Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Always something of interest...

Just a small selection of E-newsletters that invariably have something of interest:

InnerNet Weekly, Daily Good, Karma Tube and more: all are projects of CharityFocus!

Read the Spirit: you can read it on the web, but I recommend the enewsletter. "Read the Spirit" is an online home for readers who believe that diverse spiritual connections between people of faith build stronger communities. Their online magazine includes inspirational stories, fresh voices, reviews of books and films—and much more.

Orion Magazine E-update:
scroll down the left column to sign up. This is a great way to be alerted to the current articles.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Inspiring magazines

Orion Magazine, Nature/Culture/Place: this beautiful magazine is filled with well-written and timely articles. It is available in print or in digital format.

Kosmos Journal is the leading international journal for planetary citizens committed to the birth and emergence of a new planetary culture and civilization. Embracing a comprehensive approach to change, its cutting edge writers address the many facets of individual, cultural and global transformation. Articles address diverse cultural values, new spirituality, global activism and global political, economic, social, institutions.

Yes! Magazine is an award-winning, ad-free, nonprofit publication that supports people’s active engagement in building a just and sustainable world.

ReVision Journal: For almost thirty years now ReVision has explored the transformative and consciousness-changing dimensions of leading-edge thinking. Since its inception Revision has been a vital forum, espe¬cially in the North American context, for the articulation of contemporary spirituality, transpersonal studies, and related new models in such fields as education, medicine, organization, social transfor¬mation, work, psychology, ecology, and gender.

3 important websites for info on safe products

First check out this interview with Sandra Steingraber in Orion Magazine, then explore these informative websites:

Women's Voices for the Earth: Women’s Voices for the Earth (WVE) is a national organization that engages women to advocate for the right to live in a healthy environment. Find out about household cleaning products and personal care products that don't damage you, your children or the environment and much more!

Skin Deep
is a safety guide to cosmetics and personal care products brought to you by researchers at the Environmental Working Group. Look up an astonishing number of cosmetics, soaps, creams and shampoos and find out which ones use nontoxic ingredients.

Women's Health and the Environment: The Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE) produced this website using the materials and wisdom of many individuals and organizations. CHE is a diverse partnership of individuals and organizations working collectively to advance knowledge and effective action to address growing concerns about the links between human health and environmental factors.

Women Transforming the World


WorldPulse: Global Issues Through the Eyes of Women - really fabulous online and print magazine. Dedicated to listening to and broadcasting the unheard voices and innovative solutions of women worldwide.

Women's Earth Alliance: Uniting Women for a Thriving Planet: Women’s Earth Alliance unites women on the front lines of environmental causes by coordinating resources, training and networks to support thriving women, communities and earth.

PeaceXPeace: Peace X Peace is a rapidly growing international organization that connects women across cultures for friendship, support, and action for peace. Our global community of women is building a more balanced, peaceful world where our lives, stories, and voices are valued and honored.

Women Make Movies:
films by and about women. For example, The Sari Soldiers. Filmed over three years during the most historic and pivotal time in Nepal’s modern history, The Sari Soldiers is an extraordinary story of six women’s courageous efforts to shape Nepal’s future in the midst of an escalating civil war against Maoist insurgents, and the King’s crackdown on civil liberties.

3 lively environmental websites to track

Mother Nature Network: Environmental news and information that makes sense.

Environmental Graffiti:
an eclectic mix of the most bizarre, funny and interesting environmental news on the planet. We search the vast realms of the internet on behalf of all environmentalists who don’t take themselves too seriously and compile it into a daily blog.

World Changing: Change Your Thinking
: Worldchanging.com is a nonprofit media organization headquartered in Seattle, WA, that comprises a global network of independent journalists, designers and thinkers. We cover the world’s most innovative solutions to the planet’s problems, and inspire readers around the world with stories of new tools, models and ideas for building a bright green future.

World Cat – the world's largest network of library content and services

Wow! This is really a book lovers dream!

WorldCat.org lets you search the collections of libraries in your community and thousands more around the world. WorldCat grows every day thanks to the efforts of librarians and other information professionals.

You can search for popular books, music CDs and videos—all of the physical items you're used to getting from libraries. You can also discover many new kinds of digital content, such as downloadable audiobooks. You may also find article citations with links to their full text; authoritative research materials, such as documents and photos of local or historic significance; and digital versions of rare items that aren't available to the public. Because WorldCat libraries serve diverse communities in dozens of countries, resources are available in many languages.

Also for book lovers: Bookfinder.com - BookFinder.com is a one-stop ecommerce search engine that searches over 150 million books for sale—new, used, rare, out-of-print, and textbooks.

3 websites to read often:

Top of my list is the CharityFocus blog by Nipun Mehta. Nipun and his family and friends started Karma Kitchen, a restaurant in Berkeley that is by donation or free or you can pay for the next person's meal.

iJourney.org
started when couple of folks got together to sit in silence, on Wednesdays in the Silicon Valley. Today, it offers a weekly mailing of inspired readings to 59,468 people. Wednesdays are a grassroots expression of spirituality, service and gratitude. It's in their living room, proposes no particular following and attracts a unique combination of people every week. Our general format is an hour of silent meditation, followed by another hour of sharing thoughts, and then a vegetarian dinner in silence. It was started by Nipun, Guri, and Harshida ("CF mom") in late 1996.

Conversations.org is a collection of in-depth interviews with artists from all walks of life. They also offer a monthly newsletter, Monthly Conversations, highlighting recent articles and a gift-economy print magazine. Another one of Nipun's projects!

Three new films not to miss!

Watch for local screenings of these films. Taking Root can also be purchased for home viewing.

Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai tells the story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai whose simple act of planting trees grew into The Green Belt Movement. Her understanding of our interconnectedness with the environment and her focus on simply telling people the truth about government and military corruption are truly an inspiration.

Food, Inc. – filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. There is also a book: Food, Inc.: How Industrial Food is making us sicker, fatter, and poorer and what you can do about it.

Dirt! The Movie – is an insightful and timely film that tells the story of the glorious and unappreciated material beneath our feet. One teaspoon of dirt contains a billion organisms working in remarkable balance to maintain and sustain a series of complex, thriving communities that impact our daily lives.

Inspired by William Bryant Logan’s acclaimed book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, Dirt! The Movie takes a humorous and substantial look into the history and current state of the living organic matter that we come from and will later return to. An eclectic group of participants ranging from biologists to prisoners incarcerated on Rikers Island offer answers to problems and inspire us to clean up the mess that we’ve created. Dirt! The Movie will make you want to get dirty.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Mysteries...


If you like Sherlock Holmes, then you may enjoy this spin-off series by Laurie King. They are well done and take place in the early 1900s. The first one is called The Beekeeper's Apprentice. It is a good idea to read them in order but not absolutely necessary. A young woman, Mary Russell, meets Sherlock Holmes, they have an extraordinary meeting of minds and take off to solve various mysteries that take them all over the world.

Another good and very readable mystery author is Amanda Cross (pseudonym). Carolyn Gold Heilbrun was a literature professor at Columbia and her books always have a literary theme. They are very well written, witty, dry and addictive!

"The Coroner's Lunch" and "Thirty Three Teeth" by Colin Cotterill take place in Laos. The characters, the setting and Laotian history come alive in these beautifully written stories.

Friday, June 12, 2009

A Verb for Keeping Warm

Just discovered this exquisite yarn store on 7th Street in Berkeley. They dye silk and wool and other fibers on site using only natural dyes. They also have a blog which has some photos of the store and news of fiber shows and patterns.

They are open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 11 to 5. Located in the back parking lot area of:

Activspace Building
2703 7th St #147
Berkeley, CA
510-388-5110

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Leaving Mother Lake: A Girlhood at the Edge of the World, by Yang Erche Namu, Christine Mathieu

This is the fascinating true story of a still-intact matriarchal society in Southern China in which the women enjoy true sexual and economic freedom. The story is told through the eyes of Yang Erche Namu who was born into this society and felt driven to leave and experience the outside world through using her considerable singing talents. There is a very interesting afterword by the anthropologist Christine Mathieu. Excerpts can be read at the link above.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Secrets of the Dead: Amazon Warrior Women

Fascinating documentary. I highly recommend it. A good book to provide additional context and a fascinating read is: The Woman in the Shaman's Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine by Barbara Tedlock.

This episode was shown on PBS and is available through Netflix.

"After unearthing evidence of a culture of ancient warrior women in the Russian steppes, Dr. Jeannine Davis-Kimball followed a trail of artifacts to a remote village in Western Mongolia, where her quest for a living link to a long-imagined tribe ended with a startling discovery. There, among the black-eyed Mongols, Davis-Kimball found a blond child, a 9-year-old girl named Meiramgul. Through DNA testing, Davis-Kimball finds that the DNA sequences of the warrior women and those from the girl of Mongolia are identical."

Interview with Jeannine Davis Kimball: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/previous_seasons/case_amazon/interview.html

Manjula's kitchen: Indian Vegetarian Recipes

This is a really nice website if you want to learn how to prepare Indian food. There are short videos with Manjula showing all the steps and also the full recipes. She really offers this from her heart and it makes learning easy!