Positive Impact Living: 2008

Saturday, 20 December 2008

Local Exchange Trading Systems (Alternative Currency)

You can trade freely, you don't have to earn before you spend! These are alternative ways to exchange services and goods, that are pro-community, socially responsible, based on co-operation and rebuilding community links with great success. They do not have a competitve or corporate element as does the usual currency we utilise like dollars and pounds which operate from the idea of scarcity and not having enough. Most of us are ignorant of the way mainstream money works, our dependence on banks issuing money, certainly slightly les than democratic.

Sunday, 7 December 2008

Jigme Karma

Jigme Karma for Positive Products

I have just opened my shop Jigme Karma at Cafe Press. I particularly want to promote The Organic Cotton Wear, The Mugs and the Tote Bags as alternatives to our throwaway mass produced lifestyle. Jigme Karma means Fearless Activity. In the future I want to promote a range of Positive Products but for now I'm starting simple. The good thing about buying online is that you are already halving fu

el emissions - all you have to do is sit back and wait for your items to be delivered! In range are gifts for everyone; clothing, journals, stationary, household goods, all carrying the Real Rainbow trademark.

The first Positive Product I would like to encourage you to buy is this 2009 Positive Impact Living Calendar - all proceeds of which will go to support the Ripa European Centre to find out more visit www.ripaeuropeancentre.blogspot.com at just £3.81 it's definitely a bargain! And a worthy Xmas present.

Also at the foot of the page you can register as a follower of Positive Impact Living as well as my newsletter - for a little blue sky on your rainy days- the more the merrier!

Wednesday, 15 October 2008

Sustainable Homes

A self-sufficient home also known as an Earthship. Cost effective without the problem of building waste and an ultimately sustainable home. The films below are only a few minutes long but will make you want to live in one. Especially as when you have one - you have no more bills! This picture is from the Earthship built in Stanmer Park, Brighton, England. Below is the short film from Michael Reynolds Earthship architect and other resources.

Michael Reynolds the architect of Earthships on their design
Part 1

Part 2

See www.earthships.com for more information or the film Garbage Warrior about Michael Reynolds one the founders of this kind of design thinking.

Books

Earthships - How to Build Your Own

Earthships - Systems and Components

Evolution Beyond Economics

Related Posts

Building Energy

Solar Water Heater

The Living Machine

An Explanation of Permaculture

Low Impact Living

Forest Gardening

Rain Water Harvesting

Friday, 5 September 2008

The World Wants Obama

It's not just America that needs the Democrats to win this election. The world is also waiting for change. Change to the destructive foreign policy that has had such devastating effects around the globe. Positive change happens from the roots up, and all of us are responsible - not just the governments, but the people who put them there and who give them their power. Nowadays we see how one country effects another, how climate change and the actions of the few can ricochet around the planet. That's why I'm throwing my voice in even if I don't have a vote. There are other people praying for this man to get in and they aren't even Americans. So if you're an American your vote has even more bearing than your country alone, listen for the truth of compassion and let that guide your choice - it is louder than any words and it is our greatest necessity.

Thursday, 4 September 2008

What About ME! - Mipham

Spoken word artist Mipham records albums, runs marathons and just happens to be a Tibetan Buddhist Lama.

Check out his website http://www.mipham.com

and then teaching about 'Bodhichitta'.

Tuesday, 19 August 2008

RIPA Centre - Europe

Hooray! Wonderful things are abroad in the quiet corners of Europe - people are gathering and talking in whispers and quietly going about RAISING MONEY for the RIPA European Centre; a giant of a place - positively swamping the Pyrenees in terms of the positive impact it will have, and is having even right now, when it is just a growing roar on the wind; on all of us for just about ever.
To learn more go to RIPA Action Centre Europe
It's like Hogwarts only with Tibetan Lamas instead of wizards though I'm not sure really, about the difference.

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• Positive Ideas

Find your way out of Trauma:-

The Survivor Warrior Workbook

This powerful workbook is used as a teaching tool with therapists, support groups and community education programs. It was inspired by Angela's Removing the Sword of Trauma events. It is for survivors, warriors, advocates, loved ones and supporters ready to move past pain and suffering and reclaim joy and happiness. You can use the workbook in a group, on your own or with your therapist.

This workbook is 117 pages long and is a DOWNLOAD. Thank you for your commitment to healing BUY NOW $9.99

'Prepare to be Raw' by Matthew Warner

Click here to view more details

Please check out and have an amazing life. Thanks.

Sunday, 17 August 2008

Writing a Business Plan

For excellent advice on how to write a business plan follow this link Upstart It also contains resources for setting up co-operatives and land trusts, loanstock and community building.

Wednesday, 6 August 2008

Chris Abami

Some great talks (from the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talks conference) they help you find your heart if its got lost somewhere.
Chris Abami 'Telling Stories of Our Humanity'

and
'Learning the Stories of Africa'

Monday, 4 August 2008

Curing Song

'Your heart is good
(The Spirit) Shining Darkness will be here
You think only of sad unpleasant things
You are to think of goodness.
Lie down and sleep here.
Shining darkness will join us.
You think of this goodness in your dream.
Goodness will be given to you,
I will speak for it, and it will come to pass.
It will happen here,
I will ask for your good,
It will happen as I sit by you,
It will be done as I sit here in this place.'
Yuma Indians, North America

Friday, 4 July 2008

George Sampson

George Sampson from Britain's Got Talent shows us what positivity can do

The Displace Me Film from Invisible Children

This is what Positive Impact Living means

And Invisible Children - Roadie Application 2008 I am a Roadie

This is what Positive Impact Living Means
Check out:-www.invisiblechildren.com

Thursday, 3 July 2008

'Low-Impact Living'

Paul Wimbush describes 'Low-Impact Living' and the Lammas Ecovillage Project

A-Z of Bushcraft

The first of a series. This one covers the safe use of the axe.
With Andrew Price

The Renegade Health Show

'The One About the Plug' One of my favorite Web TV programs from 'The Renegade Health Show' with Kevin Gianni and Anne-Marie Gianni

and a Raw Food Testimonial from www.bestofrawfood.com the amazing raw food story of Jeramaya, Amsterdam's first raw chef (raw food cafe Amsterdam). Currently he's the cook of a new raw food restaurant on Ibizza

'Prepare to be Raw' by Matthew Warner

Click here to view more details

Please check out and have an amazing life. Thanks.

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Find your way out of Trauma:-

The Survivor Warrior Workbook

Wednesday, 2 July 2008

My Secret Stash

Get 7 Free Lessons from the teachers of The Secret as covered by Oprah Winfrey, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Larry King on CNN, Newsweek, Time Magazine, The New York Times and others.

Find out more about The Secret and the Science of Getting Rich
>The Law Of Attraction
Learn How To Manifest The
Law of Attraction in Your Life

The Secret Visualisation Tool

Related Posts
• The Yoga Challenge
• Damien Walters speaks for himself
• Bill Mason Waterwalker
• Histamine Patches for MS
• 'The Shaolin Workout'
• Essiac or Caisse Tea the Cancer Cure
• 'The Benefits of Hiking and Climbing - Becoming a Human Animal
• An Attitude of Fierce Resolve

'Prepare to be Raw' by Matthew Warner

Click here to view more details

Please check out and have an amazing life. Thanks.

Find your way out of Trauma:-

The Survivor Warrior Workbook

Monday, 30 June 2008

JK Rowling's Speech to Harvard

The Fringe Benefits of Failure and The Importance of Imagination

Friday, 27 June 2008

The Yoga Challenge

'The mental aspect becomes more like pure energy when you do the physical exercises, you are stretching muscles... once you get in the exercise then you break through the effort...once you are no longer struggling then what you experience is more energy, there are no more reservations, no more limits to what you can do. The whole body becomes one unit. You become mindful of your body from your feet to your head,from the bones to the skin and it becomes vibrant energy' Tony Sanchez
See the film The Yoga Challenge

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Click here to view more details

Please check out and have an amazing life. Thanks.

Find your way out of Trauma:-

The Survivor Warrior Workbook

Damien Walters speaks for himself

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Click here to view more details

Please check out and have an amazing life. Thanks.

Find your way out of Trauma:-

The Survivor Warrior Workbook

Thursday, 26 June 2008

My favourite blog so far, so I thought I'd post it once again A Soul Famine

Wednesday, 25 June 2008

Amma Dancing

'It is not death, but immortality and bliss that life is all about' Amma
You can find out more about Amma at her website www.amritapuri.org or read my article
Amma
I recommend reading this article Iraq veterans need love and embrace

Also Amma singing Mata Rani at the end of darshan 54th birthday celbrations. Amma has stained sari from giving blessing (darshan) by hugging so many thousands of people, that is also why she has bruised cheek! And Radha and Krishna - Amma couldn't believe her eyes and burst into laughter when brahmachari Sivan, who plays tabla for Amma's bhajans came dressed as Radha.
And Govinda Gokula Aayo

Amma’s advice is that we should never fear that our own small light of love and faith will not be enough to dispel the gathering darkness of fear and hatred in the world around us… together, our many tiny flickering lights can shine like the sun and illuminate the whole world.

Sunday, 22 June 2008

Bill Mason Waterwalker

Couldn't have said it better myself

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Find your way out of Trauma:-

The Survivor Warrior Workbook

'Prepare to be Raw' by Matthew Warner

Click here to view more details

Please check out and have an amazing life. Thanks.

Paddle to the Sea

Bill Masons famous children's film

Saturday, 21 June 2008

Ray Mears on Radio 1

7 Free Lessons from the Teachers of The Secret

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Friday, 20 June 2008

A series of Unfortunate Events

Today is actually 7th December 08 - go figure. Actually I'm just using up old space. But I want to tell you about my last year.
Below is an old post I deleted because it's not the most uplifting thing to read. However I wanted to provide some background. I came to France in 07 to visit my folks for Xmas. Unfortunately I brought the Flu with me, and we all began 08 with the Flu. Luckily we took turns soup-making and medicine-bringing, unluckily Dad's Flu turned to pneumonia and he had to go to hospital. I stayed to help, then one day Dad found out he had Prostate Cancer - he came home and promptly fainted. But as he felt alright later on the same day he and my mum went shopping. They didn't come back. At 8pm that night two Gendarmes (French policeman) knocked on the door and said 'Your parents have been in an accident'. Then they handed me a packet of very dirty chicken and said 'We are sorry about the ham' and proceeded to give me a lot of shopping. It took me some time and not a little confused French to find out if my folks were OK. Needless to say I wasn't too fussed about the chicken.

The car had skidded on the side of the road and hit a concrete post, gone up in the air, landed on the side with my mum in and slid in the bottom of a ditch for twenty yards. The car was written off. Dad was fine and climbed out through the sun roof, and mum apparently was just shaken and badly bruised. A week later mum is happily hoovering away despite our protests, remarking that one leg felt slightly longer than the other. We get her to stop hoovering and then she feels tired. While she's is resting the hospital phones and say they have a 'Facture' (invoice) for the Urgences (Emegerncy Services) or that mum has a 'Fracture' and needs to go to hospital right away. So I say to mum either she has a 'Facture' that needs paying or a 'Fracture'. She says don't be silly it must be an invoice for the ambulance. So I say to the desperate person on the end of the phone 'Is it an invoice or does my mum have a fractured leg that's an emergency'. It turns out mum had a fractured tibia.
So she goes to the hospital and comes home a few days later with a full leg cast. So I stay longer, because as well as Dad who is about to begin Radiotherapy for his cancer, and mum whose leg is in a cast, we also have two dogs, one of whom is a diabetic and blind and needs an insulin shot everyday.

Dad's cancer treatment begins. He's OK the first few weeks and we are quite hopeful because it seems to effect him a lot less than we thought. But then he starts getting really tired. He finishes the treatment but one day gets breathing problems. So he goes to hospital. For a couple of weeks he's treated and loses an incredible thirty pounds (that was due to water retention). Then he comes home. He's pleased with himself because he lost a lot of weight. He seems very tired though. But we think this is just due to the radiotherapy. we are hopeful he will get stronger.
Then on the 6th September Dad had a lovely day, he ate his favorite food, watched Hamilton win the Belgian Qualifying Motor racing, had his favourite giant mug of tea and then he went for his usual afternoon read/nap in the garden.

It wasn't long later, that mum came round the corner towards the office screaming like a banshee 'Come Dad's had a heart attck'. Of course I was already up and coming towards her with the phone in my hand before she finished the sentence. She had heard Dad's last breaths and known something was wrong. When she found him his colour was black, and he was doing what nurses call 'the croke' which is the sound your last breaths can make. Mum had given him breaths straight away. When I arrived he was dead, it was clear. Sat in his chair, totally relaxed but staring fixedly ahead with a somewhat surprised expression, as though someone he had known had just walked in to the garden. As mum gave him a breath, I put my hand on his cheek and said 'Oh Dad, what have you done?'.
I realised we had to get him onto the floor to properly do resuscitation. Dad had been a rugby player and weighed 17stone and was six foot tall. Between mum and I we broke the chair he sat on but we got him on the floor and began resuscitation. I had already begun to phone the ambulance. In French I had to explain that dad had had a heart attack - it's difficult to describe symptoms in another language. Incidentally heart attack is 'un infartuse'- who'd have thought. Somehow they understood. I then called the neighbour to help. We did resuscitation for about thirty five minutes until the ambulance arrived. I knew that if you have ten minutes heart massage and survive youre lucky, thirty minutes is normally the maximum. The ambulance proceeded to work on Dad for another hour and it took them at least twenty five to set up the equipment to restart his heart. Mum and I cried all the way through (we knew he'd gone), the neighbours also stood in a little group around us watching with shocked faces.
Dad's heart began again. He remained in a coma for two weeks. Each day was as shocking as the next. Every day had another-in-built stress. Either the communication between the French Doctors and ourselves was unclear - or we got different interpretations. It was a difficult situation for the medical staff to handle appropriately. You see when someone is on life support and their brain is functioning they can remain in a coma for a longtime. If they've gone through what my Dad did and don't wake after three days - they never wake up. The Doctors knew that by keeping him on the life support until his brain ceased to function and only then taking him off, that Dad would be able to pass away more painlessly and more quickly. They showed me that he could breath by himself without it, but I didn't like what I saw and I knew that while Dad's brain was active, or at least while his body functioned, that his awareness was also there somewhere. Of course at the time we knew none of this and had to work it out piecemeal, doctor by doctor until the 11th day when I finally collared a doctor and forced him to tell me the whole truth and nothing but the truth (which he did at risk of hospital regulations) and I will always be grateful for this (if only they had told us in the beginning). After his brain functin tests came back negative he was taken off the machine. He breathed by himself for about three days. Then he died. This is what I wrote back then before that day:-

In September
It's difficult to smile and find the positive place within when terrible events happen to you or those around you. I am writing this because last week my Dad had a heart attack and is presently in intensive care in a deep medically induced coma. We had to give him heart massage etc and it was a shocking event with all the stresses that accompany such a situation. What can you call positive with something like this? Well, what I have come to realise is that sometimes the most tragic events hold the keys to the places within you that contain the most compassion, love and bravery. It is at times like this that you can find your kindest you, your most loving you and your bravest you. Of course your ogres are still there; anger, fear and feelings of being overwhelmned also raise their heads - but it's what you do with them that counts.

Every day we visit my Dad, we'd stay all the time if the hospital allowed it -they don't because the family needs to look after itself as well - to keep going. At first there was the shock, the adrenalin and the dismay. Slowly confusion gives way to clarity and understanding. All you want is for your loved one not to suffer. It must be one of the hardest situations to know what is the right thing to do. The dying process is the natural end to all life, but what about the staying process? My Dad is on a respirator, it breathes for him - he wouldn't be here without it. People consider this an unnatural intervention, but it is another experience. We are still in the first week - the Doctors are very pessimistic and don't hold much hope for him, for his heart is weak and his brain has damage. To me though my Dad's heart is the strongest I ever encountered full of warmth and kindness and the wish to relieve suffering.

I speak to him and tell him what's happening as though he can hear every word. In this natural unnatural process, an experience that for some reason he must go through - I feel like I stepped through the walls of my Dad's heart and mine is there beating with his and for his, as is my mum's and my brother's and all the friends, family and well-wishers. If it comes to the point where they remove the form of treatment that is the respirator perhaps he will manage by himself, perhaps he won't. In that moment our hearts will keep beating or stop with his. They will pause, they will register that we are changing, that things may never be the same or perhaps for a little while they will. Such is life. Such is life in every moment. It is precious; the ability to be, to speak, to move, our manner, our words, our actions - these are like gold. They can either fall upon people like warm summer rain, softly and gently or they can hammer down like the falling of storms.

Our own joy comes from the joy of others.

My Dad had his perfect day before his heart attack, he watched the motor racing, he had Mince and Mash that my mum made him - his favorite food, and he had a cup of PG Tips his favourite tea that I made him (hard to find in rural France). I saw him and I said 'You're really enjoying that aren't you?' and he looked at me and beaming the biggest smile full of the most dissproportionate happiness said 'I am'. The day my Dad had a heart attack was the day Lewis Hamilton qualified for the Belgian Grand Prix, and my Dad avidly watched the race and loved it. He didn't get to see him win it - the next day he was having his own race; but we told him and we think he knows.
Such is life, every moment, precious. Never is this more obvious than when you are in the midst of tragedy. Never are you more aware of the purpose of a person's life and the meaning of yours, than when theirs is in question.

If you read this please pray for my Dad.

My Dad died four days after I wrote this - it is now the day after. I love him dearly and he is loved by many. You learn the true meaning of a person's existence at the end of their life. You are already missed Dad, but don't let that stop you - keep going, towards the lovely light that you are.

Ronald Frederick Brookes 26/10/34-18/09/08 Aged 73 years
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Related Posts
• Lectures/Workshops
• Commissions
• The Alliance for Middle East Peace
• A soul famine
• The Thinking Blogger Award!
• Donate to Positive Impact Living Projects!
• Vision Quest – motivation
• IN the beginning
• ‘A Beautiful Mess Inside’
• Losing self - finding self
• Applying for University
• RIPA Centre – Europe

Find your way out of Trauma:-

The Survivor Warrior Workbook

'Prepare to be Raw' by Matthew Warner

Click here to view more details

Please check out and have an amazing life. Thanks.

Saturday, 14 June 2008

Answer to anxiety in a nuclear age

A short film about loving kindness

Outdoor Recreation Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory

Friday, 13 June 2008

Lectures/Workshops

Please contact me here louisembrookes (at) hotmail.com if you are interested in having/suggesting a workshop and/or lecture.

I currently teach motivational visioning workshops 'Visioneering' covering permaculture design and increasing our adaptive capacity to climate change and humanitarian disasters as individuals and communities.

Please visit my Raw Survival website to find out more; as well as practical Survival Workshops covering basic to advanced survival techniques.

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