Global Coherence Initiative

There is a wonderful project called the Global Coherence Initiative (GCI), which is part of the Institute of Heartmath. The GCI is teaching us how to use our compassion and feelings of love to help soothe things on the planet. They have different focuses for their sessions. Right now they've been focusing on us sending love to the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Earlier in the year, we were focusing on the areas affected by earthquakes (Haiti, Chile, China, etc.) You may have heard Gregg Braden talk about this project.

To read more about their fascinating research and their projects, visit http://glcoherence.org/ .

Jacaranda Extravaganza!

Due to the cold winter and cool spring, the flowering trees have been especially beautiful! Here are Jacaranda (purple), which was preceded in bloom by the bottlebrush trees (red). (Photos copyright 2010 by Anne Cederberg)

Splashing with the Koi

One of the highlights (of a trip of highlights) at Selby Gardens was splashing with the koi! They came up to greet us all. This photo is of Tatiana Agafonova, founder of Transendance Chiropractic and Wellness Education club, with Julia Seyffert, Tour Guide for Selby Gardens (and gardener extraordinare!) and many enthusiastic, finny friends! These large fish are fascinating to watch and their coloring is gorgeous.

Selby Gardens Ecopsychology Excursion

On May 15, the Wellness Education Club, part of Transendance Chiropractic, offered an outing to Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota. We were surrounded by beauty: colors, textures, blue sky, things we had never seen. It was a glorious morning! We ran into Selby Tour Guide Julia Seyffert, who identified many unusual plants for us and gave us a splashy introduction to the Garden's Koi fish. We all had a marvelous garden. Please join us on one of our Ecopsychology Adventures (go back to the January or December postings to get a better idea of what Ecopsychology is). (All photos copyright 2010 by Sandrina Mayela)

The Water Lilly

The water lily grows in the bottom of a body of water like a pond.

They grow out of a sometimes stinky, gooey bed of mud mixed with dead, slimy,

rotting plant and animal material.

Out of this mess, this mire, however, rises a stalk and some leaves.

And when some of those stalks reach the surface,

an exquisitely beautiful flower,

the water lily,

bursts into bloom.

The water lily

reminds us all that out of the “mess”,

something beautiful can grow.

It appears we have created a mire, a mess of our environment.

We’ve polluted it with garbage, with chemicals, with violence, with our bad thinking, with our unconscious actions and poor decisions.

Something beautiful can still rise out of our mess,

and when it reaches the surface,

blossom into an exquisite flower.

What beautiful creations can come out of this?

It’s up to us.

May Day (Beltane)

In Pre-Christian times, the first of May was known as Beltane (in Celtic tradition). It was also the Festival of Flora, named after the Roman Goddess of flowers. In many Germanic countries, including Scandanavia, Germany, Estonia and others, Walpurgis Night was celebrated with dancing and large bonfires. (For some great photos of these fires, go to Wikipedia and look up Walpurgis).

In some pagan traditions, February 2, Candlemas, was the beginning of Spring, and May the 1st was the beginning of summer. This explains why some traditions refer to the summer solstice, June 21, as "Mid summer".

In the U.S., many people participated in creating small baskets of flowers to leave on neighbor's doors anonymously. This tradition pretty much died out in the late 20th century. There was also a tradition of dancing the Maypole.

In many countries, May 1 is also celebrated as International Worker's Day or Labour Day.

May 2010 Sarasota Almanac

Full Moon: May 27
New Moon; May 14
Meteor Showers: Eta Aqarids, May 5-6
Other Astronomical Events: Scorpio much more visible in the night sky

Other Events in the World Around Us:
Temperatures: Gradually getting warmer and much more humid; often dry and the end of the dry season; fires sometimes. Usually the start of summer weather. Rainy season may start late in month.
Foliage: Jacarandas (a little late this year), gardenias, crepe myrtles all blooming.
Animal activity: Love bugs, round one! Many song and other birds nesting and raising young; baby ducks.

Fall color or cool Florida spring?

The cool Florida spring also prolonged the blooming of the oak trees. The process of trees losing leaves, the development of catkins and then the release of pollen took many weeks. The landscape looked beautiful and very, very fall-like!

Fall Color or Cool Florida Spring?

Our record cool winter and spring have caused beautiful tree color. Here we see the red maple blossoms and early leaves, followed by seeds. The color weather allowed the red maples to remain in this beautiful red stage for 4-5 weeks, much longer than usual!

Earth Changes Within Us?

Earth Changes

By Anne Cederberg 1995

One day last summer, I got a clear, strong message in my heard. “The Earth Changes are in us.” The message said. It was one of those messages I know is not me, it is from outside of me somehow. The profoundness and clarity tell me that. In this space I’d like to explore this message.

Most of what I knew about Earth changes was not about human interactions with them, but predictions. These predictions always included numerous natural disasters presented as the earth’s way of healing herself from human-inflicted wounds. Predictions include earthquakes, volcanoes, tidal waves, floods, and polar shifts; occasionally sprinkled with reports of consciousness change and alien/UFO visitations. Many predictions tell of a return to a better life for the few surviving humans: life closer to the earth and in harmony with other people. These prophecies come from psychics, some indigenous peoples and “New Agers”.

I’m not in a position to dispute them, but based on the message I received, “The Earth changes are within us”, I’d like to examine some new possibilities.

While writing an article called Earth Body Human Body, I learned that the Earth is a living being and all life on Earth may be individual cells in the body of this being. And, from my own experience and intuition, I have grown to believe that just as my body reflects the totality of my thoughts, actions, and emotions, so the Earth’s body reflects the thoughts, actions and emotions of us all. Healing as individuals and as a planet are inter-connected.

Let’s talk about “external” earth changes. It seems some natural disasters “Just happen”. Earth quakes, for instance are a natural process of movement in the earth’s crust. We have trouble predicting earthquakes, and we can’t stop them. We may feel at the “mercy” of the earth and may feel like victims at times.

Other “external” earth changes are clearly the cumulative effect of human activity; the midwestern floods in ’93 were many years and many actions in the making. One way we can affect earth changes is to learn to make better choices. This can be a long process of trial and error. I think there is an easier, more effective way, which I’ll discuss soon.

I’ve heard a theory that humans collective consciousness causes natural disasters to bring about certain things we need. In the aftermath of a disaster, people always pull together. Are we seeking community and creating natural disasters to experience human closeness? Is the earth bringing us what we need?

Locally, the winters of ’92-’93 and ’94-’95 were very windy. Just prior to both winters, we experienced very disturbing elections that brought a lot of hate to the surface. I believe the winds were healing and cleansing us. We needed it!

I’ve also hard a theory that certain people live in certain areas. Some types of people need to live on fault zones; others need to live in “tornado alley” with violent weather. It gives us something we need. It seems that “external” earth changes may bring about “internal” earth changes in emotions, attitudes and behaviors. Every time I’ve been in an “external” earthquake, things shift inside me and fall into place.

What about how our “internal” shifts affect the planet, how we may influence outer events? What are our earth changes? What about the recovery movement, in its broadest sense? A lot of us are sifting through the ruins of childhood, re-parenting ourselves, forgiving, moving on. Twelve-step groups abound. There is a profound interest in anything Native American. There’s the Deep Ecology/Nature & Spirituality/Environmental movement. The Women’s movement. The Men’s movement. The rebirth of ritual. Dreamwork. Gay rights. Moving back towards community. As we all know, all these “movements” are hard emotional work. It is a time of great turmoil.

I once heard a great healing analogy: that of closet cleaning. When you begin to clean out your closet, the rest of the room gets dirty. But when you’re done, you have two clean rooms! The person speaking this was a healer. Perhaps she was speaking of the “healing crisis”, where things temporarily get worse before getting better. Right now, we’re busy cleaning our individual and collective closets. Everything looks like a mess. But if we continue to work, I think things will get better. I believe every step we take towards our own healing, heals the earth. As we truly heal at this deeper level, from the inside out, we will naturally make better choices and alter the world around us. Our healing will be deep, not superficial.

Can we alter the potential of natural disasters by making necessary changes within ourselves? Or are external earth changes inevitable? There have always been earth changes, since before there were people. But maybe our inner change will help us survive whatever is to come. I don’t know. The message “The Earth changes are in us” was clear and very real. The rest of this article is my very human thoughts as I try to understand the message.

My job, I feel, is to present ideas and hope others will use them as springboards to new thoughts and ideas. I’m trying to look at things in entirely new ways.

More photos of Baby Sandhill Cranes

In this photo, you can see the two Sandhill Crane parents and their two offspring. Betsy has Sandhill families such as this in her yard almost every spring. It is quite the soap opera to watch every day, hoping they survive. Many years they don't.

Sandhill Cranes are very family oriented and very protective and do best together. One year, (2001) when I worked at Pelican Man's Bird Sanctuary helping raise hundreds of abandoned/injured song bird babies, we had a young Sandhill that had been orphaned. It lived in the hospital, and we called it Cricket, because of the little chirping sound it made. It seemed to not be interested in leaving the Sanctuary, even when it could easily fly away. But in September, a few days after 9/11, Tropical Storm Gabrielle was out in the Gulf. No one was too concerned. A few days before, Cricket took off. We assumed she was gone for good. After the storm, she came back! She was just very in touch with her instincts, even in spite of being raised "in captivity". She sensed the storm, fled to safety, and returned when it was all over! In retrospect we all wished we had paid more attention to her departure; we wouldn't have been so caught off guard by the storm.

Photo copyright 2010 Betsy Marx

Baby Bird Season

Although some birds, like our wading birds (Egrets, Herons, etc.) nest and raise young early in the year, April is often the official start of "baby bird season" for song birds (crows, jays, cardinals, wrens, mockingbirds, chimney swifts, woodpeckers and others) and some other birds. Here is a photo of two very young sandhill crane babies taken recently by my friend Betsy Marx.



photo copyright Betsy Marx 2010

April 2010
Sarasota Almanac

Full Moon: April 28
New Moon: April 14
Meteor Showers: The Lyrids on April 21 & 22

Other Events in the World Around Us:

Light: Days continually increasing in length since the Vernal Equinox in late March

Temperature: Usually beautiful weather and low humidity, but humidity may start to increase towards the end of the month (every eyar is different)

Foliage: Gold trees may be in bloom, followed by Jacarandas (may be late this year). Wisteria in bloom, but look quick in Florida! Not much here, and it may only bloom a day or two if we have hot weather. Nun orchids, yucca, Arican Iris, shell ginger may all bloom. Loquats usually ending; tiny mangoes now appear on trees, Surinam Cherries maybe ready.

Animal Activity: Lots of Mockingbirds singing; baby ducks and baby song birds (crows, jays, mockers, cardinals, etc.) start hatching, growing and fledging. Frog and toad song, especially after rains; gecko song, if there are any around. Woodpecker drumming (pecking rapidly, often on metal or something loud, marking their territory).

April 2010 Sarasota Almanac

April, 2010

Sarasota Almanac

Full Moon: April 28

New Moon: April 14

Meteor Showers: The Lyrids on April 21 & 22

Other Events in the World Around Us:

Light: Days continually increasing in length since the Vernal Equinox in late March

Temperature: Usually beautiful weather and low humidity. Humidity may increase towards the end of the month (every year is different).

Crops:

Foliage: Gold Trees may be in bloom. Jacarandas follow them, usually bloom in April; maybe slightly later this year. Wisteria in bloom, but look quick in Florida! May only last a couple of days if it’s hot. Nun orchids, yucca, African iris, shell ginger may all bloom. Loquats usually ending; tiny mangoes now appear on trees, Surinam cherries often ready.

Animal Activity: More Mockingbird song; Baby ducks and baby song birds start hatching; Frog and toad song, especially after rains; Gecko song, if there are any around; More woodpecker drumming.