Closer To What We Want

How much is enough? How much is more than enough? Most of us take so much for granted. I know I do - every day. I remember a time when I was part of a commune, living well with just enough of everything - food, clothing, a simple home, good friends, self-made fun. When I worked overseas, life was even more simple. I don't remember wanting for anything. Life, in fact, was very good, very good indeed. What I wanted, I had. If I were to returned to that way of life now, would I be content? Would it be enough? I think it would be, once i settled into it. We really don't need half of what we've got to be happy, healthy, productive and secure.

Praise What Comes

surprising as unplanned kisses, all you haven't deserved
of days and solitude, your body's immoderate good health
that lets you work in many kinds of weather. Praise

talk with just about anyone. And quiet intervals, books
that are your food and your hunger; nightfall and walks
before sleep. Praising these for practice, perhaps

you will come at last to praise grief and the wrongs
you never intended. At the end there may be no answers
and only a few very simple questions: did I love,

finish my task in the world? Learn at least one
of the many names of God? At the intersections,
the boundaries where one life began and another

ended, the jumping-off places between fear and
possibility, at the ragged edges of pain,
did I catch the smallest glimpse of the holy?
Jeanne Lohmann

This Week's Suggestion

Let's take a few minutes each day to stop and look at what we have. Note it all. And then, take a few more minutes to consider what we really need. As the week goes on, let's ask ourselves what is it we really want. How do our non-essential belongings bring us closer to our life goals? If we find we have gathered around us a lot of items that do not help us get closer to that which we deeply want, perhaps it is time to challenge ourselves with the question, "Why do I keep hanging on to all this stuff and why do I continue to accumulate more of it?

Getting To Know Our Neighbours

This past weekend, while planting bulbs, I came across several healthy looking earthworms, lovely creatures. I realized I know very little about them, even though we all are so dependant on them for life. Their task is to eat dead plant and animal material, break it down and return precious nutrients to the soil.
Their burrowing allows rain to enter the soil watering plant roots and preventing soil erosion. Earthworms are found all over the world in the different layers of soil, in rotting logs, as high as 10 metres above ground in the axials of tree branches and along the moist shores of lakes, rivers, ponds and springs.
There are 2700 different species of earthworm ranging in length from a few inches to a 10-footer in Australia. 32 million earthworms will be found in a square mile of fertile earth. Did you know that an earthworm has 5 hearts, and when the weather gets cold and the soil begins to freeze, an earthworm burrows further down into the earth, generates its own antifreeze, curls up into a tight knot and waits it out? An official census of the 28 known species of earthworms in Great Britain will start in March, 2009. If you are a gardener in the UK, you could volunteer for the count.

A Fact Or Two:


Definitions of Poverty: (Net Aid)
Extreme (or absolute) poverty: Living in extreme poverty (less than $1 a day) means not being able to afford the most basic necessities to ensure survival.
Moderate poverty: defined as earning about $1 to $2 a day, enables households to just barely meet their basic needs, but they still must forgo many of the things-education, health care-that many of us take for granted. The smallest misfortune (health issue, job loss, etc.) threatens survival.
Relative poverty: means that a household has an income below the national average.

In Canada, the average income after taxes for a two parent family with children under 18 years of age, and both parents working, was $76, 400 in 2006 (Statistics Canada).

In 2002 at the Monterry Conference and the Johannesburg Summit, 22 countries signed an agreement to give 0.7% of their annual national income towards ending world hunger and poverty. The United Nations reports that $195 billion a year would eliminate world hunger and extreme poverty. $195 billion equals the 0.7% annual income of those 22 countries. Only Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have reached the goal. Canada is one of 6 countries that has not even set up a schedule to reach the 0.7% goal.

Each year, 8 million people die around the world because of poverty.
Over 1 billion people, 1 in every 6 people in the world, live in extreme poverty.
More than 800 million people go hungry.
Women experience the highest level of poverty. Rural female-headed households are at the bottom of the poverty chain.
Only 10% of global spending on medical research and development is directed at the diseases of the poorest 90% of the world's people. (Net Aid)

Click onto: http://www.poverty.com/

What Can We Do?

Together, we can make a difference. Click onto: http://www.poverty.com/printletter.html
Print off several copies of the letter. Sign your name, add your address and mail the letters.

In Canada, send the letters to Prime Minister Harper, leaders of the opposition parties, Minister Diane Foley, and Minister Justin Trudeau. You don't need a stamp to send letters to The House of Commons. This will take you only 3 - 5 minutes of your time.

Let's share our good fortune. Consider alternative gift giving this holiday season. There are food and toy banks, local and national organizations, and international organizations that can help us help people around the world. (see sidebar for some ideas)

Media

TV/Internet: The Suzuki Diaries is such a worthwhile documentary to watch - full of hope, ideas and much puzzlement as to why Canada is so slow to move towards renewable energy sources. Look at it in segments, or all at once. http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2008/suzukidiaries/ and go to Watch Online

Websites: Click onto this site and play the game. http://www.freerice.com/index.php
You can choose your subject and level of expertise.
With every right answer, Free Rice donates 20 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program to help end hunger. Like most things, it all adds up.

This posting is late by almost a week. My computer decided to act up and send me into (almost) panic mode on several occasions when hours of work seemed to disappear into cyberspace without any forwarding address. I don't know where I would be without my Technical Supports. Often, they were able to talk me and my work back to the computer, while on their cellphones, walking down some street, cleaning up the kitchen, or working on their own work at their own computers. Many thanks to the four of you.

Keep your eyes on the sky this coming week.

Jupiter and Venus are shining brightly in the southwest sky with Venus just above Jupiter.

The moon will be full on Friday, December 12th.
It will be the biggest and brightest moon since 1993. Some of the names given to this month's Full Moon are: Christmas Moon, Snow Moon, Twelfth Moon and Long Night Moon.

Happy sky gazing and goodbye for now.
maureen