Saturday, March 28, 2009

Join Earth Hour Today!

Two years ago, 2.2 million people in Sydney, Australia simultaneously shut off their lights for one hour in protest of global warming. One year later, the movement had grown to 50 million people around the globe including international landmarks such as the Roman Coliseum, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Sydney Opera House.

This year, the goal is to reach one billion people around the world - and today's the day! The darkness has already started. Beijing's Bird's Nest Coliseum and the Great Pyramids in Giza went dark for one hour. Athens has turned off the lights at the Acropolis. In New York, the Empire State Building will also go dark.

The City of Alexandria, VA has asked its residents and businesses to support Earth Hour. Mindful Hands, my little shop in Old Town Alexandria, plans to participate. You, too, can join one billion people around the world by turning off your lights TODAY for one hour, from 8:30 to 9:30pm local time.

For more information and to view videos of the global dark hour, visit www.earthhour.org.

Use your light switch to Vote Earth!


Saturday, March 7, 2009

A Little Madness in the Spring


Ahhh, Spring! Spring temperatures (again), Spring smells, Spring sounds. Spring means a freshness in the air, a lightness in the step, the casting off of the heaviness of winter. There's a vivid sense of renewal, rejuvenation, a new kind of energy, a hope, a dream, and the anticipation of things to come. Certainly a kind of madness overtakes us: Spring comes once every year yet each Spring feels new, as if there had never been a Spring before.

To start your Spring off right, I thought I would share with you one of my favorite poems about Spring. This is from Emily Dickinson:

A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown --
Who ponders this tremendous scene --
This whole Experiment of Green --
As if it were his own!