http://cloudfanatic.blogspot.com/

Another truly beautiful, yet horrifying spectacle of nature graced this fine planet today. The city of Sydney in Australia was blackened out by an incredible red/orange glowing sandstorm. Creating a thick warm cloud over the city.

Enjoy these stunning images that have been uploaded recently to the photo sharing website Flickr. If you click on any of the images it will take you to the photographer's stream so you can leave a comment or read their personal log of the 'event.'

This is something to pay attention to: what's been changing in your world? What's been changing in your neighborhood? This spring, here in Idaho, we had rains every day until the end of June. Felt sort of like the wet season in the Mojave, as a matter of fact. But this is not the Mojave. This is high desert, a completely different ecology. And it's changing.

http://thecommonstudio.com/index.php?/project/greenaid/

Lets lay waste to concrete! Let's re-create a world in which lush greenery and fertile imagination replace the stark, sterile darkness of modern cities!

Let's install one of these bad boys on every every street corner and label them "Earth Candy"- Let's see what evolves.

Craving an artist's hand

My son laughed at the boy in the blue Mercedes, riding along with his foot stuck through the window. I was distracted by something further down. I'd been contemplating all day the loss of color in my world; industry has dipped the trees and my imagination in a toxic sludge of ancient acetone. The trees today looked faded. It's a clear day; I should have been able to see the other side of the valley, beyond that to the foothills, the air sharp and hot. Instead, a gray pall hung limply over everything. I had to keep my eyes on the pavement to not feel robbed of the sky.
Maybe it was because I was viewing the world through a gray mist that the butterfly caught me off gaurd. The image was sad; a monarch trapped by gravity and wind, at the mercy of the great rolling metal beasts that growled their way down Parkcenter Boulevard. The burst of color suprised me so much, though that the world suddenly seemed a little livelier. Perhaps it was just in comparison; my life may be gray but I'm not about to be quashed by rubber and concrete.
I wished in that moment, as I have many times, that I had the touch of an artist. The image of orange and black natural delicacy at the mercy of grey and black industrial monstrosity is something I would love to share. So I do it by the only means open to me; through words.

Dear... whoever you are...

Dear body-
We've always had a rather adversarial relationship, you and I. You've hurt me again and again. I've been terribly rough on you. We dont communicate well. Youre rather oblique with your requests, and since I have a hard time understanding them, I generally just give you what I think you may want; something sweet to sweeten you up.
You inevitably pout, because I haven't read your wishes. Your pouting makes me tired and weak. It makes me not want to do anything for you. Why should I, if you can't do me the simple favor of perking up after and lovely sweet snack? Because I don't wish to do anything nice for you, you get tired too, and the cycle continues. A cycle of negative co-dependence, really. We're both awfully passive-aggressive. Which makes this a relationship my therapist would tell me to get out of.
So, can we come to a compromise? We are stuck in this particular relationship. We haven't much choice.
And to be honest, I really wouldn't want it any other way. You are obstinate and damaged and carrying more than a small excess of baggage. But you are also beautiful. You are delicate and sublime and heavy-duty. People should draw charcoal sketches of you just to understand your curves. They should paint you to come to realizations abut your skin. They should sculpt you to test your gravity and feel your strength.
I offer this compromise-
I will listen if you will speak up.
I will respond to your strengths if you will respond to mine.
I will come to understand if you will give me answers.

Yours
Liz

Sustain/ability

I've been thinking alot about sustainable living; individualized communities filled with jacks-of-all-trades. Beautiful homes made of naturally-occurring materials and powered by renewable energy. Gardens filled with healthy, delicious choices and meat raised without hormones. SHelves filled with home-grown, home-canned produce and soups. Local markets filled with foods whose recipies don't contain anything you can't pronounce. Returning to a basic philosophy in life; use without waste and honor the source.
Industrialization brought us into a bleak period in human history, but I firmly believe we can recover. We have to want to, but we can. Right now, we are feeling a deep and abiding despair. We are told we've done so much damage that we cannot undo what we've done; we're doomed. Therefore, why try? It makes it a chore to recycle, a chore to use alternate energy, a chore to do anything that moves us away from a mind-set of zombie consumerism. We have dug ourselves into the trenches of "buy!" and the walls are steep. But it's a trench, not a bottomless pit.
One of the arguments I hear so much pushing against sustainability is the movement toward globalism. We cant go back to being hippies without power and running water; how would we conduct business? How would we communicate? How would we maintain our reliance on a system which allows us to make and maintain freindships without ever actually coming face to face with another human being?
One of the advantages to this bleak period in the life of our nations is the swift development of technologies, communication and otherwise. Many people no longer have to go into the office; they can work from home, on their computer, in their pajamas if they choose. We don't want to give that up! We don't want the commute! We don't want to give up our cell phones and hot water heaters and televisions!
Here's the secret! WE DONT HAVE TO. We may have to turn them off and go work in the garden more often, or help a neighbor build a barn, maybe come face to face with other human beings who can learn from us and teach us new and interesting things. But the industrial age has bestowed more than transportation and communication. It has led to the discovery of methods of trapping the wind and sun to provide us power! We can have our computers, our electric cars, and still cease furthering the damage to the earth!
So lets start again from where we are. We dont have to go backward. We can build on what we have with what we have and work to fix what weve fucked up in the past. Lets build ourselves again. Human 2.0