Spring blossoms,
sudden snowstorm.
Covers mountain.
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Spring blossoms,
sudden snowstorm.
Covers mountain.
Photos and Low-ku by Charleen Touchette 2010
THINK ENERGY, FREQUENCY AND VIBRATION... Join Artist/Author/Activist Charleen Touchette at the Heart of the Mountain to Connect the Circle.
Showing posts with label One Earth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label One Earth. Show all posts
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Spring Snow by Charleen Touchette
Spring blossoms,
________
Spring blossoms,
sudden snowstorm.
Covers mountain.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Building a Solar BathHouse - in progress
by Charleen Touchette - Spring 2010
For years, we have been planning on building a solar bathhouse in a private sheltered area below our home and patio. Over the years we gathered water and beverage bottl
es intending to create our One Earth BathHouse with adobe bottle walls with mud and sand from the arroyos.
es intending to create our One Earth BathHouse with adobe bottle walls with mud and sand from the arroyos. Laziness combined with inertia until we had lots of plans and sketches and lots of piles of bottles that looked more like trash than an earth friendly green bath house with water heated by the sun. This year, the high cost of propane (more than doubled since 2001) and the dire state of the economy put urgency behind our plans to cut energy costs and switch from fossil fuels to renewable solar energy.
So we took out the shovels while the snow melt was sending waterfalls down the arroyos separating sand from clay on the banks and built a sample bottle wall.
Next we dug the outlines for a solar shower basin, round hot pool and lower pools and wetlands, built up a retainer wall of rock and bottles to level the area we will top with sand from arroyo and flat stones from hillsides.
Solar hot water collector will be on hillside below pools and employ thermosiphon principles to send hot water up to shower and hot pool above.
Connecting streams with rock and sand filter water as will the wetlands planted with cattails, reeds, horsetail, willow and other water filtering plants transplanted from our koi pond.
Our Solar BathHouse is a work in progress and will take some time to figure out and get working smoothly and ecologically. But now that we've begun digging and putting our ideas into practice, it's clear there will be multiple benefits from our project including the joy of playing in sand and mud and enjoying springtime on the mountain.
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One Earth Blog
Text, plans and photographs by Charleen Touchette 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Finding our Way Back for the Future
by Charleen Touchette 2010Indigenous elders often tell us to remember our original instructions.
These instructions, wherever you live, are to live in balance and harmony on this earth.
These instructions, wherever you live, are to live in balance and harmony on this earth.
At the core of most spiritual traditions is the belief in the Oneness of all as it is expressed in the diversity and multiplicity of Creation.
The Diné call this harmony, Nizhoni, which is also translated as Beauty.
Diné healers perform the Beauty Way Ceremony to re-establish balance.
This concept is expressed in ancient Asian philosophy as Tao, or The Way, which embodies the dynamic relationship between, yin and yang, female and male, dark and light.
Diné healers perform the Beauty Way Ceremony to re-establish balance.
This concept is expressed in ancient Asian philosophy as Tao, or The Way, which embodies the dynamic relationship between, yin and yang, female and male, dark and light.
The Medicine Wheel or Four Directions symbol embodies teachings of how to achieve balance and wholeness by learning the lessons of each direction and bringing them into the center.
Our original instructions are to live in balance and harmony with ourselves and all our relations, whether human or animal, animate or inanimate.
We can choose to overconsume non-renewable energy, or choose sun and wind power that are clean and sustainable.
This balance is not easy to achieve, but it is not impossible to strive for and attain from moment to moment.Inherent in the balance for which we work as individuals, families and societies is the reality that it is not static and requires awareness and constant readjustments to maintain and renew continually.
The Lakotah say, 
Mitakwe Owaysin, All My Relations to acknowledge our relatedness to all life and pray not only for all the colors of two-leggeds, but as well for the four-leggeds, 
winged, insect, crawling people and the grandfather rocks, 
plant people, stars, 
clouds and all beings, everywhere.
Mitakwe Owaysin, All My Relations to acknowledge our relatedness to all life and pray not only for all the colors of two-leggeds, but as well for the four-leggeds, 
winged, insect, crawling people and the grandfather rocks, 
plant people, stars, 
clouds and all beings, everywhere.Indigenous people of the Plains call this path, The Red Road, and contrast it with the Blue Road of violence and addiction.
The Diné Beauty Way, Plains’ Red Road and the Tao,
embody dynamic balance that is constantly upset then realigned back into balance by action, prayer and ceremony.
embody dynamic balance that is constantly upset then realigned back into balance by action, prayer and ceremony.
Indigenous ways emphasize responsibility as well as freedom for individuals, families, clans, and nations.
Thinking is based on the circle which acknowledges the circular movement of the stars and planets and the cyclical nature of the seasons and all life. In this way, indigenous thinking is diametrically opposed to the linear thinking of the Western world, which is not sustainable and depends on conquest and inequity to survive and progress.
Indigenous societies are organized to ensure survival of the people and the environment that makes life possible. The earth changes the world faces today were long ago prophesized by visionaries in many different indigenous nations across the globe including the Mik’maq, Six Nations, Hopi, Blackfeet, Navajo and Maya. While these prophesies may seem magical, such as the Hopi foreseeing the landing of a man on the Moon and the two birds flying into the twin towers,
But much of what was seen was seen just by using common sense. Our indigenous ancestors knew long ago that if we took more than we gave, destroyed the cleanliness of our own earth, sky and water, and mistreated our fellow human beings and animals, birds, plants and other living things, there would be dire consequences.
It is a no-brainer. Every culture has stories about when people forgot their original instructions and were greedy, violent and selfish. And every culture has stories about the consequences to human actions from floods to tornadoes to earthquakes, plagues, famine and disease.
But much of what was seen was seen just by using common sense. Our indigenous ancestors knew long ago that if we took more than we gave, destroyed the cleanliness of our own earth, sky and water, and mistreated our fellow human beings and animals, birds, plants and other living things, there would be dire consequences.
It is a no-brainer. Every culture has stories about when people forgot their original instructions and were greedy, violent and selfish. And every culture has stories about the consequences to human actions from floods to tornadoes to earthquakes, plagues, famine and disease.
So when asked, what is the biggest challenge people in the world face today? the answer is, that we have lost our way.
The solution to world problems is to shift our minds back to the wisdom of our indigenous ancestors who knew that living in balance is the key to sustainability and survival for human beings and all our relations who share this marvelous finite planet earth.
If we want to have a healthy future for ourselves and the next generations, we need to find our way back to the fundamental teachings of living in right relationship to assure sustainability and survival. Our ancestors knew by direct observation how to live in harmony and balance with the earth, sky, water, animal and plant beings and each other because their survival depended upon it. Now, more and more everyday, so does ours.
The solution to world problems is to shift our minds back to the wisdom of our indigenous ancestors who knew that living in balance is the key to sustainability and survival for human beings and all our relations who share this marvelous finite planet earth.
If we want to have a healthy future for ourselves and the next generations, we need to find our way back to the fundamental teachings of living in right relationship to assure sustainability and survival. Our ancestors knew by direct observation how to live in harmony and balance with the earth, sky, water, animal and plant beings and each other because their survival depended upon it. Now, more and more everyday, so does ours.
One Earth. Think About It.
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Text and Photos by Charleen Touchette 2010
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