The lovely and gifted Oprah Winfrey inspired this post. Oprah says:

"My prayer for myself, my friends and the world is that we become ever more conscious--aware of our meaning and purpose. I pray for peaceful pauses within ourselves to acknowledge our gratitude for life and all its complexities."

Pausing, whether peaceful or not, is always a good idea. Our world is on a headlong rush into, if nothing else, hurriedness. A pause can be the beginning of peace.   Read more...

When I got laid off from my job this past December, a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. I had no money, no job, and nothing to tie me down. As soon as the new year turned, something inside me turned as well. I told my brother I wanted to drive through all fifty states and film a documentary of the stories and voices from the economy collapse.

Bij mijn afscheid als directeur van de Jozefschool te Den Burg op Texel, eind 2005, is de oprichting van het Leofonds bekend gemaakt. Naast een forse donatie nam de school de verantwoordelijkheid op zich jaarlijks een actie met de kinderen te houden om het fonds te voeden.


De stichting heeft ten doel de ontwikkelingsactiviteiten die ondernomen worden financieel te ondersteunen.

De school, bekend met mijn wens om samen met mijn vrouw vrijwilligerswerk in ontwikkelingslanden te gaan doen, vond op deze wijze een passend afscheidskado. De naam van het fonds is op verzoek veranderd in Lejofonds (Leo Annyas – Jozefschool Texel).

Met ondersteuning van het fonds zijn in 2006 en 2007 projecten gerealiseerd in Sri Lanka. In 2009 wordt met support van het fonds o.a. een geitenproject in Oeganda gerealiseerd.
 Zie ook www.lejofonds.nl   Read more...

Ik ben een enorme liefhebber van chocolade. Ik snoep het zeker vier dagen in de week, het liefst de pure variant. Nu koop ik de laatste maanden de chocolade van Tony Chocolonely omdat ik van de televisie weet dat die volgens een eerlijke handel in de supermarkten ligt (bovendien is ie ook erg lekker). Ook las ik dat de chocolade van Verkade inmiddels via ‘fair trade’ in de winkels ligt. Goed om te weten! Ga ik binnenkort die weer eens proberen!

Van chocolade weet ik nu dus, mede vanwege alle media-aandacht, welke wel OK en welke niet OK is. Dat beïnvloed mijn koopgedrag. Alleen weet ik het nu alleen maar van chocolade terwijl ik iedere dag wel wat ergens in een winkel koop. Hoe zit het daarmee? Je zult wel erg veel moeite moeten doen om van ieder product dat je koopt te achterhalen hoe en waar het geproduceerd is. Voldoet het gehele productieproces aan de waarden op het gebied van milieu en sociale omstandigheden die ik belangrijk vind? En is de prijs die ik betaal dan ‘fair enough’?   Read more...

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As someone who has had a "delicate" stomach forever, and as a peace advocate, this ad tag line caught my eye and made me laugh out loud.

Discover a world of digestive peace.   Read more...

I love the quote,"Children are messengers to us from a world we once deeply knew but we have long since forgotten," by Alice Miller. I know for a fact that I have learned more from my children than they have learned from me. I call them my gurus! I am amazed, sometimes on a daily basis, the things I learn from my kids. I still believe 100% that children are here to teach us, not the other way around. We have been conditioned to believe that we have to teach them, but I know that is just not true.

Children can help us to learn about ourselves and about life, if we choose to listen. When we are able to stay out of the mind set of having to have power over children, we can learn and grow. When we open ourselves up to their unconditional acceptance and love, we will grow leaps and bounds. When trust is present in the relationship as our children grow, the relationship stays authentic, and we learn from each other. If trust is present, children will keep sharing their views and observations and insight with us. If the trust is broken, children learn to hide who they really are, and the authentic relationship is no longer.   Read more...

Recently I came across a very interesting article. It was about forgiveness. I always wrestle with that virtue, sometimes more poignantly than others. I often find it very challenging to forgive, especially if I feel I have been deeply betrayed or wounded. But for me it can be equally as difficult, or more so, to humble myself enough to ask for forgiveness when I have hurt another, intentionally or unintentionally.   Read more...

Ariane de Bonvoisin, author of The First 30 Days: Your Guide to Making Any Change Easier was quoted in the August 2009 Guideposts, "On the other side of acceptance is where peace exists, where the solutions are."

In 27 years of counseling, I have found that what Ms. De Bonvoisin says is always true. Always. No exceptions.   Read more...

A world flag -- wow! Isn't it gorgeous?

Aside from the brilliant colors -- something that always catches my eye -- this flag is a clickable fount of information. The flags represent all the members of the United Nations. On their website, you can click on each flag and learn a little something about the country it represents.

"The world flag was created in 1988 to raise global awareness, inspire innovative solutions and promote action toward challenges facing our world today. It serves as a powerful symbol to inspire action and celebrate the pursuit of positive change. The flag has flown from New York to Nepal and continues to make its way around the planet spreading its message of unity," says the website.   Read more...

I believe in a beautiful and useful policy. Meaning, a thing has to be either beautiful or useful, if it is none of these then I just throw it away. Ten times out of ten I have discovered that I never regret trashing them.

The trash in our life includes old clothes, old utensils, old cosmetics, old electronics which do not work, old shoes that hurt and bite, old towels that scratch more than absorb the dampness of our body, tennis balls that have lost their bounce, golf balls with dings, rusty tools, rusty relationships, rusty emotions, old angers, old hostilities, old newspapers, old lovers who still hurt, negative emotions and ghosts of boyfriends/girlfriends past. Yep, all in the same breath.   Read more...

With the economy in disarray, it's a little counterintuitive that a conference on funding social causes would be booming. But over the last three days the Social Capital Markets conference in San Francisco drew close to 1,000 investors, fund managers, foundations, social entrepreneurs and corporate executives in just it's second year in existence. Attendees came from 32 different countries to connect with other leaders and innovators and find new ways to "accelerate the flow of capital to good," as conference co-founder Gary Bolles put it.   Read more...

It was almost a decade since I had been involved with climate change activities, so I was happy when I was invited to a capacity building session held in Kathmandu in July by the Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA). CANSA is part of a global network of NGOs addressing climate change issues in the region.

I was eager to learn about the current science of climate change and how well nations around the world are responding to it. To my dismay, I found that global carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 70% in the last 20 years. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that the evidence is even stronger that human factors have exacerbated the climate change process. In fact, we are knocking on the doors of a Climate Catastrophe, if our planet's temperature rises more than 2 degrees Celsius and the atmospheric carbon levels move towards 400 parts per million (ppm), when it should remain below 350.   Read more...