Thursday 31 October 2013

To This Day by Shane Koyczan



To This Day is a project based on a spoken word poem written by Shane Koyczan (shanekoyczan.com) called “To This Day”, to further explore the profound and lasting impact that bullying can have on an individual.
Schools and families are in desperate need of proper tools to confront this problem. We can give them a starting point... A message that will have a far reaching and long lasting effect in confronting bullying.
Animators and motion artists brought their unique styles to 20 second segments that will thread into one fluid voice.
This collaborative volunteer effort demonstrates what a community of caring individuals are capable of when they come together.



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Wednesday 30 October 2013

Gasland 2: A film by Josh Fox


"In this explosive follow-up to his Oscar®-nominated film GASLAND, filmmaker Josh Fox uses his trademark dark humor to take a deeper, broader look at the dangers of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the controversial method of extracting natural gas and oil, now occurring on a global level (in 32 countries worldwide).

GASLAND PART II, which premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, shows how the stakes have been raised on all sides in one of the most important environmental issues facing our nation today. The film argues that the gas industry’s portrayal of natural gas as a clean and safe alternative to oil is a myth and that fracked wells inevitably leak over time, contaminating water and air, hurting families, and endangering the earth’s climate with the potent greenhouse gas, methane. In addition the film looks at how the powerful oil and gas industries are in Fox's words "contaminating our democracy".









http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/

Tuesday 29 October 2013

Homemade Toothpaste Version 2



Ever since seeing Daniel's video below I have been experimenting with various home made toothpaste recipes. This is my latest version.






Homemade Toothpaste Version 2
3Tb of zeolites
3Tb of clay ( Sacred clay and Redmond are my favourite)
10 drops of organic steam distilled peppermint oil
4 drops of Organic Lemon Myrtle Oil
1tsp of magnesium oil
20 drops of Biosil
1Tb of bobs red mill baking soda
2Tb of birch xylitol
1TB of organic turmeric powder
Enough spring water to make a thick paste

Add everything to a glass jar and mix until a thick paste is formed.  Screw on lid and store like this until first use. To use dip toothbrush into the jar to get a good sized amount and then brush teeth as usual. When finished brushing swallow mixture with some water.  

Thursday 24 October 2013

Quote Of The Day







Kamal Meattle: How to grow fresh air



Researcher Kamal Meattle shows how an arrangement of three common houseplants, used in specific spots in a home or office building, can result in measurably cleaner indoor air.
With its air-filtering plants and sustainable architecture, Kamal Meattle's office park in New Delhi is a model of green business. Meattle himself is a longtime activist for cleaning up India's air.


Saturday 19 October 2013

Quote Of The Day




You who want
knowledge,
seek the Oneness
within

There you
will find
the clear mirror
already waiting

~ Hadewijch

Monday 14 October 2013

Quote of The Day







The Sacred Science



"Eight people travel to the Amazon Jungle in search of a cure for there diabetes, chrons disease, depression, parkinson disease and cancer. Five come back with real results, two come back disappointed, one never returns at all."

 

from   .

Monday 7 October 2013

Disappearances by Shinji Turner-Yamamoto


text and images taken from http://globaltreeproject.org/press/press_release_disappearances_an_eternal_journey.html










Turner-Yamamoto’s installation comprised fossil materials – 400 million year old CORAL collected during a recent artist residency at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, LIMESTONE (fossil rock in which the shells of sea dwellers are cemented in a solid mass, the CONCRETE floor of the exhibition space created from burnt limestone), and GYPSUM (deposits formed by ancient lake and sea water and collected by the artist and SiTE:LAB team from Grand Rapid’s gypsum mine) to comment on the ubiquity of fossil material in our everyday life—from the oil, coal, and gas we use when we drive, heat our homes, or cook. Working in tandem with the rhythm of the natural light engaging the space he created a primordial sea, an artistic ritual exploring a poetic reunion with nature, emphasizing the interconnectedness of all life across and outside time.



 


 
 


 










http://www.artprize.org/



Quote of The Day



“The world without spirit is a wasteland. People have the notion of saving the world by shifting things around, changing the rules, and who’s on top, and so forth. No, no! Any world is a valid world if it’s alive. The thing to do is to bring life to it, and the only way to do that is to find in your own case where the life is and become alive yourself.” 

~ Joseph Campbell  

Sunday 6 October 2013

8 Questions to Refocus Your Vision and Achieve Success


taken from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228358


When you started your business, you knew what you wanted to do. But over time, things can get a little cloudy.
"As businesses become more complex, ideas change and 'shiny objects' pop up to knock you off track," says Gino Wickman, founder of the leadership consulting firm EOS Worldwide and author of Traction:Get a Grip on Your Business (BenBella Books, 2011).
To be successful, however, entrepreneurs need to define a crystal clear vision, says Wickman. He offers these eight questions entrepreneurs can ask themselves to maintain their focus and become more productive:
1. What are your core values?
The philosophical beliefs of any company will stem from the owner's core values, says Wickman. Entrepreneurs should define three to seven characteristics – such as honesty, collaboration and enthusiasm – that represent the company and its employees. Wickman says when you identify these values, you can quickly create a company culture and assess whether to hire or fire someone according to how they match the company's values.

2. What is your core focus?

A company's core focus is the service it provides to the world. Often this is called your unique selling proposition, and its what sets you apart from your competition. Once you have a clear vision of your core focus, Wickman says you won't be distracted by those things that don't fit your focus.

3. What is your 10-year target?

This is the number-one overriding goal of your organization, says Wickman. He suggests entrepreneurs ask themselves what is the most important thing they want to have accomplished in the next ten years – the big win. The target could be revenue related, such as reaching $10 million in sales, or sales related, such as getting a referral from every client. Then the company should focus its energy in that one direction.

4. What is your three-year picture?

Wickman says entrepreneurs need a clear idea of what their company will look like three years from now. Write down your mental image or create a vision board. This picture will help you set goals to reach your 10-year target and will serve as a blueprint for creating a one-year plan. For example, if your 10-year target is to reach $10 million in sales, your three-year picture might be closing a quarter to a third of that.
“When your mind’s eye can see something, it’s more likely to happen,” he says. “It’s a simplified approach to strategic planning and will help an entrepreneur get ideas out of their head and onto paper.”

5. What is your one-year plan?
Each company should have three to seven goals each year that will move you towards your three-year picture and your 10-year target. Wickman says he doesn’t believe in multipage plans with countless priorities, objectives and initiatives.
“The simpler they are, the more likely they are to be achieved,” he says.

6. What are your quarterly priorities?

Entrepreneurs should identify a main priority for every 90-day period, such as close $500,000 in new business, document the delivery process or implement new marketing strategy.
“Research has found that humans can channel their energy on one goal for about 90 days before they start to lose focus,” Wickman says. “Four of these will come together to form a one-year plan.”

7. What is your marketing strategy?

A company’s approach to marketing should be simple, says Wickman. First, identify your ideal target market, including demographic, geographic and psychographic information. Next, identify the unique solutions you have to offer your market’s biggest fears, frustrations or worries. Then identify the best way you can get this information across to your target market. And finally, decide what kind of guarantee or promise you can offer your market to create confidence.
“Your goal is to cut through the marketing overwhelm and put perspective clients’ minds at ease,” Wickman says.

8. What are your issues?

Getting your fears and worries onto paper can be therapeutic because it allows you to deal with them more objectively, Wickman says.
“Once everything is before you in black and white, it’s much easier to get into execution mode,” he says.

Thursday 3 October 2013

How to Survive in A Modern World by Paul Check












Ido Portal Teachings



text taken from http://eliteathletes.be/2013/10/movement-x-with-ido-portal-11-things-i-learned-from-ido/









1. “Always look for a teacher.”

As they say in business: there’s always a guy.
Ido told us about how he started looking for a “movement teacher” as a 23 year old. He was frustrated with the way movement was being taught and decided to start traveling all over the world to look for this movement teacher.
He never found one. What he found was a lot of specialists: he found guys who knew a lot about gymnastics OR strength training OR olympic lifting OR hand balancing,… but never one who could teach him about the whole shebang; the holistic concept of movement.
Ido has decided to dedicate his life to becoming that person he was once looking for himself. He admits that it’s an impossible challenge, but still one worth making a life’s work.

2. “There is no wrong movement. There is lack of preparation and lack of awareness.”

Ido talked a lot about so-called wrong movement: ways in which we are supposed to not move. For example think of walking and landing on the side of your feet instead of on the ball of your feet. A lot of athletes twist their ankles by landing or changing direction with their feet in an awkward – “improperly aligned” – manner.
A great question that Ido demanded us to reflect upon here: If we know this is going to happen to us, shouldn’t we, then, prepare our bodies for these situations???
Ido does. And he developed a process he calls The Corset for it that allows you to progressively strengthen all the soft tissue in the body. Check out the video below to realize how preparing the body with “wrong movement” could mean for example ‘no more ankle sprains’:


3. “You’re gonna get what you practice. If you practice sheisse, you’re gonna get sheisse. If you practice clean, you’re gonna get clean.”

This is a no brainer. If you’re trying to get down and master a movement – and want to get good at it then your practice should be good. Want to get real good at it. Practice should be real good. Want to get perfect at it? I think you get what he goes for here.
“When you do something for the first time, aim for 80% success rate.”
- Ido Portal
Aim for a quick learning curve. Your aim is to learn here, so get your ego out of the way and start easy, too easy even. Start with a difficulty you can succeed at about 8 of 10 times you try. If you can do that – evolve. Move on. Leave it there. Progress as slow as you need to. Regress if needed. Be smart about. But always move on.
Practice the way you want to make it look eventually. Practice for progress.

4. “Aim for improvisation in whatever you do. Use your tools and play around with them.”

A formula Ido uses often is the following:
Isolation > Integration > Improvisation
You could look at it from the perspective of the sport you compete in; say you play basketball: In your isolated skill practice you work on drills such as layups, different dribbling moves, offensive footwork, your shooting technique, etc. In the gym you also work on your strength and power to make your moves more explosive. You work on sprints and ladder drills to move more quickly, with speed and agility over the court. These are your isolated chunks of work.
When you play a game you integrate all of these things. However, you could take it one step further to what Ido calls the greatest expression of movement and play around with your integrated skill set:
“The highest form of movement practice is improvisation.”
- Ido Portal

What this means to you depends on the movement qualities you have developed and are working on now. It’s a personal thing. Everyone moves differently.

5. “Good hanging equals good shoulders.”

Got shoulder problems? How often have you been hanging from a bar lately? Not too much probably?
Structurally human beings are designed to move like apes, not monkeys. Apes can hang, apes can brachiate moving from one branch to another. Monkeys can’t. (So actually the monkey bars you see kids playing around on at the playground should be called Ape Bars). If we’re designed to use these hanging and brachiating patterns – and we stop using them – why do you think most people have such a hard time doing a good pull up? They lost the pattern – and need to rehab it, get it back.
If you feel pain during pull ups or even hanging, it’s a sign you should do it more. Getting back the hanging pattern could be your fix towards healthy shoulders.

6. “You have more excuses than a pregnant nun.”

We saw this trend of people having a lot of excuses when we first started Elite Athletes and used ‘No More Excuses’ as our first slogan slogan. Ido’s catch phrase might be better. Listen closely when people talk and you’ll be amazed at how frequently this one can be applied.

7. “Range Of Motion equels anti-aging.”

In China they say “you’re as old as your spine.”
In one of his videos, Ido says:
“The body will become better at whatever you do – or don’t do. You don’t move? The body will make you better at NOT moving, by locking the tissues together. If you move, the body will allow you more movement. You better start to move your spine if you don’t wanna walk like this guy.”

During the workshop in Oslo when Ido talked about “this guy” he often referenced/imitated the posture and movement of the Bill Gates and Homer Simpsons of the world.
Move organically. Move your spine!

8. “Strength work translates to strength endurance. Strength endurance to strength? Not so much.”

This is easy. If you do just one thing: build strength. Get strong. The rest will follow much easier if you get strong first.

9. “Mobility is available; it’s always there. Flexibility requires a warmup.”

This is something Ido mentioned when he was talking about the limits of disciplines like Yoga and Pilates. Yogi’s are often flexible in the static postures they practice, but as soon as they leave these postures they’re in trouble. They are not prepared.
Mobility however – having an open system – is something that prepares you for actual movement. Not just being able to maintain a posture for a couple of seconds but actually moving out of it and into another posture, elegantly, without limitation.
This doesn’t mean you could not gain anything from added flexibility in certain areas, it means that after you get it – your aim should be, again, to move on – to evolve; to movement.

10. “The squat is a basic human resting position.”

The workshop was both theory and practice. When talking theory, Ido told us to squat and listen. Not sit and listen.
He talked about the three most prevalent human positions:
1. Lying down
2. Standing
3. Squatting
Most of us have interchanged squatting with sitting. Someone invented chairs (and toilets) and now people’s squatting patterns are fucked – and we have to rehab them.
Ido’s fix; 30 Day Squat Challenge – squat 30 total minutes a day for 30 days:
When you meet a friend in the park and you sit on the bench, squat on top of the bench. When you pick up the phone? Squat. Reading a book? Squat. Play GTA V? squat.


11. “Sound is the mark of inefficiency.”

When you jump up, you’re going to land. Gravity is king.
How you move around gravity will define whether you’re an efficient – or inefficient – mover. Remind yourself of the quote above when working on your landing skills, sprints, agility work and reaction.
During the workshop when we were working on reaction drills with sticks, Ido reminded us to “Be The Cat.” He always reminded us to move with a certain self-respect, with grace, elegantly, softly, efficiently – like the cat. The less sound you make, the better.
Ultimately, what all of Ido’s lessons aim at is trying to become the master of your own body.
To move and control your body against the rules of gravity.
Ido Portal named it Self-Dominance.
An impossible goal, but a goal that Ido has decided to dedicate his life to.