- Carissa Cosgrove
“I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only by a change in our world view. We shall have to shift from the materialistic, dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward a new consciousness of [...]
A few weeks ago my girlfriend brought home worms. Yes, worms. She was (and still is) so excited about the whole thing that I couldn’t help but be a little bit curious. After I calmed her down, she explained to me that these were earthworms that would help her create something called a “Vermacompost,” which essentially means “a place where little wigglers can eat our food waste, poo it out, and give us high-quality soil for planting things.”
After I got over the initial queeziness in my stomach, I actually found myself beginning to ask more questions, and sure enough, before long I had turned into an avid indoor-composter as well. I still find it hard to pin down what’s so interesting about the whole thing. Maybe it’s that I unconsciously wanted some new pets to join our team of cats and fish. Or maybe it’s that I was wanting to refresh my nurturing abilities given that we have a baby on the way - although, worms are a bit different than babies so that might be a bit of a stretch. Whatever the reason, it’s just plain fun to take part in a mini eco-system inside your home.
Fun seems to be an important part in being able to make real changes to our environment I find. There seems to be an unintentionally large amount of seriousness involved whenever the topic of “saving the planet” comes up. What pressure! Yes, of course we humans have been a little immature (to put it very lightly) in regards to how we’ve been interacting with the rest of nature, but as we already know, using fear as a motivator is exhausting and eventually fails in it’s attempts to control the situation.
As Einstein pointed out: “We cannot solve problems with the same level of consciousness that created them”. So if it was fear that got us into this mess then what makes us think that fear will get us out of it? “Saving the planet” is just fear in disguise. What got us into this mess is believing that we are separate from nature which produced the fear of needing to survive at any and all cost (as if nature forgot about us when it decided to take care of the rest of the planet).
If you think about it, the belief that we have to “save” anything still comes from the belief that we are separate from our environment. What’s really required is for us to realize our oneness with the rest of life. No conscious person would want to hurt anyone or anything because they would know that they are essentially hurting themselves in the process. This is obviously a profound shift in how one views themselves, others, and the environment, but without this shift, making positive changes that last might as well be another pipe dream.
Thanks for going Within
& may you (me) have a wonderful day : )
Kyle
Kyle Hoobin
Co-Publisher Within Kingston Magazine
How Worm Compost Helps Your Plants, Health and the Environment and How You Can Get Started
- Steve Charles Habib
Worms often have a bad reputation with many people. They look slimy and squiggly which makes many people feel sick to their stomach. The truth is in nature worms are one the best allies of gardeners. You [...]
SCIENCE MATTERS
- David Suzuki with Faisal Moola
Some people think of bees as something to be feared. But without bees, humans would not be able to survive. It’s not just that they provide us with honey and wax; they are also one of the world’s most important pollinators. (In fact, bees native to Canada do not [...]
- Carissa Cosgrove
If you are driving down King Street in Kingston on your way towards Kingston Township, you might notice a set of buildings seemingly covered in solar panels on the southern edge of the property at St. Lawrence College.
If you do, you are likely looking at Energy House, an on-campus structure using alternative and [...]
- Jillian Murphy, BScKin, ND
Who doesn’t appreciate a clean home? Freshly laundered sheets, a sparkling kitchen countertop, a toilet scrubbed within an inch of its life….Mmmmm, you can almost smell the clean!
In fact, you probably can smell the clean. If you are using any of the common household cleaners sold in Canada today, and you’re [...]
- Jo-Anne Hopkins, RHN
Kingston is a hot bed of sustainable farming practices, and has been for a long time. But, it is with the increasing awareness by the public about the “green movement” that is getting the ball rolling so to speak. This issue of Within Kingston is focusing on greening your home, so I [...]
- Christina Vlahopoulos, ND
When I was in school for Naturopathic Medicine one of my professors quoted Fr. Thomas Berry: “You cannot have healthy people on a sick planet.” In other words, humans suffer when the earth suffers. So why do we continue to punish the earth and in turn further our own suffering? If we [...]
- Andrée Beauchamp (dharani), CNHP, herbalist
A healthy home starts with our health from within.
Looking after our home starts with us: what we eat, what we think and what we do. The Buddhist pillars of practice — cultivating a peaceful mind, a contented heart and gratitude — have an impact on our ability to be with [...]
POWER OF NOW
- Eckhart Tolle
What about people who want to use me, manipulate me or control me? Am I to surrender to them?
They are cut off from Being, so they unconsciously attempt to get energy and power from you. It is true that only an unconscious person will try to use or manipulate others, but [...]
Sustaining our Cities
Nathan Putnam
and Mark Ouseley Co-owners, Living Cities Company
nathan.putnam@livingcitiescompany.ca
www.livingcitiescompany.ca
With the increased concern over the health of our planet, sustainable urban living has become a vital component to improving the quality of life in our cities. The good news for Kingston is that Nathan Putnam and Mark Ouseley have decided to call our city [...]
- Oliver Guttorm
Aries:
Though certain areas of your life may seem a bit out of balance dear Aries know that within the chaotic feeling of it all balance can easily be restored. Now! I am not assuming that you are walking around feeling like this all the time, just giving you heads up that if you [...]
Given that our frequency has changed to four times a year, I didn’t have the opportunity, until now to wish you a Happy New Year, a bit late I know. The one thing that I’ve always appreciated about the “New Year” is that it always feels like a fresh start, an opportunity for change.
Change however, [...]
SCIENCE MATTERS
- David Suzuki with Faisal Moola
Well, 2008 was a wild ride, wasn’t it? Talk about ending the year with a bang! A global economic crisis, numerous elections here and in the U.S., turmoil in our own Parliament, and a worsening environmental situation – it’s enough to make you want to climb under the blankets [...]
- Sonya Nobbe, N.D.
A few weeks into winter and many people are noticing the cold, fatigue, and weight gain more this year than last. They may write-off the changes to the “winter blues”… but could a more serious health concern be responsible for these changes?
Low thyroid function, also known as hypothyroidism, mimics many other health [...]
- Mike Nickerson
An alternative to panicking when GDP stops growing is to view it as a sign of maturity.
Human activity cannot expand forever on our finite planet. An economy growing at 3% a year doubles its size every 24 years. Centuries of such growth have brought us to a mature size. As with individual maturity, [...]
- Michael Bloch
Yellow Pages and the environment.
Just about everyone has a Yellow Pages in their country. These tomes are usually huge and given the availability these days of online versions, are pretty much just paper spam to many they are forced upon.
The North American Yellow Pages print distribution is around 540 million directories annually. That’s [...]
