Celebrating Today 🌎 Every Day

Hi Folks:
 
The other day a good friend sent us a link to a New York Times Opinion article titled: “What Is the Plastic in Our Bodies Doing to Us?” Essentially the article covered the likelihood that you have micro- and/or nano-plastics in your body’s tissues, along with the suggestion that this may be a problem but nobody really knows for sure. Our friend asked for our thoughts. Mike wrote the following, and Marcia suggested we post it here:
 
I find articles like this sad – not because they’re untrue, but because their only purpose seems to be to instill a vague sense of unease, to add to people’s feeding craze for fear and to simultaneously instill a sense of powerlessness. There’s nothing you can do about it, may as well give up trying… 
 
Nearly a century ago we exposed ourselves (and everything else) to DDT. WE didn’t stop there of course, but added DDE, chlordane, heptichlor, malathion, parathion and thousands of others. We invented fission energy and used it to annihilate each other. We created acid rain, PCB/  BPA/ pthalates and other xenoestrogens, thalidomide… the list goes on and on. 
 
In 1965 James Lovelock presented the Gaia hypothesis, which suggested that the earth is an autopoeitic network. He was shouted down by scientists around the world, even though people who live close to the earth have known this for millennia. We have discovered bacteria that eat plastic. We have seen how Sacred Mother Life adapts and changes, every day. 
 
I still remember my mother telling me that when she was a girl she told my grandmother there was no point in getting new shoes for school because the world was going to end soon. I believe Noam Chomsky would put that under the title ‘Manufacturing Consent’. 
 
For myself, I share news that highlights positive action, new breakthroughs, new developments. Some may consider this ostrich syndrome, but I disagree. It’s not trying to hide from or outrun the dark. It’s about choosing light, every time. In any moment one can only focus on one thing. Mother Teresa is famously quoted as saying that she would never attend an anti-war rally, but to invite her to a pro-peace rally. 
 
As Seth said, “A generation that hates war won’t bring about peace. Only a generation that loves peace can do that.” Among Native Peoples there’s a saying that if you had a community of ___ people, and everyone in that community cared for everyone else, there would be no disease. 
 
We can’t change how or what other people think and feel (no matter how hard we try) but we are all teachers for each other. Everyone has a role; for Marcia and me it’s to create a garden where those who find it can stop and rest. 
 

Can you imagine a world where all of the news shared by media was positive, where people responded kindly to each other? We do, every day.

🌞

 
Sending love and hugs your way. Feel free to spread it around!! 
 
M&M
🧙‍♀️&🧙‍♂️

Happy Mother’s Day!!

Hi Folks:

Today we celebrate all those who are mothers, all who have been and are no longer with us, and all those who have served in that capacity – fathers, aunts, grandparents, foster parents, siblings… anyone and everyone with an abundance of love to share. Today we honour You. (but Marcia’s still my favourite – Mike 💗👨🏻‍🦳👩🏻‍🦳💗)

Happy Mother's DayIn 2010 Marcia wrote a tribute to her father: Remember Father for Mother’s Day. Since then, Marcia’s mother and father have left us. Mike’s mother, dad and sister (herself a mother) are also gone, and Mike’s father passed away yesterday. We remember them in our hearts. However, we are blessed with an abundance of other family and we’ll be welcoming a new granddaughter this summer!!

Sending love and hugs your way!
M&M

P.S. Let’s not forget the Mother of us All…

Earth Day, 2020

Hi Folks: We wrote this as one of our first ‘He Says, She Says…” posts back in 2010. What we each wrote then is still relevant today. Here’s what we had to say then: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

Be well, and wherever you are, remote hugs from US!!

M&M
_____
Following is our original post from 2010:

Hello, Dear Reader:

Well, today is Sunday, April 25, so this is the last official day of ‘Earth Week 2010‘.  Of course, as the adage goes, we should all make every day Earth Day.  We’ve had some fun this week, taking part in several of the various local activities.  On Earth Day itself we stayed close to home but we were at the Earth Day Parade yesterday and at the local Sierra Club’s Earth Fest today.  So, with that in mind we thought we’d make the topic of today’s ‘He Says, She Says‘ post about ‘Earth Day’.

Have a great week!

Hugs,
M&M

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

He Says, She Says…

Hello, Dear Reader:

Well, today is Sunday, April 25, so this is the last official day of ‘Earth Week 2010‘.  Of course, as the adage goes, we should all make every day Earth Day.  We’ve had some fun this week, taking part in several of the various local activities.  On Earth Day itself we stayed close to home but we were at the Earth Day Parade yesterday and at the local Sierra Club’s Earth Fest today.  So, with that in mind we thought we’d make the topic of today’s ‘He Says, She Says‘ post about ‘Earth Day’.

Have a great week!

Hugs,
M&M

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

The Dangers of Planting Bulbs

Hi Folks:

I thought that subject heading might cause a few people to scratch their heads in wonder, so permit me a moment to explain.  First of all, I’ve had a love affair with the earth since I was a boy living in the woods in Quebec.  I’d come home from school, drop my books on the kitchen counter, yell a quick hello and I was gone until dark.  To this day, the ‘woods’ is my true home.  As such I’ve loved gardening for a long time too, both indoors and out.  The first apartment Marcia and I had together was above the double garage, attached to the main house.  We had a large picture window in the living room and we had so many plants that several visitors to our landlady asked her if she had a greenhouse!

Marcia’s often said that all of my plants want to be trees.  In one home we had a 15-foot cathedral ceiling and we had 4 plants over 10-feet tall, including FRED, our Christmas tree.  In our guest bedroom we had a hibiscus plant that was basically an 8-foot diameter ball that took up half the room.  We planted a Brugmansia in a pot, expecting it (as per the image that came with it) to grow about 2-feet high and have a number of white flowers.  Ours grew 6 feet in a couple of months and had one flower that was nearly 2-feet long.  It was a night bloomer, and every evening all four floors of the house were filled with the most amazing scent.  In our last place together we had two poinsettias that re-bloomed 14 months after we got them.  One of them put out 24 blossoms!  So, where’s  the danger in all of this you ask?  Ah, I was just getting to that. Continue Reading →