All Posts Tagged With: "Chesapeake Bay"

This is the first in a series of posts that will preview some aspect of my upcoming FR*EE teleclass  “How to Overcome Green Overload in Your Small Business: 5 Steps for Cutting Through the Clutter.” At the end of this post, there is a bit more detail about the class.

The other day I had a conversation with a client who was rationally trying to decide where to go next in greening her household, which she rightly thinks of as a small business. Having effectively reduced her family’s energy use, she now wants to turn to their diet. She’s weighing all the options, to decide what actions might be feasible, based on their preferences, schedules, and budget.

She got on the subject of industrial agriculture and its terribly negative impacts on the Chesapeake Bay. For example, in the past, farmers were pressured by the chicken industry to produce vast quantities of chicken as cheaply as possibly, despite pollution and health risks. We can easily become paralyzed by worry and overwhelm from the messages we get in the media about how bad things are and especially our role in the destruction.

These messages speak to our inner sense of shame, turmoil, guilt, and anxiety. And it’s paralyzing because we don’t like feeling that way, so we tend to push away and avoid the subject. And rightly so – these dark feelings are a survival technique, part of how we are designed and wired. The problem is, we cannot act effectively from a place of negativity and avoidance.

During the call, I advised her to focus on things she really likes doing. Pass up the actions that blow her schedule, require her to drive a lot, or completely overhaul her family’s eating habits. Even if she did implement some dramatic changes, they would be at great cost and so would be only short-term fixes without lasting power in their lives. They would eventually drop them, because they are just too hard to maintain over the long haul.

A lot of messages about going green are genuinely helpful lists of things you should be doing – emphasis on the word, “should.” Rather than trying to conform to somebody else’s list of “shoulds,” it’s a much more fruitful and enjoyable exercise to notice, in looking at one of those lists, what things pop out, which appeal to you and which are simply irrelevant.

Start with the things that appeal to you, and start small. Small changes can ripple through with big effects. For instance, if you are thinking about not eating meat altogether, for health, environmental, or even spiritual reasons, the best way to start could be to cut out meat one meal a week or one day a week. (This site, Meatless Monday, is a great resource.) That gives you the experience of planning, preparing, and eating a meatless meal. It allows you to test-drive that change, rather than making it wholesale across the entire week.

This way of customizing green actions from a place of desire, rather than obligation, is one aspect of my upcoming FR*EE teleclass, “How to Overcome Green Overload in Your Small Business: 5 Steps for Cutting Through the Clutter.” This call is on Thursday, Nov. 12, at 4:00 p.m. EST. I’ll show you how to:

• Bring your desire to go green into alignment with your need to grow your business;
• Create new opportunities for your business by going green; and
• Find reliable yet innovative eco-friendly resources

There’s just so much information out there, and I will teach how to put on a pair of green-colored glasses. How to see through all the clutter to the strategies, goals, and vision that really fit you, that are uniquely tailored to your needs, your business, your life.

This week, we are sailing on the Chesapeake Bay — for ten days! It’s a sort of moving camping trip, but with a real toilet (sorry — that’s "head").

Sailing is magical. There’s nothing cooler than cutting the engine once the sails are up. The silence is wonderful — then, you start to notice the sound of the water swooshing past the hull, cries of birds nesting atop the channel markers, and other sensory gifts not available when using the "iron genny" (aka, engine). This truly is solar power at its most generous.

I’m reminded of William McDonough ‘s 1993 speech at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in which he told a story about Emerson:

In the 1830s, when his wife died, he went to Europe on a sailboat and returned on a steamship. He remarked on the return voyage that he missed the "Aeolian connection." If we abstract this, he went over on a solar-powered recyclable vehicle operated by craftspersons, working in the open air, practicing ancient arts. He returned in a steel rust bucket, spilling oil on the water and smoke into the sky, operated by people in a black dungeon shoveling coal into the mouth of a boiler. Both ships are objects of the same design. Both are manifestations of human intention.

When you make decisions, how aware are you of your intentions? We are all about intention and awareness here are GOforChange. The first two weeks of the EcoBlueprint Home Study course dig into this deeply. We have two new programs coming as well! Join me on a F*R*E*E phonecall to hear more: Friday, July 3 at 11:00 a.m. EST.

I’m writing this post the day before our trip, with some nervousness because the forecast calls for big winds tomorrow, out of the south, which is exactly where we are headed. *Sigh* Guess we’ll be spending the day on our ear, tacking our way down the Bay. Time to get out the ginger root!

Since sailing is such a treat for the senses, I’m moved to share this poem I recently came across. It was written lovingly on the chalkboard at the wonderful Dogwood Cafe at the Women’s Industrial Exchange (a Baltimore landmark of self-sufficiency for women artisans). Since Mary Oliver is one my all-time faves, I had to copy it down. (follow this! your heart will thank you!) Continued

"VoiCeS , which began in 2004, creates a deeper understanding of the Bay and the efforts to restore it. This professionally-taught, two-part program, meets each week (for eight weeks) and includes field trips and participant-led community projects. You’ll learn about the Bay’s biology, the issues we face, and how you and your community can help its restoration."

Connect to the GOforChange CollectiveX calender to search dates and locations.

Tree-Mendous Maryland:Planting Trees for Healthy Communities and a Cleaner Chesapeake Bay. Whether you’re a home-owner, a county or municipal government, school or environmental group you can help donate, plant or dedicate a non-invasive tree to an organization of your choice. Buy a native tree for yourself, Tree-Mendous will give you great tips on planting, mulching and watering. Although it’s not mentioned they advocate non-toxic fertilizer we as consumers can offer a remedy. Mention it the next time you buy any tree or plant.

The Hughes Center, part of the University of Maryland’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, works to protect the state’s agricultural landscapes while maintaining the health of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Employing a three-tiered approach – scientific research, policy analysis, and outreach – the center promotes alternative agricultural processes, sensible land usage, and eco-friendly forestry, through a variety of policy-based and science-based perspectives.