Now I've Got Somthin' To Say...

Acceptance

Laksmi — Tue, 06 May 2008 06:49:32 GMT

Lately I've been trying to learn to accept my life for what it is. It seems as though I am always trying to change things to create some perfect situation. I suppose there's no harm in striving to improve things. But I really need to know when to "say when". It gets to a point when you have to surrender to your situation as it is. Accepting the karma that we are owed and not expecting what isn't due to us. Realizing that no matter how hard we try to control the situation, we are not in control. And learning to be grateful for what we do have. This reminds me of the Serenity Prayer, which I think will be a good meditation. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen.

The Invitation

Laksmi — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:31:59 GMT

By Oriah Mountain Dreamer It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventures of being alive. It doesn't interest me that planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center or your own sorrow; if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, with out moving to hid it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, min or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without being cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true; I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from God's presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours or mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!". It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children. It doesn't interest me who you are, how you came here. I want to know if you stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Happy Earth Day!

Laksmi — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:47:24 GMT

Ten things you can do this Earth Day Wondering how you can make a difference? Here are 10 things you can do to help the planet, whether it's Earth Day or not. 1. Leave your car at home for a day (or a week or a month) and try walking or biking. If work is too far away to walk, take public transit or carpool. One city bus eliminates the emissions of 40 cars. 2. Turn off the lights, the computer and the television when they are not in use. Using only highly efficient and money-saving appliances can reduce the electricity consumption of an average household to one-10th of the national average. 3. Try eating meat-free at least one day a week. A meat-based diet requires seven times more land than a plant-based diet. Livestock production is responsible for more climate change gasses than all the motor vehicles in the world. 4. Choose foods produced organically, locally and in season. Support your regional farmers and farming industry: buying locally and in season is better for the environment than buying foods that have been shipped hundreds of kilometres to your local market. 5. Put a composter in your backyard or use your green bin to reduce household waste. Composting organics has two key benefits: it reduces the amount of waste going to landfills and when added to your garden, helps nourish soil and plants. 6. Turn off your car's engine if stopped for more than 10 seconds. If every driver of a light-duty vehicle avoided idling by five minutes a day, collectively, we would save 1.8 million litres of fuel per day, almost 4500 tonnes of GHG emissions. 7. Set your thermostat above room temperature in the summer and below room temperature in the winter. For each degree you adjust, you can save 5% on your utility bill and 1% on your energy use. 8. Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs). A CFL uses only 25% as much energy as an incandescent bulb and lasts 10 times longer. 9. The simple act of recycling has more impact on the environment than the average Canadian thinks. The amount of wood and paper North Americans throw away each year is enough to heat five million homes for 200 years. 10. This is a great opportunity to brag. Tell someone what you're doing to make the world a better place. Support the cause. Encourage them to get involved too. Published by Canwest News Service

Our mother is weeping...

Laksmi — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:41:05 GMT

through the Chacaltaya Glacier. I saw an OPB show about this the other day. It saddens me that yet another one of this planets wonders will soon be gone. It's also disturbing to think of how this will impact the lives of so many that call the region home. All because of global warming. Most of us just go about our lives on an everyday basis only considering how things will impact us personally. We forget to consider how our actions might impact people who are thousands of miles away. The locals near Chacaltaya say the snow melting is the mountain weeping. I think they're right. When will Bhumi stop weeping? Read on... Farewell to a melting glacier Latin America analyst James Painter returns to the Chacaltaya glacier in Bolivia for the first time in 15 years to find it is melting fast. Ever since my family and I left the high-altitude city of La Paz 15 years ago, I have been mourning the slow death, by melting, of a long-lost friend. A favourite outing of ours was to pile into our sturdy old jeep, wind our way up a track that only just clung to the mountainside, and finally arrive at the foot of a majestic glacier called Chacaltaya. Family photos from the time show sunburnt, smiling faces against a backdrop of a long, snow-covered glacier. Chacaltaya was famous then for being the world's highest ski run at 5,300 metres (17,400 feet). I remember seeing exhausted but exhilarated skiers crashed out on the floor of a nearby ski lodge, gasping for breath. Dryly-written articles in scientific journals have traced the rapid demise of the glacier as a result of rising air temperatures. Reading them is like picking your way through a long obituary. Chacaltaya could be as much as 18,000 years old, but it has lost 80% of its area in the last 20 years. It has become an icon of the effects of global warming, and a laboratory for predicting what is to befall other Andean glaciers. Monitoring Retracing the journey in 2007 turned out to be somewhat unexpected. The day we chose to return was perfect for climate change sceptics. A recent heavy snowfall had left the top of the track impassable by jeep, so we had to walk through deep snow. We keep having to revise downwards our projections of when Chacaltaya is going to disappear completely Edson Ramirez The whole mountain was white - hardly the stuff of retreating glaciers. Chacaltaya was certainly living up to its name in Aymara of "cold road". "Days like this are completely misleading," said Edson Ramirez, a 37-year-old quietly-spoken Bolivian, who is his country's leading expert on glaciers. "It's the wet season now. The snow will melt quickly and run off the glacier." Sure enough, a few days later I received by e-mail a photo taken by members of Mr Ramirez's team on 1 March of what was left of the glacier. All that could be seen of what was once a 500-metre long glacier are just two separate areas of ice. Even on the day of our visit, you could see the clear outline of the two patches of glacier under the snow, measuring about 60 by 20 metres. Not far away stood a forlorn ski lift, not used since 1998. "We keep having to revise downwards our projections of when Chacaltaya is going to disappear completely," said Mr Ramirez, who has been monitoring the glacier since 1995. "Not long ago we thought it was going to be 2015, now we think it could be this year or next." Impact feared Mr Ramirez is not alone in stressing the dramatic acceleration of the glacial melt since the 1980s. The Bolivian government is certainly taking it seriously. Back down in La Paz, the head of the national climate change programme, Oscar Paz, said: "These glaciers are our water stores. One of our great concerns is the future of our drinking water supplies." Chacaltaya may be a symbol of what is happening to small Andean glaciers, but it does not provide the water to La Paz and neighbouring El Alto, home to nearly two million people. For that you have to travel about an hour down more bone-jarring tracks to the spectacular range of mountains called Tuni Condoriri, named after their appearance like a condor hunched ready to pounce. A reservoir under the range provides about 80% of the drinking water to El Alto and large parts of La Paz. Bolivian and international glaciologists are shifting their attention here, in part because of fears over the impact of glacial melt on Bolivia's long-term development. Various measurements show the area of the 15 original glaciers in the range has reduced by more than a third from 1983 to 2006. Five glaciers may have already disappeared completely. 'Hurt' The glaciers are particularly important during the dry seasons as they slowly release water. "We don't know exactly how much of the water supply comes from glacial melt but it could be as much as 60%," says Mr Ramirez. Most worrying is when the glaciers completely disappear, which Mr Ramirez puts in the range of 2025 to 2050. Even now Bolivia has a pressing need for more water. The arrival of several thousand migrants from rural areas to El Alto every year means demand for water will increase as the supply remains the same. Mr Ramirez's model predicts that as early as 2009 there will more demand than water available in the reservoirs. Many agree that the long-term drop in water from glacial melt exacerbates the urgent necessity to capture more of the precipitations during the wet season, probably by building dams. Mr Paz clearly thinks it wrong that desperately poor countries like Bolivia should have to pay the cost of adapting to global warming when they are not to blame. In the meantime, Mr Ramirez and the team I travelled with were coping with the imminent loss of Chacaltaya by resorting to graveyard humour. "Maybe we should put the last bit of the glacier in a freezer for posterity," they said. But there was no doubt about their sorrow. "It really hurts," they agreed. "We have had the privilege of seeing their beauty. The next generations will not." Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/6496429.stm