and it looks different on everyone, making each of us a beautiful masterpiece of creativity and light.

I told him that I felt that my little something was hidden and I wanted to dig it up. I wanted to rediscover it and help it flourish. It was at that moment that he brought me a series of inspirational discs that changed my life. I brought those discs home and I listened to them. All of them, amazing, filling me up with joy. The messages all profoundly brilliant, one specifically stood out. It was a talk given by Les Brown. A motivational speaker that rocked my world that day. Now please don't get me wrong, any person who really knows me knows I don't have a problem with motivation. I love to act as much as I love to sit in peace but I often am delighted with the propensity to act toward creation of something beautiful. What les Brown said that one day stuck me in my guts. He said "what if when you leave your body, instead of your family standing around you, your unmet potential is there. It's standing there about to leave along with that special spirit that only you have. It leaves and the world will never have the ability to be blessed with your special gift. That gift that great spirit gave just to you, for the sake of ......
I remember that moment, I stood in my living room and I just started to cry. I cried and cried and cried because I realized that all these years where passing me and the lack of self love was preventing me from meeting my deeper purpose. That is where it all began. the questions started firing off in my mind. What do I want? What can I do that I always thought I couldn't. What does the world need from me. What are my gifts. One single word grew stronger and stronger as the days followed. REACH!!!!! So I did.
First I decided that I needed a shift. I missed my family and I wanted to be closer to them. I think they are amazing people and I want them close enough to hug and kiss on a daily basis. So I decided I would reach, but I needed a reason and what a better reason than school. I wanted school. I am 32 years young and I want to know certain things and I love school soooo, I applied. I applied to my dream school. A school I always wanted to attend but simply didn't believe that I could get in, so I never tried, until I tried, and guess what happened then.
I got in, and I got a scholarship. So just like that, the change was is the making. Now I knew this was going to be difficult for everyone, especially my two children and their father. they were quite content with their lives and it really was a wonderful and peaceful one at that. I didn't wish to disrupt that, I just knew this was mamas time. I had put great amounts of energy into the nurturing and development of my family and I felt okay about taking some back and so it goes. We put the house on the market and moved across the country to a very different place.
The universe conspired and with in a month or two the house we owned sold and we had cash buyers :) Yeay for manifestation!!!!! It was then that I realized something very important about the individual dream. The dream belongs to you. It belongs only to you. Everyone has a different one and when you are living your dream and allowing it to flourish into reality, only then can you really find true freedom and happiness. EVERYONE has to live their dream, but those who dreams invoke the healing of the world and all the people in it, those people know what they are doing is right and that feeling is deep deep inside. They know that the world is brighter with them in it. The world blesses them with an open canvas and love prevails always. Everyone in their own unique way. This my friends is the incredible journey of life at it's full potential. All around us we see something changing. The vibrations are rising. Humanity is growing humble, a place where we feel the power of love. I am overtaken with joy to see people in all walks of life taking their power back. As the tide rises I hope we find ourselves at home in the lap of our beautiful MOTHER, all in aw, aware of her bestowing gifts, all in silent gratitude.

Goddess bless!

The Quality of food in our childrens schools! I'm quite upset, are you?

2010-02-27T12:06:00.000-08:00

Public school lunch worse than fast food
December 15, 2009 @ Michael Hampton → 2 Comments

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is buying beef and chicken to serve to your children in public school that fast-food chains reject as poor quality or even unsafe.

An investigation by USA TODAY found that quality and safety standards used by fast food chains were much more stringent than those the government uses.

For instance, the USDA supplied schools with old, rejected chickens which would have otherwise been used as pet food or compost. KFC refuses to buy these so-called “spent hens,” which are too old to lay eggs, and Campbell’s Soup cites quality as its reason for rejecting them. But your kids are eating them in school.

“Mature hens must comply with the same safety standards as any other chicken processed and sold to consumers,” Rayne Pegg, head of the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, told USA TODAY. But a 2002 Washington State University study found that spent hens were four times more likely to be contaminated with salmonella.

It found that McDonald’s, Burger King, and retail outlets like Costco tested their meat five to 10 times more often than the government, and that fast food standards for potentially harmful bacteria were up to 10 times more stringent than government standards for school lunches.

“We simply are not giving our kids in schools the same level of quality and safety as you get when you go to many fast-food restaurants,” says J. Glenn Morris, professor of medicine and director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida. “We are not using those same standards.”

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In 2000, then-Agriculture secretary Dan Glickman directed the USDA to adopt “the highest standards” for school meat. He cited concerns that fast-food chains had tougher safety and quality requirements than those set by the USDA for schools, and he vowed that “the disparity would exist no more.”

Today, USDA rules for meat sent to schools remain more stringent than the department’s minimum safety requirements for meat sold at supermarkets. But those government rules have fallen behind the increasingly tough standards that have evolved among fast-food chains and more selective retailers. — USA TODAY

“Companies that have to attract and keep customers to stay in business have a huge incentive to avoid such things as, you know, sending their customers to the hospital,” wrote Neal McCluskey, associate director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom. “Not so government bureaucrats or educationists, who are getting your tax dollars no matter what.”

A USA TODAY analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data found that between 1998 and 2007, over 470 outbreaks of food-borne illness sickened at least 23,000 school children.
"School Lunch" by Ishikawa Ken; CC BY-SA 2.0

Now some government bureaucrats want to copy the fast food chains’ testing requirements. “Our children deserve a testing program at least as good as the fast food chains,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) wrote in a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Gillibrand also asked for the USDA “to terminate contracts with any habitual violators of your food safety policies.” Vilsack said that the department would conduct a review, but didn’t promise anything.

One of those “habitual violators” was Beef Packers of Fresno, Calif., which supplied 450,000 pounds of ground beef to the government for public schools last summer. Beef Packers had to recall another 826,000 pounds at the time for salmonella contamination. After a second recall last week where two people in Arizona fell ill, some members of Congress want Beef Packers closed.

Maybe we need corporations to save us from evil government, rather than the reverse. It’s clear that the government is incapable on its own of assuring food safety. Or, as McCluskey says, “How many more children have to get E. coli before we allow freedom in education?”

["School Lunch" photo by Ishikawa Ken; CC BY-SA 2.0]

The Scoop on Local food

2010-02-20T11:09:00.000-08:00

Last Week I attended a Town Hall Meeting at the local bookstore/coffee shop. The Matter Book store here in ft. Collins is a mecca for local movement and progressive community endeavors. Owner Todd Simmons who also runs Wolverine Farm Publishing as well as owner of the Matter bookstore facilitated this event as a way to unite various projects within the local food movement. Ft. Collins is a progressive community rich with individuals who are striving to "do the right thing". The panel who was presenting information to the public included, Happy Heart Farm, a Locally run CSA. Dennis and Baily Stenson have devoted their lives to Community Sustainable Agriculture here in this town for 27 years and continue to do so in a harmonious and Bio-dynamic way. Also Galemarie Kimmel of Be-Local, a local business which publishes an annual coupon book geared to support the local economy. John Anderson, who I call the Willy Wonka of worm world also sat in on the panel as well as the Growing Project and Grow Forth both Community Farms.

While sitting in on this gathering, I felt proud to be a part of this community. A community who realizes that true solidarity is gained through sustainable practices. We are living in a day when natural resources are dwindling and greed is a prevalent quality which drives corporate power. I find myself wondering what is the humanistic quality that is lacking when people wage life for money. When the love of material overrides good and pure intentions. Welcome to our reality. All of us objectified and most marginalized by these circumstances. Yet we are all simply going through the motions, we are trapped and few of us have a say. The cost of survival is great and many of us struggle financially. I know I do however, my passion for life enables me to free my mind of these impoverished dimensions.

I love my life very much and I am quite grateful for every inch of it, So what is it, what is this human quality which is more or less tolerant of political systems which harm the planet on a daily basis. My family is from the Ukraine and when I was growing my father and I would quarrel because of my distaste in American policy. He would always say, "Alisa, you live in the best country in the world". I understand where my dear father was coming from, The USSR had horrific political corruption when my father was a child and I am sorry for people which lived with in these oppressive systems. However, that doesn't make America perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I compare it to a toxic relationship. Say you have two people and one person spits in the other persons face everyday and the person being spit on says well at least they aren't beating me. It's the same thing here. We as Americans need to set our standards higher. Our standard for clean water and clean air. Our standards for better food and more wholesome treatment of animals. Our standards for LOVE with in our individual relationships and our ability to care for each other, young and old. We need to create more healthy green jobs here in this country and return to the more localized economy. The local grain mill and wood mill. The local Furniture makers and the Local Butchers. The local farmers and Quilters, Fiber Spinners even the neighborhood electrical repair men. Let us face it. We will never go back to the ways of our ancestors, But if we loose their ways we loose a great wisdom. Many of us have lost it already. I know in some ways I have.

I know that all too often it is our own individual reality which creates our life style and we all know that all people have different life styles, but the bottom line is that we need to stop becoming such a consuming people. At this rate we will consume our children's share let alone their children's share. What wise civilization does this. What mother eats her childs' portion of food and allows her child to starve to death. Not a very ethical or wise one. We are a fire out of control, consuming all the air. We are selfish and ignorant and our children will pay for it. Yet I live with hope that all these horrific realities will be brought into the forefront of all of our lives via avenues of knowledge amongst the people.
Here is a short list of things that you can do to make big changes.
1. Shop at a local food co-op if there is one in your area. If not start one.

2. Be aware of the trash production that your family is creating.
a. buy your food in bulk, bring your own jars and bags to the store.
b. Find local dairy farmers to get your milk from.
c. communicate with your local grocer to supply more localized food
d. Ride your bike when you can
e. Start communicating with your local government to fix road infrastructure
to support bicycle commuting.
f. Communicate with local restaurant owners about compostable to go wear.
(start a company that will supply local restaurants with this material)
I promise it will succeed!
G. Get involved in local public schools to get more localized and healthy food
for our kids
H. make your own darn cookies!
I. Find a local organization that does good work and volunteer
J. Make someone smile everyday! Love is the most powerful quality that we have as
humans, USE IT !!!!!!!!!!

Ya gotta be brave to move forward

2009-11-30T21:17:00.000-08:00

I just have a few words today. I feel like for the past five years I have felt unlike myself, Though I have had so many incredible moments of growth and immense happiness I just felt like something was missing. I think what i am realizing now is that I was missing. I was living in this place of purgatory. A place I thought I had to stay and all the while I thought I was courageous, really what I realize today is that it takes courage to change and shift and believe in so much more that you thought you could and I feel this incredible gratitude for my children who bring me tears of joy everyday. Tonight they spent 45 mins. straight wrestling and though my son who is the younger of the two children plays a bit wrough with his sister, I knew that they had no intension of hurting each other they were laughimng so hard they were crying. It was so amazing watching them and I thought to myself that mamas are the luckiest people on earth because we love with every fiber of our beings. WE LOVE OUR CHILDREN!!!!! In every moment of frustration when we want to cry or scream we are instantly humbled by our grattitude to hold this love to care and guide and be guided. Lasts nIght my daughter was reading a book to her little brother and the book was about a family who had a home birth. In the book there was a page that discribed how happy the big sister was when she realized that she had a litle brother to love and my daughter Hauna looked at her little brother and said "Teva this is how I felt when you were born", then she kissesd him and he said, "hauna, I love you". Oh my heart melts. So much is changing around me my hope is growing my beliefs are changing I am so ALIVE and GREATFUL!!!!!

We love our chickens too much to eat them!

2009-11-04T23:55:00.000-08:00

Though I am aware of the fragility of all human kind, I can not help but to face the facts. If we humans take the path of main stream society we will be at the mercy of our government. The same government which has been in place since the seventeen hundreds. Though in those days the meaning of democracy was more of an entertained reality. These days we mutter the word "democracy" with out actually realizing that Americans do not live in a democracy and haven't ever lived in a democracy. I do believe that this is the intention of the people and with much personal deliberation we will attain democracy not by fighting for it but by living it, This is what Francis Moore lappe Calls a Living Democracy. A form of living where people take matters into their own hands. Each individual doing their part and through this we see large and powerful changes in social structures and economic foundations as a whole. This knowledge has inspired me to establish my very own resolution to live in a way that makes sense. Though I can't always justify my need to drive which I do, or pay a bill to xcel energy every month. Iknow I must do the best with what I have. So I made a list of actions I could take that would create some sustainability for my family and I.
One of the actions on this list was to have layer hens. We purchased twelve chicks, which my children where madly in love with and they just chirped away so sweetly for a while. I kept them in a very large rubber made bin for about two and a half month. Then they were ready to go out. I was really proud because I was dug a two foot deep trench that was about forty feet long in the snow because I really didn't want any of those sweet little ones to get munched by fox. My partner Riley had helped quite a bit and before long they were ready to be outside. Many months had passed and They began to lay eggs. These days we get about a dozen a day, wow that sure is a lot of eggs, we like to give them away! For some reason one always lays a gigantor of a beast of an egg, need to figure out which one and why??????? A question to be answered soon.
Thanks for reading!

Really cool poem Charlie Chaplin read on his 70th birthday:

2009-11-04T23:18:00.000-08:00

Really cool poem Charlie Chaplin read on his 70th birthday:

As I began to love myself - Charlie Chaplin

As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering
are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth.
Today, I know, this is "AUTHENTICITY".

As I began to love myself I understood how much it can offend somebody
as I try to force my desires on this person,
even though I knew the time was not right and the person was not ready for it,
and even though this person was me.
Today I call it "RESPECT".

As I began to love myself I stopped craving for a different life,
and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow.
Today I call it "Maturity".

As I began to love myself I understood that at any circumstance,
I am in the right place at the right time,
and everything happens at the exactly right moment.
So I could be calm.
Today I call it "SELF-CONFIDENCE".

As I began to love myself I quit steeling my own time,
and I stopped designing huge projects for the future.
Today, I only do what brings me joy and happiness,
things I love to do and that make my heart cheer,
and I do them in my own way and in my own rhythm.
Today I call it "SIMPLICITY".

As I began to love myself I freed myself of anything
that is no good for my health - food, people, things, situations,
and everything the drew me down and away from myself.
At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism.
Today I know it is "LOVE OF ONESELF".

As I began to love myself I quit trying to always be right,
and ever since I was wrong less of the time.
Today I discovered that is "MODESTY".

As I began to love myself I refused to go on living in the past
and worry about the future.
Now, I only live for the moment, where EVERYTHING is happening.
Today I live each day, day by day, and I call it. "FULFILLMENT".

As I began to love myself I recognized that my mind can disturb me
and it can make me sick.
But As I connected it to my heart, my mind became a valuable ally.
Today I call this connection "WISDOM OF THE HEART".

We no longer need to fear arguments,
confrontations or any kind of problems with ourselves or others.
Even stars collide, and out of their crashing new worlds are born.
Today I know THAT IS "LIFE"!

2009-09-25T23:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.savethepoudre.org/

Not in our back yard- Ft. Collins Vs. Powertech

2009-09-25T21:00:00.000-07:00

I contemplated the intentions behind my blogging and though there is an immense amount of gratitude and bliss that I feel from day to day I also find myself feeling angry and passionate. Yes I said those two word in the same sentence. Now it's not the lovers passion that I feel, though that would be nice, it's the passion to express my absolute disdain for greed and ignorance.
For the past nine years I have lived within a peace loving community of Northern Colorado called Ft. Collins. A place were people ride bikes because they should and a place where children live in actual cohesive communities. I mean real communities, strong communities. For the most part, from what my observations have been thus far, People here care about their future and the future of the world in general. Not all people but many. In recent years the community here has been faced with multiple ecological threats and now these threats and rumors are becoming realities and the community is fighting to see these things not only set into remission but dismissed completely on accounts of environmental negligence. Over the past few years we have been fighting to prevent the local river from being dammed as well as fighting to prevent the mining of uranium in a town just eleven miles away. Here are some links that can provide some deeper insight on why we want to save the Poudre and why we don't want powertech's greedy hands devastating our community's health and resources in such ways that it has in the past to other communities. Please read on and feel free to send donations to the following organizations.

http://www.matterdaily.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11:will-nunn-glow&catid=2:science-a-health&Itemid=9

http://www.powertechexposed.com

http://www.savethepoudre.org

Thanks for reading!

COMING SOON

2009-08-31T09:32:00.000-07:00

I am in the process of documenting my very own guide how to create sustainability in an urban setting, or semi urban, Born in Philadelphia we had a yard, we grew some food but never went too big. Now as an adult I have set all intentions forth onto creating a plot of land that I can utilize for growning food. This year I have built a chicken coop that houses 10 hens, (will post pics and coop design soon) Also I have planted a cherry tree and three grapes, Five raspberry bushes and a hill of strawberries. In conjunction to five raised garden beds. I anticipate that in years from now my family will be able to enjoy a wide range of harvested foods right from our yard! People all over the world are doing this very same thing. If we contemplate these practices as a way of acquiring security then we will be quick to realize that this type of security is real security. Though the convenience of acquiring goods from the local market seems to alleviate many stresses from our busy lives, it also places large burdens on the planet. Though the Doritos might taste well the bi product of the consummation of such products are huge and not imperative for our survival, in fact with all the additives in foods such as this, the negative effects stretch beyond burdens on the planet, they effect the human body and mind as well, remember MSG (mono sodium Glutamate is a Nero toxin) I suggest looking into it and maybe even questioning how it effects human behavior and child development!
here are a few interesting articles.

http://www.thenaturalguide.com/synthetic-food-msg.htm
http://befreetech.com/msg.html

Thanks for reading!

A way to feel full of life

2009-08-31T00:56:00.000-07:00

Oh yes and some of this will help along the way!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DBl5gAs6WI

Not Just a Virtual Revolution

2009-08-29T12:55:00.000-07:00

Though thousands upon thousands of people know that there are astronomical problems with in the functional systems of the world, somehow we as a people have lost power over our governments, and have we ever really had power as a people? What seems like a free nation to some seems like a prison to others. We are pigeon holed into a specific way of life and many of us are treading water just to keep from drowning, mean while the tides are rising and just because some of us are floating by on rafts does not mean that our rafts are sturdy enough to withstand the debry which is being left by our political and economic systems. The lack of sustainability which we accept as just being( a part of reality) is simply a design for destruction. These systems have been in place for such a long period of time that many of us have lost touch with the intention behind our political agenda and though we know something is wrong somehow it remains to be that the power to create a healthy world for our children is becoming a daunting and almost impossible task that the man on the hill simply could not care for. How can we regain the power so that the children of tomorrow can live a life of hope, health and peace?