Hypnagogia + Fire the Grid : : Be Present

Image via Astronomy pic of the day: Few auroras show this level of detail. Above, a standard digital camera captured a particularly active and colorful auroral corona that occurred last week above Alberta, Canada. With a shape reminiscent of a flower, the spectacular aurora had an unusually high degree of detail. The vivid green and purple auroral colors are caused by high atmospheric oxygen and hydrogen reacting to a burst of incoming electrons. Many photogenic auroras have been triggered from a solar wind stream that recently passed the Earth. The auroras were unexpected because the initiating Sun has been unusually quiet of late.

Aquarids: The Aquarid meteor shower is expected to peak tonight, the Moon's brightness may interfere with observation.

via wikipedia:
Hypnagogia (Greek ὕπνος, húpnos "sleep" + the root found in ἄγω, ágō "to lead away, conduct, convey", ἀγωγεύς, agōgeús "conveyor", ἀγωγή, agōgḗ "abduction, transport, leading away" etc.), often misspelled hypnogaia or hypnogogia, is a term coined by Alfred Maury for the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep.

Seasonal Eating: Organic Blackberries
This week is the peak of blackberry season in our region. Don't miss out on sweet, juicy, luscious organic black berries bursting with ripeness!

"Let the beauty you seek be what you do." -Rumi

Fire the Grid: Tonight at 6:19 pm EST. I've posted a short summary paragraph from the website below, but for more detailed information just click on the "Fire the Grid" link.

To summarize, what we will do on July 28, 2009 at 19:19 Rio di Janeiro time — 18:19 (6:19 PM) in your time zone — is unite as one, sharing our purest intention to create a new world. As each of us as individuals see the earth in its true potential, collectively we will begin to create a world with untold possibilities. Hold that intention for an hour. During that time, the energy stored in the crystal beds under Brazil will be released and we will allow that energy to pass through us on its way back to Source.

The energy of Fire the Grid is ready to go back home. Please join us on July 28, 2009 at 19:19 Rio di Janeiro time — 18:19 (6:19 PM) in your time zone — for Fire the Grid II as we choose consciously to be present and accountable in the energetic creation of a new world.

Tofu Loves You!

Kuroshio Sea

Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.

Go Slow. Life in Progress.

via Gaia's weekly email:

Most people believe only in degrees of jeopardy and live in degrees of greater and lesser anxiety, but never in true relaxation. The assurance of safety is a vital and wonderful resource that we need to share with one another.
- Paul Richards -

The ability to relax is one of the most important capacities any of us of can develop. It's impossible to really connect with anyone when you're in a state of stress; indeed, when you're stressed, it's impossible to be truly tuned into the deeper messages of your own heart and spirit and soul. Relaxation—true relaxation—is absolutely essential to authenticity, and to really being yourself.

Sometimes I get a little sorrowful thinking about this, because these days it seems there are fewer and fewer people who are capable of really relaxing. And sometimes it feels like the world we live in is dead-set on training us to do anything but relax—just look at the news, and at the values pushed in schools and universities and work environments. Relaxation is not something we speak much about, either—we talk about how stressed we are, and how busy, but rarely about what we're doing to relax. And so we contribute neither to relaxation in our own lives, nor in the lives of those around us.

things on my mind after working at pure prana tonight... natural medicines...being a locovore...the power of positive thinking...
"Theres something slippery about summer, and that's the beauty of it, a season so brilliant, sensual and bold, that it eludes your efforts to contain it and instead it wraps you in abundances, swaths of sunlight, and long lazy hours...none of which is really even yours to keep. Therein lies the lesson."
May all beings everywhere attain happiness and freedom.


Practice letting life spin around you in bright concentric circles, filling you with light.

Lumenhaus

LUMENHAUS is Virginia Tech’s 2009 entry to the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition. www.lumenhaus.com for more info!

89.3 Jazz & Justice

Pick up these natural air allies from your local nursery: philodendrons, spider plants, and ivy.

They are just a few of the green friends that can help scrub harmful compounds from household air. Just one plant per 100 square feet of living space will help absorb volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Also,
RealAge Benefit: Having a good social support system of family and friends can make your RealAge up to 3.5 years younger.

via RealAge.com

Heard this song on the best radio station in DC, 89.3 Jazz & Justice, last night. Summer in the City by Regina Spektor. <3 Check out her myspace page http://www.myspace.com/reginaspektor

I also really love their hip hop show at 10pm weeknights. Click here for the full list of programming/DJs. Another one of my favorite shows is the Sunday night "Sounds of Brasil." :)

More or Less at the Hexagon in Bmore tonight.

Word of the Day:

dulcet \DUHL-sit\, adjective:

1. Pleasing to the ear; melodious; harmonious.
2. Generally pleasing, soothing, or agreeable.
3. (Archaic) Sweet to the taste.

Quote of the Day:
Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup, but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping; For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together; For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow. -Khalil Gibran

Alive

I love Masuda's Radiance Yoga emails. Here's a list of 20 ways to celebrate life. I want to make my own list when I have more time too :)

20 WAYS TO CELEBRATE LIFE

1. Laugh.

2. Eat ice cream.

3. Run on the beach.

4. Call someone who is ill or lonely. Listen to their story.

5. Listen to music that touches your heart.

6. Sing in the shower.

7. Visit the grave of a loved one and celebrate your breath.

8. Play with a dog.

9. Thank yourself for putting up with all the things about yourself that drive you nuts.

10. Apologize to someone you have wronged in any way.

11. Take a day, or even a few hours off to do something you always wanted to do.

12. Eat something you never indulge in and savor every bite. No guilt permitted.

13. Re-watch your favorite funny or happy movie in your most comfortable clothes.

14. Make plans with 2 friends that you are crazy about but never see.

15. Go outdoors, sit in a quite place and listen to the world.

16. Smile

17. Place this list in an envelope and visit it periodically to see how you are celebrating.

18. Connect with your heart.

19. Follow the path that matters.

20. Believe and feel that change you want to see.

Something I read in the BC water news today:
Twenty years ago, a photographer shot the then-little known, ghost-white lilies that bloom mid-river on the rocky shoals of the Cahaba. Something about those pictures of the fragile flowers helped change perceptions of the river and stimulate a drive to protect it.

This idea made me think about the oneness of the universe and the connectedness of it all. By doing something you love, like this photographer, who knows what positive effects will come of it to the world and all of humanity.

Woke up this morning
The white light of Father Sun
Tickling the olive tree outside
Its golden essence dancing across my walls
The birds, too, are enlivened
By the dawning of the uplifting solar song
A Lovely One begins to
Chant dulcet tunes
Not an arm's reach away
As I slumber beneath downy duvet
A window pane our only separation
She serenades me awake
"Wake up, Wake up"
She sings -- the way only She can

Green Power for a Sustainable Future

via the Carbon Solutions Group, a short article on Renewable Energy Credits

Karma Kitchen

Such a cool idea! I visited the Karma Kitchen last time I was in Berkeley, and now there's one in DC! The Karma Kitchen is open on Sundays for lunch in Dupont, it's volunteer run, and there are no prices, so you pay what you can for the meal.
Karma Kitchen is held at Polo India Club, 1736 Connecticut Ave., NW; 202-483-8705. Open for lunch Sundays noon to 3.

Namaste

Aphelion: On July 3 at 9:00 pm EST, Earth reaches its most distant orbital point from the Sun for this year: 94.5 million miles (152.1 million km). Earth is 3.1 million miles (5 million km) farther from the Sun at aphelion than when it is at its closest point (perihelion), in January.

The Ancient Code (click to watch the trailer) a movie that was just released about 2012, also references sacred geometry. Here's a quote from the movie:
On a misty morning take a walk outside and into nature. You will have revealed to you a clue to the code of the ancients, for you will suddenly find millions upon millions of beautiful mathematical structures that you did not see before. Your eyes have been opened.

How to Start on the Path:
Don't be overwhelmed by the number of teachers and teachings. Just start by doing a little bit of something, even five minutes of meditation, but do it every day.... Once you put one foot in front of another, the dharma path has a way of leading you where you need to go.

Dean Sluyter, Cinema Nirvana

Open yourself to yourself:

When you don't punish or condemn yourself, when you relax more and appreciate your body and mind, you begin to contact the fundamental notion of basic goodness in yourself. So it is extremely important to be willing to open yourself to yourself. Developing tenderness toward yourself allows you to see both your problems and your potential accurately. You don't feel that you have to ignore your problems or exaggerate your potential. That kind of gentleness toward yourself and appreciation of yourself is very necessary. It provides the ground for helping yourself and others.

Chögyam Trungpa, The Sanity We Are Born With

R.I.P. Michael Jackson

Passing on Ego

Just as energy can be used for many different purposes, so can pure existence be experienced in relation to any phase of life—anger, hatred, or jealousy as well as love and beauty. Every human action must be carried on through the ego, which plays a role comparable to that of a pipe or channel through which energy is conducted for different uses. We usually think of the ego as a kind of constant, unchanging entity. In fact, however, it is simply a succession of physical and mental events or pressures that appear momentarily and as quickly pass away.

–Katsuki Sekida, from A Guide to Zen (New World Library)

via tricycle's daily dharma

One of my favorite sounds in the world, the sough of rain on a bedroom roof while curled up reading a good book :)

sough \SAU; SUHF\, intransitive verb:

1. To make a soft, low sighing or rustling sound, as the wind.
2. A soft, low rustling or sighing sound.

At a recent visit to Marsha's grave in Rathdrum, as the wind soughed through the towering pines nearby, Marsha's brother Pat left a silk bluebird by her headstone to honor her love of the outdoors.
-- David Whitman, "Fields of Fire", U.S. News & World Report, September 3, 2001

In the dark of winter, tin roofs sough with rain.
-- Les A. Murray, "Driving Through Sawmill Towns"

This voice she hears in the fields, in the sough of the wind among the trees, when measured and distant sounds fall upon her ears.
-- Ernest Renan, The Poetry of the Celtic Races

A few low impact development (LID) techniques applied in New England

(Boston, Mass. – June 9, 2009) – A series of low-impact development or green infrastructure projects are demonstrating techniques that show promise of improving water quality and stream flow in the Ipswich River Watershed.

Today, local communities and state and federal officials toured four of the innovative low-impact development techniques. Several examples of low impact development and green infrastructure projects funded by EPA in the Ipswich River Watershed include:

- A vegetated or “green” roof, atop a refurbished building that provides affordable apartments for seniors, in Ipswich at Whipple Riverview Place. The green roof is absorbing and retaining rainwater, helping to reduce erosion and pollutants from entering the river.

- At Partridgeberry Place in Ipswich, a 20-lot subdivision is designed as a low-impact development by preserving open space, with the 20 homes clustered on ten acres and leaving 38 acres of undisturbed land. The development also uses narrower roads, “rain gardens” and specially designed grass swales. These features help absorb more of the rainfall that falls on the ground, filtering out pollutants from the paved surfaces and replenishing underground aquifers that flow to the Ipswich River.

- In a neighborhood next to Silver Lake in Wilmington, rain gardens and special permeable paving stones with underlying infiltration beds were installed along the road edge, in the public right-of-way. These colorful pocket gardens and permeable areas hold stormwater and let it soak into the ground, recharging the water tables, rather than running directly into the lake.

- At the Silver Lake town beach parking lot, a variety of low-impact development features help prevent polluted stormwater from reaching the lake. These include four types of permeable paving that allow stormwater to filter through the pavement instead of flowing across it; “bioretention” cells – planted areas that filter stormwater through soils and plantings – and two vegetated swales that replace piped outfalls that previously dumped untreated stormwater directly into the lake.

Choice

It is all about the very distinct choices
that we are making as individuals.

And that is the choice to be FREE of emotional baggage.

It's a choice to finally let go of the fear, the pain, the
frustration, the anger, and to be a shining light for those
around you.

Because it IS a choice. You can CHOOSE to live differently. You
can choose to forgive.

To Grow. To Love. To Expand into the greatness of who you are.

New report details effects of climate change on U.S. health, economy

		Click here for the Executive Summary Click here for the Full Report [13 MB] Here's what others are saying: Climate change: From bad to worse U.S. study projects how 'unequivocal warming' will change Americans' lives From sewage to salmon, climate change hitting here and now

“Observations show that warming of the climate is unequivocal,” the executive summary from the U.S. Global Change Research Program report begins. The 196-page study, released Tuesday by the White House, offers one of the most comprehensive analyses of the effects of climate change and its effects on the health and economy of the United States.

“I really believe this report is a game-changer,” Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said. One of the scientists from 13 federal agencies that collaborated on the report offered this chilling prospect: “The world is in for some very serious problems.”

The report synthesizes information from a wide variety of scientific assessments and recently published research to summarize what is known about the observed and projected consequences of climate change on the United States. It combines analysis of impacts on various sectors such as energy, water and transportation at the national level with an assessment of key impacts on specific regions of the country.

Key findings from the report include:

• Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.
• Climate changes are under way in the United States and are projected to grow.
• Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase.
• Climate change will stress water resources.
• Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged.
• Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge.
• Risks to human health will increase.
• Climate change will interact with many social and environmental stresses.
• Thresholds will be crossed, leading to large changes in climate and ecosystems.
• Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is one step, certainly, but the report emphasizes that it’s not the only solution. We must learn to adapt.

“It's not a document for scientists. It's not even a document for policymakers,” said Katharine Hayhoe, a geosciences professor at Texas Tech University and one of the report’s co-authors told The Daily Climate. “It's a document for every individual citizen who wants to know why they should care about climate change.”

Read it and decide for yourself.

via Brown and Caldwell's Water News

This link was forwarded to me again today. Its been over a year since I first watched it, so I may refresh my memory: the Story of Stuff