Every  once in awhile I have checked in here, but I never realized how long it had been since I made an entry here or updated my profile.

Well, I'm back and planning to be here more often in the future. But first I realy have to get to know the site again...man, it looks GOOD!

ORGANIC BOYCOTT SPREADS--

ORGANIC OUTLAWS LABELING FACTORY FARM MILK AS "USDA ORGANIC"

In April OCA launched a boycott of two leading organic dairy brands and distributors, Horizon (a division of Dean Foods) and Aurora, for mislabeling their products as "USDA Organic." All of Aurora's and much of Horizon's "organic" milk is coming from factory farm feedlots where the cows have been brought in from conventional farms and have little or no access to pasture. After three months, thousands of consumers and a number of co-ops and natural food stores have joined the boycott. Now it's time to expand the boycott to five grocery chains selling bogus organic milk from Aurora Organic:

* Costco's "Kirkland Signature"
* Safeway's "O" Organics brand
* Publix's "High Meadows"
* Wild Oats' organic milk
* Giant's "Nature's Promise."

* In addition OCA is calling for a boycott of Horizon's sister soy brands--Silk soymilk and White Wave tofu--which have begun turning away from U.S. organic farmers and instead importing cheap organic soybeans from China and Brazil, where labor rights and environmental standards are routinely violated.

Please send an email message to the Shameless Seven, telling them to stop violating organic standards and to source certified organic foods and ingredients from North American family farmers. And please forward this email to interested friends and colleagues. Take Action: http://www.organicconsumers..org/rd/aurora.cfm

Please make a donation to help OCA carry out this boycott:
Donate Now!
http://www.organicconsumers.org/donations.htm

Another tid-bit from http://www.organicconsumers.org

SUPERMARKETS AND GAS STATIONS BEGIN TO BATTLE FOR WORLD'S GRAINS
As oil prices continue to rise, the world's affluent are converting millions of acres of food crops to fuel crops. In the U.S., ethanol plants are being constructed on a mass scale. In Iowa alone, 55 ethanol plants are operating or have been proposed. According to Iowa State University economist Bob Wisner, if all these plants are built, they would use all the corn grown in Iowa. With so many distilleries being built, livestock and poultry producers fear there may not be enough corn to produce meat, milk, and eggs. Meanwhile, in Brazil, half of the sugar crop is now being converted to fuel, causing world sugar prices to double. In Europe, 1.6 billion gallons of biofuels were made from food crops last year. Given the new demand for these crops, global donations of food grains are not keeping up with the world's increasing starving populations. According to Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute, "Simply put, the stage is being set for a head-on collision between the world's 800 million affluent automobile owners and food consumers." Meanwhile, researchers are attempting to perfect the science of "cellulosic ethanol" wherein instead of being made from grain crops, the ethanol is made more efficiently (and with less greenhouse gases) from switchgrass, hemp, plant waste and paper waste. Learn more: "http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_1108.cfm"

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THINGS AN ETHANOL MASCOT WOULD NEVER TELL YOU

* The grain required to fill a 25 gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol would feed one person for a year.
* The grain to fill the tank every two weeks over a year would feed 26 people.
* U.S. taxpayers now subsidize the ethanol industry at a rate of 51¢ per gallon (a law in effect until 2010).

Source: Earth Policy Institute

From http://www.organicconsumers.org

TURNING AMERICA'S WATER-GUZZLING LAWNS INTO EDIBLE ESTATES
The average temperature for the continental United States from January through June 2006 was the warmest first half of any year since records began being kept, according to scientists at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center.. As many U.S. states suffer from drought, tensions over water usage are escalating, particularly over the nation's obsession for green lawns. In Los Angeles, Fritz Haeg has launched a nationwide campaign called "Edible Estates," helping homeowners convert their water thirsty lawns into vegetable gardens or native vegetation. "It's about shifting ideas of what's beautiful," says Haeg. According to homeowners across the U.S. who have taken similar steps to convert their yards into more practical (and less water-hungry) plots of land, the biggest problem comes from neighbors who believe such yards will reduce property values in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, groups like Edible Estates, are working to highlight the major problems inherent in fertilizing, watering and applying pesticides to the millions of acres of lawns across the U.S. "Diversity is healthy," says Haeg. "The pioneers were ecologically-minded out of sheer necessity, because they had to eat what they grew. But we've lost touch with the garden as a food source." Learn more: "http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_1105.cfm"

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THINGS YOUR LAWN NEVER WANTED YOU TO KNOW

* The EPA estimates that the total amount of residential lawn in the United States ranges around 40 million acres, making turf grass the nation's biggest irrigated crop.
* Americans pour as much as 238 gallons of water per person, per day onto lawns during the growing season.
* The U.S. lawn industry is a $70 billion annual business.
* America's 50 million or so lawnmowers burn through 800 million gallons of gas every year.

Source: United States EPA: Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program

Found this online...loved it and wanted to pass it on....

  

In some spiritual traditions, devotees attempt an arduous process of self-transformation as they retrain themselves to perceive the world from God's point of view. If they succeed, they're honored with an initiation ritual and given a new name to consecrate their altered state.

I have the same problem with this custom that I have with the idea of enlightenment: Once isn’t enough. Just as anyone in his or her right spiritual mind has a duty to keep claiming fresh varieties of enlightenment until the end of time, so should the initiations and renamings continue forever.

In my opinion, these considerations apply to you. You may not have sequestered yourself for years in a mountaintop monastery, and you may not have risen every morning at 5 a.m. to say prayers for hours, but you are an authentic devotee who has undergone equivalent ordeals. Your spiritual transformation has unfolded as you've dealt with the challenges of daily life during our epic moment in history, when unprecedented levels of annihilation and resurrection are the norm.

You have earned the right, therefore, to enjoy enlightenment after enlightenment and initiation after initiation and renaming after renaming.

I invite you to get started with a do-it-yourself initiation ceremony. It doesn't have to be long and complicated, and you can create it yourself. As an example of what you might do, here's a ritual that some Beauty and Truth Laboratory's initiates have performed: 1. Eat a pinch of dirt to declare your solidarity with Mother Earth. 2. Burn a five-dollar bill to purify your relationship with symbols of wealth. 3. Kick yourself in the ass to affirm your ongoing intention to discipline your shadow.

As one of your initiatory rewards, consider adopting a fresh alias during this and every initiation you carry out in the future. You can abandon your existing name if you want, or simply add your new tag to the current mix.

To celebrate the occasion, I invoke on your behalf the inspiration of all shedding things. Your tree of power will be the eucalyptus, whose bark peels away to reveal fresh layers beneath. Your lucky symbol will be the molting snake. Your sacred insect will be the silverfish, which bursts through its exoskeleton as it grows a new and bigger one. Your role model will be Japanese artist Hokusai (1760–1849), who had such a passionate commitment to reinventing himself that he celebrated 60 births, each time giving himself a new name.
*
The preceding oracle comes from  Rob Brexsney's book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

If you could be doing something this very moment… anything you wanted to do… without limitation… let your mind be wide open and GO… BE… DO… what would you be doing?

 

Swimming with the turtles in Akumal, Mexico, searching for my big buddy the Barracuda (see my  pics at http://wcswingdancer.zaadz.com/photos), and looking for the big Moray eel that eluded me on my last trip. I realised then that my true, Cancerian water-child side was probably never happier than when I was with the turtles and the fish.

"If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to sleep in a room with a mosquito." ~ Author unknown.

I've hardly been able to look in here for the last 10 days. It started out on the Sunday,generally not feeling great in the evening transitioning into fever and generam malaise. Hit all my arsnel of anti-flu/cold remedies and went to bed. Well, this one was a doozy. Felt like I was run over by Mac truck. Lasted till early Tues AM. Whew, I thought...that wasn't fun, but  life goes on. Felt great by Tues afternoon...even treated 2 patients. By 7pm tho, it was back. Not as bad, but definatly coming for another round. This happened for another 2 nights before I finally gave in and went to the Dr. Turns out I have pneumonia in 2 lobes.

Antibiotics are helping, but I keep getting this horrid headache from my muscles tensing up. I splurged on a massage yesterday with one of the best therapists in the area. Wish I could afford that every day as I recover!!!!!

I know I am on the mend. This was my first illness as  a single person. It really sucks to be sick and on your own. A couple friends brought supplies early in the week, but because they are afraid of catching anything, they just dropped the goods and kept going. It wasn't till Friday that I felt any loving touch when I went to my therapist for help getting my GP sorted out (I didn't know who had been assigned to me). She rubbed my back lightly as I cried about how lonely it is when you have noone to bring you a drink, rub your back, or advocate for you.

So if you know someone who is ill (or actually, if they don't appear at a normal function, call and check on them...no-one did this for me so many were in the dark) call and see how they are. And unles your system is really compromised (I have NO idea how this one snuck by me tho), you are usually safe if you follow clean proceedures to at least just go anc check onthe person, perhaps sit and talk for awhile, bring hem a drink, etc.

The littlest things would have made last week so much more bearable for me. I'll remember that in the future for all my friends!

I just got this from a friend who has been helping me to get unravelled from amny of the issues what are holding me down. I had to pass it on.

The Whale: A Beautiful Story

If you read the front page story of The San Francisco Chronicle on Thursday,
Dec. 14, 2005, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had
become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted
down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay
afloat.

She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her
tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her just
east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an
environmental group for help.

Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so
bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her-- a very
dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer. They
worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.

When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous
circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and
nudged them, pushed them gently around-she thanked them. Some said it was
the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.

The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the
whole time, and he will never be the same.

May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate----to be
surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that
are binding you.

And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude. I pass
this on to you, my friend, in the same spirit.