Provocations

A Blueprint for Restoring Fragile Ecosystems

By piecing together a complex ecological puzzle, biologist Willie Smits has found a way to re-grow clearcut rainforest in Borneo, saving local orangutans - and creating a thrilling blueprint for restoring fragile ecosystems.

About Willie Smits
Willie Smits has devoted his life to saving the forest habitat of orangutans, the "thinkers of the jungle." As towns, farms and wars encroach on native forests, Smits works to save what is left.

Watch this remarkable and inspiring 20-minute video.

Paul Hawken puts the wonder into perspective

A quote for the season:

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television.

- Paul Hawken, to the Class of 2009, University of Portland

Stepping into the unfamiliar

Here in the northern hemisphere, we're in the "rolling along" time: looking for opportunities to enjoy the sun; taking a break or holiday; enjoying the long days . . . even the tv shows are in re-run mode. When September comes, for many it's time to get serious: a more intense work cycle begins. 

I'm a web designer and September-October is the time when many of my clients take a breather from an active summer, providing those leisure opportunities for many, and update and re-focus their business and their web site.  Whether summer is active or leisurely, autumn is often a time for change.

Today I received my regular e-mail from a friend in Australia who runs The Institute of Heart Intelligence.  Here are a few suggestions from Nicholas de Castella for stepping into the unknown or unfamiliar and the change that comes with it:

1. Don’t get lost in the stories.
Feel into and under the stories to the emotion and stay with those feelings until they pass.
2. Distinguish between scary and dangerous.
90% of our fears are actually quite harmless. (Few people have died from the number one fear - public speaking).
It is helpful to realise that most fears are harmless and therefore having fear of doing whatever is not a good enough reason not to do it.
3. Take action in the face of fear
Don’t wait until you have no fear before you do something new.
Instead, develop the habit of turning and facing what you are afraid of. When you turn and face directly what you are afraid of, the fear will often vanish.
4. Listen to and trust your heart
The only way you are going to be living the life you are meant to live is if you are being honest with yourself and following your heart.
One of the greatest acts of love you can give to those around you is for you to be real and honest with them.
5. Be willing to fail
Mistakes are things you do, they are not who you are.
They are not proof that you are unlovable or unworthy. A mistake is when you get a result you do not expect. Mistakes are learning opportunities. They are only a problem if you do not learn from them. Mistakes are part of every learning process. The most common way to try to avoid mistakes is by not doing anything - which is the greatest mistake of all.
6. Drop Rackets
Rackets are excuses you make up for not taking responsibility for your life.
Our minds are very creative at making up excuses when we are afraid of doing something. Some common rackets are: ‘Its not my fault’, ‘I couldn’t make it’, ‘I don’t know how’... Rackets keep you stuck and dis-empowered. Take responsibility for your life and make what you want happen.
7. HELP!
If you are stuck or blocked you probably need to get some help from someone else.
Look at successful people and most of them have a whole team (or army) behind them, helping them out with aspects that are outside of their area of specialty. The way to get empowered is to learn new knowledge and develop new skills (including learning how to delegate tasks).
8. Go to it
It takes more energy to think about it than to do it.
Whatever it is that you want to develop, start today. Phone someone, get some more information, find out where to go and get the ball rolling. There will never be a better time than now to start taking action. The way you climb a mountain is with one step in front of the other. Even small steps mean you are heading forward.

Randy Pausch died today

Randy Pausch

K T Tunstall, Avril Lavigne, Pink, Lily Allen

Time for some music.

Once in a while I come across a woman singing her own way into the world, speaking for herself and, within the possibilities of public spotlight, being herself too - and I like their music. I like them first then I listen and I like that too. So, here they are, my four favourite contemporary women singers singing. Each one of them speaks a lot of sense too. But for now, here's the music. Watch out for interviews with these women.

K T Tunstall

Avril Lavigne

Pink

Lily Allen

Jill Bolte Taylor - A living bridge between left and right brain

A brief presentation from TED Talks that I think bridges the range of human awareness and experience in a remarkable way - and offers a very broad perspective:

Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

Dolphin Rescues Two Beached Whales in New Zealand

I learned so much from and was inspired so much by our (recently deceased) cat, that my awareness of how much animals can teach us has greatly expanded. Here's an inspiring little incident, via the BBC:

A dolphin has come to the rescue of two whales which had become stranded on a beach in New Zealand.

Conservation officer Malcolm Smith told the BBC that he and a group of other people had tried in vain for an hour and a half to get the whales to sea.

The pygmy sperm whales had repeatedly beached, and both they and the humans were tired and set to give up, he said.

Read on

A community garden and the essence of Permaculture

When, ten years ago, we moved to our new home, I remembered a simple tenet of Permaculture. When moving on to a piece of land, for the first year do nothing but observe. Other than some basic clean-up, I pretty much did that. And as the years have gone by, I've continued to pay attention to what is present and sought to understand why, before adding any input of my own.

The fruits of this approach have been gradual, quite noticeable at times and, at other times, almost impossible to describe. However, the strawberry patch does stand out a little. It started out as a patch of wild strawberries that thrived and has already doubled in size. During this time, I protected them by outlining their expanding border with pieces of downed wood and occasional watering during times of dryness.

Here's the patch in flower, surrounded by wild roses, fir trees and dandelions:

And here's what last Spring's crop looked like:

Expand this approach to a community and you have the Leaf Street community garden. Enjoy and be inspired by these videos, divided into three because of the constraints of YouTube.

Find out more about Leaf Street

Lucky Dube Killed - a great Reggae artist is no more

Lucky Dube pictured on his most recent album, Respect.

The BBC reports today:

Fans across the world are mourning the South African reggae star, Lucky Dube, who has been shot dead.

He was dropping his teenage son and daughter off in a Johannesburg suburb when he was attacked by car thieves.

A reggae-lover of many years, I bought my first album (Bob Marley, of course) when I live in London in the early 70s. I first encountered Dube's music when back in South Africa in the late 80s. This will give you a feel for why Lucky Dube was considered a true successor to Marley:

Lucky Dube - Live in Concert in South Africa

Lucky Dube Live Italie 2005

 

UPDATE, October 24: Service for SA's shot reggae star - BBC

Norway practises ethical freedom with its investments

A lot of countries call themselves independent. It appears that Norway is closer to the reality than most. Here's how it started:

Norway is the world's third largest producer of oil, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. As a result of rising oil prices in the last decade, the small nation of 5 million people has accumulated a surplus of about $300 billion, enough to pay each man, woman, and child a substantial sum. But that's not what the Norwegians did with the surplus. They invested in the nation's future, stashing the oil money in a Government Pension Fund against the day when the oil reserves are depleted. And to avoid overheating their own economy, they decided to invest all the fund's money abroad.

It gets better. Read on.