Archive for December, 2007

the last full moon in December is known as Nuupapana

December 30, 2007 · Filed under Hopitu Shinumu culture · Tagged , , ,

In the Chill of Winter, the night fires must be lit. 

In the Hopitu Shinumu Wheel of the Year, the last full moon in December is known as Nuupapana, meaning Night Fire Moon.

Being an agrarian culture, they named the moons after the significant issues in that growing season, in this case, referring to the smudge pots often set out to keep seeds in the earth from freezing during the dead of winter.

In this agricultural cycle the land lies fallow, it is time to allow the earth to regenerate, the seeds are quiet and nothing is growing, it is “waiting to become”.

Donaho Wei-Yo (So it is spoken, so it is.)
Esthana Thlehiya
Changing Woman

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Hot New Ways to Keep You Warm This Winter

December 27, 2007 · Filed under renewable energy · Tagged , , , , ,

loves-banquet.jpg


After all the horrible news on the environment and renewable energy this year, I’d like to close out the year with a few snippets of GOOD NEWS on renewable energy. 

New ideas you can mull over when thinking about buying your next big sources of energy for heating 

If you’re in the market for a new water heater: Heat Transfer, based in East Freetown, Mass., is now offering a new line of solar water heaters: the Superstor Solar, featuring a storage tank constructed of 316L stainless steel, or you can use a solar thermal hot water heater like the customers at the 33 Arby’s franchises run by The Winning Team of Fletcher, N.C., the restaurants are removing their natural gas hot water heaters in favor of solar-powered models.

To get more information on how to cut your heating costs this winter, you can go to the EPA’s new Energy Star Home Advisor website: http://www.energystar.gov/homeadvisor, where homeowners anywhere in the US can enter their zip code, answer a few questions, and get recommendations on how to cut your energy bills by up to 25 percent. 
 


 If you use an older model wood stove for heating, consider the newer wood pellet models by PelletSales.com, an online provider of biomass heating solutions, who announced a new program that would enable customers to lock in their wood pellet purchases for next year at the current year’s pricing. Exciting news for Indiana’s users of geothermal heating! If you live in Indiana, you can earn a rebate to replace your traditional heating and air conditioning units with geothermal systems. Since the program launched on Oct. 1, 2007 the state has approved $186,400 in rebates. 

One small way you and the big corporations can help the less fortunate at this time of year  If you received a new cell phone for Christmas, remember to recycle your old wireless phone at http://www.verizonwireless.com/hopeline. Verizon Wireless has developed a wonderful program wherein consumers can donate their no-longer-used wireless phones to the company’s HopeLine(R) phone recycling program to support victims of domestic violence. Old phones are refurbished and donated to the victims of domestic abuse, or if the phone is damaged, they recycle them in an environmentally responsible manner. 


Let’s share some of the ways you recycle, reuse and reinvigorate your own personal space, maybe you’ll give someone else an idea they can use too!! 

Looking forward to a brighter, cleaner New Year in 2008,

Diane Tegarden, Environmental Journalist

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The Saggy Baggy Santa Blobs

December 26, 2007 · Filed under humor · Tagged , , ,

Surfin’ Santa 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Scrooge. I enjoy the Christmas season as well as anyone, and I rigorously try to do my share of imbibing, celebrating and decorating everything in sight. And every Christmas it seems a number of new decorating fads are indulged.  

Most of the time I go along in my good-natured way, desperately trying to keep up with the latest trends in holiday gaiety, like the year the little tiny outdoor Christmas lights were all the rage.  

You know, the ones that look like strands of icicles forming on your house? My husband and I almost separated ways over the argument that ensued as to why HE had to put the blasted things up.  

We went round and round, but in the end, my house was festooned with a riot of icicles that twinkled merrily into the night. Never mind the bloody outrageous electric bill.  

No, no, this is an art form- not to be hampered by mere money concerns. By the way, since this is beautiful, sunny Southern California, why do we knock ourselves out trying to look like we live in snow country?  

Anyway, all that changed this year, when someone punked Christmas decorators everywhere by bringing out those huge, hideous, Day-Glo blow-up monstrosities that are supposed to look like Christmas characters, replete with their own noisy generators!! 

Not only are they unbelievably ugly, in the daytime the things appear to melt into a saggy, gaudy, plastic puddle that quietly wheezes as you walk past. Creepy.  

Although they try to offer a variety of characters- the Saggy Baggy Santa Blob, the Sodden Saddened Snowman, and a Giant Misshapen Elf- once inflated, they scare the daylights out of any man, woman or child within visual range of the things.  

My neighbors have all subscribed to the madness, which shouldn’t be any of my business. Unfortunately, my bedroom window faces the street, and the light glaring off the Saggy, Baggy Santa across the street is keeping me up at night.  

The glow is ghastly, rather than comic, as they intended, and during the day the situation is 10 times worse.(Since most people don’t want to pay to run the generator all day, they let the poor beast melt into a little puddle, bringing to mind the evil witch in the Wizard of Oz.)  

Help, I’m meltingggggggggggggggggggggg!  

They lay like flaccid balloons by day, only to be resurrected at night once more.  

The good news is, the holiday season will be over soon and we’ll get through it okay.  

Won’t we?  Next year’s madness is far, far away.  

But brace yourselves.  The scuttlebutt is that next year’s decorating trend will lean heavily toward life-sized, remote-controlled, Christmas action figures.  

You vill buy dem, or else!

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vision…plan…action

December 23, 2007 · Filed under poetry

Planet Earth is our Home

Let us set our goals high

and shoot for the stars

the time will fly by

but we’ll know where we are,

if we vision the future

and make that plan

and step toward them every day

then I KNOW WE CAN.

To your dreams and goals, my friends……

May You Never Thirst!

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Have A Hopi Holiday!

December 20, 2007 · Filed under poetry, sacred imagery and spirituality · Tagged , , , ,

Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year 

Have A Hopi Holiday!   © Dec 2005 By Diane Tegarden 

It is true, much time has passed,

a year has flown away.

The season changes colors,

with red, greens and gold,

the festival of lights hold sway.  

Yuletide is upon us, time to think of friends,

to be thankful for all of our lucky happenstance.

To remember good times in grateful abundance.  

I wish you all a Heartfelt Holiday,

no matter what you are calling it,

anyway!

Be it a Dramatic Diwali,

a Holy Hanukkah,

a Spiritual Soyal,

a Captivating Christmas,

a Kickin’ Kwanzaa,

or the most wondrous Winter Solstice!  

If you live in Australia, it’s summer solstice,

the longest day of the year.

If you live in the northern climes

the night is longest here.  

But no matter where you are,

whether planetside or star……  

All I could wish for you is peace

(internally),

and a larger worldwide view!    

Author’s Notes on Holidays

Diwali, called Deepavali, is a major Hindi festival that is significant in Hinduism, Sikhism and Jainism. Known as the “Festival of Lights”, it symbolizes the victory of good over evil, and lamps are lit as a sign of celebration and hope for mankind. Celebrations focus on lights and lamps, particularly traditional diyas. (Source: Wikipedia) 

Hanukkah is the annual Jewish festival celebrated on eight successive days beginning on the 25th day of Kislev, the third month of the Jewish calendar which corresponds approximately to December in the Gregorian calendar.  Also known as the “Festival of Lights”, the “Feast of Dedication” and the “Feast of the Maccabees”, Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the Temple of Jerusalem by Judas Maccabee in 165 B.C. (Source: http:// www.history./minisites/Hanukkah).  

Soyal is the winter solstice ceremony of the Hopitu Shinumu, which means The Peaceful Ones, also known as the Hopi Indians. Soyal is held on December 21st, the shortest day of the year. The main purpose of the ritual is to ceremonially welcome home the Kachinas, or spirit teachers for the first half of the Wheel of the Year, which begins on Dec 21- June 21st when the Kachinas will return to their ancestral home in the mountains. Pahos, or prayer sticks, are made prior to the Soyal ceremony, to bless all the community, including their homes, animals, and plants. Sacred underground ritual chambers, called kivas, are ritually opened to mark the beginning of the Kachina season. Night Dances for Kachinas are held, a great pageant of men and women in ceremonial dress representing the spirit teachers and guides.(Source: Bahti, Tom. “Southwestern Indian Ceremonials”. KC Publications.1970.p36-40.)

Blessed Beeeeeeeeees,

Diane T. and furfamily

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Soyal is the winter solstice ceremony of the Hopitu Shinumu

December 18, 2007 · Filed under sacred imagery and spirituality · Tagged , ,

Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year

Soyal is the winter solstice ceremony of the Hopitu Shinumu, which means The Peaceful Ones, also known as the Hopi Indians. Soyal is held on December 21st, the shortest day of the year.

The purpose of the ritual is to ceremonially welcome home the Kachinas, or spirit teachers of the tribe or clan for the first half of the Wheel of the Year, which begins on Dec 21st and ends on June 21st (when the Kachinas will return to their ancestral home in the mountains.)

Pahos, or prayer sticks, are made prior to the Soyal ceremony, to bless all the community, including their homes, animals, and plants. Sacred underground ritual chambers, called kivas, are ritually opened to mark the beginning of the Kachina season. Night Dances for the Kachinas are held, a great pageant of men and women in ceremonial dress representing the spirit teachers and guides.

Baskets are filled with small gifts for guests who are invited to share in the celebrations.

At this time of year the land lies fallow, it is time to allow the earth to regenerate, the seeds are quiet and nothing is growing, life is “waiting to become”.

On Soyal, the longest night of the year, it is an appropriate time to learn life lessons from the elders and the visiting Kachinas; time to learn crafts and skills to help the tribe; to repair and mend our relationships, time to think and internally slow down, preparing ourselves for winter.

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Madonna of Impruneta- Miracles of the Madonna

December 13, 2007 · Filed under poetry, sacred imagery and spirituality · Tagged , , , , ,

Madonna of Impruneta- Miracles of the MadonnaMadonna of Impruneta
By Diane Tegarden
12/03/06

The Madonna of Impruneta

Since the Black Death in 1348,
when all of Europe surrendered to an ugly fate,
The Madonna of Impruneta, sacred icon hailing from Tuscany,
Had a mitigating effect on disasters; be it famine, plague or a siege of the city.

When epidemic erupted in Florence, her most sacred town,
neither physician nor prayer could slow creeping death down.
She was called upon once more, by the Grand Duke Ferdinando,
to be brought hence from her home in the village, and pronto!

The sacred image was to retrace that long path once more,
to route the resurgent plague from their shores.
Mary is seated upon a throne, wearing a red dress and covered in her blue lap robe,
She holds the baby Jesus, there safe in the folds.

The entire icon of the Holy Madonna weighed about one-quarter ton,
with the tabernacle and adornments, when it was all said and done.
It took twenty strong men to carry the form,
they felt invigorated by carrying it, rather than worn.

Through the countryside she’d be taken, from dawn to last light of sun,
her huge size necessitating the industrious nuns,
of one convent to break down a courtyard wall
in order for the Madonna to fit into the entry hall.

*****

Goddess Thread- the Madonna of Impruneta
August 24th, 2006- Author’s notes
By Diane Tegarden

The Madonna of Impruneta, an icon brought to Tuscany in the first century, ministered to the victims of a variety of disasters. Since the Black Death in 1348, not a flood, drought, famine, battle, or epidemic had erupted in Florence that could not be mitigated by carrying the miraculous Madonna of Impruneta from her small church in a neighboring village down to the great cathedrals of the city.

In May of 1633, Grand Duke Ferdinando called for the sacred image to retrace that long path once more, to route the resurgent plague.

The holy image depicts Mary seated on a throne, wearing a red dress and a jeweled crown, holding the baby Jesus in the folds of her blue lap robe. About her neck were necklaces, one of pearl, and the other precious stones, embossed the flat surface of the icon. The icon stood inside a frame rounded at the top like an archway.

It took eight healthy men to carry the poles holding the ornate canopy above the Madonna, and at least another twelve to carry the table on which her venerated form rested. The entire icon of the Holy Madonna weighed about one-quarter ton with the tabernacle and adornments, necessitating the nuns of one convent to break down a wall in order for the Madonna to fit into the courtyard.

-The above information was paraphrased from the book, “Galileo’s Daughter” by Dava Sobel.

Blessed Beeeeeeeeeees,

Diane T. and furfamily 

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Light Through Shuttered Window- a poet’s poem

December 11, 2007 · Filed under poetry · Tagged , , ,

Light Through Shuttered Window

A writer’s soul is like the sun,

shining, illuminated,

too fiery bright to observe directly. 

That sun hangs outside the window of one’s life,

fiercely gleaming through the partially-closed slats,

showing only one vibrantslice of one ray at a time.

Poetry is that ray of sunshine,

a single focused beam

examining one still moment in a life,

then changing as the sun moves through the sky. 

Leaving darkness,

and the memory of

a vision.

This entire collection of my poetry can be found at: http://www.firewalkerpublications.com/ORDER.htm

A quaint compendium of poetry in the form of a nifty 90 page ebooklet, regarding love, life and all its mysteries.

May You Never Thirst,

Diane Tegarden

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Tom’s of Maine- toothpaste co. that protects our rivers

December 9, 2007 · Filed under environment · Tagged , , , , ,

The Colorado RiverTom’s of Maine Toothpaste Company has joined with www.rivernetwork.org and www.americanrivers.orgto form the Rivers Awareness Partnership. When you buy this fluoride free, chemical free toothpaste, you’re cleaning your teeth without polluting your body, and helping Tom’s to organize the clean up of over 400 tons of trash from our nation’s rivers. They have also set goals to protect more rivers to be included in quality assessment and protection status.

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I’m Dreaming of a GREEN Christmas!!!

December 6, 2007 · Filed under environment · Tagged , , , , , , ,

There are lots of ways to enjoy the holidays without leaving a negative impact on our fragile environment. Here are ten fun tips on Greening your Christmas this year:


1. Buy a live tree that you can decorate this year, and then plant in your backyard with your kids, and watch it grow as they grow! We have a Norfolk Pine and another two pine trees in our yard that were originally Christmas trees. Each tree lasts about three years in its pot, so you can use it over and over again before planting it.


2. Donate your live tree to an organization in your community that’s dedicated to planting trees, like the Arbor Day Society or the Boy/Girl Scouts.


Tip: If you do buy a cut tree, remember, the city can’t recycle them into compost if they have: flocking, tinsel “icicles” or Christmas ornaments still attached to them. Remove all decorations and get them on the curb in time to be recycled by your local waste department after Christmas.


3. Send your gifts in festively decorated baskets that can be wrapped in colored cellophane. This will save buying a mountain of wrapping paper that will become trash in an instant. The baskets can be reused again for gifts the next year!


4. If you save Christmas cards like I do, you may not want to throw them away, and can’t figure out how to reuse them. Here’s a tip: you can tape them onto your gift boxes, creating colorful, original wrapped gifts, without using wrapping paper.


5. Have fun with the kids by using your computer’s printer/scanner/copier to make your own wrapping paper. Lay out your old Christmas cards in a fanciful arrangement and copy them, then use the sheets of homemade wrapping paper for the smaller gifts.


6. If you save beautiful old calendars and just can’t bear to part with them, use the pages to wrap smaller gifts, or you can tape several pages together for the medium sized gifts.


7. For larger gifts, you can simply use a huge bow, or attach tree trimmings and pine cones decoratively to the gifts.


8. Using LED Christmas lights can save you money on your electric bill, while reducing pollution from the added electrical energy generated at Christmas just from outdoor lighting alone. Retail hardware stores countrywide are now offering these lightweight, low-cost alternative to the energy guzzling traditional lighting.


9. Solar power your Christmas lighting display this year with a small modular system that is directly connected to your Christmas lighting. (This will only power your Christmas lighting display; it will not generate power for your whole house, so it costs much less that a full home system.) Yippee! Imagine reducing your energy bills at Christmastime!!


10. Buy your gifts from eco-friendly vendors, for example; companies that sell products made from recycled materials; companies whose practices are Earth friendly, like buying fair trade goods; companies whose track record for treating their employees, especially women and minorities, with respect and equanimity.


More and more, the terms “eco-friendly” and “people-friendly” are meant to convey care for the same things; all the living creatures of the world, be they plants, animals or people. This attitude will allow us to see the entire ecosystem of the Earth as a whole, and perhaps, be able to begin to heal it as a whole, including its people.

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