The biggest challenges standing in our way to achieving good health are stress, lack of sleep and the biggest of all, diet. Unfortunately, these three obstacles really sum up the average American lifestyle. The good news is through supplementation, we can promote optimum health without completely changing how we live…though eliminating our unhealthy habits is always best.
This guide covers seven key dietary supplements, which we here at Swanson Vitamins have discovered over the last forty years can be beneficial to nearly every body. Read more...
Kim Korona is a graduate of our M.Ed. program at the Institute for Humane Education and a friend and colleague. Kim doesn’t usually like to make waves. She’s so kind and caring and avoids conflict with people assiduously. But she’s also a changemaker and a humane educator. This fall she moved to Brooklyn, New York, to be a humane educator for HEART, offering humane education programs to schools throughout the city. She moved into an apartment that had a host of problems, from smoke and a build up of soot from an improperly functioning boiler, to lack of fire and carbon monoxide alarms. She brought up the problems with her landlord, to no avail. Kim had some concerns about her own health, but when she also began to learn about the problems her neighbors were having, which included severe symptoms ranging from headaches and migraines, to nose burns, excessive coughing, black mucus, and sore throats, Kim took action. She contacted her neighbors, co-wrote a stern but honest petition to the management for them to sign, and launched change. The problems have been fixed. Read more...
American investment in Africa has the potential to provide much-need jobs, access to healthcare, and generally improve standards of living. In fact, American corporations are becoming increasingly interested in investing in Africa, with some regarding it as the last big growth market, but they are often deterred by Africa’s negative image, a new study shows.
US companies in some sectors, particularly technology companies, now regard Africa as “the last frontier for growth”. It has a market of one billion people, mobile telephone networks have been successful, and other countries, particularly China, are increasing their African investment thrust. Accessing that huge market will benefit investors, but also has the potential to improve life for Africans as workers and consumers. Read more...
Bizlightenment is an online business directory with listings of conscious businesses, informational articles provided by experts and other news of interest to consumers who want to work with ethical businesses and professionals.
Businesses and consumers who register on the Bizlightenment site by June 15, 2009 will be entered to win one of 10 Conscious Biz gift baskets, with a combined retail value of $16,000. Read more...
Global Spirit is Link TV’s new series focused on the pan-cultural experience of what it means to be human. The series will examine the relationships between mind and spirit, science and metaphysics, and mental and physical well-being as approached by the world’s ancient wisdom traditions and modern science. Called the first “internal travel” series it intends to give viewers an experience that just might change them.
In this episode of Global Spirit, host Phil Cousineau speaks with BBC filmmaker Alan Ereira about his beautiful, sobering documentary: From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brothers' Warning. This poignant film carries a strong warning from a remote South American tribe that cautions us, the “younger brothers”, to give up our self-destructive ways and honor the planet, before it is too late. Read more...
In the midst of this global economic crisis, there is a movement happening in some of the hardest hit places in America - local communities. This movement is showing that Main Street truly is the way to building a better, more sustainable future. And that’s just what Joe Grafton, founding director of the Somerville Local First has set out to prove. Dedicated to promoting and sustaining local business, Local First organizations across the country are campaigning for a shift in the way we act, in the way we think and most importantly, in the way we spend. That’s what prompted Joe and other local organizers in New England to start the 10% shift campaign and evangelize the true power of local spending. Read more...
Dresses and skirts on the couch, jackets and sweaters on the dining table, pants in the play room, shirts on my son's bed, shoes on the living room floor, bags and purses on the red chair. This is what my house looked like yesterday when my friend Kendra and I hosted our Spring Clothes Swap!
We've been swapping for over ten years now, with one in the Fall and one in the Spring, and at this point my wardrobe is about 75% swap clothes. I had always been a big thrift store advocate, which is where I buy the rest of my clothes, but with swapping not only are the clothes free, it's also an event that fosters community. We sip champagne while trying on each others clothes, everyone in various stages of disrobing. It's like being back in a dorm before a party, but this time we're also doing something to help the environment. Read more...
How many t-shirts in your closet are feeding malnourished children? Probably zero. CommonThreadz.org, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, has set out to change that with the launch of the Orphan Collection, a new series of t-shirts designed by African orphans.
The Orphan Collection t-shirts are all limited editions, printed with eco-friendly water-based inks and are available in women, men and kids sizes. Each t-shirt sold from The Orphan Collection provides the financial support needed to feed an orphan or vulnerable child for one month and provide the child with a new school uniform, school supplies and meals for the school year. Read more...
Just wanted to let you all know about this opportunity.
What: Soliya is recruiting skilled volunteers to facilitate its Connect program for the Fall semester 2009. The Connect program intends to bridge the divide between the "West" and the "Arab & Muslim World” by empowering young adults to play a constructive role in creating a more informed, just and peaceful global society. Through a series of online video conference discussions held between university students from the United States, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, participants will be given the opportunity to collectively address some of the root causes behind the tensions between the "West" and the "Arab and Muslim world." Read more...
There are an endless number of short narrow streets in Tokyo that create a fascinating patchwork quilt of sorts. Whenever I go rollerblading, I love exploring such unknown territory.
Recently, I found myself in an interesting warren of backstreets. In a neighborhood that seemed to have fallen asleep a number of years ago, I came upon a small nursery selling bonsai. The sign out front proclaimed, "open 24 hours a day, seven days a week!" Read more...
More than a few organizations attempt to connect volunteers with ways to pitch in. WiserEarth stands out because it connects users with jobs, events and volunteer opportunities associated with a variety of non-profit organizations. It's a user-edited database where you can find ways to make a difference, make a living and make friends based on your values. So far it has listed over 100,000 organizations.
Currently, WiserEarth also developing an API to help share their database with more organizations and grow their network. They've decided to crowd-source the funding for this project: the individuals and organizations they're helping are invited to pitch in and to show larger investors how valued WiserEarth is. If you'd like to pitch in or learn more, click here. Read more...
COMING AGAIN TO A PAVEMENT NEAR YOU...
CHALK4PEACE is a global chalk art project for peace that will happen again this year on five continents. Over 100,000 young artists of all ages joined us last year; and since 2006, the event has covered more than eighteen football fields' worth of sidewalk. Read more...
Global Spirit is Link TV’s new series focused on the pan-cultural experience of what it means to be human. The series will examine the relationships between mind and spirit, science and metaphysics, and mental and physical well-being as approached by the world’s ancient wisdom traditions and modern science. Called the first “internal travel” series it intends to give viewers an experience that just might change them. Read more...
If I could turn back the clock, I would change my ways. I would recycle, ditch the old car and buy only durable and environmentally-friendly products. If it was only to save my own soul and avoid this unbearable feeling of guilt.
After 60 years, I finally realized that true change comes from the consumer, not the manufacturers. Read more...
You might wonder, how can drinking green tea help you lose weight?
Green tea originates from China and is still widely drunk all over East Asia. In history, green tea has been attributed many positive effects: among others that frequent usage would have a positive effect on the chance of heart diseases, cancer and weight loss. Read more...
People in Need Partnership is a new kind of ‘sponsorship’ program that helps form genuine relationships between people in extreme poverty and others. Modern technology presents us with a lot of missed opportunities. Instead of making the world more fragmented, we can use it to cultivate deeper relationships with more understanding. That is the goal of PINP.
You can form a relationship with a child slave, or a girl or mother from a starving family, for $15 - $25 per month. You will have many opportunities, through messaging, photos and videos and many other ways, to become a real partner and friend, as well as providing crucial assistance. Read more...
I just got back from my second visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - a two-day business trip to help a Riyadh-based consultancy with its communications initiatives. Getting there, being there and even leaving there created a host of mixed feelings, some of which I share in the video clip. Read more...
Hello, my dear wizards of Ode,
I am a first-time writer for Ode, attempting to make a humble contribution to the benefit of the learned readers, writers and lovers of Ode in particular, and the world in general, for all seeking inspiration on how to live life at least one day at a time, if not willing to learn to live one moment at a time. Read more...
When my father succumbed to Parkinson’s at the age of 61, it forever sensitized my brain to all things Parkinson’s. My spirits have been buoyed over the years to learn about advances in science that show great promise for, if not curing the disease, at least improving the quality of life for those suffering from it.
So when a celebrity like Michael J. Fox talks about his experiences living with Parkinson’s, I listen. He was interviewed recently on ABC’s Good Morning America show, highlighting his new book Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist
My World, My Choice! is an educational program that engages students to make sustainable choices. Sustainable individual choice is the atomic linchpin of sustainable living and decision-making. It is the integral core from which stem the well-being of business, society and the environment.
The first step to making sustainable choices is to understand the meaning of sustainability - which is to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Young children, being the future generation, are the ideal recipients of this educational program - for this is the best age in which to sow the seeds of understanding of the sustainability principle. Read more...
Have you ever entered a food service setting and asked for your order “to go?” Most likely you were supplied with a foam, polystyrene container. Perhaps as you loaded your food into the container there was a moment of guilt, as you reflected on the end destination of that container.
Each year millions of hinged lid, disposable containers end up in the landfill. These containers take centuries to decompose. Unfortunately these disposable containers are just part of a much larger problem: a society and economy that is built on consuming and producing waste.
Fortunately there is a solution, at least to the issue of disposable containers. Read more...
A Monday Washington Post article discusses what appears to be a good news front moving in: cases of swine flu are diminishing and several economic indicators are shuffling in the direction of "up." Along with these changes, there's a dramatic shift in optimism, much of it centered around the president.
So has one man really made a difference? In a way, yes. Optimism and confidence are contagious. And once people are confident, they are in a better position to help themselves. Read more...
Ubuntu is an African concept of coexisting with other people, of compassion, of responsibility to other people. Although it's not as widespread in the US, for example, as the Christian concept of charity, it crops up now and again, frequently in interesting places (such as the name for a linux interface). Watching this Global Oneness video is a good way to get a handle on the concept and appreciate this wonderful aspect of African culture. Read more...
When I need to think, I think out loud. Silent reflection is a lonely interior affair, whereas saying one's thoughts audibly splits the self into speaker and listener and turns monologue into dialogue. Nor is any dialogue quite so enjoyable as a dialogue with oneself. Read more...
Living in Japan, I'm amazed by the bonsai displays of local people who keep their collections as a hobby. One of my favorites is a treasure trove of about one hundred chrysanthemums in the yard of an older gentleman. Some of the plants stand close to five feet tall and have one massive bloom each. Other varieties are short and dense and have been shaped to look like colorful clouds.
Out for a stroll one day, I noticed the flowers looking more robust than ever. My neighbor was bent over inspecting the leaves of a large, blooming chrysanthemum, and I finally decided to strike up a conversation. Read more...
When Marc Stephen's wife went into labor suddenly, he simply googled "how to deliver a baby" and found instructional videos on YouTube. He then helped deliver their fourth child, safe and sound. Of delivering a baby for the first time, without doctors, nurses or midwives, he said: "The videos gave me peace of mind. I think I would have coped, but watching videos made things much easier."
The whole episode is a rather stunning example of the incredible ability of humans to cope with emergencies. Admittedly, humans have been giving birth long before modern hospitals or drugs existed, but even so, I'm impressed at the confidence of a man delivering a baby for the first time after watching a few online videos. I'm also impressed at the trust of his wife. Read more...
The evolution and transformation of the universe, what Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry called "Cosmogenesis" in their book relating the story of the universe, proves more compelling than the guesswork that comprises our previous mythos.
That mythos has much to teach us about ourselves, but its lessons only become comprehensible against the backdrop provided by the investigative and historical sciences. Brian Swimme's various DVDs and CDs, especially the "Powers of the Universe" set, found at www.brianswimme.org, intensely and thoughtfully relate what we've learned about whence we came and where we might go together if we wake up to the wonder and the challenges of our steps not only to an ecology of mind but an ecology of mindful coevolution. Read more...
This book is a gem. Whether you’re new to the notion and practices of holistic medicine and body/mind/spirit consciousness, or a forty-year veteran, Jesse Dylan’s new book, The Good Life
What is the connection between an article in Ode magazine and a gala concert at the Victoria Hall in Geneva, Switzerland with an audience of over one thousand five hundred people and more than five hundred and fifty performers on stage?
Inspiration. See what an Ode article can do. Read more...
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...
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