Before I’d even made a dent in suitcase number one, I knew without a doubt that I’d overpacked by about 70 percent. By the time the contents of both suitcases, my backpack and my tote bag were neatly arranged on shelves and in the drawers of my new Jakartan bedroom, a certainty had congealed in my stomach into a hard ball of guilt: “I’m doing this wrong.”

My recent move across the globe, from San Francisco to Indonesia.has forced me to ponder a few questions. I won’t launch into a discourse on how everyone’s path is unique and equally valid, or how trying to meet an arbitrary standard of the “right” human experience, but I do want to consider the impulse, not 24 hours into my stay, to assign it a label, an impulse that inevitably if colored everything after it.

On trips as in life, there is a tendency to assess how experiences propel the mind forward. The flatulent tuk-tuk driver or moonlit dinner or urban monsoon, allows us to bide our time until we arrive at some simulacrum of some future self who judges, with flawless verdicts, how good or bad, exciting or boring, challenging or peaceful, our current experience was.

It hardly merits saying that most of us aspire to steer clear of this mentality–you don’t need to go to be a yogi these days to encounter frequent instructions to “be present,” or “live in the moment.” And I like to think that I make a valiant effort to do that, when I remember at least.

But here in Jakarta, that nebulous goal has taken on a new urgency. That’s in part because I have no reasonable frame of reference for this place, such a far cry from any other city I’ve visited. It’s also in part because being present here is largely a survival skill; even with my full attention on my surroundings, I almost got run down by about a dozen mopeds, four cars, and one aggressive food-cart-pusher on a walk down a semi-main drag this morning. There’s also the tacit knowledge that I could leave at any moment. Setting aside potential crises or changes of heart–that my relationship dissolves, that I contract Japanese encephalitis, that I decide I just can’t stand to live somewhere without decent Mexican food–there’s the very real fact that my boyfriend’s job could move him to a different project, anywhere in the world, at any time. How can I formulate a cogent review of an experience with an unknown end date? The fluid duration both prevents me from scheming up some romanticized narrative arc of my Jakartan hero’s journey (What if the story stops before I’ve had my life-altering epiphany?), and puts more weight on each day we remain here. I need to be here, now, because I may be elsewhere tomorrow.

This afternoon, a monsoon opened up the sky and I went onto our sheltered patio and sat on the little couch out there and pulled out my box of Bahasa vocabulary cards (“Learn Indonesian–In A Flash!”). As the water pounded the yard’s palm fronds and lightning shattered the clouds, the sunset call to prayer began its wail from the minarets, the mournful minor key notes from at least three different mosques mingling with the air-trembling thunder. And I try really, really hard to be fully in that moment, to hear the insistent rain, to focus on devising a mnemonic device to remember that lupa means “to forget,” to enjoy the blessed, ephemeral coolness of the air. I try to point my thoughts toward all that stuff, though part of me is already thinking about how nicely this intersection of elements encapsulates my Jakartan existence, ignoring the inconvenient fact that said existence is three days old. I try to avoid the temptation to squint at the present until its fuzzy edges can be redrawn as some ideal, transforming this very moment into a memory about which I’ll wax poetic someday–though, in a way, I guess that’s just what I’m doing now.

After I leave, I’ll have the rest of my life to remember and misremember and interpret my time in Jakarta. But I don’t know how long I’ll actually be here, in this noisy, hot, mysterious city, creating the raw experience that I’ll diligently label in years to come.

Offered by our myBIGearth friend Kate Willsky at the Huffington Post

Technorati Tags Indonesia, live in the moment, mind, moving, travel, yogi

Dear President Lincoln, I have been carrying your picture around in my wallet for about 50 years now. You would be amazed at how much the value has changed. I really do not want you to be angry with America but I must tell you that the value of your picture has changed. But this fact, does not change the value that many American’s place on it. You should know however, that you can no longer buy a 1/4 acre of land with it, or make a down payment on enough lumber to build a house just in case you were thinking about performing some type of magic trick and reappearing or being reborn again. Your eternal spirit does live on in the five dollar bill which is only worth about $2.80.

You may have noticed Mr. President, that Americans place a great deal of value in having replacement parts, which has created all sorts of alternative lifestyles as Americans are living a lot longer. We sort of live in a disposable society. There seems to be a large number of people who do not remember what happiness is about. That happiness we experience as a child is what I am talking about. We feel sorry for kids today. They are bombarded with information and find it hard to write a complete sentence. Many of their peers speak another language or dress in a way that they cannot relate to. They speak with pierced tongues and eyebrows and expect one not to stare. We do love more than we hate Mr. President and understand that hope always triumphs. There are many who do not get paid an honest living but yet they work countless hours on theories and good design practices trying to create a better widget. We call them web developers. The problem began the day newspapers had to recreate themselves and adapt to the internet. You could call these web developers information architects.

My parents relied on Miss Manners and Ann Landers for advice. Bloggers have fallen into the category of roving reporter, reporting from their own unique perspectives about what is happening and newsworthy. If Miss Manners or Ann Landers were alive today their junk email boxes would probably need an exorcism. My friend wants me to write an article for myBIGearth. It is sort of a dare and the minute she asked me I got the worse case of writer’s block that one could catch. It happens to everyone I told myself. People who have worked in corporate America know how one’s thinking power can be here one day and gone the next, due to the high levels of stress involved in working in stressful environments. That is why I enjoy having my own business. If I need a stress?free zone day I take one.

So there I was standing at the bottom of the snow covered mountain looking up at the beautiful, cloudless clear blue sky when all of the sudden I begin to see an avalanche the size of a 50 foot ocean wave heading right towards where I am standing. My first instinct was to stand perfectly still and gaze in amazement at how fast the wave was moving, to watch the number of large trees that were being uprooted and caught up in the wave, branches snapping. Literally, all that I could think of was, what am I going to do with the last 90 seconds of my life here on myBIGearth. And the answer seemed to appear before I could even utter a sound. I will write for myBIGearth.

But first, I will need to do a little, “writer’s solfege,” la, la, so, so, me, me, mo, mo, ta, ta, to, to, oo, oo ee baby, oo ee, oo ee baby, oo ee. The good news is that I am now warmed?up, the bad news is that I have just used up the last 90 seconds of my life here on myBIGearth.

I thought that I had mastered the art of daydreaming, the type of vivid dream state, that allows for creative genius to flow effortlessly from my hands to the computer keyboard to my application after many years of working in call centers and mastering the inbound and outbound auto dialing system.

I would have rather been in another line of work but many manufacturing companies had moved their operations overseas, which is exactly what Smith Corona did in the 1980’s. I helped to design the international product manuals for the Smith Corona Word Processor. Many of these early computer counterparts are buried in some refuse dump in a third world country or lying at the bottom of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans providing a living for the scavengers who find them and are now selling the valuable metals found inside. My first computer was a Commodore 64 which I purchased at Kmart. One had to subscribe to the Commodore 64 magazine, at the time, as that was the simplest way to teach oneself something about computer programming.

The heated political atmosphere and the great recession have been life changing experiences to witness, sort of like standing at the bottom of a mountain looking up to see an avalanche headed straight for you which is why many people today have a guru, life coach or wake up in the middle of the night put on their jogging suit and sneakers and run for their lives. If the avalanche of snow and ice and trees had sweep me away and buried me I am positive a dog would have found me, dug me out and showed me the way to Starbucks where I could borrow a laptop, pick?up on the Wi?Fi and get back to work. To be continued.

Offered by our myBIGearth friend Jody Allen at Media 54 LLC

Technorati Tags AbrahamLincoln, blogging, value of money

Anni Daulter is back with another green party theme from her new book, Naturally Fun Parties for Kids.  Today we get a peek at an eco-friendly party with flour sack races, and where the main attraction is a huge stack of whole wheat pancakes and lots of healthy toppings.

This idea came to Anni after a friend told her she thought her daughter was too young for a sleepover party.  ”I suggested the kids come to a morning party dressed in PJ’s (as if they had spent the night), have pancakes and other morning treats, and enjoy a high-energy gathering, without the sleep deprivation that often comes with a full sleepover party.”

Have Flour Sack Races + Make Healthy Donuts

Every kid loves to race! Line them up and take turns and make sure each child has plenty of hopping room, as to not fall and hurt their racing neighbor. Your mark, get set, GO! The kids love to play this game over and over!  No prizes for the winner, just good old fashioned fun!

Vanilla Cake Donuts with Strawberry Goop

• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon aluminum free baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 packet yeast
• 1/2 cup grapeseed oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 cups strawberries, chopped
• 1 cup raw agave nectar

Cook’s Note: This recipe requires donut pans

Strawberry Goop:

1. In a small saucepan, cook down strawberries with agave nectar on medium heat, until they become somewhat saucy. This should take about 4-5 minutes.

Vanilla Cake Donuts:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder & soda, salt and nutmeg together in a large bowl and set aside.

3. In another bowl mix the egg and yolk, sugar and yeast with a mixer on medium until you have a light colored creamy texture.

4. Mix in the oil and vanilla and add the sour cream and mix until it’s well blended.

5. Pour it into the flour mixture and mix on high until well blended and batter is smooth. There is no need to let the yeast do it’s thing, it has sugar and will rise in the oven.

6. Pour batter into donut cups ½ to ¾ full, and note they will rise quite a bit.

7. Bake on 350 for 12 minutes, let cool and remove from pans.

8. Top with strawberry goop or sift some powered sugar or powdered cocao on top.

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at …The Art of Meaningful Celebrations and Eco-friendly Gift Giving | Green Gifts Guide

Technorati Tags green birthday parties, green celebrations, green kid fun, recipes, reuse

Attention fashionistas it’s time for the best fashion block party event of the season!

We know that the readers of myBIGearth are a charitable bunch so we are calling you out to represent at the Connected Fashion Festival.

DATE: March 31, 2011
TIME: 11am-5pm
WHERE: Hope and 9th Street (downtown LA)

What is better than fashion, food, live music, and art?  How about making it all in about giving back and supporting charitable causes such as the LA Mission.

LA does the ‘give and get’ event better than any other city. Check out the link and get a preview of the event: connectedfest.com. Those ‘in the know’ will be sweetly surprised to see an amazing line- up of notable influential indie brands that are featured in many of the worlds best fashion magazines and stores. Partial list includes: Obey clothing, United Couture, Rojas, UNIF, We Are The Superlative Conspiracy, Black Oak Jewelry, insight51, Tavik, Kill City, and many more! The event also features live bands, the ever growing plethora of food trucks,and live art installation brought to you by IRONLAK.

The food drive is going directly to the LA Mission that has been faced with a growing number of homeless and unemployed and a shrinking budget. Last reported, their budget was around $14.5 million yearly. The LA Mission has had to cut jobs in recent months to divert more funding to food purchasing.  The director stated:

“we are struggling and every donation helps the Mission greatly.”

So, mark your calendars for March 31st; 11:00 – 5:00 and jet straight to Hope & 9th Street in LA to score some great deals and do your part to help those in need. Hope to see you there!

Check out the video covering last year’s turnout and resulting in over 500 lbs of food being delivered to the LA Mission.

myBIGearth featured beauty and food writer Brin Cante

Technorati Tags charity, event, fashion, LA Mission, philanthropy

Have you ever thought about connecting with your favorite music artists by dedicating a piece of art to them? Well, if not, you can now do this by purchasing re purposed vinyl records that have the portraits of your favorite artist embossed over them. Kaylee and Phillips cut intricate portraits of old iconic musicians into 12 inch records.

As of now, you can purchase the portraits of Joe Strummer, Tom Waits, Blondie, David Bowie, Morrissey and Amy Winehouse. For further protection, the records are framed in a premium LP frame made out of glass and aluminum.

For people who enjoy art and its intricacies, these portraits are rightly meant for you. They are an apt example of how to reuse stuff that is left as waste to rot away and never be used. It shows the power of imagination and how it can transform every bit of waste into precious pieces of art, never to be discarded.

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at EcoFriend

Technorati Tags amy winehouse, art, entertainment, vinyl records

For a respite from the usual way North America’s biggest rivalry plays out, today we learn which nation, the United States or Canada, goes on the Internet most. And for once our neighbors to the north have us beat.

According to market researcher comScore, Canadians spent on average 45.3 hours online last December. As the Associated Press found, that compares pretty favorably to its two biggest allies. “The Canadian total is about 17 per cent more than the average 38.6 hours Americans were online this past December, and about 28 per cent more than the average in the U.K.”

The AP explains Canada’s Internet Lovefest by citing “a significant jump in social media usage, which was up 32 per cent.” But the Web is getting more social everywhere, including the U.S., so why is Canada still topping its southern neighbors? Income may be a factor: For the first time ever in 2011 Canadians earned more than Americans. We’re also guessing that Canada’s cold weather would drive folks indoors and onto their computers.

We’ll let the Canadians have their Internet (and healthcare) for now. At least the U.S. is still winning where it counts most.

Offered by our myBIGearth friend Dino Grandoni at The Atlantic Wire

Technorati Tags Canada, canadians, internet, internet users, social media

Girls still want to have fun, and there’s little else that’s more fun than saving animals’ lives. Just ask Cyndi Lauper.

The pop icon, known for her philanthropic work with the MAC Viva Glam Campaign and her own True Colors Fund, has signed up to be a spokesperson for the North Shore Animal League America’s pet adoption Tour For Life campaign.

The Tour For Life campaign will utilize three mobile rescue and adoption units and tour the U.S. throughout March and April, promoting pet adoption.

Lauper encourages animal lovers to adopt shelter pets, saying “There are so many beautiful and healthy animals in shelters, making the responsible choice an easy one – animal lovers can show their true colours by adopting a pet and saving a life.”

Offered by our myBIGearth friend Brook Bolen at Ecorazzi

Technorati Tags Cyndi Lauper, eco-celebrity, green celebrity, pet adoption

We’ve always known that Jennifer Aniston is a dog fanatic. Now the actress is broadening her love of all things great and small by keeping chickens.

Contact Music reports that Aniston found a chicken coop on her new property, and it included chickens! (Did the person who moved not take their feathered friends with them?)

The former “Friends” actress seems to be taking their care seriously. She’s also enjoying their company. Aniston said, “They’re very social animals, and they like it when you visit them with a cup of coffee in your hand. And according to my groundskeeper, they love pasta.”

More than a few people have quit eating animals once they got to know them up close and personal. We wonder if Jen will think twice about eating the winged creatures knowing now just how social they are.

Offered by our myBIGearth friend Ali Berman at Ecorazzi

Technorati Tags chickens, green celebrity, Jennifer Aniston, urban chicken

Green Diva Lisa was out this week, so EcoKaren, captain of EcoEtsy and editor of GreenLivingIdeas.com, sat in as guest Green Diva. We had Green Dude Paul in the studio and we all had a pretty good time! Some surprising and disturbing news from green house expert, Chris Murphy of Smart Little House on how zero-VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) paint may not be exactly non-toxic. We aired the rest of our interview with Jessica Alba and Christopher Gavigan about how they each arrived on the green living path and their new eco-baby and green lifestyle business the The Honest Company.

The Sleeping Naked is Green

Use Low-VOC or Water-Based Paints

Chris Murphy of Smart Little House called in for this one – VOCs (Volelite Organic Compounds) are chemical compounds that vaporize into the air when they dry, so we breathe them in, and they can cause a variety of health and environmental issues. Chris kind of surprised us when he said that not all non-VOC paints or household products are necessarily toxic free. He points out that similar to the food industry, not all ingredients have to be listed and are not currently regulated. So, while low or zero-VOC products are good, they are only low in the hundreds of toxic chemicals being regulated and the reality is that there are hundreds of thousands of NON-REGULATED toxic chemicals that could be and are sometimes included, but not listed. Oh boy. Lots of homework to be done here!

Chris noted that a Harvard study showed that kids have a higher rate of asthma and allergies when their rooms were freshly painted while they were newborns or before they were born.

For information on choosing healthier paints, Chris recommended going to SmarterPaint.com

Listen this Sleeping Naked is Green 5-minute segment.

Why We Should Care

Please join us in being part of the solution! Visit our Why Should We Care Campaign page and enjoy our silly short video, donate and share (and get some awesome goodies when you do)!

Meanwhile, we are busy lining up some interesting high-profile folks, who are passionate about a variety of causes that help to make this a better world, for this ongoing feature on the radio show. Look forward to hearing from Fran Drescher, Frederique and Carol Alt - all beautiful, passionate women using their power of celebrity and success for good - in the coming few weeks! More fun surprise guests for this segment soon to be announced!

Feature Interview

We played the last 10 minutes of our recorded interview with Jessica Alba and her business partner, Christopher Gavigan. They talked about their awesome green living company called the Honest Company, which is focused on providing green alternatives for babies, children and families in general.

NOTE: Jessica Alba will be LIVE on the show on 3.31.12 along with Christopher to talk more about why they started this company and why they call it the Honest Company . . . mark your calendar and be sure to post any questions for them on the Green Divas Facebook Page!

You can listen to the entire show or download the podcast from here.

Please visit Green Divas website for LOTS of relevant links & resources from the show.

Offered by our myBIGearth friend Green Diva Meg at EatDrinkBetter

Technorati Tags eco-celebrity, green celebrity, home

Compiled from more than four hundred hours of channeling by Barbara Marciniak, ‘Bringers of the Dawn’ imparts to us the wisdom of the Pleiadians, a group of enlightened beings who have come to Earth to help us discover how to reach a new stage of evolution.

Here’s an audiobook rendition of “Bringers of the Dawn” by Barbara Mariciniak …

You can watch the rest of the parts (16 parts in total) in the related videos section at the end of the video in the embedded player.

From Chapter 1, “Ambassadors Through Time,” Page 3

We are here. We are the Pleiadians, a collective of energy from the Pleiades. We have a long history. Our ancestors came from another universe that had achieved completion, a universe. You are simply working on a planet coming to completion, and we are here to help you with that task. This completion, or transformation, has been heralded by many for eons. It is an important time. What happens on Earth now will affect the entire universe.

Completion consists of you understanding who you are so that you can go further with the experiment. Our ancestors came from a universe that had completed itself and then understood universally that it was Prime Creator, the First Cause, or the journey of Prime Creator in time. They came from a universe that had discovered its essence-creativity. By discovering that essence, we found out that we are creators.

From Chapter 3, “Who Your Gods Are,” Page 23
There are many misconceptions about the idea of godhood. The universes are full of intelligent beings who have, over time, evolved and developed all sorts of capabilities and functions to serve their needs to express themselves creatively. The importance behind existence and consciousness is creativity, and creativity takes many forms.

Eons ago, Earth was but a thought in the minds of great beings who had set before themselves the task of creating new forms of existence. Many of these beings affected the creation of this universe, and you have termed them God. In actuality, they were extraterrestrial light-bearing energies far removed from Prime Creator. We rarely use the term God with a big G. If we were to use that term, we would be referring to the entity we know as Prime Creator. Prime Creator, in its own personal implosion through love, endowed all things with consciousness. All things are Prime Creator on Prime Creator’s journey.

We see ourselves as an extension of Prime Creator — always gathering information, going off on adventures, and doing whatever we need to do to make our lives more interesting and challenging so that we can feed Prime Creator. As we feed Prime Creator through our schemes and our endeavors, we endow Prime Creator with greater energy to give to new creations.

From Chapter 8, “Outside the Ultimate Tyranny,” Page 87
The ultimate tyranny in a society is not control by martial law. It is control by the psychological manipulation of consciousness, through which reality is defined so that those who exist within it do not even realize that they are in prison. They do not even realize that there is something outside of where they exist. We represent what is outside of what you have been taught exists. It is where you sometimes venture and where we want you to dwell; it is outside of where society has told you you can live.

You have been controlled like sheep in a pen by those who think they own you — from the government to the World Management Team to those in space. You have been deprived of knowledge by frequency control. Think of frequency as individual broadcasting and receiving through which you dial into the station of your choice. It is the broadcasting of carrier waves of intelligence. The range of frequency is unlimited, and the range of intelligent matter transmitted is unlimited.

From Chapter 11, “The Name of the Game ,” Pages 117-118
Thought comes first. Experience is always secondary. It is never the other way around — that you have the experience and then you base the thought around it. Always your experience is a direct reflection of what you are thinking.

Clarity and recognition of your own power are the bottom line. Your thoughts form your world all of the time. Not cafeteria style — all of the time. Because you are bombarded with so many frequency-control vibrations that attempt to keep you from being clear, you fluctuate. You must, as a species, make it your intention to stay very clear, to stay centered, and always to bring yourself into the moment. Stop living in the future or living in the past, and always live in your now. Say to yourself, “What do I want? I want to accelerate my personal evolution. I want Spirit to assist me in a greater capacity. I want my body to regenerate itself. I want to emanate health. I am willing to give up difficulty so that I can be a living example of what humanity can be.” It is this line of thinking — this commanding from your being and calling out what you want with clarity — that brings you everything in acceleration.

From Chapter 20, “Sexuality — A Bridge to Higher Levels of Consciousness,” Page 211
When the library of yourselves was torn from the shelves and scattered, and the DNA was split so that there were only two strands left with very little data and very little memory, sexuality was left intact in the physical body. It was left as a form of reproduction, of course — as a form for the species to stay in touch with its own essence and bring itself into life. Very deep inside the mechanism of sexuality is a frequency that can be attained that has been sought after and misunderstood by many people. It is called orgasm.

The orgasm has been distorted from its original purpose. Your body has forgotten the cosmic orgasm of which it is capable because society has taught you for thousands and thousands of years that sexuality is bad. You have been taught this in order for you to be controlled and to keep you from seeking the freedom available through sexuality. Sexuality connects you with a frequency of ecstasy, which connects you back to your divine source and to information.

Offered by our myBIGearth friends at …

Technorati Tags book launch, energetic evolution, evolution, Pleiades