Simple Celebrations

My second oldest daughter, Malaika, turns twelve today. It’s amazing how our kids represent so many aspects of our selves. They serve as mirrors to the inside of our souls challenging us to step up and better ourselves and the world. They inspire, motivate and teach us how to live lives of integrity.

Children are born with instinct intact, yet from the moment of birth these precious beings are set up to stray away from that truth. How do we keep alive the spirit and natural intuition of our children? How do we keep sacred the intrinsic beauty of each child with their own distinct personalities?

How do we protect both their fragile and fierce natures – setting boundaries while encouraging them to fly? How do we maintain an open honest connection with our children as they grow older and try to find their way in the world?

Take the impact consumerism has on our children for example. The result of a century of manipulative marketing tactics has influenced every aspect of our lives from the way we give birth, to the food we eat, our health care system and the education of our children.

Big Business funds our schools in order to influence the minds of our children at younger and younger ages. Latest marketing schemes target younger audiences in order to secure consumers for life. Tween markets have been strategically designed to target the largest growing consumer niche – kids....a tactic intended to alienate parents from their children.

Corporate America has infiltrated and controls the very government agencies that have been formed to protect us to ensure their success. The FDA, EPA, CIA, IRS and FAA no longer serve to protect the people, rather they are used as a tool to advance their continued quarterly profits. As consumers we must realize that our dollars speak and use our vote wisely every time we buy something.

The only way to bring Corporate America to a halt is by changing the rate at which we consume. Americans make up about 4% of the world’s population yet produce 25% of the world’s carbon emissions, 6 times the global average. Our emissions come not only from the vehicles we drive but also indirect emissions from the products we buy. Virtually everything we consume impacts our climate.

It is time to begin thinking about the impact all of the stuff we consume has on the planet. We can begin making significant changes by buying local, supporting farmers markets, buying whole foods, bulk foods, organic non-gmo foods. We can prepare our own foods and eat dinner with our families at home. We can stop using plastic water bottles and plastic bags and use reusable ones instead. We can stop spraying pesticides on our lawns.

We can take back the rituals of humanity by having our babies at home and allowing our loved ones to die at home. We can buy clean renewable energy and buy appliances that are energy efficient. We can buy toxic-free cleaners or better yet make our own. We can buy organic sweat shop free clothing and recycled paper products.

We can find ways to be with our children that don't require that we buy something. We can bring a sense of balance back into our family by reclaiming the pieces that have been taken away by consumerism.

I spent the day with my daughter in our cafe kitchen; I making raw food and she baking the vegan cupcakes that we sell. She has positioned herself as an integral part of our operations in her drive to perfect baking and would have no one other than herself make her own birthday cake!

Happy Birth Day Malaika. May you always let your heart continue to lead your way in your quest for truth and justice. May you grow stronger and wiser as you blaze paths with your fiery spirit for others to follow. I love you with all my heart.

Here's your chance to take action!

Women’s Voices for the Earth (WVE) is a national, women-centered environmental health and justice organization that works to eliminate or substantially reduce environmental toxics impacting human health and to increase women’s participation in environmental decision-making. For the month of April they are helping women across the country host Green Cleaning parties for families and friends to inform them about the toxicity of products on the market and how to replace them with non-toxic cleaners they make themselves.

Toxic chemicals invade us in every arena of our lives. There are some 85,000 chemicals in the consumer marketplace and only a fraction of them have ever been tested for their impact on human health. Many of these chemicals are now known or suspected to contribute to a long list of diseases including cancer, developmental disabilities, heart disease, infertility, and reproductive harm. Many of us use cleaners to create a clean and healthy environment. But some of the products you use may actually be harmful to your health. Certain household cleaners contain toxic chemicals linked to birth defects, fertility problems, asthma and more.

EPA research has found that the air inside the typical house contains levels of pollution 2-5 times higher than the air outside and in extreme cases can be 100 times more polluted. Nowadays the average American spends about 90% of time indoors! According to a study of human fatty tissue samples, every American man, woman and child carries at least 700 pollutants in his or her body and the average sample in breast milk produced by American women contains over 100 contaminants. Recent cord blood studies of infants at birth found over 200 different chemicals!

The use of synthetic chemicals is a big industry: a 17 billion dollar cleaning product industry and a 35 billion dollar cosmetics industry with the majority of these chemicals being unregulated and untested. Currently there are over 80,000 chemical compounds in existence and less than 10% have been adequately evaluated for human or environmental safety.

In the US alone, more than 500,000 chemical products are available to consumers with more being produced each year and our government continues to overlook the severity of the issue. This is insane! Let’s use our dollars and demand products that are not damaging to us or the planet! Together, we are powerful!

Mother Earth is speaking loud and clear these days in an attempt to communicate her distress. We need to take immediate action to remedy her ailments within our own homes. Seemingly harmless everyday items such as toilet bowl cleaners, laundry detergents, shampoos, cosmetics air fresheners, antibacterial soaps as well as the prescription medicines we take - are polluting our planet as they wash down our drains.

Consider hosting your very own Green Cleaning party! Get all the details at http://www.womenandenvironment.org/greenclean/host/index_html
Their website provides everything you need to know to host a party as well as informative fact, including WVE’s Household Hazard report. By hosting a party, you will help spread the word about an important environmental health issue.

If you are in our area (Hartford, CT) we will be hosting our own Green Clean Party on Friday, April 4th at 6pm, followed by our Free Film Series and the showing of documentary Blue Vinyl. We'd love to have you join us! If you are a mom interested in learning more about green cleaning and even how to turn it into a business where you live - let us know and we will put you on the list for one of our upcoming ventures...coming to a city near you! Wise women putting the world back in order, one household at a time!

Realization Without Fear

For us, eating organic is not only a choice but a privilege. We are thankful to be able to feed our family of eight what we consider to be “the best food on the planet”. It’s not necessarily because we can afford to eat only organic food, it’s just that we believe in it so deeply that we choose that over other things.

The realization that we could begin to shape the world through our purchases as a family began to infiltrate into other areas of our lives. From this place of awareness, we embarked on a journey that shaped our families success to “go green”.

I began to think about how we were so easily able to switch our lifestyle as other mothers inquired about our accomplishments. Exactly how do we unravel the webs we have found ourselves trapped in? Corporate America has led us down a destructive path that is hard to break away from.

Now I must admit, I have always lived a bit outside mainstream ideology. But recognizing the culminating devastation occurring on the planet right now during my lifetime challenged me to begin questioning my personal role in the big picture a little more deeply.

As mothers, when one of our children is not well, we instinctively react with a quickness that only a mother can muster. Our intuitive natures kick in and we assess the situation and immediately begin to find solutions. If we simply ignore or mask the problem, sooner or later it resurfaces until we get to the root of the problem.

Now imagine that the earth is one of our kids. Deep down, our innate feminine wisdom tells us that something is wrong – very, very wrong. It is essential that we not only trust this wise part of ourselves but also heed the warning call. Only when we acknowledge the truth can we begin moving towards living our lives in a new way.

I looked back over our evolution as a family going green and saw a pattern in the way we integrated each new initiative we embraced. In the next series of blogs I will outline the ten steps necessary to effectively alter our behaviors as families that are crucial to the survival of our species.

The first step for creating real change in our behaviors and in the world is to RECOGNIZE that there’s a problem. This requires lifting off the veils of illusion and seeing things for what they really are. And the truth is, our planet is in peril. The generations of the immediate past, including our own, have rapidly depleted the resources available on our planet at a rate faster than they can be replaced. There’s not much left for generations to come.

My intention here is not to motivate through scare tactics, but rather to tell it like it is. In this way, a foundation is established from which we can accurately base our decisions. Right now there is a lot of dishonesty in our world. Money hungry corporations are still trying to squeeze every possible dollar they can from the market before it crashes. And it’s not that they don’t know what I am telling you. It’s just that they are not telling you that they know so as not to cut into their profit margins.

When we begin to look closely, however, we can see them beginning to prepare. “Green” initiatives are sprouting up all over the place moving these ideas into the mainstream. A good number of companies are leading the way while others, such as Clorox with their new “green” cleaning line “greenwash” their products leading consumers to believe they actually care about the environment. Still others blissfully maintain business as usual.

The catch is that all of these good green changes are in some ways useless if we, as Americans, don’t take an honest look at the rate in which we consume things. As a country we make up about 4% of the world’s population yet produce 25% of the world’s carbon emissions, 6 times the global average. When we look at America in comparison to other countries, one can see the direct correlation between consumption and carbon emissions. Even with the talk of global warming our purchasing power continues to escalate and our energy consumption is off the charts.

The rest of the world is waking up, while America is in some kind of drugged stupor. Like an addict we won’t stop until we hit rock bottom. Only when we recognize and acknowledge the reality facing us at this critical point in history will we be able to affect change. By recognizing there is a problem we can move on to the next step, which is accept personal responsibility for the role we play in the big picture.