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Why the Sky is Blue

I don't suppose you happen to know
Why the sky is blue? It's because the snow
Takes out the white. That leaves it clean
For the trees and grass to take out the green.
Then pears and bananas start to mellow,
And bit by bit they take out the yellow.
The sunsets, of course, take out the red
And pour it into the ocean bed
Or behind the mountains in the west.
You take all that out and the rest
Couldn't be anything else but blue.
Look for yourself. You can see it's true.

-- by John Ciardi, from Physics Humor

Though this theory may be regarded by some as being "out there" on the fringe and a holdover from the 60s, some scientists do believe that the Earth is a living organism. They believe that water, air, earth, plants, animals, and even the human population are all parts comprising one living being. This scientific theory gives even more credibility to Paganism's view of "Mother Earth." From About.com's Pagan/Wiccan guide.

On Isolating Ourselves from Nature

"Oh what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was made a personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and equinox.

This is what is the matter with us, we are bleeding at the roots, because we are cut off from the earth and sun and stars, and love is a grinning mockery, because, poor blossom, we plucked it from its stem on the tree of life, and expected it to keep on blooming in our civilized vase on the table." ~ D H Lawrence

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Simple Living

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow of life...." ~ Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau was a great influence on me when I was a teen, when a substitute English teacher recognized my interests and gave me "Concord Rebel", a book about Thoreau by August Derleth. Thoreau had many social problems because of his views, and he was never able to be happily married despite his desire to. Living simply isn't a way to gain status in our society, but it is necessary in order to grow spiritually and to gain some peace of mind.

This site has some interesting reading on simple living that you may benefit from if you are trying to shed excess baggage in your life.

Simplicity

  1. Value simplicity highly. 
  2.  Strive for it. 
  3.  Understanding begets simplicity. 
  4.  Explore alternatives and possibilities.
  5. Challenge and discard vestiges.
  6. Always be ready to start over.
  7. Think conceptually.
  8. Break things into pieces.
  9. Trade off other values for simplicity.
  10. Know who you're making it simple for.

-- by Edward De Bono as published in Rondout

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Elder's Meditation of the Day

"The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power...The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing..." ~ Luther Standing Bear, OGLALA SIOUX

Have you ever noticed the relationship between children and the soil? Watch how happily they are touching the dirt. The children play in it and eat it. If you are stressed, go to a spot on the Earth, sit down, put your fingers in the dirt, dig in it. Wash your hands in the soil. When you touch it, notice what it does to your hands. Our bodies love to touch the Earth. Sometimes we get too busy and forget these simple things.

Maybe you'll even want to plant a garden or flowers. These things are
mentally healthy.

Great Spirit, today, let me touch the Earth so the Earth can touch me. -- WhiteBison.org

 
Government Climate-Change Research Plan is Good Start, But Major Improvements Needed to Meet Nation's Needs
 
A report by the US National Academy of Sciences on climate change suggests that catastrophe could be imminent. It is possible that the global warming trend projected over the course of the next 100 years could all of a sudden and without warning dramatically accelerate.

Thou shalt not hold thyself above other living things nor drive them to extinction. -- GrannyMoon's Daily Feast

"Nature is the diamond ring we all wear." ~ shining star

"Listen to all the teachers in the woods. Watch the trees, the animals and all living things - you'll learn more from them than from books." ~ Joe Coyhis, Stockbridge-Munsee

"We're sitting on our blessed Mother Earth from which we get our strength and determination, love and humility-all the beautiful attributes that we've been given. so turn to one another; love one another; respect one another; respect Mother Earth; respect the waters-because that's life itself!"  -- Phil Lane, Sr. Yankton Sioux 

Source: 2003 White Bison, Inc.

Dung Protects Japanese Deer, Indian Antelopes

August 20, 2003 -- It's a plan that stinks, but it's getting an airing across Asia. At an Indian air force base in northern India, officers hope judicious placement of tiger dung will scare away large Indian antelopes, known as nilgais, and prevent them from straying on to their runway and into residential areas.

The number of antelopes around the sprawling Bakshi-ka-Talab base, on the outskirts of the northern city of Lucknow, is on the rise and authorities believe the tiger droppings will be a powerful deterrent to those wanting to enter the premises.

Several thousand miles to the east, railway officials in the largely rural prefecture of Wakayama in western Japan racked their brains for months for a way to keep wild deer from running onto train tracks and getting killed. They settled on lion dung, to be spread near the tracks.

Local zoos provided the goods. Officials at the local branch of West Japan Railway Co got the material they needed from a local amusement park.

"I forget how much, but it was a whole lot. I think about 100 kg (220 lb)," Takao Maeda of JR West in Shingu, some 450 km (280 miles) west of Tokyo, said on Wednesday. "They sort of mixed it with water and then spread it along the tracks."

At Lucknow, an officer at the air base said tiger dung was scattered around the base for the first time on Tuesday. He said killing antelopes was not an option because they are considered endangered in India, and because villagers in the area believe the nilgai is related to the cow, which is worshipped by the majority Hindu community.

The strategy appears to have worked, at least in Japan. Along a 400 meter (1,300 ft) stretch of tracks where a number of deer were struck last year -- the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said 30 between January and October -- there have been no accidents since the dung was spread last November.

Maeda admitted that there was, however, a huge drawback. "The odor is really, really foul," he said. "So we can only use it on tracks in uninhabited areas. -- Edited and excerpted from articles at Reuters (1) (2)

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