Happy Mother’s Day and Guest Post for Add a Tree

urban forests (Photo credit: Andrew Turner)

My dear friend Claire Woolley at the non-profit Add a Tree recently gave me the opportunity to write a guest blog, which I just realized was published today. I particularly like the focus of Add a Tree the number of trees in urban areas, so I’m honored to write a blog for them.

The guest blog is entitled Travels with my family, a tree story, which happens to be about enchanting adventures with my mother and kids, and my conversion to an environmental advocate.

The timing for the guest blog turned out to be perfect for mother’s day! Hope all you fellow mothers had a wonderful day!

Related articles

• The Giving Tree By Shel Silverstein (amabella15.wordpress.com)
• Bringing Mother’s Tree back to life will take time (readingeagle.com)

Book Review: The Antidote, Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking

I’ve been doing a lot of reading in the last few months for work and pleasure.  One of my favorites during this time was The Antidote, Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman, which was published in 2012.

It is one of the funniest self-help books that I’ve ever read. Even though I am an advocate of positive thinking, I found myself enjoying Burkeman’s often wacky alternative strategies for finding happiness.

Here’s are a few excerpts to give a sense of Burkeman’s style and thinking:

• The negative path to happiness is not an argument for bloody-minded contrarianism at all costs: you don’t do yourself favours by walking into the path of oncoming buses, say, rather than avoiding them.
• One of the worst things about being a motivational speaker, or any other kind of advocate for the power of positive thinking, must be the constant pressure to seem upbeat: if anyone ever catches you scowling, or stressed, or feeling sorry for yourself — all very normal occurrences for anybody, of course — it threatens to undermine everything you stand for.  Becoming an advocate for the power of negative thinking, as I gradually did, holds no such hazard. Bad moods are permitted.

Burkeman reviews techniques from stoicism to Buddhism to the hidden benefits of insecurity.  I liked this book very much because not only did he offer some alternatives to being in a constant pursuit of happiness, he made me laugh as he described his attempts to follow the negative path to happiness.

If you ever need a break from too much positive thinking, you might enjoy The Antidote as much as I did.

Today’s Contemplation:

Have you ever found greater peace and contentment with negative thinking than forcing yourself to think positively?

Related articles

• Book Review: The Antidote: Happiness For People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman (chatonsworld.blogspot.com)
• Book Review: The Antidote by Oliver Burkeman (casnocha.com)

Who in the World is David Farland? Grab a Pen, Folks...

Reblogged from Writerlious:

David who?  I hadn't heard of him either.  Which really surprises me.

Or perhaps you ALL have heard of him and I've been living under a rock for the past decade.  This is an equally likely scenario.  ;)

So, my blogging bud Lauren Waters posted about a tragic accident a week or so ago involving Farland's son and encouraged her readers to buy one of Farland's books on Amazon to help support the cause.  

Read more… 586 more words

Like Erin, I didn't know about David Farland. I was motivated by her blog to buy his kindle book, Million Dollar Outlines to support his family after his son's accident. So far, the kindle book is great. I recommend that you support yourself and David Farland by downloading a copy for yourself.

Tao Today: A Sage's Take on Modern Society, Part 2

Reblogged from Ekostories:

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In response to the predicament of his times, Lao Tzu ruminated on the essence of human nature and asked: What can be done to stop the injustice, violence, and greed that inevitably corrupts the core of civilization? According to Welch, the old sage came to the conclusion that a radical operation must be performed on human nature before these systemic issues could be resolved:

Read more… 1,573 more words

I've been enjoying Isaac's journey through Taoism at Ekostories. My sense of Taoism is that it offers us a radically different approach to creating a life worth living.

Remembering Adventures with Trees

I’ve been inspired to remember some of my adventures with trees lately.

A friend of mine, Claire Woolley, recently started an organization called Add a Tree to promote urban tree planting.  She certainly is one inspiration.

Claire and I worked together closely on developing a green business program for the City of Chicago several years ago.  Claire has been involved in all types of environmental work over the years and I’m very blessed and happy to be her friend.

The other inspiration is my son Nicholas who is doing a school report on Sequoias.  In the process of typing his report with him, I came across several photos from our time on a trip to national parks in California when my kids were several years younger than they are now.

Taking a vacation to see trees is one of my favorite things to do.  Here are my boys next to General Sherman in Sequoia National Park.  To support his project, we bought a sequoia plant.  It’s beautiful and I hope we can grow it here in Illinois. Not sure if we have the right climate for these beauties.

I’ve also become aware of the work of the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive which is trying to find ways to grow sequoias in other locations due to the possible threat of their extinction due to climate change.  It would certainly break my heart if these ancient giants were allowed to go extinct.

This quote is from their website:

Earth Day 2013 represents a turning point not only for Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, but also for the world. This Earth Day, Archangel has released into the world its collection of clones from the greatest coast redwood trees that have ever lived in an historic first ever global planting of champion coast redwoods to begin to rebuild healthy forests.

The coast redwood clones will be planted at nine locations on Earth Day in seven countries: Germany, Ireland, Wales, England, New Zealand, Australia, and in the United States -California and Oregon. Locating these trees in multiple locations worldwide will help to ensure their chance of long-term survival in the face of climate change.

From the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive Facebook page

I hope you will take some time to think about your enchanting adventures with trees of all shapes and sizes on Earth Day (April 22).

Happy Earth Day to you all!

Daily Contemplation:

Many of us are still doing what we can to mitigate against climate change.  Are you doing anything to help protect those beings and creatures on this planet who need our help to survive through climate change?

Hope for Reversing Climate Change

Reblogged from james keeney hill:

I've thought for sometime that it must be difficult to be young and growing up these days in such uncertain times about the fate of the planet.  Finally, the following video offers great hope in the possibility of reversing climate change, more proof that a holistic approach is needed in everything we do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI

This is such an amazing video.  Thank you James Keeney Hill for publishing this on your blog.  If you're concerned about climate change like I am, you'll want to hear about Allen Savory's  ideas for reversing desertification in this video.   I had not heard anything about this before.

The Moon Meets the Sun in You

As promised, I’ll be sharing pieces of the book the Moon Meets the Sun in You. 

Here’s the opening Preface to the book and the title poem that I created to commemorate my son’s 11th birthday.

Life is an amazing gift.

I want you to know this, and I want you to feel this all of your life.

More than likely though, you may have times when you forget the magic of being born human.

Both you and I were born into a world that has redefined the role of humanity on planet earth.

There is a world of justice and peace that is struggling to emerge and it needs people like you and I to play our part in being lightbearers.

Throughout time, men and women have thought deeply about the great questions of life. 

I hope you do too.

I have collected the words and wisdom of those men and women that I see as Masters Lightbearers for you.

May you be a source of light in this world AND experience the joys and wonders of a deeply enchanted life.

The Moon Meets the Sun in You

The sun rises in the East

And sets in the West

Everywhere along that path

The world feels your light.

The moon pulls the seas to her heart

she reflects back the light to the sun

Shining from East to West

The moon smiles for you.

The moon needs your light in the day

And the sun depends upon you at night

Over all the lands and seas

The Moon Meets the Sun in You.

Karen Powers Wan

© 2013