Tag / ecohearth

It doesn’t take a cast of thousands or a studio budget to produce media anymore. As soon as I switched to a Mac computer, I became a media mogul. I joke to myself sometimes that “I was born content”—in other words, I was born with an adventurous spirit, a desire to communicate and the talent to entertain. With such user-friendly creative tools on the computer nowadays, nothing holds me back from sharing the entertaining and hopefully thought-provoking content that is my life.  Read more …

There is a big difference between a production and an action. I make my living as a performer (with gratitude), so I know the designs of a production very well. In fact, I know them so well that I can transform a “nothing evening” at the wine bar with my girlfriends into a production.

A production entails getting noticed, communicating with a wide audience and (do not even think you are capable of altruism) a production is just for the fun of it. It’s the experience of production that changes the individual.

An action is very different than a production.  Read more …

Last week in Circus Elephants, Part 1: Seeing With Newly Informed Eyes, I shared how hard I had tried to be a dutiful journalist and nab opposing viewpoints on elephants in circuses, only to be shut down suddenly, have interviewees drop out at the last minute and even be called horrible names entirely unprovoked—all for asking informed questions. I then teamed up with another writer (referenced below as Unnamed Journalist) who had created his own journalistic opportunities on the same controversial elephants-in-circuses story and got to sit in on a slew of email conversations that, when all the chitchat is edited out, is unintentionally revealing. Read more …

After the first time I volunteered over in Thailand with those magistrates of evolution, the Asian elephant (specifically with her daughters, their aunties and the oldest bull), I came back home to the United States with newly informed eyes.

Not much had changed here, but things looked very different to me. For one thing, I saw animals in cages everywhere I turned. Read more…

You love elephants! And because you do, you know that riding one, buying a painting made by one, feeding a begging one on the city streets or watching one stand on its head is not part of a humane, eco-friendly travel itinerary (see my article: Eco-Adventure Travel: Seven Reasons Never to Ride an Elephant). Fortunately, there are several alternatives that offer an even deeper, closer and more personal connection to your beloved species. For example, why ride an elephant when you can bathe with one?

Here are some non-detrimental ways to commune with the elephant species: Read more …

So you love elephants. And you want nothing more than to ride on the back of one of these magnificent creatures through the jungles of Thailand, India or Sri Lanka on your next vacation. But did you know that that simple ride (or the purchase of an elephant painting or attending an elephant performance) contributes to the abuse and endangerment of the Asian elephant species? No tourists want to think they are harming the species they admire. Before you book that trekking package in Thailand—or anywhere—consider the bigger picture: Read more …

It’s not easy being green. Conservation groups and animal activists give generously of their time, money and life-force to protect endandered species, voiceless animals and natural habitat. To meet resistance from corporations bent on destruction-for-profit seems almost predictable, but the government has sided with the corporations, it seems, and passed laws to make “doing the right thing” an imprisonable crime. Who did the FBI cite as the “number-one domestic terrorism threat in the US”? You’d be forgiven if you answered assassins who target abortion doctors or militia groups planting bombs in government buildings. Nope, the answer is animal-rights groups who have never harmed a human nor animal. Read more…

As promised, here’s my top-secret, uber-economical, super-greenest and rawalicious kombucha recipe developed over years of toil and research (aka: getting out of the way). To start your own home kombucha fermentation project, I recommend doing three successful test runs on cane sugar. Once you have the standardized fermentation process down, start having some fun with my recipe. Read more…

Raw foodists ideally try to eat actual living foods as the bulk of their diet. “Eat life = receive life,” that’s how I think of it.

So what’s the easiest way to tell if a food you intend to eat is still alive? Go for the rot! That is, if your food continues its life process by fermenting and eventually composting, it still has life in it. If it sits in a can, box or bag in the middle aisles of your grocery store without changing much, it’s a dead food. Simple as that! Read more…

At a certain point, parents have lived so many years on this Earth that there is no possession imaginable they might still need. This is a daughter’s authentic, if not childish, perception of her father, at least. Wanting terribly to impress dad with a grand display of Father’s Day gifting that says, “You’re my favorite dad! (I’m your favorite daughter, too, right?)”, visions of a garage full of tools, a basement packed with memorabilia, closets stuffed with clothing, shelves hosting knickknacks-a-plenty ultimately thwart the urge. Maybe, it seems to the daughter, there comes a time when parents just don’t need more stuff. Read more…