UN World Environment Day June 5th | Ethical Footprint | Ethical vs. Unethical Construction

I hadn’t known, had I not gone on the internet, that the United Nations declared a World Environment Day of June 5th. Fabulous that there is a designated day to be aware of the environment.

On World Environment Day, and every day, we should all be thinking creatively about how to accommodate wildlife in our own lives. Trees, bushes, waterways, clean air and water, highway animal bridges and tunnels, bee highways with plants attracting pollinators, with a consciousness Promoting Smarter Wildlife Management.

World Environment Day June 5th

I’d like to point out what I learned, walking around in neighborhoods that I love, because of their fabulous properties of trees and beautiful adornment of living plants, that naturally attract and welcome living animals.

To me, nothing, nothing is more spectacular than the natural world. And the properties with old money on this hill adjacent to where i live demonstrate their wisdom, in adorning and conserving as much nature as possible. You hear birds, see rabbits and other life hopping about.

This property with the yellow circle around it, is a disgrace. They wiped out thickly forested lot, to build a sprawling mansion, with not one tree left behind. I’d spray paint my feelings, except that it won’t bring the trees or life back that the owners destroyed, in order to build their outrageous sprawl, a desolate prison, with no life to regard.

It is an example of unethical behavior.

An ethical consumer looks for products which are both friendly to the environment and for the people who produce them.

The ecological footprint measures human demand on nature, i.e., the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy.

“An ‘ethical consumer’ looks for products which, above all, are both friendly to the environment and also the people who produce them. An ethical consumer is therefore aware of the consequences of production, consumption and disposal.”

Let the pictures do the talking. I avoid going down this street because i feel annoyance at the nouveau riche lack of heart and insight and sadness, knowing  that all of these lovely trees were wiped out, affecting so many different creatures. An elderly man whom I chatted with one evening 5 months or so ago, told me when I mentioned this reckless building, that the property had several hundred year old trees on it, in fact, from the looks of googlemaps before it was updated, dozens of trees.

I discovered recently with delight this property within a frisbee throw, catecornered across the street. As one approaches from several angles, all you see is a mini forest.

thickly forested green plot, before picture

 

And what they did to the once forested property. This home could have been a third the size, and maintained a profoundly beautiful plot that their children could play in an that invites wonder and habitation by many species.

unethical_building_trees gone

 

 

This builder, knocked down, gutted, every single tree, every single one of them, to make this sprawling property with a tiny bit of lawn and a lot of asphalt to accommodate their cars. It is revolting. And the property across the street with the green ring, as you approach you only see, feel and hear the silence of a forest with birds. It is breathtakingly beautiful. So that the actual construction is engulfed, ringed by trees, except in the front. And the new building in the yellow, is what the builders created, destroying all life that was there, and making sure none of it will come back. They did not even plant bushes – very necessary for cover and a humane yard – and other plants with the intention to accommodate birds and animals – a Humane Backyard.

ethical_vs_unethical_building

All life that had been there or could walk or fly by, has no place to go, no life, no green, no water source, no tree for life, no butterfly or pollinator by-way, nothing. Just me, me, me and my big property that is hollow of life and nature’s delight.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

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Jane Goodall Recycle E Devices | Kate Raworth Economy Design – Thrive not Grow

Jane Goodall presently has a campaign:

The Forest is Calling. Answering the Call is Our Only Hope

Jane Goodall Everything is Connected Everyone Can Make a Difference

It was estimated that up to 50 million tons of electronic waste—mainly computers and smartphones—was dumped in 2017 alone (UNEP).

Jane Goodall The Forest is Calling Answering it is our only Hope

Jane Goodall Recycle unwanted Mobile Devices

Jane Goodall Terribly Important Recycle Old Cell Phones

Kate Raworth has an essential concept to consider in her TEDtalk regarding redesigning our economic strategies, away from the dependency on continued growth, in a world with finite resources and space, to one which nourishes the natural world and recognizes the worth of allowing all life to thrive. – an Economy Designed to Thrive not Grow

Kate Raworth Economy Distributed vs. Centralized

Kate Raworth TED talk
Economy Designed to Thrive not Grow

Kate Raworth Economy Ecological Ceiling Social Foundation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.

Carol sitting under the trees

A letter to my sister | preciousness of life | Carl Sagan: freedom through scientific skepticism | Le Petit Prince

I was looking over my blog stats and saw someone read this, posted several years ago. I decided to post it again, since it’s relevant, from a moral and political standpoint – uh, yes, at one time I believe, the two were part of the same fabric. uh, now wait a minute, maybe morality and political leadership have rarely been paired, and that it is an exception! I mean, as long as royal leaders, and tyrants, and corporations have the reins, morality has little to do with the people who wish to maintain their power, control and profits.

Here’s the letter:
I am certainly happy to hear from you. Naturally I think about you every time that I enter the room to look at the lovely paper lanterns you hung for Mother’s birthday party and the teepee you constructed in the yard – which I‘m still raking! Memories of things people share and artifacts that they leave behind imbue all of these things with the spirit of the person. I am sorry that we had difficulties communicating at times. I have not been ‘above’ reacting emotionally to someone’s emotional reactions towards me. However, that doesn’t mean that I can not attempt to move beyond my reactions to reach out with more compassion and understanding.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of Le Petit Prince
The Little Prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupery was a pilot, and author of the remarkable children’s book, for adults, Le Petit Prince/ The Little Prince. There appear to be exceptions to this formidable quote, if the person happens to be morally repugnant and arrogant!

Le Petit Prince, written by Antoine Saint-Exupery
the Phenomenon

I went out with a family friend last night and afterwards, realized that he knows even more profoundly how precious life is, as he has lost both of his parents. Certainly, if we all had an acute awareness of death (sitting on our shoulders) – Carlos Castaneda style i.e. “the Teachings of Don Juan” – in each response to every moment, we would never be anything but kind to all people and creatures, at all times.

That sounds like a pretty heavy way to live. The context is not, to be continually fearful, but rather, continually present with the fact that every moment of life is precious. People need to accept the rights of others to be and perceive as they will. It is a rather large task, to put differences and competitiveness, jealousy, envy and judgments … aside. Yet it’s the only way for everyone to get along. (I just read in Salon dot com a rather scathing article about the writer Carlos Castaneda, saying that Don Juan was not only an astounding hoax, but that Castaneda went on to form a bizarre cult.) He nevertheless had strong poetic and spiritual points to emphasize in his writings.

It’s pretty much a life-long task, given the fact that all humans have a tendency to subjectively interpret and judge other peoples’ actions. I do it, we all do it, from personal complaints, grievances, expectations, disappointments on up to community and cultural, political and religious differences of interpretation, that result in the worst cases to prolonged wars and strife between ethnic groups and neighboring countries.

This appears to be one of the biggest challenges and aspirations for humankind; to look beyond differences and strive for understanding, compassion and kindness. The ‘tree-hugger/environmental activist side of me’ is kicking out judgements every time I see people’s actions or material opulence (not to mention hearing about plans for more gas drilling in the arctic etc.) which I perceive as offensive. I put them into a box I label offender/perpetrator; a personal judgement which is my own way of playing in the ‘us against them’ scenario. So, I’m as guilty as anyone. The obvious extreme is the fact that people are blowing each other up in the Middle East …. and that wars and conflicts and ominous actions of manipulation continue to proliferate worldwide, despite the fact that most humans have access to rather extraordinary tools.

We are technologically light years ahead of where we are emotionally!

As Carl Sagan mentions in this interview “A Way of Thinking” in which he delivers insights into the dangers in our present culture; based on the fact that we’re a science and technology-based culture, the inner workings of which few comprehend. That puts us in a position in which we are in danger of being more easily manipulated.

Sagan points out that science is a way of skeptically interrogating the universe. And that it’s dramatically important for each of us to ask skeptical questions about everything, particularly to those in authority; otherwise we are up for grabs by the next charlatan, political or religious, that comes along. He mentions that Thomas Jefferson said that people need to be educated in order to practice their skepticism, otherwise ‘we don’t run the government, the government runs us’.

Carol Keiter the blogger

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

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Caught my Eye…One Year Later | While Looking over Blogs

It wasn’t till a year later, glancing over what blogs were viewed, from what countries, making corrections, just looking….that I noticed this image.

I hadn’t noticed my shadow as I took the picture.

Title, because of the love portrayed between myself, the photographer and the tree I stopped to admire.

and really hadn’t noticed till i looked more closely how the bark’s texture and shadows and form of the tree creates quite a real, perfectly angled and proportioned body melding with the tree.

 

Here, I’ll accentuate it a bit.  Kind of magical no?

outlined shadow of blogger, photographer carol Keiter gold

and again

 

 

photoshop outline of shadow merging with contours of tree green

I changed it from this version with the pointier chin.

Outlining using photoshop the image I see through the shadow and tree bark and lines.

 

Kind of ironic, no, that the blog was about Being Intensely Present, and I missed seeing this!

Be Intensely Present

Donations for Carol Keiter’s writing, eBook, music composition and art, gratefully accepted!

The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Carol Keiter contact

blogger, portrait drawer, painter, photographer, musician, composer

What Humans Currently Do | Excerpt from “The Universe Story”

Our Solar System arose 4.5 Billion years ago. The Earth has evolved – through a series of transformations – to even enable life to form.

From the beginning, as our universe continues to evolve in its cosmogenesis, intelligent intent is present – at all levels > towards differentiation, autopoiesis and communion.

NASA image Cygnus Loop Supernova Stellar Explosion 15,000 years ago

 

Excerpts from the authors

Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry of “The Universe Story”

Ecological Buddhism – A Buddhist Response to Global Warming

Presently, the human race enters the The Ecozoic Era.

Brian Swimme is one of the main people with whom to study, to understand the cosmological shift necessary to a new cosmology.

 

 

“As the natural world recedes in its diversity and abundance, so the human finds itself impoverished in its economic resources, its imaginative powers, its human sensitivities and in significant aspects of its intellectual intuitions.”

Davastation of a Rainforest

 

Here’s a link to the footage of Forest Heroes from a drone of the devastation of a rainforest: Astra’s forest destruction in Indonesia.

 

“The pathos is that we are presently deliberately terminating the most awesome splendor that the planet has yet attained. We are extinguishing the rainforests, the most luxuriant life system of the entire planet, at the rate of an acre each second of each day. Each year we are destroying a rainforest area the size of Oklahoma.

Throughout the planet we are not only extinguishing present forms of life, yet also eliminating the very conditions for the renewal of life in some of its more elaborate forms.

We have moved from such evils as suicide, homicide, and genocide, to biocide and geocide, the killing of the life systems of the planet and the severe degradation if not the killing of the planet itself. We have moved from simple physical assault on the planet, to disturbance of the chemical balance of the planet through our petrochemical industries, to questionable manipulation of the genetic constitution of the living being of the planet by our genetic engineering, to the radioactive wasting of the planet through our nuclear industries.”

Bird sanctuary at Gulf Petrochemicals Industries Co.

 

Ironically, this image of a bird sanctuary at Gulf Petrochemicals Industries Co., is courtesy of the president of the Petro company. A public relations blog on how hunky dory everything is, with the company sitting on top of a fragile ecosystem.

 

 

“That human well-being could be achieved by diminishing the well being of the Earth, that a rising Gross Domestic Product could ignore the declining Gross Earth Product, is the basic flaw in the Wonderland Myth.”

momgoesgreen.com:my-thoughts-on-the-gulf-oil-spill

 

 

“These centuries of “progress” are now ending with increasing stress for the human is final evidence that;

what humans do to the outer world they do to their own interior world.

 

! Next Blog ¡ What we humans need to do in our emerging Echoic Era, to allow the paradigm shift in our conscious awareness to emerge.

We are Earth> Occupy the Planet!

A letter to my sister | preciousness of life | Carl Sagan: freedom through scientific skepticism

I was looking over my blog stats and saw someone read this, a very early blog. I decided to post it, since it’s relevant, from a moral and political standpoint – uh, yes, at one time I believe, the two were part of the same fabric. uh, now wait a minute, maybe morality and political leadership, have rarely been paired, and that it is an exception! I mean, as long as royal leaders, and tyrants, and corporations have the reins, morality has not a fucking thing to do with the people who wish to maintain their power, control and profits.

I am certainly happy to hear from you. Naturally I think about you every time that I enter the room to look at the lovely paper lanterns you hung for Mother’s birthday party and the teepee you constructed in the yard – which I‘m still raking! Memories of things people share and artifacts that they leave behind imbue all of these things with the spirit of the person. I am sorry that we had difficulties communicating at times. I have not been ‘above’ reacting emotionally to someone’s emotional reactions towards me. However, that doesn’t mean that I can not attempt to move beyond my reactions to reach out with more compassion and understanding.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery author Le Petit Prince
The Little Prince

I went out with a family friend last night and afterwards, realized that he knows even more profoundly how precious life is, as he has lost both of his parents. Certainly, if we all had an acute awareness of death (sitting on our shoulders) – Carlos Castaneda style i.e. “the Teachings of Don Juan” – in each response to every moment, we would never be anything but kind to all people and creatures, at all times.

That sounds like a pretty heavy way to live. The context is not, to be continually fearful, but rather, continually present with the fact that every moment of life is precious. People need to accept the rights of others to be and perceive as they will. It is a rather large task, to put differences and competitiveness, jealousy, envy and judgments … aside. Yet it’s the only way for everyone to get along. (I just read in Salon dot com a rather scathing article about the writer Carlos Castaneda, saying that Don Juan was not only an astounding hoax, but that Castaneda went on to form a bizarre cult.) He nevertheless had strong poetic and spiritual points to emphasize in his writings.

It’s pretty much a life-long task, given the fact that all humans have a tendency to subjectively interpret and judge other peoples’ actions. I do it, we all do it, from personal complaints, grievances, expectations, disappointments on up to community and cultural, political and religious differences of interpretation, that result in the worst cases to prolonged wars and strife between ethnic groups and neighboring countries.

This appears to be one of the biggest challenges and aspirations for humankind; to look beyond differences and strive for understanding, compassion and kindness. The ‘tree-hugger/environmental activist side of me’ is kicking out judgements every time I see people’s actions or material opulence (not to mention hearing about plans for more gas drilling in the arctic etc.) which I perceive as offensive. I put them into a box I label offender/perpetrator; a personal judgement which is my own way of playing in the ‘us against them’ scenario. So, I’m as guilty as anyone. The obvious extreme is the fact that people are blowing each other up in the Middle East …. and that wars and conflicts and ominous actions of manipulation continue to proliferate worldwide, despite the fact that most humans have access to rather extraordinary tools.

We are technologically light years ahead of where we are emotionally!

As Carl Sagan mentions in this interview “A Way of Thinking” in which he delivers insights into the dangers in our present culture; based on the fact that we’re a science and technology-based culture, the inner workings of which few comprehend. That puts us in a position in which we are in danger of being more easily manipulated.

Sagan points out that science is a way of skeptically interrogating the universe. And that it’s dramatically important for each of us to ask skeptical questions about everything, particularly to those in authority; otherwise we are up for grabs by the next charlatan, political or religious, that comes along. He mentions that Thomas Jefferson said that people need to be educated in order to practice their skepticism, otherwise ‘we don’t run the government, the government runs us’.

Happiness Addendum | Recommended Reading: My Stroke of Insight

I wrote this last blog about happiness on my digesthis site, http://digesthis.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/pursuit-of-happiness-the-happy-movie-my-stroke-of-insight/

http://www.thehappymovie.com/

Now I have more to add about this book which I’m finishing, “My Stroke of Insight“. Jill Bolte Taylor also has a TED talk on the subject.

Nirvana is a mere hemisphere away; from the bustling, critical and judgmental ego centered left hemisphere !-)

I think the book should be required reading; not just for people who may know a stroke victim, but for all hospital staff, interns or any persons entering the medical profession who have contact with patients in general. In fact, it is very insightful for every one of us. The author discusses the ways in which our brains function anatomically, and how this translates to our consciousness and choices about how we perceive and operate in the world.

Rather than copying and pasting what I already wrote in the other blog, I welcome you to read it to get the gist of what the author describes after having witnessed having a stroke, from the point of view of a neuro-anatamist. I’ve taken notes on the book “My Stroke of Insight” and posted some here on the blog, along with the Appendix A & B, which contain important information about how to approach communicating with someone who has had a stroke and assessing to what degree they are able to communicate.

Here is some food for thought!

p 29 Left hemisphere is a serial processor and right hemisphere is a parallel processor

p134 Many speak about how our head (left hemisphere) is telling us something while our heart (right hemisphere) is telling us to do the exact opposite. Some of us distinguish between what we think (left h) and what we feel (right h). Others communicate about our mind consciousness (left h) versus our body’s instinctive consciousness (right h). Some of us talk about our small ego mind (left h) compared with our capital ego mind (right h), or our small self (left h) versus our inner or authentic self (right h). Some delineate between their researcher mind (left h) versus their diplomatic mind (right h). And of course there is our masculine mind (left h) versus our feminine mind (right h), and our yang consciousness (left h) countered by our yin consciousness (right h). And if you are familiar with Carl Jung, there is our sensing mind (left h) versus our intuitive mind (right h), and or judging mind (left h) versus our perceiving mind (right h). Whatever language or terminology you use to describe these two parts, they stem from anatomically two distinct hemispheres inside your head.

p149 Dr. Jerry Joseph “Peacefulness should be the place we begin rather than the place we try to achieve.” “dual interpenetrating awareness”

p150 The more aware you are of how you are influencing the energies around you, the more say you will have (control) in what comes your way. Sure, you can’t control everything that happens to you, but you can control how you choose to think and feel about those things. Even negative events can be perceived as valuable life lessons, and if you step to perceive things from the right hemisphere of your brain, you can choose to evaluate an experience or situation with compassion.

p151 You can become aware of the cognitive loops that are running in your brain, and focus on how these thought patterns are causing you to feel physiologically in your body. Neuronal loops (circuits) of fear, anxiety, or anger can be triggered by all sorts of different stimulation. But once they are triggered, these different emotions produce predictable physiological responses that you can train yourself to consciously observe, and then allow to dissipate in a matter of 90 seconds, that is, if you choose not to feed them!

p146 She defines responsibility (response ability) as the ability to choose how you will respond to simulation coming through your sensory systems at any time. Although there are certain limbic systems (emotional) programs that can be triggered automatically, it takes less than 90 seconds for these surges to arrive and then be flushed out of your bloodstream. If you remain angry….it is because you have chosen to let that circuit continue to run. Moment by moment you make the choice to either hook into your neurocircuitry, or to step back into the present moment with awareness, and allow the reaction to melt away as a fleeting physiology.

p155 Same thing goes with ‘negative’ thought patterns, or positive ones. It is vital to your own health, and to what kinds of vibes you put out to ripple to other people you directly or indirectly come into contact with. You can choose to hold onto joyful, happy, empathetic, playful and loving thought patterns, and send these physiologically through your body and into the electromagnetic field surrounding you to move onto other people.

p148 Feeling deep inner peace and sharing kindness is always a choice, for all of us!
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Recommendations for Recovery: Ten Assessment Questions

1. Have you had my eyes and ears checked to make sure you know what I can see and hear?
2. Can I discriminate color?
3. Do I perceive three dimensions?
4. Do I have any sense of time?
5. Can I identify all of my body parts as mine?
6. Can I discriminate a voice from background noise?
7. Can I access my food? Can my hands open the containers? Do I have the strength and dexterity to feed myself?
8. Am I comfortable? Am I warm enough? Or thirsty? Or in pain?
9. Am I oversensitive to sensory stimulation (light or sound)? If so, bring me earplugs so I can sleep, and sunglasses so I can keep my eyes open.
10. Can I think linearly? Do I know what socks and shoes are? Do I know that my socks go on before my shoes?

40 Things A Stroke Survivor May Need

We would highly recommend Jill Bolte Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight,  the story of the author’s experience with her own stroke and recovery.  We particularly like the appendix section titled “Forty Things I Needed Most.”  In fact, immediately after a parent’s stroke, it may be difficult to find time to read any more than that.  But it is well worth it:  It tells you how you can be most helpful to your parent.  Below are Taylor’s 40 things she needed most.

1. I am not stupid, I am wounded.  Please respect me.
2. Come close, speak slowly, and enunciate clearly.
3. Repeat yourself – assume I know nothing and start from the beginning, over and over.
4. Be as patient with me the twentieth time you teach me something as you were the first.
5. Approach me with an open heart and slow your energy down.  Take your time.
6. Be aware of what your body language and facial expressions are communicating to me.
7. Make eye contact with me.  I am in here – come find me.  Encourage me.
8. Please don’t raise your voice – I’m not deaf, I’m wounded.
9. Touch me appropriately and connect with me.
10. Honor the healing power of sleep.
11. Protect my energy.  No talk radio, TV, or nervous visitors!  Keep visitation brief (five minutes).
12. Stimulate my brain when I have any energy to learn something new, but know that a small amount may wear me out quickly.
13. Use age-appropriate (toddler) educational toys and books to teach me.
14. Introduce me to the world kinesthetically.  Let me feel everything.  (I am an infant again.)
15. Teach me with monkey-see, monkey-do behavior.
16. Trust that I am trying – just not with your skill level or on your schedule.
17. Ask me multiple-choice questions.  Avoid Yes/No questions.
18. Ask me questions with specific answers.  Allow me time to hunt for an answer.
19. Do not assess my cognitive ability by how fast I can think.
20. Handle me gently, as you would handle a newborn.
21. Speak to me directly, not about me to others.
22. Cheer me on.  Expect me to recover completely, even if it takes twenty years!
23. Trust that my brain can always continue to learn.
24. Break all actions down into smaller steps of action.
25. Look for what obstacles prevent me from succeeding on a task.
26. Clarify for me what the next level or step is so I know what I am working toward.
27. Remember that I have to be proficient at one level of function before I can move on to the next level.
28. Celebrate all of my little successes.  They inspire me.
29. Please don’t finish my sentences for me or fill in words I can’t find.  I need to work my brain.
30. If I can’t find an old file, make it a point to create a new one.
31. I may want you to think I understand more than I really do.
32. Focus on what I can do rather than bemoan what I cannot do.
33. Introduce me to my old life.  Don’t assume that because I cannot play like I used to play that I won’t continue to enjoy music or an instrument, etc.
34. Remember that in the absence of some functions, I have gained other abilities.
35. Keep me familiar with my family, friends, and loving support.  Build a collage wall of cards and photos that I can see.  Label them so I can review them.
36. Call in the troops!  Create a healing team for me.  Send word out to everyone so they can send me love.  Keep them abreast of my condition and ask them to do specific things to support me – like visualize me being able to swallow with ease or rocking my body up into a sitting position.
37. Love me for who I am today.  Don’t hold me to being the person I was before.  I have a different brain now.
38. Be protective of me but do not stand in the way of my progress.
39. Show me old video footage of me doing things to remind me about how I spoke, walked, and gestured.
40. Remember that my medications probably make me feel tired, as well as mask my ability to know what it feels like to be me.

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/oprahradio/Jill-Bolte-Taylors-10-Assessment-Questions#ixzz2O6cmYKcf

Time to cut Class | Article UTNE Reader

I like the points