100th International Womyns Day

Happy International Womyns Day to all! It's the 100th anniversary - what are you doing to celebrate? Here are just a few things you can do, any other suggestions? Enjoy the day! Recognize the fabulousness of the females around you and in the world. Honour yourself! Make a list of reasons why you are or should be appreciated. Meditate on the global community of womyn! Hug a feminist. Spread peace! Nuture yourself and please do no cleaning on this day.

CONGRATULATIONS FOR BEING IN TUNE WITH THE CYCLES OF NATURE

Blogging Tweeting Email & Messaging Calling Mail

Campus/Community Radio Special Broadcasting Community Events Potluck Gathering Donating Flowers Planting Yoga Visiting Eating & Treating Educating Protesting Talking Organizing Films Music Theatre

Singing Crafting Writing Sharing Research Resting Party Express

Find out more about the day and what you can do to recognize it!

http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

Eco Art! Mixed Media Postcards (to be featured at upcoming London Indie Media Fair!)

A friend of mine is graphic designer, can ya tell!? This is some of the stuff - postcard collage art, cut and pasted into the night! We stayed up until dawn riding the wave of a serious art attack. Ill bring our creations to the 6th Annual London Indie Media Fair this upcoming Saturday March 26 from 11am-4pm!

London Indie Media Fair on Saturday, March 26!

This alternative local event needs your support! Visit the Centre Branch of the London Public Library from 11am-4pm for the 2011 6th Annual London Indie Media Fair. The art of independent and alternative forms of media receives a showcase in the central hall. I look forward to sharing this blog, Eco-Veg Footprint, along with a independently printed vegan cookbook, book of poetry and sustainability zine! Also, my friend and I have gotten eco-crafting crazy and made a bunch of postcard collages from recycled materials and images - to be featured soon! Was thinking of bring them along aswell as mixed media creations. Hope to see you there on Saturday, March 26th!

DIY Contact Cards

Passing Around An Environmental Message.......

Finishing up the first batch of personal business cards could not have been easier environmentally. Amidst the "debris" of a throwaway society is a plethora of materials and resources. This is an opportunity for all, in this case, DIY artists! Inherent in the Do-It-Yourself movement is an ethic of reusing, recycling and reforming "found materials" into creative and useful outputs. Zines, bookmarks, collages, postcards, letters (in the good old fashioned snail mail post), and picture frame borders are just a few of the ways to make use of scrap paper. By selecting an array of words and images and by cutting, copying and pasting (non-electronically) them, you can create a message that is artistic and ecologically friendly. This is how I've made contact cards - you and your friends should tooooooooooooo

Step 1

- using a typewriter, recycled computer paper or a simple writing instrument: cut out strips of paper with your various contact information (name, email, twitter account, etc.)

Step 2

-cut out card sized pieces of paper from a little thicker material such as used cardboard or bristolboard

Step 3

-glue personal info onto one side of the cards

Step 4

-after collecting images and words that suit you and your message, make a mini-collage on the other side of the cards. use your visual art drawing skills if available (in my case, not..!)

Step 5

-clean up egdes of cards with scissors and let dry

Step 6

- press into the pages of a thick book or place under a flat weighty object
(this is to seal the stray edges of scrap paper you see!)

DONE! Celebrate creativity, recycling, imagination and environmentalism.

DISTRIBUTE AND SPREAD THE MESSAGE!

How To Mind Reducing Your Eco-Footprint

Each morning (afternoon or night), we rise to the blessing, opportunity and challenge of a new day. Throughout each one that is given to us is a myriad of choices made sometimes but mostly unconsciously or absent-mindedly. I try and take the time to remind myself that reducing one's ecological footprint requires a conscious effort and is imperative to our healthy survival! Currently I am making an effort to specifically reduce my daily water footprint by taking less and shorter showers and by turning off the tap when doing the dishes and brushing teeth. To have this process of ecological personal activism at the forefront of reasons for our behaviours, it is important to understand the discourse around this topic. As taken from the Global Footprint Network site, where more info and FAQ's can be found, here are some useful terms with brief explanations from the glossary. Maybe spending as much time in barefeet as possible is a conscious start!

my dirty foot directly after departing Antigonish, Nova Scotia's Evolve Music Festival!

Consumption Footprint : The most commonly reported type of Ecological Footprint. It is the area used to support a defined population's consumption. The consumption Footprint (in gha) includes the area needed to produce the materials consumed and the area needed to absorb the waste. The consumption Footprint of a nation is calculated in the National Footprint Accounts as a nation's primary production Footprint plus the Footprint of imports minus the Footprint of exports, and is thus, strictly speaking, a Footprint of apparent consumption. The national average or per capita Consumption Footprint is equal to a country's Consumption Footprint divided by its population.

Ecological Footprint : A measure of how much biologically productive land and water an individual, population or activity requires to produce all the resources it consumes and to absorb the waste it generates using prevailing technology and resource management practices. The Ecological Footprint is usually measured in global hectares. Because trade is global, an individual or country's Footprint includes land or sea from all over the world. Ecological Footprint is often referred to in short form as Footprint (not footprint).

Fragile Environment Warning!

Aromatic Winter Stovetop Potion

It is safe to say that this is an ancient method of aromatherapy or scent cleansing! And we all know that many societies and their peoples from antiquity knew a thing or two about sustainability and using natural methods in their everyday practices. This recipe was displayed to me by a life experienced womyn and is most appropriately exercised during a thorough house cleaning! I also find that it is a comforting winter habit. I believe it also tends to purify spaces that are dark or have been disrupted, especially if the steam os wafted. Smells delicious but not for drinking or eating! Enjoy.

Aromatic Winter Potion

citrus rinds (orange peels preferred, lemon and/or lime peel)

cinnmon stick(s)

pinch of a few cloves

ginger (optional!)

Let simmer in a saucepan on the stovetop at medium heat

until lightly boiling. Bring to a low heat, occasionally stirring.

Don't miss out on a few deep inhales of this mixture and make

as thick with ingredients/strong as desired!

Thought Food: Eco-Feminism and the "Green Revolution"

What is Eco-Feminism?

A connection between ecology and equality! Though, to provide answers to this question in a western society saturated in historically rooted patriarhy, it seems like starting at the basics is necessary. As with any branch of feminism, a concrete definition is impossible and innapropriate in terms of valuing change and flux - transitions that are integrated in any given approach under this umbrella. However, Eco-Feminism as I understand it aligns traditionally oppressive forces and holds them at blame for the exploitation and destruction of our environmental surroundings, womens bodies and social status. These forces are also seen as being responsible for the degredation and enslavement of all people on a multi-level and interdisciplinary basis.

Pachamama

Some take this perspective deeper, correlating and celebrating the direct connection and parallels between females and "mother nature", or "pachamama". This includes womyn's 28 day menstrual cycle and the 28 day monthly lunar calendar. It is even possible to chart your period with the moon's movement! Common ignorance about nature's cycles, lunar activity and taboo nature of menstruation, are examples of how both women and nature are disregarded or disvalued regularly. Eco-feminism would surely seek to reverse this along with current practices such as those that cause deforestation and global warming (euphemistically referred to as "climate change"). Transforming our attitudes and actions is a priority in this discourse - so that womyn, the ecosystem, our planet and all its organisms can live sustainably in peace, honouring the biosphere and everything that it constitutes.

Author Carol J Adams has written the recently celebrated 20th anniversary of The Sexual Politics of Meat which "explores a relationship between patriarchal values and meat eating". She also keeps an active blog where more veg-feminist insights can be found. The following exerpts have been taken from a book of essays she edited: Ecofeminism and the Sacred. Hopefully they will help in considering approaches to changing the current environmental condition, crisis and ethic of exploitation. Respecting nature and all people are inherently connected activities! Please consider the:

“interrelationship of social domination and the domination of the rest of nature”

[Issues of sexism, racism, classism, and heterosexism and the domination of nature must be recognized to adequately understand oppression of women, people and nature]

“transformations: respect and a willingness to assess one’s own role in perpetuating domination and, upon discovering what that role is, changing it”

“While the Earth is poisoned, everything it supports is poisoned. While the Earth is enslaved, none of us is free” –from Alice Walker’s “Everything Is a Human Being”

“Euro-Western Cultural Attitudes”

“When the majority of this nation’s [America] people consider environmental preservation to be more important than plundering it for economic gain, then they (we) will develop more appropriate methods for providing the basic human needs for food, shelter, comfortable indoor temperatures, clothing, and – to some extent – unnecessary human ‘comforts’ such as exotic household gadgets, recreational toys and modes of transportation”

“Many environmentalists have stated that careful planning in the use of renewable resources and the recycling of non-renewable resources must become the norm rather than the exception in every community across our nation”

Human/animal/plant/mineral hierarchy = top down destruction

“mindful[ness] of their place within rather than above the rest of creation” = soulution
-from Carol Lee Sanchez’s “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral”

Ecology: “examines how natural communities function to sustain a healthy web of life and how they become disrupted, causing death to the planet and animal life. Human intervention is obviously one of the main causes of such disruption.”

Deep Ecology: “ examines the symbolic, psychological, and ethical patterns of destructive relations of humans with nature and how to replace this with a life-affirming culture.”

“interconnection between the domination of women and the exploitation of nature”
-from Rosemary Radford Ruether’s Ecofeminism: Symbolic and Social Connections of the Oppression of Women and the Domination of Nature”