Day: April 21, 2019

Let’s Talk Witch – Celebrating Earth Day

Let’s Talk Witch – Celebrating Earth Day

 

The celebration of Earth Day on April 22nd began in the United States in 1970. Here are some ways to mark the occasion.

1. Plant trees. As the date also roughly coincides with U.S. Arbor Day, over time Earth Day has taken on the role of tree-planting. Planting trees helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cleans pollution, secures soil in place to prevent erosion, and provides homes for a lot of biodiversity.

Pick a tree that you know can survive in your climate. If you’re unsure about what that might be, ask an employee at your local garden shop, or inside the garden department of a big-box store.

2. Plant wildflowers. Choose flowers that are native to your area and plant them in your garden or on nature strips where plants are usually grown. Restoring the local plant life will help attract native bird life, pollinators and local mammals.

3. Make nature crafts at school or home. Get together with your family and or make a bird feeder to encourage the local bird population, which plays an important role in every ecosystem. For an extra-special Earth Day craft, use objects that would’ve otherwise been thrown away to create beautiful works of art. The possibilities are endless:

Turn used guitar strings into a centerpiece.

Make a basket from an old orange juice carton.

Convert an old floppy disk into a Starship Enterprise.

Wear a skirt made out of old umbrellas..

4. Learn more about the environment. Earth Day is a good time to make a commitment to learning more about the environment and how you can help to protect it. Borrow some library books and read up on an issue such as pollution, endangered species, water shortages, recycling, and climate change. Or, learn about a region you’ve never considered before, like the Arctic, the deserts, or the rain forests. Think about the issues that concern you the most and if you haven’t done so already, join a local group that undertakes activities to help protect the environment in your area.

5. Hold educational sessions about the environment. Teachers, professionals, students, anyone who cares about the environment and is willing to teach others, can all provide environmental lessons for others. Most schools already celebrate Earth Day in the classrooms with activities but there are many other ways you can teach about the environment. For example, give a speech at your local library on ; take a group of children down to the recycling center to show them how things are recycled; recite nature poems in the park; offer to teach your office colleagues how to make environmentally-friendly choices at work during one lunch hour. Everyone has environmental knowledge they can share with others.

6. Teach children and others that every day is Earth Day. Anything to help our environment is a perfect thing to do on Earth Day and every day. Don’t restrict yourself to just one day a year; learn about how you can make a difference to environmental protection all the time. And put it into practice – every day!

7. Reduce, reuse and all day long. and avoid items that come in lots of packaging. and producers of food and products – these don’t have to travel as far and so reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Take your drink container with you, and don’t use any disposable plates or cutlery. Recycle all the things you do use for the day or find other uses for things that you no longer use. Carry a cloth bag for carrying things in and recycle your plastic bags.

8. Hold a garage sale,, donate, or reuse household items. Many of us take up a lot of natural resources with stuff we don’t really need, want or use. Ironically, there’s a still lot of people who don’t have basic necessities. Plus, a lot of your unwanted clutter can be used by local charities to resell for much-needed cash.

Hold a clothing swap . This can be a fun, free way for friends, relatives, co-workers, neighbors, and the like to find new wardrobe finds. (You can combine with an Earth Day lunch or dinner, too!)

9. Get your children involved. By giving their old toys and games to other children who could make use of them, older children learn two lessons: One is about giving to others, and the second is about reusing and recycling instead of throwing things away.

Learn about product exchange communities like Freecycle and other alternatives.

10. Clean up litter. Rid litter from our roadways. Many groups use the weekend of Earth Day to clear roadways, highways and neighborhood streets of litter that has accumulated since the last clean-up day. Many companies donate gloves and bags for clean-up groups and villages organize bag pick ups. Once the group has collected the trash and placed the recycled bags along the road, get the village public works department to pick the bags up. It’s a wonderful community project. Great for scout troops, rotary clubs and the like.

11. Buy or make Earth-friendly cleaning products Try making up a simple vinegar-and-water counter cleaner, or swapping out your bleach cleaner for a less-toxic orange-based one. Just try it. You don’t necessarily have to give up your heavy-duty cleaners–just try using them when you really need to disinfect, rather than simply clean.

12. Sing or listen to “Earth” songs. There are many Earth Day song lyrics available on the Internet. Many follow well-known tunes. These make a fantastic classroom activity and help younger children to become interested in environmental topics. For listening, iTunes has many songs about the Earth for downloading: try searching for words such as “planet”, “Earth”, “endangered”, “pollution” etc. One example being “Earth Day” by Devin Townsend.

13. Hold an Earth Day fair. Maybe your school, your street, or your local neighborhood is interested in getting together to have an environmental fair. Things to have at the fair include demonstrations of environmentally-friendly products, children’s artwork, healthy/locally grown foods to eat, animal care demonstrations (including wildlife rescue), games for the children made of recycled products, musicians and actors performing environmental music and skits, stalls which are recycling unwanted treasures and books, local environmental organisations presenting their issues and wares. Money raised can go towards a local environmental restoration project or to an environmental group agreed upon by all the participants running the fair.

14. Engage others in about your environmental concerns. Don’t be preachy, just appropriately present some facts and then explain your feelings about them. Encourage them to respond and if they have no opinions or they seem to not know much, help them learn some more by imparting your environmental knowledge in a friendly and helpful manner.

15. Wear green and/or brown. Dress in environmental colors for the day; think “tree”! Wear badges if you have them that carry pithy summaries of your environmental views.

16. Cook a special Earth Day meal. Plan a menu that uses locally produced foods, is healthy and has minimal impact on the environment. Favour vegetable and bean products, as these use less resources to grow than mass-farmed meat. If you still would like meat, look for locally produced, organic meat. Try and completely. Decorate the table with recycled decorations made by you and your friends.

17. Consider to make up for the greenhouse gas emissions you create on the other 364 days of the year. Carbon offsets fund reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through projects such as wind farms, that displaces energy from fossil fuels.

Tips:

Simple things, such as asking young children to use less paper to dry their hands or asking work colleagues to turn the lights off when they leave the office at night are great “small starters” to encourage bigger changes. You don’t need to feel that you haven’t time to contribute; every little changed habit that benefits the environment adds up and you are setting a good example to others.

Search the Internet for many more ideas. Earth Day is celebrated in many different ways. A really good way to find more information is to surf the internet and look at what other people have done. There is so much there that it cannot be replicated here!

The other Earth Day is celebrated usually on March 21, which is the equinox for spring in the Northern Hemisphere and for autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. This Earth Day is supported by the United Nations and the Japanese Peace Bell is rung at the New York United Nations to remind everyone of our place in the human family on our precious planet Earth.

Feeding the Field on Earth Day

Feeding the Field on Earth Day

by Sara, from Institute of HeartMath

There is more to this phenomenon than the feeling you get. HeartMath researchers repeatedly have identified mental and physical changes that study participants undergo as they experience positive and negative emotions. HeartMath’s research and other research have shown that focusing on core heart-felt emotions can enhance one’s connection with others, and that this connection extends far beyond the individual. The research article Coherence: Bridging Personal, Social, and Global Health concludes that being responsible for our emotional energy and increasing our compassion, care and other positive feelings are not only reflected in improved personal health and happiness, but also feed into and are reflected in the global field environment.

So this Earth Day and each day, lets increase our responsibility for the environment by each one of us asking, “What am I feeding the field today?

Global Coherence

Years of researching the transformative power of positive emotions led IHM several years ago to conceive the possibility that personal coherence and positive energy on a grand scale could have a global impact and begin to heal the planet. IHM leaders and researchers asked a question:

“What if people around the world intentionally experienced sincere love, care, compassion and other positive emotions simultaneously and fed this positive energy into the global field environment?”

This question led to an experiment, and after nearly five years, more than 40,000 members of the resulting Global Coherence Initiative, with members in 87 countries, regularly feed positive energy and heart-focused care and intention into the planetary field environment.

Collectively, we create a field that interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field and energetic systems. As people intentionally send coherent love and care to the world, a more powerful heart-filled environment is created. This helps to build a reservoir of positive energy that benefits the planet. This reservoir can then be utilized to help bring balance and stabilization to people, thereby making it easier to find solutions to problems like climate change, the destruction of the rain forests and other global issues.

GCI scientists are establishing a worldwide network of sensing stations, the Global Coherence Monitoring System, to measure fluctuations in the Earth’s geomagnetic fields. These stations have many tasks, including: detecting how planetary events such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are reflected in and predicted by patterns of activity in the Earth’s magnetic field; and examining how collective human emotional resonance in response to mass events of emotional significance is reflected in the Earth’s magnetic field. Learn more at www.glcoherence.org.

How Can You Feed the Field?

The Institute of HeartMath and the Global Coherence Initiative is calling on their worldwide membership and supporters on Earth Day to show their commitment to care for our planet.

Please send your heart-focused care and feed positive energy into the field environment. Regardless of your personal, political and spiritual beliefs, raise your voice in thankfulness and committed care for Earth. There are countless ways to do this.

Below are some great ways to show your thankfulness and committed care for the Earth:

  • Do the Quick Coherence® Technique, or whatever method or practice you choose, for five to 10 minutes on Earth Day to send the Earth appreciation, care and a sincere commitment to planetary healing.
  • Spend five minutes with at least another person, your family, or a group of friends or colleagues envisioning Earth and its inhabitants in harmony. Some people may wish to continue this for a few days before and after Earth Day.

Join thousands of others and spend some time on Earth Day in the Global Coherence Initiative’s Global Care Rooms, where people send collective care

“One of the things I like to do is ask myself at the end of the day: What did I feed the field today?,” says Dr. Rollin McCraty, IHM’s director of research. “How much of my day was spent being kind to the people I interacted with, being compassionate and caring, versus how much of my day was wrapped up in my to-do list or feeling irritated that things weren’t moving fast enough and so on? Because it all counts, it is important at the end of the day to assess what we fed the field.”

It is a very heartening momentum as we come together on Earth Day to make a difference in our world.

For a better understanding of how we affect the world around us, read one of IHM’s most popular article: Each Individual Impacts the Field Environment.

What Can You Do for Earth Day?

What Can You Do for Earth Day?

What Can You Do for Earth Day?

Earth Day is a day for action; a chance to show how important the environment is to you. Whether you organize an event in your community or teach a peer about environmental issues, Earth Day is about uniting voices around the globe in support of a healthy planet. This year for Earth Day 2012, we will Mobilize the Earth™ and demand a sustainable future. See below for ideas on how you can get involved:

 

Attend an Earth Day event

Organize an Earth Day event

Organize a Day of Service

  • Set up a volunteer event in your community to clean up the environment or help improve it
  • Don’t forget to register your event on our events toolbar!

Pledge an Act of Green

Sign our Petition

  • Help us achieve Renewable Energy for All, ask your government to end fossil fuel subsidies, invest in renewable energy technology, improve energy efficiency, and make energy universally accessible

Join an Earth Day campaign

 

Earth Day Network

Earth Day: The History of A Movement

Earth Day: The History of A Movement

Earth Day: The History of A Movement

Each year, Earth Day — April 22 — marks the anniversary of what many consider the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.

The height of hippie and flower-child culture in the United States, 1970 brought the death of Jimi Hendrix, the last Beatles album, and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. Protest was the order of the day, but saving the planet was not the cause. War raged in Vietnam, and students nationwide increasingly opposed it.

At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. “Environment” was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news. Although mainstream America remained oblivious to environmental concerns, the stage had been set for change by the publication of Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962. The book represented a watershed moment for the modern environmental movement, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries and, up until that moment, more than any other person, Ms. Carson raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and public health.

Earth Day 1970 capitalized on the emerging consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement and putting environmental concerns front and center.

The idea came to Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, he realized that if he could infuse that energy with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution, it would force environmental protection onto the national political agenda. Senator Nelson announced the idea for a “national teach-in on the environment” to the national media; persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair; and recruited Denis Hayes as national coordinator. Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land.

As a result, on the 22nd of April, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.

Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts. “It was a gamble,” Gaylord recalled, “but it worked.”

As 1990 approached, a group of environmental leaders asked Denis Hayes to organize another big campaign. This time, Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. Earth Day 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It also prompted President Bill Clinton to award Senator Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1995) — the highest honor given to civilians in the United States — for his role as Earth Day founder.

As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy. With 5,000 environmental groups in a record 184 countries reaching out to hundreds of millions of people, Earth Day 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990. It used the Internet to organize activists, but also featured a talking drum chain that traveled from village to village in Gabon, Africa, and hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Earth Day 2000 sent world leaders the loud and clear message that citizens around the world wanted quick and decisive action on clean energy.

Much like 1970, Earth Day 2010 came at a time of great challenge for the environmental community. Climate change deniers, well-funded oil lobbyists, reticent politicians, a disinterested public, and a divided environmental community all contributed to a strong narrative that overshadowed the cause of progress and change. In spite of the challenge, for its 40th anniversary, Earth Day Network reestablished Earth Day as a powerful focal point around which people could demonstrate their commitment. Earth Day Network brought 225,000 people to the National Mall for a Climate Rally, amassed 40 million environmental service actions toward its 2012 goal of A Billion Acts of Green®, launched an international, 1-million tree planting initiative with Avatar director James Cameron and tripled its online base to over 900,000 community members.

The fight for a clean environment continues in a climate of increasing urgency, as the ravages of climate change become more manifest every day. We invite you to be a part of Earth Day and help write many more victories and successes into our history. Discover energy you didn’t even know you had. Feel it rumble through the grassroots under your feet and the technology at your fingertips. Channel it into building a clean, healthy, diverse world for generations to come.

Earth Day Network

Today We Will Be Celebrating Earth Day, I know, I haven’t totally lost my mind yet (well….)

The reason we are celebrating Earth Day today is because tomorrow I have a lovely doctor’s appointment. I get to find out what method of treatment he has in mind for my hip and what days those treatments will take place and how many I will need(I know a run on sentence, can’t hush even when writing, lol!).That means we won’t be on the internet tomorrow, so why not celebrate our Mother Earth a day early. Really, we ought to celebrate Her more than just one day a year. Instead of one day a year, every day ought to be Earth Day. We ought to remember She is not only our Mother but it our job and responsibility to take care of Her every day. She gives us something special, life. Without Her, we couldn’t survive or exist on this planet. So one day a year, we show our dear Mother some love, I think it ought to be every day of the year but what do I know, I have already hung myself out on a limb this morning, lol!

Anyway, Happy Earth Day a day early!

Tomorrow, you can find your daily horoscopes, get a jump on tomorrow horoscopes, daily tarot card and daily rune on The WOTC’s store. Can’t miss them, scroll down the main page and you will find a spot that states, “Daily Horoscopes, Runes & Tarot.”

Witches of the Craft’s Online Shoppe

 

Wishing All Our Dear Brothers & Sisters of The Craft A Very Beautiful & Blessed Day!

Starting out a little different this morning, no fancy graphics or anything like that, just this. I woke up this morning at the crack of dawn to greet the Sun as usual. Oh my, He was shining so brightly and brilliantly over the tops of the trees. You could see His Rays extending for miles and miles it seemed like. It was breath-taking. Then it hit me, today is Easter for the Christian faith. Hmm, hadn’t really thought about it much and don’t know why it did hit me but when it did I started to chant. It is a chant I am sure you all know, “The Goddess is Alive and Magick is A Foot!” That is what has took me so long to get here this morning, I have been looking for it on YouTube and can’t find it anywhere. Just my luck, something I truly wanted to share with you today and can’t find it to save me. I did find a song that I am going to share with you and I believe you will enjoy it just as much, “I am Pagan and I am Proud!”

As I stood outside waiting for the Sun to fully rise, I did some reflecting. I know today is Easter and I know what it means to the Christian religion. But for most witches and myself, it doesn’t hold any meaning at all. I know we have Christians amongst us and I hope you have a very beautiful and blessed day. But since you are here with us, I would ask that you respect our beliefs on your special days as we respect yours. With that said back to my reflections, I heard the other day on the News that this year was the most disappointing year for mainstream religion yet. More people are leaving mainstream religion than ever before. Now where they are going they didn’t say but I have a feeling I know We have seen a huge increase in membership in the past year. We pick up to 5,000 new members each week. It makes me stop and wonder what has happened. Has our word finally gotten out? Do they now realize that we offer something more than other religions? Perhaps, perhaps not.

I know this morning while I was reflecting, I got to thinking about it. I was outside, listening to the birds sings, feeling the wind blow on my cheek and just enjoying all our Divine Mother has blessed us with. This great big beautiful world and such blessed and magickal lives. It is true the Witches are Blessed. On with my reflection, I got to thinking about what Easter really means for the Christian religion. Today is a day that Christ was suppose to rise from the grave and they celebrate his victory of life over death. We have nothing like that in our teachings or our beliefs. No where will you find it. Our Gods and Goddesses never died. There are still with us to this very day. They live on eternally, forever and ever. Our Gods and Goddesses are alive. We see them every  day in our lives, we use them in our rituals, they help us when we are in need. There is no denying they are very much alive and well to this very day.

I had someone yesterday at the grocery ask me if I was going to give my “Easter” speech kiddingly. I told them I didn’t think so this year. Oh, you ought to hear it, it is a something else. It is much too long and well let’s say, I am Pagan and a witch and leave it at that.

I think I have probably already said too much but today is just as special for us as it is the Christians. They celebrate a God risen from the death. We should be celebrating Gods and Goddesses that have never died and never will. They are with us continuously, forever and ever. They have made promises and promises kept. They have never asked to kill in their name and they have showed us unconditional love. They have showed us how to treat others as we would want to be treated. Most of all they give us the promise of rebirth. The opportunity for us to be reborn and reborn. A never ending cycle of life is what we are guaranteed. So while the world celebrates Easter, let us celebrate something even greater, our Gods and Goddesses. Let us give them honor and praise for fulfilling our lives and letting us see a world so few get to see let alone experience.

Let us give thanks to our Divine Mother & Almighty Father for this glorious Sunday morning!