About

Dancing in Lviv

A friend working in sustainable development one day threw up her arms in disgust at how phony the “Green” movement had become. From her point of view, the world was not growing or changing from this movement, only slapping a new label on products that were no different than before. For example (and yes, we have many), at green building shows you will see vendors still selling the same old toxic insulation, but calling it “green” because it is so energy efficient. Perhaps today the situation is even worse in that we all know sex sells, and far too often the less “green” a product is, the more likely glamorous models will be manning the booths (all puns intended).

For us, the interesting question is not what is changing, rather why so many things are not. Or, in the parlance of our words as social scientists, how “structures” are “restructuring” only to give us a world perhaps not much different than the one we had before. Admittedly, this is a simplification as it is a big world, but you get the point: We fundamentally live in a way where we take more than we give, and we have done this for centuries. It is a world out of balance.

So why are we writing this blog? Because we are old, cranky people that want to moan and groan about how horrible the world is? Absolutely not! In fact, just above the world we abuse is a world of beautiful connections and epiphanies involving all life on this planet. To throw you religious zealots out there a bone, yes heaven is on earth, but we are just too blind to see it. Or, to paraphrase the famous Russian philosopher Peter Ouspensky, humankind is simply asleep, and our lifework is to awaken from it.

Here is our mission: We hope to illuminate interesting connections that give people a moment to pause and reflect. We all feel something special – perhaps even transcendent – when we are swept away by those “Aha” moments. We love the clarity of consciousness. We love sharing what we learned. We feel uplifted from even the worst mood, feeling so grateful for the life we are given. It is as if we were given a new power from a higher spirit.

Some examples of our epiphanies? A friend of ours started a garden in Liberia, and the love for this garden ended up stopping tremendous amounts of ethnic violence. At a project of ours in Crimea, a pro-Russian participant demanded that the core purpose of government is to “love” them. Or, witnessing the amazing power of a poverty-stricken, black teenage girl seeking to transform all kids’ lives through healthy diets. She was training to be a chef, but her mission was to other kids, and we could not have felt more grateful to hear her vision.

There are endless ways, endless moments, endless love, that spark the beginnings of healthy life. And, isn’t this what “going green” is all about? Or is there something more (there is a thought to ponder)? That said, you can tell we have lofty goals, and that is why there are two of us embarking on this task:

Marcia Amidon: Is a famous writer (I am saying that, not her, lest you think she has a big ego). Why is she famous? The standard answer would be is because she used to have a big job as editor of AppleSeeds Magazine. But the real reason for her fame is due to her writing nearly 160 books to make children’s lives better. But, all writers need to explore new avenues, and my work in regeneration sparked her imagination.

Tedrowe Bonner: I am a sociologist, permaculturist, Certified Passive House Consultant (in training), Biostatistician, and Charrette Master. But, interestingly, this is not what I am about. I am taking on this blog because I am being called to be the writer I was not able to be (as of yet).

So for us this work is not what we are, but what we want to become. It is the art of becoming. And – by  Allah’s will – perhaps we will offer the same gift to our readers.

Namaste – Tedrowe and Marcia