Sometimes I don’t listen. I would rather be wandering around the hallways of my mind with my old thoughts than pay attention to what is right in front of me. Old habits never die, they just get older.

That happened yesterday at the office. My thoughts about a certain old topic were coming a bit too fast for my liking so I decided it would be a good time to sit down and ask a few questions of myself and my guides in meditation. Actually I didn’t sit, I lay on the bodywork table. When my breathing and thoughts slowed down I focused on my first question - and promptly fell asleep. Hey, it happens. I figured it was exactly what I needed. I woke up happy and rested right before my client arrived. A successful meditation!   Read more...

Mag je je eigen leven bij elkaar dromen? Zodat je het verleden achter je kunt laten en helemaal opnieuw kunt beginnen? En wat laat je dan achter? Dat zijn de levensvragen die de rode draad vormen van Morgen bestond ik door theatergroep ZOUT uit Amsterdam, dat in de eerste twee weekeinden van juni wordt gespeeld.   Read more...

Het Blijbedrijf organiseert op zaterdag 2 mei de landelijke actie Blij Pinnen. Op diverse plaatsen in Nederland kun je uit speciale pinautomaten zogenaamde ‘blijbiljetten’ halen waar je écht blij van wordt.   Read more...

Nederland is een nieuw babymerk rijker: Laladoo. Het merk ontwikkelt babykleding en speelgoed en is gebaseerd op de cradle to cradle filosofie. Het product is volledig veilig voor iedere baby en goed voor het milieu.   Read more...

Begrip en tolerantie beginnen bij de basis: de jeugd. Het boek BBB, Boerenkool, Baklava, Bara beschrijft maatschappelijk onbegrip, cultuurverschillen en de gevolgen hiervan.   Read more...

Better The World has developed an innovative fundraising platform and suite of tools that give people free and easy ways to raise money for charity while surfing the web. The platform acts as a hub, bringing together companies, charities and people with a shared interest - to make the world a better place.

Surf the Web, Save the World.   Read more...

There is a whole lot of fuss over organic food, and justifiably so, but we hear very little about the details of "organic" or "eco-friendly" textiles. While in India exploring various interests, from jalebi (a far-from-organic-or-healthy sweet treat) to organic farming to Tollywood film (yes Tollywood, not Bollywood), I found myself a guest at a textile company just outside of Ahmedabad.

The city is a textile-producing center of the country famous for its beautiful fabrics, and the industry provides jobs for hundreds of thousands of locals. While these jobs help keep their families fed - though on little more than rice and milk - their employees spend their days soaking their hands, arms, and bodies in chemical dyes or bleach to produce a product that, in turn, poisons everything it touches.   Read more...

I live in a really great community in Guelph, Ontario. Over the last year or so, we've been adapting our community website into a tool that any community can use to get organized. Now we are hoping to find some other communities that can help us test it out. We are planning to offer this as a free tool for any community. It's helped us do some pretty amazing things: organizing parties and movie nights, sharing tools and skills amongst neighbours, and mobilizing community initiatives.

The site is at www.villagetoolbox.com   Read more...

I work for March of Dimes in Portland, Oregon. The non-profit health organization that works to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. Yesterday was our biggest fundraiser of the year, March for Babies.

After walking the route with 5,000 others whose lives have somehow been touched by our mission, many people will stay, have a hot dog and an ice cream bar and enjoy the upbeat music by 5 Guys Named Moe. As the music lightened the steps and hearts of the crowd, there was dancing. I became mesmerized by one particular pair - a father and his young daughter. Held in his arms, this beautiful little girl was twirled and waltzed and gazed at with a love and tenderness one doesn't see just everyday.   Read more...

I recently posed this question on several LinkedIn green groups and was surprised to get so many answers with a wide range of opinions. Most of them advocated systemic expressions of sustainability: green business, policy and regulation, economic incentives, standards, strategic planning and simple common sense. A few mentioned awareness-building: education, marketing campaigns (“green is good”) and mission statements. The rest championed tools like directories, handbooks and websites. One outlier suggested that sometimes the answer is just in a state of mind.

In the spirit of Ken Wilber and the Integral, in one sense they are all right. Just not 100% right, to the exclusion of the others. I found it intriguing that the majority of them oriented towards systems, technologies, and policy and only one touched on the metaphysical. Yet, consciousness of our innermost motivations, values and beliefs is critical to the success of any greening initiative, whether personal or organizational.   Read more...