Open day this Saturday at Runnymede Eco-Village.

This Saturday Sept 1st, we’re having an open day with workshops at Runnymede Eco-Village. 

From 2 p.m, there will be a pottery workshop with locally dug and prepared clay. There will also be some traditional structure building.

If you don’t fancy getting your hands dirty you can take a look around the eco-village, sit by the fire and/or have some food and refreshments.

In the evening, weather depending, we’ll be having a fireside music jam, to which everyone is welcome. Please bring an instrument if you can/like.

Korean Honey Tea

Honey is a natural preservative and after awhile the lemons kindof dissolve into the honey to make a fragrant, sweet, marmalade like concoction. 

This would make a really thoughtful dinner party gift. A perfect hot drink during the cold months, and very soothing to a sore throat!

Free From Harm

Free From Harm 

We’re all somewhere on our own path. We all aspire to do the right thing to protect the earth and the animals that inhabit it. Free from Harm is your online hub to empower you with the best information, tools and resources to guide you on that path.

Comfortably Unaware

Author of “Comfortably Unaware: Global Depletion and Food Choice Responsibility,” Dr. Oppenlander is a sustainability and wellness advocate, writer, and speaker committed to improving the health of our planet. 

Through literary work or in person, he brings an eclectic combination of experiences regarding this topic spanning the past 40 years.

Care2 Make a Difference

This site has so much going on, too hard to list all the things they do.  Primarily it's a petition site, but it's so much more.

They have causes, healthy living, news, community and lots and lots of feel good stories.  Please take time to have a look at it.

Loves Food - Tastiest Food on the Web

This fresh-tasting salad is just the kind of lift you need to tickle your taste buds in winter. Remember to wash your hands after chopping the chilli – you’ll soon know about it if you don’t and then absent-mindedly rub your eyes!"

This fresh-tasting salad is just the kind of lift you need to tickle your taste buds in winter. Remember to wash your hands after chopping the chilli – you’ll soon know about it if you don’t and then absent-mindedly rub your eyes!"

This is another fabulous foodie fest, lots of recipes, journals, videos and ideas for meals, all laid out simply with gorgeous photos to make you feel hungry.

I've added this site to my side bar links.

Teach Your Old Brain New Tricks

Self Help for People who wouldn't be caught dead doing Self Help

My mission in one long run on sentence: To offer easy-to-absorb insights and advice to help you bloom into your happiest, most loved, highest potential self – and have fun in the process – because I use playful analogies, feisty humor, and stylish graphics to distill big ideas (from the latest scientific studies to ancient wisdom) into short, easily-digestible, life-changing tips.

Basically, because my books and programs are created to be fun, you’ll absorb methodologies for creating a happier more successful life with total ease – including ideas from: Aristotle, Martin Seligman, Viktor Frankl, Bertrand Russel, Jung, Freud, biology, Buddhism, cognitive therapy, Darwinism, Neuro Linquistic Programming, neuroscience, positive psychology, sociology, quantum physics, western philosophy, Zen of Bazooka Joe – and then some.

Although it's a shop, it looks fun, fresh and interesting, worth a look.

Homesteading / Survivalism

The largest homestead, survival, and self-reliance page on Facebook.   Another great page, so much information for living a more healthy life.

Depression: "I’ve never seen you without a smile on your face"

I have experienced problems with my mental health, on and off, since early childhood. However, it is only recently that I have felt truly able to discuss these experiences with those closest to me.

In the past, others’ perceptions of me as happy-go-lucky and my own misconceptions about mental illness made me feel uncomfortable about opening up to people.

Somewhere between the ages of 5-10 years old, after a series of stressful events, I started to struggle with anxiety and depression. Convinced I was suffering from an incurable illness, I would spend hours reading the family medical dictionary.

I developed a fear of vomiting which escalated and started to take over my life. As darkness fell in the evenings, my fear would increase. I was unable to sleep properly, scared of being alone with my thoughts.

One persons account of their struggle with coming to terms with and explaining their mental health issues to a largely unaccepting world.  You're not blamed for physical illness, why are you for mental illness?

Organic Gardening

This is a great facebook page, for the discussion of organic gardening, tips, and techniques.

10 Health Benefits of Ginger

1. Ovarian cancer treatment
2. Colon cancer prevention
3. Morning sickness relief

4. Motion sickness remedy
5. Reduces pain and inflammation
6. Heartburn relief
7. Prevention of diabetic nephropathy
8. Migraine relief
9. Menstrual cramp relief
10. Cold and flu prevention

10 Rapidly Vanishing Environmental Wonders

Patagonia

Glaciers, forests, islands, species, and entire ecosystems are disappearing in front of our eyes. The worst part about it is that many climate change deniers view the Earth as some all-powerful entity that will self-correct if we do too much damage.

But in reality, if we continue to alter the planet’s atmosphere and ecosystems at such a rapid rate, the human species could ultimately render planet Earth uninhabitable. It will become just another one of the countless barren planets floating through the universe. Fortunately, this has not happened yet. 

ByzantineFlowers ~ Health & Wellness, Natural & Herbal Remedies, Whole Foods, Diet, Recipes, Home & Garden...

The Organic Farm Revolution – Supporting Your “Inner Farmer”

No matter where you live, what type of lifestyle or budget, we can find better ways of eating foods that would benefit our health & family. Don’t have a backyard to garden, a balcony or deck? There are a number of possibilities in which we can be proactive in fighting the unknown food sources you get from the mega supermarkets.

Big Pharma

Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs.

20 Simple Strategies for Getting Healthy

From Zen Habits written by Leo Babauta.

Thich Nhat Hanh Dharma Talks

Thich Nhat Hanh Dharma Talks

Quotes from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

5 Simple Veggie Dinner Ideas

Here are five veggie dinner ideas for during the week from Sweet on Veg.

Guacamole Portobello Mushroom.

For the other meals and recipes, see the link above.

"Visually & Respectfully Yours" / Tibetan Buddhism

Seven toxic foods, drinks, and additives to cut out of your diet for good

With so much conflicting information out there about which foods are healthy and which foods are not, it can be difficult for many people to determine how best to approach a healthy lifestyle that includes eating well. 

But a good place to start is to avoid these seven toxic foods, beverages, and additives that are quite common in the American diet.

Diet sodas and beverages sweetened with artificial chemicals High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), the silent killer. Most vegetable oils, including hydrogenated and 'trans' fat varieties. 

etc

Alzheimer's is really just 'type-3' diabetes, new research shows

Emerging research on the widespread degenerative brain disease known as Alzheimer's suggests that this prevalent form of dementia is actually a type of diabetes. 

Published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, a recent study out of Rhode Island Hospital (RIH) confirms that Alzheimer's is marked by brain insulin resistance and corresponding inflammation, a condition that some researchers are now referring to as type-3 diabetes.

Eating more healthy saturated fats like coconut oil can help prevent, cure Alzheimer's Since many elderly individuals that have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's take statin drugs to lower their cholesterol levels, the first logical step would be to stop taking these drugs.

Not only have statins been shown to cause and exacerbate Alzheimer's, they have also been shown to cause diabetes. So taking them, as many elderly dementia patients do, runs contrary to common sense, and will only make the problem worse.

Ecovillage Impressions

GEN offers inspiring examples of how people and communities can live healthy, cooperative, genuinely happy and meaningful lifestyles --- beacons of hope that help in the transition to a more sustainable future on Earth. We foster a culture of mutual respect, sharing, inclusiveness, positive intent, and fair energy exchange.

GEN-International works trough three broad regional organisations: GEN Oceania and Asia (GENOA), the Ecovillage Network of the Americas (ENA), and GEN-Europe/Africa/Middle East. GEN-International is currently supporting the emergence of GEN-Africa and CASA (El Consejo de Asentamientos Sustentables de las Américas) as independent networks in order to make more visible the dynamic and impressive work already being done in Africa and South America.

Welcome to the Intentional Communities website – your source for community information

Intentional Community is an inclusive term for ecovillages, cohousing communities, residential land trusts, communes, student co-ops, urban housing cooperatives, intentional living, alternative communities, cooperative living, and other projects where people strive together with a common vision.

This web site serves the growing communities' movement, providing resources for starting a community, finding a community home, living in community, and creating more community in your life.

Twin Oaks Communities Conference 2012 - Labor Day weekend (Aug. 31 - Sept. 3)

Living for free: a community thriving by recycling other people's waste

'Recycling' has become something of an empty phrase these days, with much of what we discard being 'down-cycled' rather than properly re-used or re-purposed.

So it's very refreshing to hear about a community that not only meets its own needs through recycling, but even gives away surplus from their activities to the surrounding community...

 Our recent trip to the Plukrijp community made a strong impression on us. Situated in Schriek, Belgium, this small farm has developed into a thriving community hub over the last few years and offers solutions in various aspects of Permaculture design. Most notable, however, is the way this community lives at virtually no cost. Around 4000 people pass through here a year in addition to a 15 strong community, and the running costs have been reduced to gas for cooking and water rates!

Permaculture livestock

The chickens and geese are kept in netted pens joined by hundreds of meters of netted tunnels that run the entire perimeter of the fields. Frank has designed this in to ensure weeds do not encroach from the neighboring land and has overplanted the tunnels with Jerusalem artichoke, berries and other fodder, creating a multifunctional system producing fodder and yielding crops whilst keeping edges of the field clean and allowing the birds much greater freedom. Good design!

On vast racking around the freezers there is 200l of olive oil (a year out of date), jars of pickles and preserves made from the farms crops, as well as all manner of organic wholefoods, the oldest of which are 20 years out of date! And yet still safely consumed by the Plukrijp inhabitants.

We leave amazed at the potential to engage with surrounding communities in this multifunctional and beneficial way. This is certainly the most organized and shining example of valuing the marginal in this regard I have heard about or experienced, and I depart grateful for the possibilities Plukrijp represents.

om mani padme hum

Drummondville couple fights to keep vegetable garden

New bylaw will ban front lawn vegetable gardens.

A couple is fighting to keep a vegetable garden they grow on their property in Drummondville, 100 kilometres northeast of Montreal.

This spring, Michel Beauchamp and his wife, Josée Landry, planted an elaborate vegetable garden on the front lawn of their Richelieu Street home.

They used to have flowers growing, but Beauchamp has high blood pressure and wanted to eat healthier. So they planted cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchinis, beets, onions, and brussels sprouts, among other vegetables.



Landry said the garden has had a big impact on her and her husband's health. "Michel lost 75 lb since March, I lost 25 lb," she said.


But the couple will face fines if they don't rip up part of their garden in the next five days.


The couple said they will not give up without a fight. "It must be a right to be able to grow our vegetables on our land. It is nonsense to ban it," said Beauchamp.

A spokesperson for the city said neighbours have complained about the garden.

Beauchamp said no one has complained to him. He said he shares his fresh produce with his neighbours.
"They love it. Everybody is surprised by the kind of taste we can have from fresh vegetables," he said.


This fall the city plans to make it illegal to grow vegetables on front lawns anywhere in the city.

That makes perfect sense!!  People want to grow fresh food, what a stupid idea, when they go to the shops and by Monsanto GM crap.  I despair at the lunacy in the world!!

Quote

“We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heroes or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are.Letting our past decide our future.

Or we can decide for ourselves. And maybe it’s our job to invent something better.”

Chuck Palahniuk

Tattoo

I also got a tattoo this year, something I've always thought I'd like but way to scared of the imagined pain.  Anyway, my daughter booked me in with her tattooist, Steve A, for an after work consultation.  They were so good making special arrangements for me, working after hours and sitting with me till the end.  Thanks so much!

I wanted a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist.

The words meant a lot to me, they were a sort of mantra for getting out of the house and now I can see them all the time, and hold on to my them on my wrist for support.

Steve was patience itself, and really kind and very talented.  He wrote out the words I wanted in the design I had in mind and it came out better than I ever imagined.  It wasn't painful and I didn't get any after effects.

My fabulous tattooist Steve A.



I had to go into town for this, my son took me, and drove me home after, and my daughter sat with me, but the feeling of being trapped, which is what most agoraphobics get, was what I was most frightened of, but that didn't happen and when I got home I felt invincible!! and ready for anything.

Thanks to everyone for that great day.

Visits

I visited my son and his girlfriend and their baby son, I went to see all my childrens homes, great excitement and happiness being able to go and visit.

I don't drive any more so the visits weren't long, as I had to get there and back with my counsellor, but at least I made it out and I'm so glad now that I did as my eldest daughter and son have now moved away from the area and are much harder to visit.

I will write about the moves in another post.

Right, enough of that negative shit!

What have I done in this 60th year of mine?

Well, for one I achieved my goal of getting out of the house, and more than that, I got to see my youngest daughter walk across the stage to receive her MA!  I didn't get to see her degree ceremony so this was a huge deal for me.

It was just the best feeling, to see her face happy that I had made it and could share in her success.

There was not a prouder person in that huge room than me, knowing what hurdles she had to surmount to get there, how much she fought her demons, threw off the chains of her past and proudly walked the walk across that stage, words cannot say how proud I am of her.

I wrote about at the time here


But I think it needs saying again in this my 60th year.

More to come!

Surrounded

While I slept, and after answering the questions put to me in the night by the plain clothes plods, things were happening at home.

My parents were contacted, don't ask me how the police knew, I guess I may have told them, but don't know.  They had to go to my house but stay back till told what to do.  Omg, the worst thing was my parents getting in on all this!!

They arrived to find the whole house surrounded by cops, some armed I think they said.  My kids were inside with Mike, this is the worst of it, my kids getting caught up in all this shit.  The police gained entry, some going over the wall at the back to stop Mike escaping, some going in the front door.  He was standing by the sink in the kitchen, they rushed and grabbed him, handcuffing him and dragging him out.  As any self respecting alcoholic would, he made a grab for his coat pocket on the way out in the vain hope of catching hold of the last of his cheap British sherry.  He failed.  They took him in to the cells and he was the knob head kicking his door and keeping me awake!

Back at the house, we'd been having wiring done, so some of the kitchen floor boards were up, there were bills heaped up on the side, the police searched everywhere.  They eventually left.

Can't say how hard that was to write, knowing what my kids went through, not just then but every other sodding drunken night!  If anyone reads this and has problems with drink, please get help, try to stop, don't wait till you've ruined and wasted lives.

Right, back at the cop shop, morning has come and I'm in the interview room.

Questioning: Have you got money problems, how bad are they?  Showed me the notes about guns and bank vaults, asking me why I had them and had I been to the vault, did I have a gun?  Why were there newspapers in my car and old overalls?  All very innocent answers but you try telling them that!!

Mike had the same questions but of course he had form so they were less believing of him.  In  the end their enquiries led nowhere and they had to believe us and let us go.

They were actually not bad, and said we had a great family and to get the drink sorted out.  I so wished we had.  We walked out free, but dirty and grimy and hung over.  We put off having a drink till later, we had to face the kids, that was worse than the police any day.

Today, I'm sober, so is Mike.

Maybe next time I'll tell of my Shirley Valentine trip.  You try going to Greece with no passport and no money and stupidly drunk'