Coffee With Kate

Spekboom has enormous carbon-storing capabilities. Its capacity to offset harmful carbon emissions is equivalent to that of moist, subtropical forest.

This is quite incredible - evidence gathered in the Eastern Cape over the past seven years shows that spekboom has enormous carbon-storing capabilities. Spekboom, an indigenous plant known as “elephant’s food”, shows potential to mop up the excess CO2 responsible for climate change, and make a fortune for SA on the international carbon trading market.

The unassuming plant, Portulacaria afra, is now being restored in thousands of hectares of land, which is worth between €10billion... and €20-billion a year in Europe. Findings suggest that up to four tons of carbon a year would be captured by each hectare. [what is carbon trading?]

Spekboom is an evergreen succulent that can reach a height of 2,5m and occurs mainly in the south-eastern Cape. Normally found in rocky, dry areas, it also does well in watered flower beds.

Rates of carbon storage by replanted spekboom were measured on a farm near Uitenhage. About 27 years ago the farmer, Graham Slater, became tired of dealing with regular flooding of his barn and set about replanting the adjacent degraded hillslope with spekboom.

"The two-metre-high growth of spekboom on bare ground under only 250mm to 350mm of annual rainfall was almost miraculous," said Cowling. Each hectare of spekboom on the farm sequestered 4,2 tons of carbon a year.

"The vision is to tap into the international carbon market and thereby restore hundreds of thousands of hectares of degraded thicket, provide tens of thousands of jobs in the process and create a source of income for rural communities for many decades," Cowling said. [M&G]

Submitted by sproutingforth on Tue, 2008-06-24 10:10.

Look up at the stars tonight… Smell the fragrances in the air…

Greet the sunrise tomorrow.

Hear the sounds of Mother Nature’s creatures as she awakens for the day. Look and really see the beauty and elegance of everything, from the tiniest leaf to the most gigantic tree, and all that’s in between.

Don’t judge what you see or experience as good or bad; instead, appreciate the precious uniqueness of the diverse elements that make up this wonderful world in which we exist.

You really need to get outdoors in nature to deepen this experience of appreciation. Mother earth is your true mother – you’re birthed from her through your biological mother. Honour her be revelling in the remarkable tapestry of her diverse expressions, and as you do, breathe deeply and slowly.

You and your world are intimately interwoven, and you’re alive in that world. Appreciate your own beauty and the magnificent being that you are as you revel in the elegant exquisiteness of all that you see, hear, and feel.

Practice and focus on; Peace; Elegance; Purity

Paris - Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported on Wednesday.
The eruptions - as big as the one that buried Pompei - took place in 1999 along the Gakkel Ridge, an underwater mountain chain snaking 1 800 kilometres from the northern tip of Greenland to Siberia.
Scientists suspected even at the time that a simultaneous series of earthquakes were linked to these volcanic spasms.
But when a team led of scientists led by Robert Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts finally got a first-ever glimpse of the ocean floor 4 000 meters beneath the Arctic pack ice, they were astonished.
What they saw was unmistakable evidence of explosive eruptions rather than the gradual secretion of lava bubbling up from Earth's mantle onto the ocean floor.
Previous research had concluded that this kind of so-called pyroclastic eruption could not happen at such depths due to the crushing pressure of the water.
"On land, explosive volcanic eruptions are nothing exceptional, although they present a major threat," said Vera Schlindwein, a geologist with Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Sea and Polar Research, which took part in the study.
But the new findings, published in Nature, showed that "large-scale pyroclastic activity is possible along even the deepest portions of the global mid-ocean ridge volcanic system."
The mid-ocean ridge runs 84 000km beneath all the world's major seas except the Southern Ocean, and marks the boundary between many of the tectonic plates that make up the surface of the Earth.
When continental plates collide into each other, they can thrust up mountain ranges such as the Himalayas.
But along most of the mid-ocean ridge - including the Gakkal Ridge - the plates are pulling apart, allowing molten magna and gases trapped beneath the crust to escape.
Sohn and his colleagues gathered their data in July last year aboard the ice breaker Oden, using state-of-the-art instruments including a mutlibeam echo sounder, two autonomous underwater vehicles and a sub-ice camera designed for the mission.
Both sonar and visual images showed an ocean valley filled with flat-topped volcanos up to two kilometres wide and several hundred metres high.

Published on the Web by IOL on 2008-06-26 09:07:26

www.iol.co.za

© Independent Online 2005. All rights reserved. IOL publishes this article in good faith but is not liable for any loss or damage caused by reliance on the information it contains.

A Letter from Deepak

Today is a good day for war to come to an end. As we begin June 2008, an estimated 41 military conflicts are being fought around the world. In the Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Conga, Burma, and elsewhere, the collective subconscious is erupting with rage and violence.

It’s a good day for all of these wars to come to an end. But is it possible? War has dominated human history for so long that it’s easy to believe that violence is an innate response and that warfare is inevitable. In truth, violence is not the essence of human nature. It is prevalent, yes, and it is innate. But so is the opposite of violence: love.

To end war, I believe at the core of my being that only a consciousness-based approach will work. You have to think of ending not just one conflict, and not just 41. We have to end the idea of war, which has become a habit of war. With increasingly deadly weaponry, the habit of war has brought us to a pivotal point for humanity’s future. Now, perhaps more than ever, we have reason to unite in peace. Put simply: war must end, or we will.

How can we overcome the habit of war? By overcoming hatred. How can we overcome hatred? By releasing love. How can we release love? By growing in consciousness, which means consideration, forgiveness, understanding . . . an awareness of our common being. And this applies to collective, social, family, and individual conflicts.

Peace can only be created by those who are peaceful

Societies get caught in the grip of their own national and tribal stories, which are limited, self-serving, based on the past, reinforced by orthodoxy, and therefore opposed to real change. Wars are fueled by these stories, which can be incredibly persuasive. A prime example is the story of victimization, used countless times to justify revenge and violence.

It is helpful to realize that we can choose not to participate in the story. It is also important not to try to change anyone’s story. We need to simply notice and observe ourselves when we start to buy into it, then back away from participating in it.

Keep in mind that engagement and detachment aren't opposites; the more engaged we become, the more detached we will have to be. Otherwise, we will lose ourselves in conflict, obsessiveness, anxiety over the future, and feelings of guilt and inadequacy. Realize that we are pioneers into the unknown, and uncertainty is our ally. When our minds crave closure and certainty, we need to remind ourselves that these are fictions.

The global shift in consciousness may not come easily, but it is possible. One person at a time, we can release the habit of war and find new ways to respond when we are very afraid or very angry. The way of peace has to become a new habit. And there is reason for optimism. Humanity has evolved to transcend many things that once seemed innate. We have learned to use reason triumphantly and have overcome many superstitions and diseases. We have deepened our understanding of nature, consciousness, and ourselves. These successes lead naturally to the next step, which is the realization that human beings have outgrown war and are ready for peace.

Love,
Deepak

© Copyright 2008 The Chopra Center at La Costa Resort and Spa

The act of eating is life-giving. The process of eating is something that is reverent and important for the development of consciousness as well as our physical health. When we sit down to eat our stomach is in a relaxed posture and our awareness is on the taste, texture, and smell of the food. This will greatly improve the digestion. Another way to improve the digestion is to stimulate digestive ‘fire’ before we begin eating. Weak digestion may result in fatigue after eating so the wise sages commend eating a 1-inch piece of fresh ginger with a few drops of lemon juice and a few pinches of salt on it before a full meal. This starts to activate the salivary glands, producing the necessary enzymes so that the nutrients in the food are easily absorbed by the body.

Balancing your digestive system is a key. The digestive system can be compared to a burning fire. If the flame is very low then it will take a long time to cook the food. In the same way if the fire is too big it can burn the food; if we put a huge log on a low fire it will extinguish it. Our digestive fires should be balanced so that we can digest our meals efficiently and smoothly.

The ginger and lemon juice recommendation helps to increase the digestive power. If, however you suffer from an over-active digestive system, when there is too much internal heat and acid, then pomegranate chutney may soothe the system.

The next recommendation also affects the digestive system. It is recommended that one avoids cold drinks at meals and ice cold foods in general. This is like putting cold water on the burning logs. Iced water, normally served at restaurants, extinguishes the digestive fire. Even juice or milk right out of the refrigerator is too cold for the digestion. Juice should be taken at room temperature and water without ice.

Be well and eat well.

Eat foods as close to their natural state as possible. Processed, canned and refined foods are low on vital energy and natural intelligence.

Paris - Mass extinctions that wiped out up to 90 percent of Earth's flora and fauna were driven in large part by shifting ocean levels, according to a study published in Nature.
Understanding what made many of the planet's living organism rapidly die out at least five times over the last half billion years remains one of the great challenges in palaeontology and biology.
Some theories point an accusing figure at the cooling effect of massive dust shrouds thrown into the atmosphere by volcanoes and asteroids crashing into Earth, or the warming caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide.
Other scientists highlight the role of disease and competition among species for limited resources.
But the new study suggests that it was the ebb and flow of sea levels and sediment over geologic time, rather than cataclysmic events, that doomed tens of thousands of species to extinction.
"The expansions and contractions of those environments have pretty profound effects on life on Earth," said Shanan Peters, a geologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and sole author of the study.
Since the beginning of life on Earth, some 3,5 billion years ago, there have been more than 20 mass extinction events, many involving single-cell organisms, say scientists.
And during the last 540 million years that have been five well-documented periods of mass die offs, mainly of marine plants and animals.
With the exception of a colossal asteroid impact some 65 million years ago that left a 180-kilometre wide crater in Mexico, the cause for the other mass extinctions is sharply contested.
Even that one coincided with an abrupt retraction of oceans then covering much of North America and Europe that could have played a major role in the disappearance of dinosaurs, Peters said.
To test his hypothesis, Peters measured to two types of ancient shallow marine environments preserved in the rock record.
One corresponds to typical vacation spots - white sand beaches, clear blue water - and is composed mainly of calcium deposits produced by organisms with shells.
The other is characterised by brown or muddy sand, rocky beaches and water that is greenish and cloudy. Over time, sediments in these areas accumulate from land erosion.
"I looked at rates of extinction in the fossil record over the last 500 million years," Peters said.
"And then I compared them to the environmental changes - mostly explained by shifts in sea level - that are encoded in the sedimentary rocks."
What Peters found was a very strong match, showing that the sometimes dramatic rise and fall of oceans levels correlated more consistently with mass extinctions that any other factor.
Sea levels rose more than 80 meters at the end of the last major glacial period some 15 000 years ago, he said.
Climate and the movement of tectonic plates are the key factors that influence the degree to which the continents would flood.
"Most people think of sea level changes in terms of depth of meters or feet. I am looking at a different measure - the environmental consequences of sea level change, the impact on habitats," he explained.

Published on the Web by IOL on 2008-06-17 09:23:16

© Independent Online 2005. All rights reserved. IOL publishes this article in good faith but is not liable for any loss or damage caused by reliance on the information it contains.

Rain pours again its sound thundering against windows and pavements; the pool on the patio has reached the level of overflowing and every plant, tree and shrub is heavily bowed under the weight of the water. The sun has just peeked out for a few seconds through the cold and wet, just moments away from setting over a very stormy sea.

It is times like this that I love to be in the kitchen playing with recipe ideas or creating a master piece. Today I experimented with baking a savoury bacon and olive loaf and thought that some of you might enjoy trying it. Do let me know the outcome if you do.

Bacon and Olive Loaf

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups flour

1-1/2 tsps baking powder

1/2 tsp ground pepper

3 x eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup plus 1 Tbsp butter, melted

2/3 cup olives, pitted and sliced

4 ounces bacon, about 4 slices, cut into small bits and fried

1 cup Grated Gruyere cheese or grated Parmesan

Pinch of salt, to taste

1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary (optional)

Instructions

Heat the oven to 350ºF/180ºC. Butter and flour a loaf pan. Sift the flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl, and stir the pepper through. Beat the eggs into the flour. Beat in the melted butter. Stir through the remaining ingredients to distribute evenly. Spoon the batter into the pan and bake 45 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool slightly. Remove from pan. Slice, and serve.

Are you aware that everything in life can be nourishing? Everything can bless us, but we've got to be there for the blessing to occur. Being present with quality is a decision we are invited to make each day.

It is said that Spirit is not only found in holy places, prayer and meditation, yoga and retreats. It is everywhere; in your relationships, your work, your daily chores, in nature ... to be experienced if you are willing to connect deeply with your environment.

In being open to connect with something, you open to its essence, its purpose and meaning. There are other dimensions of reality below what we normally see and hear. So, let yourself open to the mystery.

We live in world deities, but most often holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb. Life wants to lead you from crumbs to angels, but this can happen only if you are willing to un-wrap the ordinary by staying with it long enough to harvest its treasure.

Have a nice day

Cholesterol Balance:

If you crave sweets or feel thirsty, eat plenty of sweet, juicy fruits.

For Quality Digestion:

Favour fresh foods and avoid left-over’s which can disrupt digestion.

Good morning everyone,

Gosh, storms have slapped us silly. The gale force wind and bucketing rain has engulfed us for more than a week. At times the mist was so heavy that one could not see anything beyond the deck. The trees have been thrashed about and the little plants in the garden bullied but all seem to have coped in the end.

Then just as one thought the winter had arrived; the conditions changed in a flash bringing hot weather today, with calmness and a gentle warm breeze in the air. Amazing!

Wandering around the garden early this morning I was pleased to note that the young lemon trees have survived the recent harsh conditions and are in fact flourishing. I am however concerned that if we get further torturous wind that the new leaf emerging from one of the palms will get damaged as the last few have. The tree is looking rather awkward at the moment with knit one, skip one and break one leaf format.

Additional lighting has been installed in the meditation courtyard where Mr Koi and his other fishy mates are happily housed and doing so well. Mr Koi has grown rather large since his arrival some years ago. In my heart he is still my baby even though approximately 30cm in length now, he still likes to suck my fingers and nudge my hand when I spend time with them or when I feed them. He is also very much ‘the boss’ of the pond.

I am also pleased to report that the blender finger is healing extremely well and it seems will leave very little scarring which is a very pleasant surprise. This is thanks to new methods of healing which is referred to as the wet method. What this means is that the finger is wrapped in a type of dressing which keeps the damaged skin moist and is replaced every three days. On removal of the dressing it pulls away with it any scabbing formation, thereby allowing the skin to fuse together smoothly. All fascinating to observe; oh yes, I could eventually look at it, as gory as it was.

All for now, chat soon.

Fans of Eckhart Tolle’s last bestseller, The Power of Now, have been waiting eight long years for the follow up, and now their patience has been amply rewarded. A New Earth – Awakening to your Life’s Purpose is a phenomenal book, written with real warmth, humour and a huge amount of insight. If you’re a newcomer to Tolle’s work then by all means, start with this one – A New Earth stands on its own merits, and is guaranteed to win the author a wide new readership.

A New Earth is, very simply, one of the best offerings in the field of personal growth and spirituality to come out in years. No matter how near or how far you are along your own spiritual path, you can benefit from reading this book. Like his last book, this one is all about finding more joy and purpose in your life right now, and who doesn’t need that?

The key to more joy and purpose is by living in the present moment. Rather, “being” in the present moment. How do you do that? According to Mr. Tolle, it comes by a slow dismantling of the ego, and it’s endless attachment to the world of “form”. Many authors have written about the desirability of living “in the Now,” but few have laid out such a clear, concise method for doing so as Eckhart Tolle has. This book is transformational on several levels!

Indeed, one gets the feeling that Mr. Tolle has spent the last several years wisely and well. A New Earth offers one insight after another that one can only imagine must be the product of endless hours, days and months thinking, experiencing, (Being?), getting tripped up, and starting over again. He gives us concrete examples, anecdotes, tips from his years of counselling and, best of all, he details some of the signposts of progress as well as the common pitfalls.

As for the “Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose” part of the title – that is, in fact, our purpose – to grow in consciousness by being in the present moment. This is the next wave of evolution that will lead to “A New Earth.” But if you are thinking more along the lines of “I’m unhappy in my current job, but I can’t figure out what I really want to do,” then don’t despair – Tolle gives plenty of solid advice for how to tie in what he calls your primary purpose (consciousness) with what he calls your secondary purpose (what kind of rewarding work you want to do).

Recognizing and dismantling the various aspects of our ego can be a long, hard, and sometimes painful process, so it would be fair to ask, why do it at all? Perhaps because the only thing that is harder and more painful is the way we are living right now. Or, that in our attachment to “forms,” – material things, emotions, old thoughts, the need to feel superior, etc., we are manifesting a world that is hostile, chaotic, polluted and depressing. “Being present” is as simple as not allowing the ego’s games to drag you into either the past or the future – “consciousness” is as simple as recognizing the ego’s attempts for what they are: an endless effort to make you unhappy, dissatisfied, anxious, angry, afraid, and more. For this clarity and conciseness, thank Mr. Tolle.

The author deals with potentially heavy issues with a wonderful, light touch. His descriptions of the ego’s ploys are spot on, and his suggestions for countering these ploys and growing in awareness are practical and clear. But best of all is the news that this new awareness – this evolutionary growth in consciousness – is already happening. And because it’s now in the collective conscious, those of us who are catching up get to “ride the wave,” so to speak, building on the momentum of those who have gone before us, like Mr. Tolle. That also means that if we start doing the work now, we don’t necessarily have to “wipe out” and learn the hard way. If building or manifesting A New Earth becomes a purposeful, joyful experience, it will be because of people like Eckhart Tolle.

Eckhart Tolle was born in Germany, where he spent the first thirteen years of his life. He graduated from the University of London and applied himself as a research scholar and supervisor at Cambridge University. At age 29, he experienced a profound spiritual transformation which radically changed the course of his life.  his time was devoted to understanding, integrating and deepening that transformation, which marked the beginning of an intense inward journey.

Extracted from: Merlins News - By Cheryl Shainmark

In one of the recent comments received from Kenny he said that there are no photographs on my blog of me smiling. How strange.....  I have included this one of me giving my friend Liz a warm hug at her birthday party.  I am smiling!