The LivinginPeace Project seeks to bring together the elements of travel, permaculture, art and education into a sustainable business model that is self-sufficient, energy efficient, environmentally responsible and socially empowering.

The project includes a backpackers' hostel (www.rongobackpackers.com), a motel complex (www.karameamotels.com), a gallery (www.globalgypsy.com), a community radio station, permaculture farm and eco-tourism adventures. It is run by a group of dedicated, enthusiastic, positive volunteers from all over the world.   Read more...

Sometimes I don’t listen. I would rather be wandering around the hallways of my mind with my old thoughts than pay attention to what is right in front of me. Old habits never die, they just get older.

That happened yesterday at the office. My thoughts about a certain old topic were coming a bit too fast for my liking so I decided it would be a good time to sit down and ask a few questions of myself and my guides in meditation. Actually I didn’t sit, I lay on the bodywork table. When my breathing and thoughts slowed down I focused on my first question - and promptly fell asleep. Hey, it happens. I figured it was exactly what I needed. I woke up happy and rested right before my client arrived. A successful meditation!   Read more...

Better The World has developed an innovative fundraising platform and suite of tools that give people free and easy ways to raise money for charity while surfing the web. The platform acts as a hub, bringing together companies, charities and people with a shared interest - to make the world a better place.

Surf the Web, Save the World.   Read more...

There is a whole lot of fuss over organic food, and justifiably so, but we hear very little about the details of "organic" or "eco-friendly" textiles. While in India exploring various interests, from jalebi (a far-from-organic-or-healthy sweet treat) to organic farming to Tollywood film (yes Tollywood, not Bollywood), I found myself a guest at a textile company just outside of Ahmedabad.

The city is a textile-producing center of the country famous for its beautiful fabrics, and the industry provides jobs for hundreds of thousands of locals. While these jobs help keep their families fed - though on little more than rice and milk - their employees spend their days soaking their hands, arms, and bodies in chemical dyes or bleach to produce a product that, in turn, poisons everything it touches.   Read more...

I live in a really great community in Guelph, Ontario. Over the last year or so, we've been adapting our community website into a tool that any community can use to get organized. Now we are hoping to find some other communities that can help us test it out. We are planning to offer this as a free tool for any community. It's helped us do some pretty amazing things: organizing parties and movie nights, sharing tools and skills amongst neighbours, and mobilizing community initiatives.

The site is at www.villagetoolbox.com   Read more...

I work for March of Dimes in Portland, Oregon. The non-profit health organization that works to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. Yesterday was our biggest fundraiser of the year, March for Babies.

After walking the route with 5,000 others whose lives have somehow been touched by our mission, many people will stay, have a hot dog and an ice cream bar and enjoy the upbeat music by 5 Guys Named Moe. As the music lightened the steps and hearts of the crowd, there was dancing. I became mesmerized by one particular pair - a father and his young daughter. Held in his arms, this beautiful little girl was twirled and waltzed and gazed at with a love and tenderness one doesn't see just everyday.   Read more...

I recently posed this question on several LinkedIn green groups and was surprised to get so many answers with a wide range of opinions. Most of them advocated systemic expressions of sustainability: green business, policy and regulation, economic incentives, standards, strategic planning and simple common sense. A few mentioned awareness-building: education, marketing campaigns (“green is good”) and mission statements. The rest championed tools like directories, handbooks and websites. One outlier suggested that sometimes the answer is just in a state of mind.

In the spirit of Ken Wilber and the Integral, in one sense they are all right. Just not 100% right, to the exclusion of the others. I found it intriguing that the majority of them oriented towards systems, technologies, and policy and only one touched on the metaphysical. Yet, consciousness of our innermost motivations, values and beliefs is critical to the success of any greening initiative, whether personal or organizational.   Read more...

Recently I had a lengthy discussion with a group of people (strangers) that happened to be waiting with me for a Toastmasters meeting. The topic somehow managed to turn to “superstitions” and I stood there listening contently as it was a somewhat bizarre topic to come up amongst a bunch of strangers.

What I found interesting about these people was the fact that they each gave so much power to superstitions.   Read more...

I’ve just finished reading an insightful TimesOnline article entitled Madonna: Sexual and Proud, in which India Knight comments on the public’s reaction to the controversial celebrity’s recent fling with a man less than half her age.

All I can say is hats off to both the star and the columnist: Madonna for being who she is (and not being afraid to flaunt it), and Knight for getting to the core of what makes some people uncomfortable with “older” women expressing their sexuality (and not being afraid to write about it). The sad truth is that there’s a great deal of discomfort in most cultures with women of any age expressing their sexuality. As Knight observes:   Read more...

We’re happy to announce Ode has been awarded a Maggie, the Western Publishing Association's annual award for excellence in publishing. Ode won in the Politics and Social Issues category, outdoing Mother Jones, Reason and Sierra.

"We’re very proud to receive this Maggie," says Managing Editor Marco Visscher, who attended the ceremony Friday in Los Angeles to receive the award, "especially since we had competition from long-standing, reputable magazines like Mother Jones, in a category that traditionally shows more appreciation for the hard-hitting, bad news. It’s absolutely great to see that our message of hope and optimism is being welcomed in the industry with so much appreciation."   Read more...