Category: Earth Community

  • Japanese Cooperatives Play Role in Fukushima Cleanup

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    Daniela
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    Reposted from foodtank: Cooperatives are the backbone for Japan’s rural economy through their presence in agriculture, fisheries, and even forestry. From rural to urban, farmer to consumer, and junior to elderly, cooperatives play a critical role throughout the Japanese economy. Since 1900, the Japan Agriculture Cooperative Group has been present in every village and nearly 100 percent…

  • Pesticide Residue Strengthens Case for Organic Farming

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    Daniela
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    My Google Alerts is ablaze with articles about pesticide residue found on organic produce.  Paul Hanley’s level-headed piece in the Star Phoenix explains why this finding “drives home the importance of expanding pesticide-free organic farming practices.” Providing food free from chemical residues is just one goal of organic farming and perhaps not the most important.…

  • Sunday Prayer – Mast Qalandar!

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    Daniela
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    Nicholas Schmidle relates his experience at the annual three-day festival marking the death of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar at Smithsonian.com.  Every year, a few hundred thousand Sufis converge in Seh- wan, a town in Pakistan’s southeastern Sindh province for the festival. In the desert swelter of southern Pakistan, the scent of rose­water mixed with a waft of…

  • In Memoriam: Carter Camp – An American Indian Warrior

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    Daniela
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    Neeta Lind (navajo) posts a beautiful tribute to Carter Camp who walked on the afternoon of Dec. 27, 2013. Much has been written about Carter, but many have not heard of him. He was one of the original organizers of the American Indian Movement, a pan-Indian movement sparked in part by the civil rights movement of African…

  • Amiri Baraka – Another Great Artist Gone

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    Daniela
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    Amiri Baraka, the militant man of letters and tireless agitator whose blues-based, fist-shaking poems, plays and criticism made him a provocative and groundbreaking force in American culture, has died. He was 79. Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note Lately, I’ve become accustomed to the way The ground opens up and envelopes me Each time…

  • Earth Reaches Perihelion on January 4th

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    Daniela
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    On Jan. 4 at 8:00 a.m. EST (12:00 GMT), Earth reached its perihelion for 2014. The perihelion of a planet’s orbit occurs when the planet is at its least distance from its star during a particular orbital cycle. The perihelion date varies between Jan. 1 and Jan. 5, while the aphelion date varies between July 2 and…

  • Live Video Event with Charles Eisenstein: The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible

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    Daniela
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    Wednesday, January 15th, 5pm PST (view other time zones) Can individual acts of courage and kindness change a culture’s guiding narrative of a doomed planetary crisis? Join visionary Charles Eisenstein in a conversation about a radically different understanding of cause and effect, sounding a clarion call to surrender our old worldview of separation, so that we…

  • Photographing Spirituality

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    Daniela
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    James Estrin, co-founder of the The New York Times Lens blog will be exhibiting a collection of his work documenting human spirituality at the 92nd Street Y on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. Michael Winerip, who is familiar with Esterin’s work notes: Having worked many, many 12-hour days with him, I can say firsthand that James Estrin’s photos definitely don’t…

  • Tuarag Festival

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    Daniela
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    The Irish Times Gallery section has a series of arresting photos from the Tuarag Festival held in the Libyan desert in late December.  You can view the whole series here. The Tuareg people are about 2 million nomadic people who live across the Sahara Desert, including in the North African countries of Mali, Niger, Libya,…

  • Earth Friendly Gardens

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    Daniela
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    I stopped by my friends Fred and Deb’s house the other day and noticed they had their seed catalogs out with pages of heirloom plants already bookmarked. As early as it seems, within the next couple of months Fred will have his grow light going and his heat mats out warming spinach, kale and lettuce…