Gift in a jar There are many ideas on the internet for gifts in jars that you can assemble with ingredients that you may already have at home!  Search for ‘gifts in a jar’ and explore the possibilities that will fit your budget.  Layer all the dry ingredients to make your jar attractive and attach the recipe.  This works well for cookies, soups,  brownies, and hot cocoa.  Other ideas include “spa” items, such as sugar scrubs, homemade body butter, or bath salts.   Art from the heart Even the littlest kiddos can create art for a loved one.   Fingerprints made the leaves on this beautiful little tree.  Find a frame at a thrift store to make it extra special! Upcycling Repurpose a favourite t-shirt or blanket into a teddy bear or special pillow.  A crazy quilt or a simple block quilt is also a really fun way to reuse those favourite items from childhood. Cork stoppers make fun ornaments Get creative with an old barn board and some paint. ...

The climate, OUR climate, - the only one we have, is changing. This is very important  in our world, in this home for the human family, in this home for our grandchildren. This is large and complicated, about environment, energy and the economy. Understanding some of this can help us take care of Mother Earth. We are all in this together, being affected by it, reducing it or adapting to it - oil sands worker, activist on the street and all in between. Share the load, minimize the disruptions, at all levels - in families, cities and towns, provinces and country, and even globally. Take care of one another. For the children and youth, for the children of tomorrow, we need to do everything we can for stability and security. Think about this at every level, from families to countries and more, fitting into a larger pattern. Seldom does trouble stay in only one corner of a lifeboat. Flatten the curve. We can reduce and slow the change. Act together, locally and globally, to flatten and ...

  If world representatives at the UN climate conference in Glasgow put talk into action, we could forestall the worst impacts of the rapidly accelerating climate crisis. But we have to look beyond the Conference of the Parties —   COP26   this year. If agreements under the   UN Framework Convention on Climate Change   are undermined through other international structures, we could face a grim future. Negotiations at COP26 — from October 31 to November 12 — are critical to building on and strengthening measures set out in the 2015  Paris Agreement . They include raising climate finance and finalizing rules on international carbon markets, agreeing on transparency and a global goal for adaptation and more. One shortcoming of the COP process, though, is that the Paris Agreement’s system of accountability doesn’t allow for enforcement of “ nationally determined contributions ,” which spell out each country’s plans to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change...

Traditional economic theory dictates that ultimately any business or corporation will be successful only if it can make a financial profit; that is, keep the bottom financial line in the black. On the face of it, this makes a lot of sense. After all, if you keep on losing money it will be impossible to continue operating indefinitely.  However, increasingly the concept of maintaining a “triple bottom line” in your business venture is gaining traction around the world. This term was first coined by John Elkington in 1994. “His argument was that companies should be preparing three different (and quite separate) bottom lines. One is the traditional measure of corporate profit – the bottom line of the profit and loss account. The second is the bottom line of a company’s ‘people account’ – a measure in some shape or form of how socially responsible an organization has been throughout its operation. The third is the bottom line of the company’s ‘planet’ account – a measure of how environ...

On two different occasions people have asked this question regarding the oak trim and baseboards in  our house. It’s an unsettling question. We live in a 80 year old house that was lovingly restored and updated by the previous owners. While the  baseboards and trim aren’t original, they have been custom made to match the originals. Tall, stately  baseboards that echo of another time, milled carefully to match the era of the home. But now I suppose they have gone out of fashion, thus the questions which imply that something must  be done. Surely we won’t just leave them and let our house become “dated.” Surely we will pay attention  to Pinterest and Instagram and see that we need to update. In contrast, there is a tradition in indigenous traditions called the Honourable Harvest and here is a  sampling of its principles: Take only what you need. Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken. Give a gift in reciprocity for what you have taken. Now let’s...

In 1970, to make the world safer from humanity’s worst self-destructive impulses, most nations joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons . (Only India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and South Sudan are not signatories.)  Now the world faces a threat as great as or greater than nuclear weapons: global warming. That’s led to calls for a “ Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty .” Recently, 101 Nobel laureates — in peace, literature, medicine, physics, chemistry and economic sciences, including the Dalai Lama — signed a letter to world leaders endorsing the proposal.   “Climate change is threatening hundreds of millions of lives, livelihoods across every continent and is putting thousands of species at risk,” they write.   The letter points out that burning coal, oil and gas is responsible for 80 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions since the Industrial Revolution and that “pollution, environmental and health costs associated with extracting, r...

In the seminar, Transitioning to Simplicity, which Mark A. Burch facilitated a few years ago, he referred repeatedly  to the concept of “mindful sufficiency.” Instead of participating recklessly in a culture of consumerism which our  planet cannot sustain, Burch suggested that we need to simplify our lifestyles voluntarily if we want to leave a  positive future to our children and grandchildren.  In his recent book, The Hidden Door: Mindful Sufficiency as an Alternative to Extinction, Burch explains what he  means by mindful sufficiency: “Through bringing mindfulness to our daily routines, we seek the maximum of  well-being achievable through the minimum of material consumption. Well-being applies to all of life on Earth,  not just human beings. It is about enough, for everyone, forever” (3). In his chapter on Simplicity and Economy, Burch dreams about how life could be if more people would practice  mindful sufficiency. I quote him at length with...