I recently got my hair chopped off, like a LOT of it. I enjoy having long hair sometimes, it is fun to do different things with it, and I feel somewhat like a hippie, in the 1960's flower-girl sense, especially with a big braid down the back. Fitting, especially for someone who has a blog with the word hippie in the title. But there are many ways to be a hippie...
Then I got it chopped off. And took a shower. And realized how much less water and shampoo this new hair-do requires. As in, shorter hair is actually more eco-friendly! I'd just never thought about it that way before especially since for me, more frequent haircuts equal spending money on said haircuts. But how much money am I spending on the hot water and shampoo? Plus using the blow-dryer during really cold weather?
Even this eco-conscious girl still learns new things.
Now I just need to learn how to style this new 'do.
Showing posts with label eco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eco. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Happy 2009!
I'm really excited to start a new year. I think this is going to be a good one. I'm ready to leave 2008 behind -- there were so many ups and downs. Those were good, though, as I learned a lot. I thought I was going to share here some of the things that have been happening in December, but I have no idea where to begin and today I feel better just letting that all go and starting with a clean slate.
A new year wouldn't be complete without a few resolutions. Urban Shaman and I have some goals to achieve as a family, but I have 2 personal goals for myself that I'll share. The first is to continue to eat as sugar-free as possible, with the exception of an occasional glass of wine and dark chocolate (which is totally good for you). Last night I went out with a bang by having a HUGE bowl of dark chocolate coconut bliss ice cream. Hummm.
The second goal is to continue to not accept any shopping bags or tissue paper when I purchase things. I always try to have my own bags on hand. Been doing that for a few months, and I sometimes make a point of explaining why I reject the bag, and many of the store personnel applaud that (the fact that it helps reduce their overhead costs doesn't hurt.) I wish we could be more like Europe where if you want a bag to carry your purchases home, you have to pay for it.
So those 2 resolutions are very do-able but do require a bit of forethought on my part at times. (It wouldn't be a resolution if it was totally easy!)
May you have a wonderful year.
A new year wouldn't be complete without a few resolutions. Urban Shaman and I have some goals to achieve as a family, but I have 2 personal goals for myself that I'll share. The first is to continue to eat as sugar-free as possible, with the exception of an occasional glass of wine and dark chocolate (which is totally good for you). Last night I went out with a bang by having a HUGE bowl of dark chocolate coconut bliss ice cream. Hummm.
The second goal is to continue to not accept any shopping bags or tissue paper when I purchase things. I always try to have my own bags on hand. Been doing that for a few months, and I sometimes make a point of explaining why I reject the bag, and many of the store personnel applaud that (the fact that it helps reduce their overhead costs doesn't hurt.) I wish we could be more like Europe where if you want a bag to carry your purchases home, you have to pay for it.
So those 2 resolutions are very do-able but do require a bit of forethought on my part at times. (It wouldn't be a resolution if it was totally easy!)
May you have a wonderful year.
Friday, September 19, 2008
From Without, and Within
These last few years I have felt this internal push to change my eating habits for the healthier and to become more environmentally-friendly in my life. I believe that these changes come from my spiritual side, and also strengthen my spiritual life. I didn't decide to do these things for convenience or social status, but more from an innate necessity. At the same time, our world is one of global consciousness... we are all not only connected physically, but also mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Thus all great ideas and changes arise both outside of, and within, ourselves from our global consciousness.
I find the more I clean up my diet, the lighter I become. Health issues which used to plague me have decreased greatly (migraines, acne, allergies). But truthfully, even though better health is enough, in itself, to want to continue this, I find this need to 'make myself lighter' is as much for the greater good as it is for myself.
Similarly, the more I approach living eco-friendly and sustainably, the lighter my environment becomes. I am taking in less resources and trying to reduce, reuse, and recycle the resources I do consume. Thus I get closer to living in harmony with mother nature, rather than separate from it. What I do to or for mother nature, I also do to and for myself.
Today's world is such a mixture of lightness and darkness. In order to not let the darkness take over, I find it so important to 'hold onto the light'. If there is any purpose to my life that my higher self has dictated, it is to hold onto the light. How do I do that?
Important things are to keep a positive state of mind, express gratitude, and be kind. Being positive is not possible 100% of the time because I am human like everyone else. My lower self has to deal with this world and the problems that sometimes crop up. But being positive more often than not is key. And not beating myself up about the times when I am not, but to take it as a learning experience and move on.
Gratitude... I find it easy to be thankful for the things I have in this life. However, remembering to express that gratitude is the hard part, when we get distracted by day-to-day living. So I'm starting to use simple reminders. Whenever I eat, I try to express gratitude for my meal. Sometimes I don't remember until I'm taking the very last bite, but that is okay. Late is better than never. Another way I remember is that I have all these cloth wipes for our family cloth system. One particular cloth wipe is totally different from the others. Whenever I happen to get that one, I must say 3 things I am thankful for. May seem kind of odd, but it works well.
Being kind... just something I strive for in my daily interactions with any living being that I come across, whether human, animal, or plant. So thus, I work at holding onto the light. And in turn, more light comes into my life. In eating healthier, I allow my body to grow toward its full potential. In being sustainable, I am giving my love to the earth, which in turn, gives back to me.
When we trash the earth, we trash ourselves. Similarly, when we trash our bodies with junk food, we ... well, we trash ourselves, too. My mom and I recently had a little tiff about the way I eat. I basically told her that based on what I know, I can't go back to eating in a mainstream way. She replied that the social aspect of eating was far more important to her than the health aspect. That floored me. Maybe it is a generational thing -- people my age are much more likely to have a variety of eating habits and be more flexible about that kind of thing. Could it also be that humans, as a whole are evolving? Each generation is closer to the light than the last. I am so excited when I think of the possibilities for Il Tonino and other children, present and future.
There are 4 pillars of our lives, just like a table has 4 legs. We have our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects. If any one of them is lacking, we are unbalanced. How we walk, talk, eat, and love in this world affects all of those aspects. Thus the lighter we walk on this earth, the more positive the thoughts and words that come from us, the healthier we eat, and the greater we love, contributes to a more profound life that benefits not only us but all that is around us.
What you do for yourself, you do for others. What you do for others, you do for yourself.
In love and light. Gaia Hippie :)
I find the more I clean up my diet, the lighter I become. Health issues which used to plague me have decreased greatly (migraines, acne, allergies). But truthfully, even though better health is enough, in itself, to want to continue this, I find this need to 'make myself lighter' is as much for the greater good as it is for myself.
Similarly, the more I approach living eco-friendly and sustainably, the lighter my environment becomes. I am taking in less resources and trying to reduce, reuse, and recycle the resources I do consume. Thus I get closer to living in harmony with mother nature, rather than separate from it. What I do to or for mother nature, I also do to and for myself.
Today's world is such a mixture of lightness and darkness. In order to not let the darkness take over, I find it so important to 'hold onto the light'. If there is any purpose to my life that my higher self has dictated, it is to hold onto the light. How do I do that?
Important things are to keep a positive state of mind, express gratitude, and be kind. Being positive is not possible 100% of the time because I am human like everyone else. My lower self has to deal with this world and the problems that sometimes crop up. But being positive more often than not is key. And not beating myself up about the times when I am not, but to take it as a learning experience and move on.
Gratitude... I find it easy to be thankful for the things I have in this life. However, remembering to express that gratitude is the hard part, when we get distracted by day-to-day living. So I'm starting to use simple reminders. Whenever I eat, I try to express gratitude for my meal. Sometimes I don't remember until I'm taking the very last bite, but that is okay. Late is better than never. Another way I remember is that I have all these cloth wipes for our family cloth system. One particular cloth wipe is totally different from the others. Whenever I happen to get that one, I must say 3 things I am thankful for. May seem kind of odd, but it works well.
Being kind... just something I strive for in my daily interactions with any living being that I come across, whether human, animal, or plant. So thus, I work at holding onto the light. And in turn, more light comes into my life. In eating healthier, I allow my body to grow toward its full potential. In being sustainable, I am giving my love to the earth, which in turn, gives back to me.
When we trash the earth, we trash ourselves. Similarly, when we trash our bodies with junk food, we ... well, we trash ourselves, too. My mom and I recently had a little tiff about the way I eat. I basically told her that based on what I know, I can't go back to eating in a mainstream way. She replied that the social aspect of eating was far more important to her than the health aspect. That floored me. Maybe it is a generational thing -- people my age are much more likely to have a variety of eating habits and be more flexible about that kind of thing. Could it also be that humans, as a whole are evolving? Each generation is closer to the light than the last. I am so excited when I think of the possibilities for Il Tonino and other children, present and future.
There are 4 pillars of our lives, just like a table has 4 legs. We have our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects. If any one of them is lacking, we are unbalanced. How we walk, talk, eat, and love in this world affects all of those aspects. Thus the lighter we walk on this earth, the more positive the thoughts and words that come from us, the healthier we eat, and the greater we love, contributes to a more profound life that benefits not only us but all that is around us.
What you do for yourself, you do for others. What you do for others, you do for yourself.
In love and light. Gaia Hippie :)
Thursday, September 18, 2008
How Eco Can I Go?
So this month and next I am working on the Ditch the Disposables challenge found here.
Here's a list of challenges:
There are only three on this list that I have not yet accomplished -- tissues to handkerchiefs and cloth wipes instead of toilet paper and baby wipes.
I have actually been using cloth wipes for peeing for about 8 months now and absolutely love it. But for #2? I've been resisting that for awhile. No more! I'm setting up a system for that and luckily the Urban Shaman is onboard, although he did complain that the cloth felt a bit thick. I think that by having on-hand a bottle filled with water/tea tree oil/witch hazel to moisten the wipe with beforehand will do the trick. Then it will work well for all 3 of us. I have the system ready to go, I just need some more cloth wipes! But I love not buying so much toilet paper. So for this system I have the cloth wipes, a small receptacle labeled "cloth wipes" in which to throw the used wipes, and a bottle to moisten the wipes.
Also, it is odd that I use cloth diapers for Il Tonino but have always purchased the Seventh Generation baby wipes to use on him. I think it's because I never developed a good cloth wipe system in my head, even though I know it is entirely possible. For baby #2 I will be using cloth wipes for sure. But now, since he is using the potty most of the time to poop and the potties are located where the cloth wipes are, it will be easy to just use the same system for all three of us when we are home.
Moving away from tissues is actually harder for me. I have some kind of love affair with tissues. I buy them by the case because you get like 26 boxes of tissues at once and a 10% discount. Then for awhile you never run out of boxes, which is awesome. But I have been feeling guilty about the number of tissues we throw away... and now we are *gasp* down to our very last box in the house. Instead of buying more, I've dug up bandanas that we never use. They work great, but they are rather large. So I brought some cheap organic cotton handkerchiefs on the internet recently and am waiting to receive them. Am really excited to try them out. We'll see how this pans out.
I think one of the reasons I am finally able todivorice give up using tissues is because I haven't needed to use them nearly as much as I have in the past. Since I have virtually eliminated sugar from my diet in the form of cookies, cakes, ice cream, etc., as well as pasturized cheeses, I have not been waking up with a runny nose. Thankfully, dark chocolate and raw cheeses are fine! It will be interesting to test this when one of us has a runny nose from a cold.
All in all this is good. One of my goals for 2008 was to reduce the amount of packaging that I have to purchase and dispose of. Combined with not using shampoo and conditioner, I'm doing better than I expected. But there is always more -- I am already starting to think about getting a different type of composter bin and getting better at growing my own food. Maybe someday I'll even be focusing on raising chickens, LOL.
Here's a list of challenges:
- Paper napkins to cloth napkins
- Paper towels to cloth towels
- Tissues to handkerchiefs
- Paper, plastic or Styrofoam plates to your kitchen plates
- Inexpensive plastic “Take & Toss” sippy cups to Sigg or Camelbak bottles or the Kleen Kanteen
- Disposable water bottles to (again) reusable bottles like Sigg or Camelbak
- Paper coffee cups to reusable coffee mugs like Sigg
- Plastic sandwich bags or paper lunch bags to reusable containers/bags
- Paper lunch bags to cloth or neoprene reusable bags.
- Swiffers (or similar products) to a broom and dustpan or mop (or use reusable cloths like cloth diapers/terry inserts in your Swiffer)
- Disposable dust rags to cloth rags
- Disposable diapers to cloth diapers
- Disposable wipes to cloth wipes (inexpensive plain washcloths work really well)
- Disposable feminine products (tampons, pads) to reusables like DivaCup, MoonCup, Glad Rags, Luna Pads, Pretty Pads, or New Moon Pads, among others
- Grocery store bags to reusable bags
Or, for the really adventurous:
- Toilet paper to cloth wipes/washcloths (for #1 or #2 too if you are really, really adventurous)
There are only three on this list that I have not yet accomplished -- tissues to handkerchiefs and cloth wipes instead of toilet paper and baby wipes.
I have actually been using cloth wipes for peeing for about 8 months now and absolutely love it. But for #2? I've been resisting that for awhile. No more! I'm setting up a system for that and luckily the Urban Shaman is onboard, although he did complain that the cloth felt a bit thick. I think that by having on-hand a bottle filled with water/tea tree oil/witch hazel to moisten the wipe with beforehand will do the trick. Then it will work well for all 3 of us. I have the system ready to go, I just need some more cloth wipes! But I love not buying so much toilet paper. So for this system I have the cloth wipes, a small receptacle labeled "cloth wipes" in which to throw the used wipes, and a bottle to moisten the wipes.
Also, it is odd that I use cloth diapers for Il Tonino but have always purchased the Seventh Generation baby wipes to use on him. I think it's because I never developed a good cloth wipe system in my head, even though I know it is entirely possible. For baby #2 I will be using cloth wipes for sure. But now, since he is using the potty most of the time to poop and the potties are located where the cloth wipes are, it will be easy to just use the same system for all three of us when we are home.
Moving away from tissues is actually harder for me. I have some kind of love affair with tissues. I buy them by the case because you get like 26 boxes of tissues at once and a 10% discount. Then for awhile you never run out of boxes, which is awesome. But I have been feeling guilty about the number of tissues we throw away... and now we are *gasp* down to our very last box in the house. Instead of buying more, I've dug up bandanas that we never use. They work great, but they are rather large. So I brought some cheap organic cotton handkerchiefs on the internet recently and am waiting to receive them. Am really excited to try them out. We'll see how this pans out.
I think one of the reasons I am finally able to
All in all this is good. One of my goals for 2008 was to reduce the amount of packaging that I have to purchase and dispose of. Combined with not using shampoo and conditioner, I'm doing better than I expected. But there is always more -- I am already starting to think about getting a different type of composter bin and getting better at growing my own food. Maybe someday I'll even be focusing on raising chickens, LOL.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Oh the Irony!
My family has a long tradition of us all gathering at my parent's house, with their 7-8 foot tall perfectly decorated Christmas tree and living room for Christmas morning.
(Yes, the tree is always perfect. My parents will spend up to an hour at the tree lot looking for the one that satisfies all their criteria. Noble fir? Check. Branches not spaced too close or too far from each other? Check. 7-8 feet tall? Check. Enough of a crown at the top? Check. Then my mother will literally spend a few hours carefully wrapping the lights around the branches of the tree so that you can't see the wires at all. It is really amazing and beautiful. I am both in awe of it while at the same time wanting to roll my eyes.)
Around the tree will be presents. Lots of presents. It's rather ridiculous, the amount of presents there are. And they will be divided into piles for each person, because it got too hard to search among the many boxes for a present for each person -- we take turns opening presents, going around in whatever circle we've happened to arrange ourselves in that year. So all the presents are in piles according to the "to:" name on the tag.
Every year I spend plus or minus 2 months agonizing over Christmas presents. Making sure that I have spent an equal amount of money on each person, picked just the right present(s) for each person, etc. Painful, really. Not to mention that I feel pained when looking at my bank statement.
So last year we all said, "let's ditch this and just go to a sunny place for Christmas!" Whoo! So we're going to Cabo, Mexico this year. Pretty cool. I think we're bringing our stockings, though, and just doing very small presents in our stockings. (Which will be cool and interesting -- the stockings are my favorite part of the whole Christmas ordeal, particularly seeing what pratical, functional item my mother has decided we all need that year. One year it was Sharpie pens in various colors. Another year it was toothbrushes. Last year it was Tide stain remover pens.)
Last year I was struggling to figure out how to make my gift-giving more environmentally friendly. I was still feeling a bit new and overwhelmed when it came to the eco-scene. I did manage to wrap all the presents in paper that I had leftover from previous Christmases, so that was good. I did a few other things along those lines.
But this year I am eco-chick! I have lots and lots of ideas for green gift giving. And we're not doing presents this year. Pout. I have some ideas for the stockings such as these cool things, but I guess I don't get to play jolly green Santa this year.
P.S. My friend just wrote a great blog post on ditching disposables! She a lot of the products she mentions comes from Zola Goods, for which I am an Independant Coordinator. Whoohoo!
(Yes, the tree is always perfect. My parents will spend up to an hour at the tree lot looking for the one that satisfies all their criteria. Noble fir? Check. Branches not spaced too close or too far from each other? Check. 7-8 feet tall? Check. Enough of a crown at the top? Check. Then my mother will literally spend a few hours carefully wrapping the lights around the branches of the tree so that you can't see the wires at all. It is really amazing and beautiful. I am both in awe of it while at the same time wanting to roll my eyes.)
Around the tree will be presents. Lots of presents. It's rather ridiculous, the amount of presents there are. And they will be divided into piles for each person, because it got too hard to search among the many boxes for a present for each person -- we take turns opening presents, going around in whatever circle we've happened to arrange ourselves in that year. So all the presents are in piles according to the "to:" name on the tag.
Every year I spend plus or minus 2 months agonizing over Christmas presents. Making sure that I have spent an equal amount of money on each person, picked just the right present(s) for each person, etc. Painful, really. Not to mention that I feel pained when looking at my bank statement.
So last year we all said, "let's ditch this and just go to a sunny place for Christmas!" Whoo! So we're going to Cabo, Mexico this year. Pretty cool. I think we're bringing our stockings, though, and just doing very small presents in our stockings. (Which will be cool and interesting -- the stockings are my favorite part of the whole Christmas ordeal, particularly seeing what pratical, functional item my mother has decided we all need that year. One year it was Sharpie pens in various colors. Another year it was toothbrushes. Last year it was Tide stain remover pens.)
Last year I was struggling to figure out how to make my gift-giving more environmentally friendly. I was still feeling a bit new and overwhelmed when it came to the eco-scene. I did manage to wrap all the presents in paper that I had leftover from previous Christmases, so that was good. I did a few other things along those lines.
But this year I am eco-chick! I have lots and lots of ideas for green gift giving. And we're not doing presents this year. Pout. I have some ideas for the stockings such as these cool things, but I guess I don't get to play jolly green Santa this year.
P.S. My friend just wrote a great blog post on ditching disposables! She a lot of the products she mentions comes from Zola Goods, for which I am an Independant Coordinator. Whoohoo!
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