#my bougainvillea plants are out of control

[flowerytale]

May Sarton, from Recovering: A Journal

[the-cormorant]

March productivity challenge - day 3

If you could make your own garden (consider that it is self-tending, and has the perfect environment for the plants you'd choose) how would you plan it out? styles, locations, flora you'd plant, furniture? Just talk about your dream garden.

That’s a tough one. I really like Mediterranean plants, so I would love to have an olive tree and a fig tree, maybe some citrus. And a juniper. I’m not too fond of flowers, but I would love to keep lavander, wisteria, and bougainvillea (I know the flowers are technically just coloured leaves, don’t @ me).

I also really like to keep spices. I have some already at home, but if I could grow thyme, rosemary, mint, sage, basil and laurel, I would be covered for all my cooking. Might as well grow garlic, that shouldn’t be hard.

And some myrtle would be nice, too. I love the smell of it and how it looks. Ideally I would love to also grow those ficus indica cacti (the fruit bearing ones), and vines.

I am pretty sure all these plants could grow in the same climate.

Now, for how to plan it:

I would have the vine grow onto a pergola, under which I would have the spices and an outdoor metal table and chairs. I would keep the more fragile spices like basil and thyme by the kitchen window, and the mint in a large vase outside, and I’d let the lavender and rosemary do whatever the hell it wants. Who am I to control the rosemary?

Other than that I would find a way to get the wisteria to climb up my house, and make a part of the hedge with bougainvillea, one part with myrtle, and one with laurel, depending on how it’s more convenient.

Then I will position the different tees in the way that it’s good for the amount of sunlight they need (the cacti are gonna need a LOT of sun for example) and I want to attach a hammock to the olive tree once it’s big enough. I would also like the fig tree to be visible from my bedroom window.

I don’t really want a lawn, but I don’t know what plants would grow well under the trees. Maybe clover? Idk I am really out of my depth here. I would rather avoid graminacee and grasses, because I am allergic to a lot of them.

That’s pretty much it for the time. I never realised I had such a detailed idea of how I wanted my garden to be.

[encontrarvida]

The beginning of my youth (Chapter 1)

Kiiara's home:

Kiiara who is recently passed from high school and going to enter college lives with her mom, dad and younger siblings Ann and Jazz. Her dad works in a bank and her mother owns a flower shop. Ann is in her sophomore year while jazz is in grade eight right now.

It's a pleasant morning and the walls of the bungalow were aflame with flowering bougainvilleas. A lot of hustle-bustle can be heard from downstairs. Jazz and Dad are discussing something downstairs. Mom is preparing breakfast in the kitchen, meanwhile, I'm helping mom with plating the dishes on the table.

"Kiiara go and wake up your sister otherwise she will be late for her school," Ma yelled from the kitchen. I rushed upstairs to wake Ann.

"Ann, wake up you lazy bum," I said trying to take the blanket off her body.

"Let me sleep a little bit more," Ann said turning away from me.

"Oh no, not again," I sighed and jumped on her laying just above her.

"Let go," yelled Ann.

"Only if you will wake up this instant, "

"Fine."

We both came down in the dining area where the whole family was seated by now. A plate full of croissants, omelette, toasts and orange juice were kept on the table.

"Good morning lovelies," dad said grinning our way.

"Good morning dad," we said in unison.

"Who is gonna help me with the plantation of new flowers today?" asked my mom.

I raised my hand excitedly. My mother had her own nursery where she would spend time with our siblings (that's how we refer to our plants in this home).

"Not me, it takes a lot my time to help you at the nursery moreover you don't pay me enough for it momma. Increase my pocket money mummy," Ann said expectantly.

Mom glared at her gesturing her to finish her breakfast.

I will help you to deliver the remaining orders after school ma," Jazz said with his mouth half stuffed with a croissant.

"Oh damn it hurry up we are gonna get late," Ann said indicating Jazz to finish his breakfast quickly.

"Ann language, your younger brother is here," said my mom glancing at her.

"Shit, I forgot to turn the fertilizer pot," said my mom getting up. We all looked towards her and burst out laughing at her comment.

"I'm going," I got up shooting a glance over the clock. Today is the entrance exams for National Institute of Medical Sciences. I have been aspiring to become a doctor since I was eleven. Yup, there were things which interested me but they were momentary. To become a doctor has been my ultimate passion.

All the best Kiia" cheered my whole family excitedly.

"Thanks, guys," I yelled back smiling and hurried towards my bus stop.

Just as I was running my ankle got twisted and I fell.

A hand came to help me out.

I held the hand and smiled back at Hima.

Hima is my childhood friend, we have been together since our kindergarten days. We are like the tongue and the teeth. I don't know but we are both appearing for the medical exams together. Sometimes it is baffling that our dreams are also so much similar.

Together we walked towards the bus that was waiting for us at the stop.

"Are you nervous," I asked Hima as I saw her shivering.

"A little bit," she squealed. I handed her a piece of my chocolate bar which I was nibbling on the whole way. As a sweet tooth, there is always some sweet lying in my bag.

"Keep it, It will help you with the nervousness," I said smiling at her.

Both of us wished each other luck before going towards our respective exam halls.

I started writing my paper when I felt my right hand twitched a little. At that moment I couldn't move, it felt like my brain froze for those seconds. I stared at it and supported it with my left hand thinking that I really need to cut down on my sugar consumption. Time passed by and it was time to hand over our answer sheets to the invigilator.

I got up and moved towards the desk to submit my answer sheet. As I was doing so it slipped through my hand and I felt my hands twitched a little. The invigilator bent down and took my answer sheet. I smiled towards him showing my gratitude.

"Gotta keep control on my sugar intake," I told myself.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Sun Myung Moon’s lost Paraguay Eco-Utopia

▲ Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han visited their Puerto Leda mansion only once.

Outside magazine by Monte Reel   February 20, 2013

Full story: https://www.outsideonline.com/1913791/sun-myung-moons-lost-eco-utopia

Extracts:

A decade before his death, Sun Myung Moon—multimillionaire founder of the controversial Unification Church / FFWPU—sent a band of followers deep into the wilds of Paraguay, with orders to build the ultimate utopian community and eco-resort. So how’s that working out? Monte Reel machetes his way toward heaven on Earth.

... In addition to overseeing the church, which he said aimed to fulfill Jesus’ unfinished mission by establishing a new “kingdom of heaven on Earth,” Moon managed vast commercial interests and called himself a messiah. He was frequently accused of cult practices, in part because some of his hundreds of thousands of followers turned over very personal decisions—including the choice of marriage partner—to him. More than a decade ago, Moon told some members of his church that he wanted them to lay the foundation for a new Garden of Eden in one of the least hospitable landscapes on the planet—northern Paraguay.

Moon was notorious for attention-grabbing gestures: conducting mass weddings in Madison Square Garden, taking out full-page ads in major American newspapers to support Richard Nixon during Watergate, spending 13 months in federal prison for tax fraud and conspiracy in the early ’80s. But during the final years of his life, his Eden-building project kept chugging along well out of the public eye, germinating largely unseen in this remote wilderness of mud.

In 2000, Moon paid an undisclosed amount for roughly 1.5 million acres of land fronting the Paraguay River. Most of that property was in a town called Puerto Casado, about 100 miles downriver from Puerto Leda. Moon’s subsidiaries wanted the land to open commercial enterprises ranging from logging to fish farming. But a group of Puerto Casado residents launched a bitter legal battle to nullify the deal. While that controversy continued to divide Paraguayans, the Puerto Leda project proceeded under the radar. Moon turned the land over to 14 Japanese men—“national messiahs,” according to church documents, who were instructed to build an “ideal city” where people could live in harmony with nature, as God intended it. Moon declared that the territory represented “the least developed place on earth, and, hence, closest to original creation.”

... The [twentieth] century brought utopian colonies of Australian socialists, Finnish vegetarians, English pacifists, and German Nazis. They all failed.

So how are Moon’s followers—or Moonies, as they don’t like to be called—holding up? Hard to say. I’m aware of two other journalists who’ve seen Puerto Leda. One, a British Catholic missionary, visited after the first colonists arrived and was unable to fathom their motives. Maybe they were smuggling drugs, she insinuated in a church magazine [The Tablet December 16, 2000].

... By the time I boarded the Aquidaban, I’d begun to suspect that the National Messiahs in Puerto Leda might have no clue we were coming.

[It was a three-day journey] aboard this muggy cargo boat [in 2012].

... one man, a portly Paraguayan navy guard in military fatigues, awaits [Toni Greaves and myself] at the end of the gangplank.

“Do you have repellent?” he asks.

My skin is lacquered in a stiff coat of stale sweat and deet. “Lots.”

“Good,” he says. “You’ll see at night. We can’t even talk to each other because of the mosquitoes that fly into our mouths.”

... The building in front of us has a peaked terra-cotta roof, brick-and-stucco walls, expansive glass windows, and no fewer than five remote-controlled Carrier air-conditioning units. At the front door, a dozen pairs of leather slippers wait for us. “Very Japanese,” Greaves observes. We remove our dirty shoes and take our first steps into Reverend Moon’s Victorious Holy Place.

All is silent. Wilson flips a switch, throwing light on what appears to be a dining hall. The large wooden tables, each covered with a plastic tablecloth, could accommodate about 100 people. They are vacant.

... A few hundred yards from the guard station, I spot a sportfishing boat docked at the riverside. It’s big—about 30 feet long, fiberglass, with a prominent cockpit. I ask Mister Date about it.

“Ah yes,” he says. “Reverend Moon designed that boat himself. It was brought here from New Jersey.”

... Apparently, the True Father’s fishing jones was a deciding factor in the placement of Puerto Leda. Moon first visited the Paraguay River on fishing trips in the 1990s, and by decade’s end he was cruising down it and ordering church members to wade along the muddy banks to plant 63 signposts demarcating the land he had decided to buy.

▲ Japanese “National Messiahs” with Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han (The Heavenly True Parents 天地父母님 ) on September 23, 1999. 

In 1999, Moon called his most devoted Japanese followers to join him on a 40-day spiritual retreat outside Fuerte Olimpo, about 25 miles south of Puerto Leda. I’d read a brief description of those days on a church website. One Messiah had written: “It was very hot and we wanted to bathe in the water. But we could not because piranhas would come. It’s a big problem! Also there are problems with ants. One National Messiah became very sick from an ant bite. It’s a dangerous place. There are all these problems, but Father just says, ‘Ah, the purity of nature!’”

... In addition to calling for a return to Original Creation here, he told his devotees, in 2000, that “we need to build the best underwater palace in the world.”

... Near the end of their [40-days] together, Moon instructed them to build an ecologically sustainable city that could serve as a model for the whole world. The plan, such as it was, lacked specifics; not all of the founders agreed on what the city should look like. Yet they forged ahead, determined to create something extraordinary in a place where wilderness reigned.

Now, as I glance at the scene, I see huge dormitory buildings, guesthouses, and sheds for mechanical repairs. I count seven freshwater fish farms, fully stocked with pacu, a toothy species that looks like an overgrown piranha. I see no other people.

“Normally, there are about 10 of us who live here,” Mister Date tells me. “But this week six are away in Asunción. So there are just four now.”

We walk through early-morning light on smooth sidewalks, past manicured gardens of hibiscus and bougainvillea, beside an Olympic-size swimming pool. A young man hired from a nearby village slowly sweeps a filtering net through the deep end. Nothing—not a single foreign particle—seems to mar the clean blue rectangle of water. We enter a two-story communal building that resembles an office complex. I see Wilson in a small room, tapping away at a computer. We climb a stone staircase to the second floor, following Mister Date into what appears to be a rec room. There’s a television hooked up to a satellite system, and Mister Date pops a disc into a DVD player. The DVD, Mister Date tells us, explains everything.

The footage that flashes across the screen dates from 1999. We see the founding Messiahs walk across untamed wastes—the grounds where we now sit. They lay bricks in wet mud. They sand metal frames. They wash dishes in the river. They wear heavy clothing, light fires to keep the mosquitoes away, and sweat in the wavy heat. They stagger through gale-force winds.

Then, in a clip from 2000, we see Moon himself, touring the partially cleared grounds, wiping sweat from his brow, eating lunch, leaving in a private plane. The footage segues into scenes of the men working feverishly to build a luxury house for Moon and his wife, Hak Ja Han, who visited for a second and final time in late 2001. 

▲ Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han visited Puerto Leda twice, but only once after the mansion they ordered built for themselves was completed. They inaugurated the mansion on November 30, 2000 (above). Takeru Kamiyama is standing close to Moon, wearing a pale blue shirt.

▲ The view from the mansion.

The rest of the DVD covers more recent developments, and the highlights—set to swelling orchestral music—unfold like a training montage from Rocky. Messiahs erect the water tower. Man-made fishponds materialize on the grounds. A landing strip is planed flat by tractors. The Messiahs unload saplings from the Aquidaban, then plant them in sprawling groves. A group of about a dozen visiting Japanese students—the children of Unification Church members—help the Messiahs build a school in a nearby village. When the DVD ends and the lights come up, I’m exhausted just from watching all that drudgery. I look at Mister Date’s corded forearms, his gaunt face, his waspy waist. Every aspect of his being seems molded by toil. Even with the help of the local hires, the Messiahs labor all day, usually outside.

“It’s a lot of work just to maintain,” he admits.

The fact that only 10 men live here comes rushing back to me. The colony has actually lost population since its inception, despite all the construction. Four of the original Messiahs have returned to Japan. Only the hardest of the hardcore have stuck it out.

And this raises a couple of questions: Who are these guys? And why have they put themselves through this?

Mister Auki walks across the dining hall carrying a basket filled with whole fish freshly yanked from the river. He’s a short, balding Messiah whose task this morning, as on most days, is to catch something for the grill.

“I caught lots of piranha today,” he tells the men, his face splitting into a smile. “And also a five-kilogram pacu.”

The pacu is now part of the lunch buffet, which the four Messiahs plus Wilson, Greaves, and I spoon onto plates.

... In the beginning, the colonists hoped they would be joined by their wives (as well as many, many more followers). Every August, they invite children of Japanese church members to visit for a couple of weeks, but so far none have chosen to stay on. “My wife thinks that it is not realistic for her to move here yet,” Mister Owada says, “because we still have to raise the standard of living more.”

When I press him on how tough and lonely this must get, Mister Owada says it doesn’t bother him. Moon sanctified his personal sacrifices, promising the men that spiritual rewards would make up for their suffering. “Even if you die, what regret will you leave behind?” Moon asked the founders in 1999.

“We’re risking our lives for this cause,” Mister Owada says, his left eye twitching convulsively. “I like to risk my life,” he continues. “That is doing something worthwhile. We have continued to stick with this.”

Months later, after Moon’s death from complications from pneumonia, I will once again reach out to Mister Date to see if the True Father’s passing affects the Messiahs’ dedication. It doesn’t. They have the blessing of his widow, Mister Date says, and the ongoing feuds among the Moon children won’t affect them. They plan to work on Puerto Leda for at least another decade.

“Of course there is ecotourism potential here,” says Mister Date. We’re standing outside an unfinished three-story brick building near a shed that protects three car-size generators. Mister Date refers to the brick building as “the hotel,” but for the moment its only occupant is a stick-legged baby goat nosing around the food pellets being stored on the ground floor.

... “Why did you stop work on the hotel?” I ask.

He pauses and smiles politely. “In a small place, you can have disagreements easily,” he says. “They’re expecting us to be financially independent, but that’s not easy here.” The Messiahs, it seems, don’t always see eye-to-eye on the best way to reduce their dependence on member donations. Some want to concentrate on agribusiness and scrap the ecotourism idea. The hotel is unfinished because they aren’t sure whether opening the place to outsiders is a good idea.

▲ Puerto Leda from the air.

We walk on, past planted fields of lemongrass, oranges, mangoes, grapefruit, asparagus, sugarcane. The crops are struggling. If agriculture alone is expected to support the colony, there are some kinks to work out. The men have planted thousands of jatropha trees, which can be used to make biodiesel fuel, but hundreds of parrots zeroed in on them and ate all the fruit. During the most recent wet season, rising waters flooded many of the thousands of neem trees.

“It’s been a hard year,” Mister Date admits. “A lot of things have died because they were three months underwater.”

It’s clear that these guys have faith in miracles, and that’s exactly what’s needed here in Puerto Leda. Without one, the Victorious Holy Place seems destined to be another curious monument to human ambition and folly. But watching how hard the Messiahs work, I can’t help but admire their tenacity. The fanaticism that underlies their devotion to this cause must burn hot, but they hide it well. They’re not evangelical. They’re friendly and welcoming to those who don’t share their beliefs. They’re reflexively humble and generous and—whatever I might think of their motives—admirably tough. They’re underdogs. The kind of guys you root for.

During the last hours of my visit, Mister Date shows me something that might actually work out. “Japanese yams,” he announces, staring down at a plot of tilled soil. “They grow very large underground, up to 10 kilograms. They do well here.”

My immediate impulse is to celebrate this victory with hearty congratulations. I’m thrilled for his indefatigable yams. Maybe all the sweat that Mister Date has sunk into this plot will bear a little fruit. Maybe little victories like this can help other people in the Pantanal live richer lives. Maybe that’s enough.

Mister Date stares down at the dirt. “Unfortunately,” he says, “they taste very bad.”

... I head out toward the pool.

▲ The swimming pool at Puerto Leda.

He’s still there, the man with the net, sweeping as if he hasn’t let up since dawn. A shame: I didn’t bring any trunks. But I do have a pair of heavy cotton cargo shorts in my backpack. I walk to the dormitory and return wearing them. I ask the sweeper, “Does anyone ever use this pool?”

“Only the tourists,” he says.

The tourists? Based on a guest book I flipped through earlier, he must be referring to those Japanese students who visit every August, the occasional Paraguayan government official, and Greaves and me. ...

________________________________

Outside magazine   https://www.outsideonline.com/

________________________________

Monte Reel’s Between Man and Beast: A Tale of Exploration and Evolution was published in March 2013 by Doubleday.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/between-man-and-beast-monte-reel/1113244445#/

________________________________

Sun Myung Moon organization activities in Central and South America

Actividades de la Secta Moon en países de habla hispana

FFWPU President of IAPP Prosecuted for Money Laundering and Drug Smuggling in US Court; may be connected to UC / FFWPU Leadership

[spacepandar]

June 2, 2021.

It's garden update time.

the succulents are getting out of control agai

the camellias are looking nice and healthy. but blooming season is still far off 😭

of the 4 african iris plants we have, this is the only one that has flowers and there are so many

my little yellow friends! i'm so happy these survived and are doing well! it was part of the first flower batch i picked up when we started the garden last august.

the pansies came back 😍

can't wait for the jasmine to come out

another day i'll take a better picture but these blue friends are getting big! when it gets even larger we're going to move it closer to our brick wall and hopefully it'll grow over it.

bougainvilleas live again! i didn't think it would flower again tbh

and then this orange blossom. i miss seeing them all over the tree during the spring but i mean... we've got a lot of oranges now so that's nice

[bethestaryouareradio]

Grounded!

By Cynthia Brian

“I rejoice when I see anyone, and especially children, inquiring about flowers, and wanting gardens of their own, and carefully working in them. For the love of gardening is a seed that once sown never dies, but always grows and grows to an enduring and ever-increasing source of happiness.” Gertrude Jekyll

It’s not only the airlines and cruise ships that are grounded! Young people everywhere are also enduring the sheltering-in-place mandate. As we embark on our eleventh week of staying-at-home and on-line learning, adults and children are naturally a bit antsy.

When I was a kid and school was closed for whatever reason, my very first instinct was to get outside and explore. I wanted to be on the tractor plowing the fields with my Dad, tending the vegetable garden with my Mom, or leading the rest of the ranch kids on an adventure through the creeks and hills to identify flowers, plants, amphibians, and insects.

I’m certain that my love of the natural world began as a child. As an adult, I have always felt it was important to share this passion with youth. Gardens offer a crucial way for people to access and experience the natural environment. Nature is a public health resource that is available to everyone. Since its springtime and we are all grounded, why not employ some fun activities that the entire family can enjoy together while practicing social distancing?

Here are a few ideas that I’ve implemented with my family and students over the years.

1. Begin a nature journal. Use a spiral binder, a notebook, or design a beautiful unique diary. Go outside and observe. Use crayons, markers, or paints to illustrate and chronicle what you see. 2. Record nature sounds. You’ll hear different sounds at various times of the day. Crickets chirping, frogs croaking, birds singing, water tricking, wind whistling, squirrels chattering, bees buzzing. Make a personal meditation recording on your smartphone. 3. Underground exploration. The earth is crawling with activity. Underneath the surface of the soil, countless critters are busy at work. Go to a corner of your garden and gently dig up a trowel full of soil. What do you see? Earthworms? Millipedes? Sowbugs? Slugs? Are there spiders or other insects crawling? Note your findings in your nature journal. 4. Make a “stained glass” window. One of my favorite projects as a kid was picking pretty flowers to press. Instead of making a book, we made “stained glass” windows by pressing an arrangement of petals between two sheets of wax paper and ironing the wax paper. Make sure to place a thin dishcloth on top of the wax paper before ironing. The wax paper seals the flowers together creating a colorful window. Choose brightly colored flowers and dark green foliage that will lay flat. California poppy, bougainvillea, pansy, violets, rose petals, and nasturtium work especially well. Hang them with ribbon by a window to reflect the rainbow of hues. 5. Decorate your mailbox. Plant a climbing rose or trumpet vine at your mailbox to brighten your street. You’ll need to keep it shaped and pruned. 6. Grow a vegetable garden. Besides the ease and rapid sprouting of beets, radishes, and carrots, one of the most rewarding combinations to do with kids is to plant a Three Sisters Garden. If possible, give your child her own little plot so she will feel proud of being a farmer. The Iroquois Native Americans planted corn, beans, and squash for a balanced diet. Corn is a source of carbohydrates, beans offer proteins, and squash is filled with vitamins. The corn is the pole for the beans to climb while the squash grows low to the ground providing shade and keeping the soil moist. There is nothing tastier or more nutritious than home-grown food. Make sure to plant tomatoes and peppers now. 7. Plant herbs and flowers in containers. In several containers, sow seeds of your favorite herbs for seasonings. Dill, cilantro, parsley, basil, thyme, or mint. Sprinkle a few flower seeds for color. Cover with wire to keep the critters and birds out, using Christmas clips to secure the wire. Decorate with rocks, shells, or other trinkets that your kids have found. 8. Go on a tasting adventure. For this experience, an adult must know with 100% accuracy that a plant is edible because there are many toxic flowers and leaves in nature that can make us very sick or worse. This is an educational encounter that kids truly savor. Some unexpected plants that can be sampled include rose, nasturtium, fennel, calendula, dandelion, wild mustard, miner’s lettuce, and the berries of Oregon Grape. Leaves and flowers of all herbs can be sampled. Make sure there are no pesticides or insecticides on any of these specimens. Record the flavors in the journal. Do you find something sweet, sour, bitter, or something else? Emphasize the importance of knowing what is edible and what is poisonous before tasting anything. 9. Scavenger Hunt. Animals are always building, hunting, gathering, and scavenging. Take a walk around your backyard or a hike in the neighborhood to collect a few of nature’s discarded treasures. What did you find? An empty bird’s nest, twigs, acorns, feathers, bark, pinecones, or nuts? Design a natural art piece together. 10. Introduce animals. Children are naturally drawn to animals. Since grounding, I’ve noticed a huge uptick in people who have decided to buy newborn chickens, rabbits, birds, potbelly pigs, goats, dogs, and cats to familiarize their children or grandchildren with animal husbandry. As someone who was born and raised on a farm and has always been surrounded by animals, I’m a huge proponent…with this caveat. Remember that these adorable babies grow up to be adult animals who aren’t always so cuddly. They require food, water, grooming, shelter, and constant care throughout their lives. Raising any animal teaches discipline, responsibility, patience, kindness, gentleness, interdependence, and love. These are all magnificent virtues. Are you ready and prepared for the long haul?

Gardening has many benefits for the physical and mental health of everyone in the family. According to the Centers for Disease Control, we burn approximately 330 calories per hour of gardening. Gardening lowers our blood pressure, it reduces depression, anxiety, and stress while increasing our wonder, happiness, and satisfaction.

For the foreseeable future, we are all grounded, but we don’t have to endure a perpetual Groundhog Day. Expand the quality of daily living by proposing the joys of gardening and being one with nature to your children, teens, and community. Go outside and meander.

Stay healthy. Stay safe. Stay sane. Stay home.

Happy Gardening. Happy Growing. Photos and more at https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1407/Digging-Deep-with-Goddess-Gardener-Cynthia-Brian-Grounded.html

Cynthia Brian, The Goddess Gardener, is available for hire to help you prepare for your spring garden. Raised in the vineyards of Napa County, Cynthia is a New York Times best-selling author, actor, radio personality, speaker, media and writing coach, as well as the Founder and Executive Director of Be the Star You Are!® 501 c3. Tune into Cynthia’s StarStyle® Radio Broadcast at www.StarStyleRadio.com. Buy copies of her best-selling books, including, Chicken Soup for the Gardener’s Soul, Growing with the Goddess Gardener, and Be the Star You Are! Millennials to Boomers at www.cynthiabrian.com/online-store. Cynthia is available for virtual writing projects, garden consults, and inspirational lectures. Cynthia@GoddessGardener.com www.GoddessGardener.com

#coronavirus, #activitiesforkidsm#nature,#edibleplants,#tresaurehunts,,#ross,#hikes,,#stayhone, #spring,#chicens,#covid-19, #gardening, #cynthiabrian, #starstyle, #goddessGardener, #growingwiththegoddessgardener, #lamorindaweekly

[goddessgardener]

Grounded!

By Cynthia Brian

“I rejoice when I see anyone, and especially children, inquiring about flowers, and wanting gardens of their own, and carefully working in them. For the love of gardening is a seed that once sown never dies, but always grows and grows to an enduring and ever-increasing source of happiness.” Gertrude Jekyll

It’s not only the airlines and cruise ships that are grounded! Young people everywhere are also enduring the sheltering-in-place mandate. As we embark on our eleventh week of staying-at-home and on-line learning, adults and children are naturally a bit antsy.

When I was a kid and school was closed for whatever reason, my very first instinct was to get outside and explore. I wanted to be on the tractor plowing the fields with my Dad, tending the vegetable garden with my Mom, or leading the rest of the ranch kids on an adventure through the creeks and hills to identify flowers, plants, amphibians, and insects.

I’m certain that my love of the natural world began as a child. As an adult, I have always felt it was important to share this passion with youth. Gardens offer a crucial way for people to access and experience the natural environment. Nature is a public health resource that is available to everyone. Since its springtime and we are all grounded, why not employ some fun activities that the entire family can enjoy together while practicing social distancing?

Here are a few ideas that I’ve implemented with my family and students over the years.

1. Begin a nature journal. Use a spiral binder, a notebook, or design a beautiful unique diary. Go outside and observe. Use crayons, markers, or paints to illustrate and chronicle what you see. 2. Record nature sounds. You’ll hear different sounds at various times of the day. Crickets chirping, frogs croaking, birds singing, water tricking, wind whistling, squirrels chattering, bees buzzing. Make a personal meditation recording on your smartphone. 3. Underground exploration. The earth is crawling with activity. Underneath the surface of the soil, countless critters are busy at work. Go to a corner of your garden and gently dig up a trowel full of soil. What do you see? Earthworms? Millipedes? Sowbugs? Slugs? Are there spiders or other insects crawling? Note your findings in your nature journal. 4. Make a “stained glass” window. One of my favorite projects as a kid was picking pretty flowers to press. Instead of making a book, we made “stained glass” windows by pressing an arrangement of petals between two sheets of wax paper and ironing the wax paper. Make sure to place a thin dishcloth on top of the wax paper before ironing. The wax paper seals the flowers together creating a colorful window. Choose brightly colored flowers and dark green foliage that will lay flat. California poppy, bougainvillea, pansy, violets, rose petals, and nasturtium work especially well. Hang them with ribbon by a window to reflect the rainbow of hues. 5. Decorate your mailbox. Plant a climbing rose or trumpet vine at your mailbox to brighten your street. You’ll need to keep it shaped and pruned. 6. Grow a vegetable garden. Besides the ease and rapid sprouting of beets, radishes, and carrots, one of the most rewarding combinations to do with kids is to plant a Three Sisters Garden. If possible, give your child her own little plot so she will feel proud of being a farmer. The Iroquois Native Americans planted corn, beans, and squash for a balanced diet. Corn is a source of carbohydrates, beans offer proteins, and squash is filled with vitamins. The corn is the pole for the beans to climb while the squash grows low to the ground providing shade and keeping the soil moist. There is nothing tastier or more nutritious than home-grown food. Make sure to plant tomatoes and peppers now. 7. Plant herbs and flowers in containers. In several containers, sow seeds of your favorite herbs for seasonings. Dill, cilantro, parsley, basil, thyme, or mint. Sprinkle a few flower seeds for color. Cover with wire to keep the critters and birds out, using Christmas clips to secure the wire. Decorate with rocks, shells, or other trinkets that your kids have found. 8. Go on a tasting adventure. For this experience, an adult must know with 100% accuracy that a plant is edible because there are many toxic flowers and leaves in nature that can make us very sick or worse. This is an educational encounter that kids truly savor. Some unexpected plants that can be sampled include rose, nasturtium, fennel, calendula, dandelion, wild mustard, miner’s lettuce, and the berries of Oregon Grape. Leaves and flowers of all herbs can be sampled. Make sure there are no pesticides or insecticides on any of these specimens. Record the flavors in the journal. Do you find something sweet, sour, bitter, or something else? Emphasize the importance of knowing what is edible and what is poisonous before tasting anything. 9. Scavenger Hunt. Animals are always building, hunting, gathering, and scavenging. Take a walk around your backyard or a hike in the neighborhood to collect a few of nature’s discarded treasures. What did you find? An empty bird’s nest, twigs, acorns, feathers, bark, pinecones, or nuts? Design a natural art piece together. 10. Introduce animals. Children are naturally drawn to animals. Since grounding, I’ve noticed a huge uptick in people who have decided to buy newborn chickens, rabbits, birds, potbelly pigs, goats, dogs, and cats to familiarize their children or grandchildren with animal husbandry. As someone who was born and raised on a farm and has always been surrounded by animals, I’m a huge proponent…with this caveat. Remember that these adorable babies grow up to be adult animals who aren’t always so cuddly. They require food, water, grooming, shelter, and constant care throughout their lives. Raising any animal teaches discipline, responsibility, patience, kindness, gentleness, interdependence, and love. These are all magnificent virtues. Are you ready and prepared for the long haul?

Gardening has many benefits for the physical and mental health of everyone in the family. According to the Centers for Disease Control, we burn approximately 330 calories per hour of gardening. Gardening lowers our blood pressure, it reduces depression, anxiety, and stress while increasing our wonder, happiness, and satisfaction.

For the foreseeable future, we are all grounded, but we don’t have to endure a perpetual Groundhog Day. Expand the quality of daily living by proposing the joys of gardening and being one with nature to your children, teens, and community. Go outside and meander.

Stay healthy. Stay safe. Stay sane. Stay home.

Happy Gardening. Happy Growing. Photos and more at https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1407/Digging-Deep-with-Goddess-Gardener-Cynthia-Brian-Grounded.html

Cynthia Brian, The Goddess Gardener, is available for hire to help you prepare for your spring garden. Raised in the vineyards of Napa County, Cynthia is a New York Times best-selling author, actor, radio personality, speaker, media and writing coach, as well as the Founder and Executive Director of Be the Star You Are!® 501 c3. Tune into Cynthia’s StarStyle® Radio Broadcast at www.StarStyleRadio.com. Buy copies of her best-selling books, including, Chicken Soup for the Gardener’s Soul, Growing with the Goddess Gardener, and Be the Star You Are! Millennials to Boomers at www.cynthiabrian.com/online-store. Cynthia is available for virtual writing projects, garden consults, and inspirational lectures. Cynthia@GoddessGardener.com www.GoddessGardener.com

#coronavirus, #activitiesforkidsm#nature,#edibleplants,#tresaurehunts,,#ross,#hikes,,#stayhone, #spring,#chicens,#covid-19, #gardening, #cynthiabrian, #starstyle, #goddessGardener, #growingwiththegoddessgardener, #lamorindaweekly

[dennou-translations]

Violet Evergarden: Chapter 7

Please feel free to message me about possible corrections. If you can, support the creators by buying the official releases here.

← Volume 1 || Index || Next →

I like flowers. I like poems. But what I enjoy writing about the most are battle depictions. I want to become strong. I took Violet’s name from a poem I love, “Roses are Red”. People’s names always have some sort of meaning.

—Akatsuki Kana

When had that feeling sprouted within him? He had no idea what the trigger had been. If he were ever asked what he was fond of about her, he would not be able to properly express it in words.

“Major.” Before he had realized it, he was happy whenever she called out to him. He believed he had to protect her as she followed him from behind. His chest pounded with immutable devotion.

——For whom and for what purpose is that devotion? Supposing hers is for my sake... her lips would automatically only speak words that sound pleasing to me. Since she seeks subservience and orders, having the approval of the Lord she submits to is her motivation. Then... what about my own life? What about my love? For whose sake are they?

The Major and His Everything

Emerald eyes opened. They belonged to a small child. The wide-open orbs of a young infant who had yet to complete six years of age and had just awoken from his slumber reflected the world around him.

As he hopped off the carriage he had been sleeping in along the course of the road, a summery scenery spread in front of him. The first thing that caught his attention was the beauty of the trees lined up on the way to a green forest. While nestled close to one another, from old ones to saplings, they stood dignified. The shadows formed by a soft, pure light cascading to the earth from the gaps between their leaves almost looked like dancers. Said leaves swayed in the wind, sounding like the giggles of little girls.

During such season, white flowers blown into a storm of petals were a remarkable trait of Leidenschaftlich. Almost as the blizzards of the northern countries, the flowers floated about in the air. Their vines were associated with heroes who had protected the nation against no trivial number of invasions, and could be found planted all over the country. Beautiful blossoms bloomed from them during the change from spring to summer.

“It’s our family flower.” His father whispered that one sentence, walking ahead of him.

His eyes, which had been moving about in many directions as he was led by his older brother’s hand, landed on his father’s back. Perhaps sensing his son’s thermal stare, the father turned around once, and though he could not tell, it could have been to confirm if he was properly following from behind. Same as his young self, his father’s irises were green, except of a slightly different shade, and bore a strict gaze.

Just from the fact his father had turned backwards, he was happy to the point of wanting to break into dance. Most likely, that was idolization. However, although his heart was pleased, his expression was stiff. All he was concerned about was whether he had done anything warrant being admonished during that instant.

“What’s that stuff... about ‘our family flower’?” His older brother poorly imitated their father’s words in a very low tone.

The parent and children followed down the green path. Beyond the scene created by the beauty of nature was what seemed to be an area for military training facilities. In it were several people who wore the same purplish black uniform as their father. The little one acted as though exploring something peculiar, and what lay before his pupils that twinkled with stars of curiosity was the figure of soldiers in a march that did not disarray for a single second.

The father took his sons to what seemed to be seats for authorized people in order to watch something that was about to start. Leaving them on chairs arranged outdoors, the father left their side.

In addition to those who wore the army’s uniform, there were also soldiers wearing the navy’s white high-collar one. Surrounding the fighter and reconnaissance planes, they chatted amongst one another, cleanly divided into two parties. Although both were defense forces, they appeared to be self-conscious of and unfriendly with each other. From the eyes of a child, it was a bizarre sight.

Perhaps becoming nervous due to not seeing his father anywhere, he flapped his arms and legs, aimlessly dropping his gaze to his feet. A petal of bougainvillea, which his father had called their “family flower”, fell down. As he stretched his hand out in a forceful attempt to take it into his palm while remaining seated, his older brother sitting next to him held his body back down.

“Gilbert, behave.” As his brother told him with a sullen tone, Gilbert tamely complied.

He was an obedient child. His home was Leidenschaftlich, and he was the descendant of a well-known southern military nation’s heroes.

For the Bougainvillea men, it was customary to enlist into the army. It was not the first time that his father, who had a high-ranking position in it, had brought his brother and himself to similar events.

His brother grasped his hand and held it tight. Even without him doing so, Gilbert was not the kind of boy to repeat an action after being scolded for it.

“If you disgrace the Bougainvillea name, I will be the one punished for neglecting my duty of supervising you.”

Since his brother receiving a lecture along with a reprimanding fist from their father was something often witnessed in their everyday routine, it was only the expected for him to show a well-attuned response, as to not spoil their father’s mood. Gilbert understood that much.

In the Bougainvillea household, where Gilbert and his older brother lived, each person had to act out their conduct with utmost care; otherwise, it felt as if the house’s walls, protruding with needles, nails, swords, and rose thorns, would pierce their bodies and draw blood. Rather than it being a comfortable place, it was as if it judged them constantly. Such was their home.

“So boring...” his brother said, half-pouting. His eyes were directed not at the army soldiers, but at the navy ones. “This kind of thing... seems boring, doesn’t it, Gil?”

Although Gilbert was asked for agreement, he was at loss for an answer. He could not consent.

——Why do you say that?

He believed feelings such as boredom had to be discarded in that situation. Regardless of how tedious it could be, they had to endure it. That was why he had ceased acting as a restless child who was easily influenced by others. His brother was supposed to be aware of that as well, so why did he go as far as orally seeking concordance?

Since Gilbert was still only an infant, he replied in a child-like manner, “You can’t say things like that.”

“It’s fine. It’s okay for you and me to talk about this in a low voice. As if I would let even my thoughts be controlled. Y’know, Gil... this is definitely... something that Dad and Dad’s father, and even Dad’s father’s father have done. It’s the worst, right?”

“Why is that bad?” Gilbert asked.

“Isn’t it as if they don’t have a will of their own? Listen, the reason Dad has brought us here today is to say, ‘you are going to become like me’.”

“Why is that bad?” Gilbert asked.

“It’s to make us understand that we can’t choose anything other than this.”

“Why is that bad?” Gilbert asked.

As he did not comprehend his brother’s feelings no matter what, the latter seemed frustrated and annoyed, lightly balling a fist and strongly hitting Gilbert’s shoulder with the hand that had been holding his. “I want to become a sailor. Not just any sailor. A captain. I’d lead my comrades and venture all around the world. I also want my own ship. Gil, you’re a good learner so you could become a voyager too. But... I... we will never be allowed to become what we want.”

“Isn’t that obvious?” Gilbert said, “Since we are from the Bougainvillea family.”

The household was neatly composed of a pyramidal hierarchy where the father stood at the top; beneath him was the mother, uncle and aunt, and beneath them was the oldest brother, Gilbert and their sisters. In the house Gilbert had been born into, it was natural for the lesser people to lower their heads to their elders, and opposing them was not tolerated. Gilbert and his brother were little gears meant to give continuity to the Bougainvillea family by protecting its heroic honor. Could gears proclaim what they wished to do? No, they could not.

“You’ve been... completely brainwashed, huh...” With a voice that hinted pity, his brother whispered in disdain.

——I wonder what... ‘brainwash’ is.

While he was lost in thought, the fighter planes took flight. In order to see the iron birds rendezvousing and drawing arcs in the sky, Gilbert looked up towards the heavens. The planes intersected with the Sun and disappeared for a moment. It was incredibly dazzling. However, his eyeballs ached as if burning, causing him to close his lids slowly.

Perhaps due to the stimulation from the sunlight, tears had formed.

Emerald eyes opened. They belonged to a wise young man. The orbs that bore sternness taken after not only his father but also perhaps his own personality, as well as kindness and loneliness, were staring at a doll. Rather, a girl that looked like a doll. In the corners of his field of vision was the figure of his older brother, who had grown up just as Gilbert himself.

The room was filled with refined decorations. They were expensive arrangements. However, the fact that the fine quality of the ornaments was the criteria to decide who could afford staying in the place was laughable.

Everything was a mess. The room had become the murder scene of five men at once. The girl, bloodstained, was the culprit. Even with her clothes and scent washed in blood, her beauty remained undamaged by it. She was the most beautiful assassin in the world.

“Hey, you’ll take it, right, Gilbert?” putting on an amicable smile, his older brother pushed the girl’s back.

She took a step towards Gilbert’s side. Automatically, Gilbert took a step back. His body had moved reflexively in refusal and fear. She was horrifying.

——Don’t look at me.

His brother had relentlessly insisted that the girl in front of him was a ‘tool’ and forcefully handed her over. Indeed, she was treated and acted as a tool. However, her breathing was still heavy.

While he wiped her hand, sticky with blood and fat, with his cufflink, she stared at him as though inquiring what the next command would be.

——Why are you looking at me?

He empathized with his older brother’s inhumane utterances to a certain extent. The pyramidal hierarchy existed not only in their home but also in society. In order for children, who were at the bottom of it, to ascend to its top, efforts were required. And not simply by one’s own power. So as to live, so as to be successful in life, it was necessary to make use of a variety of assets. It was not something to be praised for, yet it was something Gilbert desired. Undoubtedly, if he learned how to properly use her, she could become the best shield and sword.

——Why are you... looking at me?

The automated assassin doll desired Gilbert as well.

In the end, everything had gone as his brother had planned, and the young Gilbert, who still had features that could be considered that of a youth, stood in the middle of a street downtown. His two orbs of a mysterious hue stared at the one his arms. The doll, wrapped in his jacket, smelled of nothing remotely sweet, instead enveloped in the odor of the blood she had just bathed in. If she had monster-like features, he would have expected that much, yet her appearance was akin to that of a pixie from some fairytale.

“I am... scared of you.”

The girl did not react to the honest words that leaked from his lips. Her blue eyes simply watched him.

“I am... I am scared of... using you.” Gilbert continued while embracing her tightly. “You are terrifying. Right now, in fact... it’s possible that I’m actually supposed to kill you.” Muttering painfully, he never let go of the girl. He also did not attempt to drop and leave her on the road, shoot her head with the gun in his pocket, or squeeze her slender neck with his hands. “But... I want you to live.” He held onto her despite his fears. His words were frank. “I want you to live.”

It was a truth that shone faintly amidst a cruel world. The problem was whether they would be able to endure its harsh reality. Could he do it?

Uncertain, Gilbert closed his eyes. He prayed for the idealistic thought that it would be wonderful if everything were solved once he opened them again.

Emerald eyes opened. A situation far worse than when he had been praying unfolded before them. The girl proceeded to murder men who had become unable to move by spanking their heads with batons. She would hit them. Blood would fly. Screams would rise. She would hit them. The one who had ordered so was Gilbert himself.

Something other than life was being lost in that space. Violence was giving birth to something in place of reasoning, conscience and other values that had been given names by someone. It was...

——Suspicious. This is not for justice. For her, mine and this country’s sake... that’s what this was meant for.

A little bit of pleasure was born within Gilbert amidst enough guilt to make him want to vomit, along with a lust for conquest from getting his hands on an overwhelming power – which was a girl who would not listen to the orders of anyone but him –, and a sense of superiority as though he had taken over the world.

With the justification of escorting her to the spare room that she had been given, he temporarily excused himself and escaped from the circle of superior officers coming to ask questions regarding the girl. Stepping onto the pool of blood of the people she had slaughtered, he headed for her.

It was as if she would make blood come out of whatever she touched. The blood of her victims, that is. Never her own. Yet her current image seemed to be a copy of one Gilbert would probably see again someday, of her completely covered in blood. That was what he was attempting to do.

The feelings that had abruptly risen within him were gone, like a candle being extinguished. Her breathing was heavy once more.

——There’s no helping. There’s no helping it. Gilbert told himself.

Indeed, it was a decision that could not be helped. There was nothing that could be done, as it was only the expected of him to want to keep the frightening weapon he had acquired, which possessed awareness, within his view. He feared she would harm others. In such circumstances, it was best to use her while maintaining her at reach, and the tool herself wished for that as well.

——It can’t be helped... in order for us... to be together. For her to stay alive.

Even so, the insides of his eyes hurt exactly as the time he had stared directly into the Sun.

Gilbert took the girl to a deserted corridor.

She was a tool. Not his daughter or little sister. She was someone soon to become his underling. It would be troublesome if other people perceived their peculiar relationship. Unless they kept a distance, they would not be able to live side-by-side.

——Still...

He made her walk, walk and walk. Once no one else was on sight, he turned around and stretched his hand towards her.

“Come.”

He could not hold back. The fact that his uniform would be soiled with blood did not go through his head. He had to hold her at that very moment, moving automatically to embrace her. When they had first met and when he had taken her with him, he had ended up doing so as well.

The girl had the same reaction. She trembled agitatedly, but unlike the other times, her tiny fingers gripped onto his uniform – firmly, as though to say she would not let go.

She was a living being with temperature and weight. Back when his sisters were babies, he used to carry and soothe them often. The feeling of those days overlapped. She was soft, as if she could break, to the point of making Gilbert believe he had to protect her no matter what. She fit in his arms more perfectly than he had first thought.

His face, distorted with extreme sorrow, reflected in her blue eyes. Grievously, Gilbert whispered, “Do you really want... a Master like this?”

He could not directly face the excessively innocent glow of the girl’s eyes, and closed his own as if to run away.

Emerald eyes opened.

“I cannot comprehend... what you are saying.” Even though he was still at an age where one would be complimented for their youthfulness, his precocious orbs showed exasperation as he stared at a telecommunication equipment.

It was raining outside. The sound of droplets pouring onto the building interfered with the conversation. Everywhere was too noisy.

Gilbert, commanding the Special Offense Force of Leidenschaftlich’s Army, carried the duty of traveling around the country to terminate the various conflicts happening in it. Moreover, he had the role of raising the one who would become the strength of the Raid Unit in the upcoming final battle. In addition to that, he had suddenly received one more job.

“About the location, a driver has been arranged to take her there. Prepare her and order her to kill. Just that will suffice. Eliminate everyone living in that building. She’s not to worry about anything else and should come back as soon as she’s done.”

Having unexpectedly received a message from a superior officer during his stay at the army divisions’ base, he opposed to the contents of the operation. “But...!” although he had waited for his turn to talk, he closed his mouth after raising his voice. “If this is meant to put disturbing elements under control, my entire troop should participate. Why are you pushing this mission onto Violet alone...? It’s not something a single soldier could do.” He was unable to subdue the disapproval dripping from his tone.

“It’s because the least people who know about this, the better. The target is a national arms dealer who signed an exportation contract for an anti-government organization. This has been reported by a spy who infiltrated in it. We can’t leave the matter to be solved by itself. After all, they are quite aware of our blemishes. The moment is opportune. We must settle this. It’s regretful to call it an overthrow, but there are certainly many people who will take it that way. If we end up exposing to the world even the dubious ideals we embrace, this will be of importance.”

“If that is the case, then all the more reason to assemble personnel capable of accomplishing the mission.”

“Which is your doll. A killer weapon who desires only your orders without questioning them. There’s no one more capable than her, right? I haven’t forgotten that spectacle you presented to us. How many did she murder back then again? How old was she? With your guidance, the precision of her killings should have improved even further. I won’t let you say she can’t do it. Rather, if you had to pick between her doing it or not, which would it be?”

“That’s...”

“Could the most prominent symbol of national defense that is the Bougainvillea be a fake?”

Unable to speak properly, Gilbert clutched his clothes on the area next to his lungs. During the few seconds of silence, an image surfaced in his mind of himself commanding Violet to complete the aforementioned task. She surely would reply with an obsequious “yes”. There would be no hesitation. She was not one to falter. If it were something Gilbert ordered, if it were for the sake of the Lord who looked after her, she would do anything. And what distressed Gilbert the most was that Violet would probably execute her role without difficulties.

He then pictured the future he had predicted in his head. Within it, he could see himself unable to sleep in the barracks, simply awaiting her return.

“She can do it.” His voice finally came out. “She can do it, but Violet needs specific on-site directions. If you have witnessed the slaughter of back then, you understand that, right? She cannot function as a weapon unless I give instructions. Allow me to accompany her.”

It had finally come out, but not with what he had wanted to say.

“Violet, are you ready?” clad in his purplish black military uniform, Gilbert gazed down at the girl with his emerald green eyes. They seemed intense in the dark interior of the vehicle.

Besides his own, the only other pair of orbs that glistened blazingly was the girl’s. As to expand her field of vision, her golden hair, which complimented her beautiful eyes of a color lighter than the blue of the sea and deeper than the blue of the sky, was tied inside of a military hat identical to the one Gilbert wore.

“Yes.” Her curt response was dispassionate yet brimming with confidence. The girl who could not speak was no longer there.

Gilbert handed a knife and handgun to the female soldier of a rare beauty. “We are going there with the pretense of just talking, but that is not our intention. What we are about to do... will serve as example to all arms dealers involved with Leidenschaftlich.”

“I am aware.”

“The inside is not spacious enough for big fights. I want you to adapt to the conditions of this battleground as fast as possible. You can’t use Witchcraft. But I will go in as well. I will protect you. Think only of defeating the enemies.”

“Yes, Major.” As she nodded, no matter how one looked at her, she did not give off the slightest impression that she was about to kill people. Her slim shoulders and delicate physique indicated her to be in her mid-teens or somewhere below.

Gilbert glanced at her despondently and left the car. It was pitch-black outside. A night sky without stars created a serene atmosphere.

“It will take no more than thirty minutes. Wait here.”

After he informed the driver, the two of them stepped into the property that interposed two alleys. In front of the place that did not appear to have any irregularities was a hard-faced man guarding the gates, holding a rifle as though for display.

There were several houses nearby, but none of them had lights on. It seemed to be an abandoned residential area at the back of a housing district deep within a suburban town. There was a reason why no one lived in it anymore – no normal family would wish to be in a neighborhood reeking of blood and violence.

“I am an affiliate of Leidenschaftlich’s army, Major Gilbert Bougainvillea. I’ve come to see the arms dealer. I know he is here. Tell him I have something to discuss.”

The gatekeeper evidently showed a face of displeasure at the sudden visitors. “Aah...? What’s with you guys? Don’t fuck around. Who do you think you’re talking to?”

At the unbecoming attitude of spitting on his shoes, Gilbert remained expressionless while muttering, “You should watch your language as well.”

With a quick action, he held down the gatekeeper’s rifle in one hand, simultaneously sinking a fist into the other’s stomach. He then pointed the rifle to the top of the groaning gatekeeper’s head, hitting him with it. It did not end there; the instant the latter fell onto his knees, Gilbert landed a kick on the side of his face with his military shoes. A large amount of blood and a crowned tooth spilled from the gatekeeper’s mouth. Gilbert glared coldly as he shouted in agony with yelps and grunts. His ruthlessness had increased from thrashing the man’s profile.

“Disappear. I will use a gun next time.”

The order was for them to murder all of those in the building. They were not inside of it yet. He had let the other live due to mercy. However, a few seconds after the man fled, the girl accurately shot his head with her gun as he ran away. The hand of the man that had been shot held a hidden revolver.

“Violet.”

“Major, he was aiming a gun at you.”

A few minutes after the two entered the building, vicious gunshots and shrieks echoed like music pieces. Sounds of bursting flesh and breaking glass, cries of deathly agony. They were played in a timed harmony and went on repeatedly, until at last, the brutal pursue came to an end with a particularly lurid scream. The building that was the only source of light in the area eventually lost its gleam and its interior became completely quiet.

The world had finally regained its true form. It was a time of silence where living beings would fall into deep sleep.

“How dull.” Loading his pistol, which had gone out of bullets, Gilbert sighed and sat down on a sofa. The legs of the bodies lying on the floor were on his way, but he ignored them as there was nothing else he could do.

It was Violet that the superior officers had nominated to take care of the arms dealer. She was actually supposed to have come to that place on her own.

——She already handles enemy soldiers, but now she has to do even this kind of dirty work. The higher-ups are treating her as nothing but a murder tool.

If the disposal of troublesome elements was for their country’s sake, he could do it free of obscure thoughts. Had he been by himself, he would not have been thinking such things.

“Major, is something wrong? The mission has been cleared. There are no survivors.” Even in such a situation, the girl in question checked the corpses with a calm face.

Gilbert knew better than anyone that there was no need to accompany her.

“No.” As he let his gaze wander around the floor, the feet of a man he had killed came into view. Disturbed, he averted his eyes. “I am fine. You’re tired, right? Take a seat too.”

As he gestured to the sofa, she wavered slightly but obediently sat down. It was a strange scene – a man and a girl relaxingly taking their time in a room filled with dead bodies. The blissfully striking moonlight poured from the window and illuminated the two felons.

Violet observed her superior – rather, someone whom she considered far more than just her superior – as he refused to look at her. What was the owner of those blue eyes thinking? It was as if she saw nothing else but him; such was the kind of stare that she regarded him with.

“Is it all right to not leave immediately?”

“Just one more minute and we’re off. Once we are out of here, we will return to the barracks and to our traveling routine. We will exterminate the enemy units as the higher-ups tell us to, travel again, and exterminate.”

“Yes.”

“There’s... very little extra time for me to spend... just with you.”

“Yes.”

“Even though we’ve been together since you were small, lately, it’s only at times like these that...”

“Yes.”

He felt as if his throat would clog with sorrow. It was the product of feelings that did not match his cool-headed outline. They were all brought by the girl sitting next to him. That was because the one who raised and managed that cold-blooded female soldier was Gilbert himself. He who directly used her as an assassination tool was in no position to berate others.

“Hum, Violet... sorry, but could you open the window? The smell of blood is terrible.”

After sounds of her stepping onto the pools of blood on the ground ensued, the window was opened. Although it was a starless, dim night, the moon was now out. Exposed to the moonlight, her frame reflected hazily in Gilbert’s eyes. Her beautiful facial features were already fully developed, despite her still being so juvenile. Blood droplets had splattered on her white cheeks, tainting her pure appearance.

“Major?” Perhaps uncomfortable from being stared at so intently, Violet tilted her neck at Gilbert.

“Violet, you’ve become taller again.” His voice came out hoarse. He covered his head with his arms folded against his knees. Whenever he looked at her increasingly gorgeous figure, an indescribable pain would boil in his chest.

“Is that so? If Major says so, it might be true.”

“Do you have any injuries?” It was not easy for him to speak without stuttering.

“No. Major, are you all right?”

“Do you despise me?” As he spoke as if spewing blood, the girl blinked in surprise. She must have been truly shocked.

After a while of silence, she replied in a low voice, as though whispering, “I do not understand the question.”

To Gilbert, that had been a predictable response. A dry smile naturally came to him.

“Have I... failed at something?”

“No, that’s not it. There’s nothing you’re at fault for.”

“If there is anything wide of the mark, please tell me. I will fix it.”

Her figure as she took the posture of a tool no matter what was hard to bear for Gilbert.

——However, I have no right to think that this is sad or that she is pitiable.

It was hard, yet he had no means to escape from that suffering.

“Violet, there’s nothing you’re at fault for. It’s true. If there’s anything to be criticized, it’s the fact that you are by my side, killing people without hesitation for my sake. And the one to blame for all of this is me.”

Violet did not possess a sense of good and bad from the start. She did not ‘know’ what could be considered righteous or erroneous. She merely chased after the adult who gave her orders.

“Why is that? I am Major’s weapon. It is merely obvious that you would use me.”

It was because Violet’s words held no lies that each note of each one pierced Gilbert’s whole body. She was simply a tool for massacre, devoid of emotions.

“Anyhow... I’m the one to blame. I don’t want you to be doing this. Still, I make you do it.”

Regardless of how beautiful she was, regardless of how much the man by her side held her dear...

“To me, you are not a tool...”

...she was a doll devoid of feelings...

“Not a tool...”

...that wished only for orders.

Gilbert wanted to shout. He had probably wanted to do so ever since he was a child, had he been allowed to. Had he been permitted freedom, without having to care about being well-behaved, the truth was that he had always, always, always, always, always wanted to shout, “As if I could conform to something like this.”

——As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. As if I could conform to something like this. Aah, aah, as if I could conform to something like this!

When had that feeling sprouted within him?

——Why at such a time?

He had no idea what the trigger had been.

——Why her?

If he were ever asked what he was fond of about her, he would not be able to properly express it in words.

——Anyone else would have been fine.

“Major.” Before he had realized it, he was happy whenever she called out to him.

——Even so, my eyes chase after and search for you.

He believed he had to protect her as she followed him from behind.

——My lips...

His chest pounded with immutable devotion.

——...feel like they will blurt out “I love you”.

If he had known that he would fall in love with her, he would not have attempted to drag her into the war.

——For whom and for what purpose is that devotion? Supposing hers is for my sake... her lips would automatically only speak words that sound pleasing to me. Since she seeks subservience and orders, having the approval of the Lord she submits to is her motivation. Then...

“I... You...”

——What about my own life?

“You...”

——For whose sake...

“You...”

——...is my love?

“Violet...”

——For whose sake... am I living now?

“What is ‘love’?”

“Violet, love is...”

At that moment, he understood everything.

——Aah.

Gilbert was not keen of that phrase.

——It was fate.

After all, it would wipe clean every effort he had spent so far. He could not conform to the fact that the experiences stacked from since his tender years, as a child aiming to rise to the pyramid’s apex, had been for the sake of fate. Everything should have been the result of sheer effort. Nevertheless, at death’s doorstep, Gilbert understood.

——It was fate.

The reason why he had been born into the Bougainvillea family...

——It was fate.

The reason why his brother had abandoned him and cut ties with their household...

——It was fate.

The reason why said brother had found her and brought her home with him...

——It was fate.

The reason why Gilbert wound up loving her...

——It was fate.

“Violet.”

——Just... teaching what love is... to this girl who doesn’t know it. That is my life’s purpose.

“I do not understand. I don’t understand love. I don’t understand... the things Major talks about. If this is how it is, for what reason have I been fighting? Why did you give me orders? I am... a tool. Nothing else. Your tool. I do not understand love... I just... want to save... you, Major. Please do not leave me on my own. Major, please do not leave me on my own. Please give me an order! Even if it costs my life... please order me to save you!”

——I love you, Violet. I should have... told you this... more properly in words. The many gestures you would show, the way your blue eyes would widen whenever you discovered something new... I enjoyed watching you like that. Flowers, rainbows, birds, insects, snow, fallen leaves and cities filled with shaking lanterns... I’d wanted to show them all to you in a more beautiful light. I’d wanted to bestow you with a moment to appreciate them freely, not with mine but your own thoughts. I don’t know... how you would have lived without me there. But, if I weren’t around, wouldn’t you have been able... to see the world in a slightly more beautiful manner, the same way as I saw it through you? Ever since you came to my side, I... my life... was pretty much destroyed, but... I’ve found a meaning for living other than aiming for the top of that pyramid. Violet. You have... become my everything. Everything. Unrelated to the Bougainvillea. Just... everything to the man named Gilbert. At first, I was afraid of you. Yet at the same time, I believed I wanted to protect you. Even though you had sinned without realizing, I still wished for you to live. After I decided to make use of you, a criminal, I became a criminal as well. Your wrongdoings were my wrongdoings. I loved that mutual sinning. That’s right, I should... have told you this. It’s something very rare. I have very few things that I like. There’s actually a much bigger number of things that I detest. I simply don’t say it, but I’m not fond of this world, or this lifestyle. I do protect my country, but in truth, I dislike this world. The things I like are... my best friend, my inevitably twisted family... and you. Violet, it’s only you. My life consisted of just that. Wanting to protect you... and trying to keep you alive... were the first things in my life that I had wanted to do no matter what out of my own will. Abjectly, I make this wish. Violet. I want... to protect... you... more, more and more.

An emerald eye opened. It was a world of darkness. The cries of insects could be heard from afar.

Was that the real world or not?

As he picked the smell of medicine, he immediately knew he was in a hospital. Gilbert confirmed his situation. He was lying on a bed.

His memory gradually returned. He was supposed to have died in the battlefield. However, perhaps because he had been praying so miserably, even though God had never granted any of his wishes until now, He had let him live.

Only one of his emerald eyes had opened. Regardless of how hard he tried, the eye from the side that was wrapped in bandages did not budge. He wanted to move his arms to touch it, as to check on whatever had happened to it. However, again, only one of the limbs moved.

He wondered who had done it. He now had a mechanical arm.

Gilbert turned his face to the side. He met with someone’s eyes in the dark. It was a redheaded man.

“You’re... pretty resilient.”

The only man in Gilbert’s life whom the latter called “best friend” was there. He looked exhausted. What had happened to his uniform? He was dressed in a shirt and pants.

“Same... for... you.” As he retorted huskily, his friend laughed.

He laughed, but it morphed into sobs right after. Gilbert thought it was a pity that he could not properly see his friend’s crying face with only one side of his vision.

“What about Violet?”

His friend definitely knew beforehand that such a question would be asked. He shifted the chair he was sitting on and showed the bed next to him. The girl Gilbert loved lay there.

“If... she is... dead... then please kill me too.”

With her eyes closed, she looked like a sculpture, making it impossible to discern if she was alive or not. His friend gently told him that she had survived, but her arm was no longer usable.

“Just... one... of them?”

“No, both. Both sides... now have artificial arms.”

Gilbert forcefully attempted to stand up. While his friend rushed to warn against doing so, Gilbert borrowed his hand, walking the insignificant distance to the girl’s bed with trembling legs. As he uncovered her thin blankets, her smooth porcelain-like arms existed no more. In their place were combat-specialized prosthetics, even though one could not say if she would fight again.

Who had put them on her?

Gilbert touched Violet’s prosthetic with his flesh hand. It was cold. What was supposed to be there was gone. More than with his own condition, he had to bear with that.

“Major. What should I do with this... now that I have it?”

The arms she had showed him the emerald brooch with were gone.

“Major.”

The hands that had grabbed onto Gilbert’s cufflink as to not be separated from him were gone. They would never return.

“I want... to listen... to Major’s orders. If I... have Major’s orders... I can go... anywhere.”

What she had lost would never come back to her.

Gilbert’s vision blurred with tears to the point he could not see his beloved girl anymore. “Hodgins, I have a favor to ask.”

Shedding a single teardrop, an emerald eye closed.

[thisisluxurytravel]

Review of Six Senses Uluwatu in the time of Coronavirus in Bali

I spent 3 days at Six Senses Uluwatu in May. It is one of the few hotels in Bali that stayed open during the crisis. Read on for my general review of the Six Senses Bali as well as my impression of what it feels like to travel during the Coronavirus

  Getting to the Six Senses Uluwatu.

The Six senses is located in the southernmost part of Bali. It is a mere 30 minutes drive from the airport so very convenient if you are coming to Bali for just a few days.

I came from villa Seaview near Air sanih in the North of Bali. So it was a long drive that took over 3 hours.

I was in Bali before all the travel lockdowns started and decided to ride the coronavirus here. I stayed in a beautiful and isolated villa Seaview and had been self-isolating in the house for 8 weeks. You can find more info about the villa here. As the coronavirus situation in Bali seemed mostly under control, I decided it was time to go for a minivacation and the six senses seemed like a good and safe option.

A car from Six Senses Uluwatu came to pick me up at 9 am and we drove through the whole island. I felt weird to go out of the house after 8 weeks. We drove through many villages in North Bali where life seemed almost normal. I was impressed that most of the people seemed to be wearing masks and water stations for hand washing have appeared everywhere.

Ubud and the south of Bali were much quieter with most of the shops and restaurants targeted to tourists still closed. It had an eery feeling.

  Checking in the Six Senses Uluwatu

We arrived around 12:30.

As we crossed the hotel security, an officer did the normal car security check. What was different this time is that he took my temperature.

The resort is built along a cliff and the lobby is at the top of the cliff. The view from the lobby goes out to the sea and is stunning.  There were very few customers in the hotel. I was told they were running at 10 percent occupancy.

My check-in was very swift with no other customers’ in sight. I was given a drink of Jammu (a Balinese mediational drink) and a few delicious cookies.

I and my luggage were then transferred into a golf cart and we were on our way to the villa

  The Six senses Uluwatu resort and its infrastructure

As we were driving down the curvy lane, I realized how massive and built up the Six Senses resort actually is. There are over 100 rooms. Most of them are little villas with a private pool. Given the cliffside location, all the rooms have a beautiful sea view.

What surprised me however is that we could not hear the sea. The cliff is so tall that even if you are by the side of the cliff, you can’t hear the ocean. I was coming from villa Seaview by the sea in North Bali where the pool falls into the sea and had gotten addicted to the sound of the wave so that was a bit of a disappointment.

The main area of the resort is by the cliff. There you will find the restaurants, bars, spa, gym, library, boutique, and the main pool.

The main pool is simply stunning. Imagine a huge infinity pool right by the cliff. No-one could tell me the length of the pool but I would guess it was at least 100 meters long. Most of the time, I had that huge pool to myself and it was an amazing place to do laps.

The lounge chairs by the pool are plush and comfortable. Service was flawless with water and towels brought up each time I arrived. Worth noting that the umbrellas are not moveable so at some time of the day it was difficult to get shade (and the resort is facing South)

The pool is surrounded by the Roka and Crudo restaurants. The Roka Bar has a great location and sea view.

I didn’t get to try the spa. The gym was unimpressive. It was relatively small and didn’t have a sea view so I didn’t use it. The equipment looked clean and modern though so you can keep your workout routine while there.

The garden is beautifully landscaped with a lot of bougainvillea and other exotic plants. My only complaint would be that the resort is too built up with rows upon rows of Villa. I understand that land in Bali is getting expensive and most new hotels in Bali are overbuilt. But as the six senses resorts promote sustainability, I would have appreciated a bit more space left to nature and gardens like at the Six Senses Con Dao

  The activities at Six Senses Uluwatu

Six senses usually have a weekly program of activities to keep guests entertained. I was looking forward to it (especially since I had stayed home for 8 weeks before that)

I was a bit disappointed to see that little activities were organized that week which is understandable given the low occupancy of the resort. The only activity on offer was the outdoor cinema.

The cinema is located on the right of the main pool and is totally breath-taking. I was alone so I could choose the movie from a list of about 40 movies. I loved every moment of it. Don’t miss it!

While in Bali, don’t miss exploring the island. You can read about day trips to East, West, North and even the center of Bali here.

The cliffside villa room review at Six senses Uluwatu

I stayed in the cliffside villa 36. Most of the villas at Six senses Uluwatu are one-bedrooms cliffside villas. They are quite modern and pleasantly laid out. Calling them “villa” is maybe an exaggeration because it is basically a bedroom and a large bathroom and a terrace with a pool.

The room is very well designed and comfortable. The style is “zen chic” and reminded me more of the Alila brand than the other Six Senses I have stayed at before.

The room is full of automation. You can control everything from the bed (except the pool and garden lights which are automatic so you can’t turn them off yourself). I don’t understand why hotels invest so much in-room automation. I personally find it annoying. For some reason, on my last day, the radio came on at 6:15 AM and the same song played 3 or 4 times. I never found out how to turn it off but fortunately, it turned off by itself.

The bathroom is the highlight of the room. There are 2 outdoor showers, 1 indoor shower and a great bathtub from where to relax with a pool and sea view. There is also a Japanese style toilet that stays warm the whole time. I am not sure how these fit with six senses eco-friendly values.

The pool is on the small size but big enough for a bit of swimming and I really enjoyed alternating my days between the privacy of the room pool and the splendor of the main cliffside pool.

My only regret is that the villas are too close to each other and I could hear the people staying in the villa next to me.

  TIP1: if you want more privacy on your terrace, avoid the rooms near the central staircase.

TIP 2: the best villas are located at the bottom of the resort. Nearer the cliff and facilities of the resort. The lower you are, the easier it will be to climb up to your room after a visit to the restaurants or the spa.

If you are traveling with a group or family, there are 2- and 3-bedrooms villas available. The presidential villa looks stunning.

  Review of the food at Six senses Uluwatu

As can be expected from Six Senses, the food was very good.

Due to the low occupation of the hotel, only the Roka restaurant was open.

It is a large restaurant with a view of the cliff and an indoor and outdoor area.

The breakfast was a la carte as there were not enough customers to justify a buffet

It was a cloudy day so we could use the terrace and enjoy the Seaview.

TIP: If you don’t want sugar in your juices, mention it. My first juice was very sweet

Service was impeccable and the food tasty.

Worth noting that as a precaution for the coronavirus, they would take our temperature and give hand sanitizer before allowing entry to the restaurant

True to the Six senses habit, there was a free ice cream station. It is located near the library and the boutique. I enjoyed my daily ice cream to keep me fresh on my way climbing back to the room.

  My impressions of traveling in Bali during the Coronavirus crisis

While we move to the “new normal” phase and learn to live with the virus, many people are wondering if travel can still be enjoyable.

While some changes are noticeable, it didn’t prevent me from really enjoying my stay at Six Senses Uluwatu.  I view the measures of temperature checking, hand sanitizer, and extra cleaning as necessary to ensure everybody’s health and safety. The staff was all wearing facemask which sometimes made them harder to understand but it is in my opinion a small price to pay if it means we can still enjoy travel. After staying home in lockdown for so many weeks, traveling to a new destination feels like taking a breath of fresh air.

The tourism industry has been one of the hardest hit by the Coronavirus crisis so traveling during this time also provides an income to many people who need it right now. Balinese people are very proud and will not complain but many have been hit financially very hard.

The rate of Coronavirus infection in Bali is much lower than in many other countries so the risks are probably lower here than in your home country. What you need to be careful of is not to bring the virus to the destinations that you visit. I did get a quick test before traveling and I think it is a responsible thing to do.

I would also suggest avoiding crowded places and built up hotels. Staying in low-density hotels or private villas is probably the way to go for the next few months

With those precautions in mind, happy travel!

  Conclusion

The Six Senses Uluwatu resort deserves praises for its great service and modern rooms with private sea view pools. The promotional rate due to Coronavirus is a great value (you need to book it directly with the hotel). I recommend the hotel to people coming to Bali for a few days who want a convenient and relaxing escape in Bali.

Be aware that the hotel feels much more built-up than the other six Senses resort and has little Balinese feel. You could be in a luxury hotel anywhere in the world. If you are looking for a beach hotel, it is also not the place for you as there is no beach access.

The post Review of Six Senses Uluwatu in the time of Coronavirus in Bali appeared first on Luxury travel Inspiration.

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[businessliveme]

The Greece I Long To Visit Isn’t On Your Average Travel Brochure

(Bloomberg) — At the moment, all of our plans are on hold. But that doesn’t mean we here at Bloomberg Pursuits aren’t planning the experiences we’ll rush out to enjoy when it’s safe to do so. We’re sharing our ideas with you in the hopes that they will inspire you—and we’d love to hear what you are daydreaming about, too. Send us your ideas at daydreams@bloomberg.net, and we’ll flesh some of them out for this column.

Nikos Chrysoloras is Bloomberg’s Brussels bureau chief. When this is all over, he’ll be taking a slow journey home through some of the most beautiful—and undersung—parts of Greece. 

Longing for home after having found every possible excuse to leave it is the archetype of Greekness. “Naught is sweeter than homeland and parents,” Ulysses says in The Odyssey, and yet he spent the best part of his life wandering the world.

Millions born in the same lands later followed in his footsteps. Greece is a nation of emigrants, with a thriving diaspora whose members always dream of going back—but mostly don’t.

Nostalgia—a word rooted in Ulysses’s yearning to return—becomes more profound when we are at risk. That’s even truer now that Greece appears to be one of the safest places to be in the midst of a deadly global pandemic, having done a much better job than most at limiting the spread of the illness. Yet, the country is poised to pay a heavy price from the coronavirus: The obliteration of leisure travel this year will hit its tourism-dependent economy hardest, just as it emerges from the steepest recession on record.

So in this hour of peril for me and my country, I’d really go back, if I could, to continue my “work from home” in the sanctuary of my real home. It’s a stone’s throw from a pristine beach in the minuscule island of Serifos. But I can’t, not yet at least—not without putting myself and my loved ones in danger.

That won’t stop me from daydreaming.

I’ll keep my home-island daydreams private, as all the places to eat, drink, and sleep that I could take you with me belong to friends. I’d run into a whole bunch of ethics issues if I were to advertise them. And while there’s nowhere like Serifos for me, there will be so much Greek paradise for you when this viral outbreak is behind us.

What to Do in Athens

In mid-March, when Greece’s government started imposing the lockdown, it banned access to both ski resorts and beaches. Not many places in the world are blessed enough to have to stop people from skiing and swimming at the same time. While Greece enjoys the longest coastline in the European Union and one of the longest in the world, any journey there should start from Athens.

At the center of the ancient city is a square that epitomizes my country perhaps more than any island or beach. It’s called Monastiraki, where, along with a cocktail from the rooftop bars of A for Athens or 360, you’ll enjoy the view of the Parthenon that overlooks an Ottoman mosque, a Byzantine church, an ancient Roman market, a 19th century train station, the old town of Athens, and the chaotic flea market of today. It’s the weight of millennia packed in the space of a single city block.

After a stroll through the old town neighborhoods of Thisseio and Plaka—and the necessary visit to the Acropolis hill and its wonderful museum—you’ll want to enjoy fresh fish at the Michelin-starred Varoulko seaside restaurant. If the the catch of the day includes red mullet, order it. We Greeks consider it the king of fish dishes.

The experience will make you want explore more of the endless Athenian riviera, so if you have a second day, rent a car and drive all the way to majestic Cape Sounion, to swim below the cliffside Temple of Poseidon. The sunset there is what I’d call “Greece, Profound,” and the hour-long drive will be worth it.

I could go on and on about Athens. Its famed nightlife includes such bars as lavish Noel , where it feels like Christmas all-year round, or Clumsies, with its high-end (and locally sourced) cocktails, or Juan Rodriguez, with its otherwordly design. I could rhapsodize at length over how I dream of the grilled “mackerel for babies” at the Greco-Japanese Nolan restaurant, but it’s time to continue the journey with a road trip to the Peloponnese, the southernmost tip of the Greek mainland.

So rent a car, and let’s go.

A Journey Across the South

There’s no better way to start exploring the rugged beauty of the peninsula than from the Costa Navarino resort. It’s a huge estate near the Kalamata International Airport, which includes everything from world-class golf courses to olive plantations and vineyards. My stay at the five-star Romanos hotel there a few years ago was the stuff that dreams are made of. A breakfast from heaven featured everything you can possibly imagine, including some of the best jams I have tried. At lunch and dinner, its restaurants serve crisp wine produced at the estate and what is probably the most expensive (and tastiest) souvlaki in the world. I had actually planned to go again this June—to try the adjacent Westin—just for the sake of revisiting this estate and its wonderful beach, with the great hotel service. But the virus ruined my plans.

Close to Costa Navarino, there’s a beach—or should I say the beach. It’s called Voidokoilia. (Just google its images, and you’ll instantly start dreaming of it for your next holiday.) Its perfect semicircular shape is what distinguishes it from most beaches you have seen. The sandy paradise is a short drive from Costa Navarino, but the roads in the Peloponnese aren’t great, so I advise you rent a comfortable car.

I’d continue the road trip eastward, with a stop at the Mani peninsula, the most rugged of Greek landscapes. It’s a mountainous terrain with stone-built villages and very narrow roads leading to pebbled beaches. This area is the land of the ancient Spartans, people as defiant as history suggests.

You can stay at the picturesque  town of Areopolis, with its bougainvillea-planted alleys and stone houses. There are plenty of restaurants there, but be wary of places that look as if they are made for tourists. Or you can pick the wonderful 100 Rizes seaside resort, where I stayed last summer and which I highly recommend. It’s isolated, with a private beach and easy access to wonderful small beaches around it. Hike all the way to craggy Cape Tainaron, the southernmost tip of the Balkan peninsula. Myth has it that these were the gates to the underworld, and the lighthouse feels like one. On the way back, don’t forget to stop and swim at the pebbled Halikia beach, where you must—you really must—try the seafood (including “shrimps saganaki”) with ouzo at the tavern called 7 Adelfia.

Then enjoy a cocktail at the nearby port of Limeni, with its transparent turquoise waters, where I have watched the most beautiful sunsets of my life. It doesn’t get more authentically Greek than that. Consult your map applications, because the drives I suggest are long, and you may want to split them among several days.

A Route Through History

Eastward we continue, to the fortress town of Monemvasia. Accessible only to pedestrians from a single gate, its medieval alleys are full of mystery and wonder, like a set that Game of Thrones producers ought to have used. When I visited, I stayed at Kinsterna, a restored Byzantine mansion that’s a true jewel of Greek tourism. Surrounded by olives and vineyards, it’s an ideal place to see where medieval lords lived. Enjoy the rooms that remind you of (and probably were) cellars but somehow feel pleasant, swim at the wonderful pools, and relax at the spa just a short drive from the sea.

On the way back to Athens, I ‘d detour a bit for a stopover at the historic town of Dimitsana in central Peloponnese. Like my country, I’m half-islander, half-highlander, and Dimitsana is my mother’s home town. It’s one of the most characteristic specimens of the mountainous side of Greece, which tourists unjustifiably ignore. Surrounded by conifer trees, you can enjoy unspoiled traditional stone architecture and hike in the area’s beautiful forests and nearby villages.

Near Dimitsana, there’s a now-deserted village called Panagia, in which sits a tavern called Zerzova. I’ve tried many cuisines in several countries, and I’m a fan of good food, be it from a street canteen or a Michelin-starred fancy place. Nowhere have I tried anything remotely close to Zerzova’s traditional dishes.

All good daydreaming, of course, must come to an end. On the way back to Athens, I could see from the motorway the endless rows of docked tankers and bulk vessels off the coast of Attica, a reminder that even today, millennia after the journeys of Ulysses, Greece continues to rule the seas, controlling much of the world’s commercial fleet.

I remember the words of Nobel-laureate Greek poet Odysseus Elytis: “My country an enduring ship.”

We love our homes, but sometimes they hurt us. What hurts me the most in my own is that many of us forget it was once us  Greeks— our parents and grandparents—who sought refuge from poverty abroad. Please consider donating to the UN’s refugee agency in Greece, which is helping people in even more dire need for help in this pandemic. 

The post The Greece I Long To Visit Isn’t On Your Average Travel Brochure appeared first on Businessliveme.com.

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[elizabetclendinn-blog]

Canines, Felines, As Well As Other Pets

RESIST Extremity Crystal Clear Lumber Discoloration was actually released in 2008 as well as has actually completely removed since. The remaining side of both machines residences pair of USB 3.0 SuperSpeed ports (not tinted blue this time), HDMI and a Mini DisplayPort. A number of previous studies have indicated the colours yellowish and reddish are actually a lot more stimulating than blue as well as green. This organic hair care items help you Fizzy, kinky, distinctive hair. If you have actually pre-pigmented your reduced blonde hair if you want to apply a strong redhead or incredibly dark tone, you need to locate the brand new colour stays entirely within the hair as well as features a rich real brunette. Super-Pflex delivers greater running amounts and also minimized formulation expenses while maintaining crucial residential properties in PVC exterior siding and accounts. Having actually considered Magenta, our company will definitely currently look at three shades which - like Magenta - consist of identical percentages of red and blue illumination, yet at lessened strengths of discharge. The inside of the Audi Q7 limo is amazing, along with certainly not just standard monitor TVs, VIDEO players as well as CD players however a nightclub flooring that changes colour and an outstanding represented ceiling. Its shape flaunts the gold colors of the shade every time each tendril strikes the illumination. If you want to comprehend far more about coloured lighting, and also exactly just how the massive series of various magnitudes of red, blue and eco-friendly lighting may be controlled to generate all the various other colours in a visual screen unit, I recommend you to my Home Page contrary. The colours generated by the mix of algae as well as micro-organisms, and so on Plum is similar to a number of the extra red colors of violet, however along with a mild however distinctive greyish cast as a result of the overview of some eco-friendly. Ensure to have excellent colour assortment, light-toned add darker dark-green, yellow, reddish, orange, purple and also white colored. Yet if you include a dash of yellow or even blue or Yourbodyfit.Info even both, you can easily still combine fascinating pinkish shades with remarkably original labels. Additionally, the crew is actually also operating to conjure up a design that makes it possible for a ColorFab challenge produce second colors. Peach glow, lipstick, and eye shadow go terrific with a pale gold brownish hair different colors. @LuckyExplorer: From what I have read they are specifically discussing the white colored lights, not other color LEDs. Eyeshadow ideas are actually excellent for people that such as to try out makeup. Garden Character Colouring Works have tinting web pages that are actually influenced by nature. The coloring webpages are actually also so welcoming, because I adore coloring. Colours like blue, greenish and fuchsia are actually soft shades that are peaceful and also tranquil. So whether you're looking for a paint color to deal with for a while or even one that creates the small 3rd bed room appear just a smidge much bigger, our team spoke with developers, coating companies like PPG Paints, and also artists to follow up with these 14 paint colours you must think about for your next venture. A recognized Bougainvillea plant may look outstanding; a mass of reddish or even rich purple on a white-washed wall, on 3 or even 4 rich water with the summer season. Lightning rod: In need of an upgrade, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's historic tower stimulates a controversy regarding the conservation of Modern construction. Unless you are actually typically rather decent it is actually a reasonable assumption to state that when you try to lighten the hair through any type of amount it will feature some of the hairs all-natural red and yellow pigment - creating a total orange shade.

[thesweetblossoms]

A Sea of Honey One of the most beautiful elements of being awake is that we are able to choose each moment to grow and thrive, even when we are setback wretchedly and our trials seem evocatively unrelenting, like the sun beating down upon a gazelle in the desert. This is because as adaptable, perceptive creatures we are able to cast aside the difficulties or unlucky circumstances to pursue titilating bliss, seas of contentment or vast universes of peace. So when the moment seems ripe and on the verge of bruising, like pears ready to roast with honey and vanilla seeds, we should breathe and root deeper into our well of talent and skills, traipse into a halo of illumination, sip deeply of the dew to rise higher and tempt the breezes to be gentle and the paths ahead to be kind. Here are few of the tool to help us heavily imbibe the nectar of the hours. Self Care: This is the mindset of taking a few seconds to tend to your own needs before fulfilling our roles as mother, partner, worker, citizen or friend. This might mean taking a break to rub hand cream over our much used hands, or concocting a massage oil, with coconut and jasmine essential oil, or applying raw honey on your face as a face mask, or taking a quick, shimmering walk around the neighborhood to gaze at the vibrant petunias, rapturous bougainvillea, flirtatious trumpet vines and enthralling lantana. It could involve resolutely drinking plenty of water, or looking up a crisp, healthy salmon recipe to eat with spinach and Parmesan garlic bread, or taking a few minutes to read a W Somerset Maugham book, to remember other manners and timeless wits, peruse a wellness blog to remind us to sprinkle cinnamon onto our post work out kefir, or read about the sea salt air and experiences of other women in their far flung habitats to break up our own routines. It could be watering your plants because they give you lashings of peace and pleasure, and delicate, pluck-able viola to put on your ricotta with walnuts. One of most important habits we should cultivate for own care is to sleep as much as our schedules permit. I strongly believe that the gift of sleep is akin to a full week at a tuberose filled and lantern lit Balinese spa, partaking of which serves to heal us, offers a respite and encourages the brewing of ideas and visions for the future. Body: When we feel our bodies move we are reminded of being alive, thus we should attempt to move everyday, whether it is to constantly fetch items for a child or go down the stairs to water the luscious cornflowers in the garden, or to do a few intense jumping squats, or a half dozen ecstatically refreshing laps in the pool, or lavender candle lit yoga before bedtime, the opportunities to be physical and active are endless but they must be matched by a determination to do them, to increase our heartbeat, oxygenate our blood and bring a disarming glow to our skin. I find that my mood automatically improves after a workout as I feel depression or anxiety dissipate and a balm of calm and wellness wrap around me. After a while working out becomes a tonic that we look forward to, that we know helps us focus better on our work, assists in controlling our negative triggers, influences us in making healthy choices in regards to food and drinks and uplifts us in our endeavors. Mind: I have read that how we perceive and react to reality has much to do with our mind. Thus mindfulness practices steer us towards the highest planes of self actualization and achievement. I practice mindfulness daily, in watching carefully and noting how I think and act on various issues. For instance, when I might feel sad about having left a garden I tended behind, I look up and notice the new trees around me, the palms, the palos verdes, the oaks and the eucalyptus that somebody else had planted decades before, but that I now thoroughly enjoy sharing space, illumination and energy. This way of thinking helps me remedy any sadness or regret. In similar fashion, practicing gratefulness and generosity also helps me deal with the situations that come before me, as I reframe everything in a light that reveals how the circumstances have helped me grow, taught me lessons or widened by horizons. Thus, by thinking about every situation with a mindful bent, our minds may solve the trickiest problems and manifest innovative solutions. Interests: One can never be unsatisfied or at odds with the rapidly disappearing moments of life as long as one has discovered the entities that renders times grievous betrayal more tolerable. For me, these include taking care and tending my plants, noticing with a sharp pang of pleasure and congratulating my patience if my jasmine cutting has rooted, or slowly picking out the decaying leaves of my frangipani plant or dreaming of more species to add to my green sanctuary to learn their gentle natures, whimsical habits and mysterious yearnings. I also enjoy calligraphy, yoga, baking, English literature, learning French and provocative films. I crave the hours that I allow my heart rather then my mind to guide me to an activity, perhaps reading neuroscience articles, before looking at modern interior design websites, or plotting a delectable, traditional, wine and thyme infused Sunday roast, before plumping my collection of sofa pillows and lighting a few pink salt candles for a late night movie with the balcony doors wide open to hear the chimes and the whispering palms. I am curious to look into the future to see what new interests I cultivate, how far my expertise and knowledge take me in my current pursuits, what new collections I begin or what mosaics I create with the elements I am learning today. Meditation: The ecstatic aspect of meditation beyond the enlightenment it may bring us, is the fact that we may always engage in it, whether we have a consistent practice, or have cheated on the habit, or found ourselves less interested in continuing to mediate, perhaps due to extremely busy times, or having regrettably let it slip away for a bit. So, I let myself begin again, and find that afterwards, my mind is calm, breaths are peaceful and reality is heightened. After a session I strengthen my ability to concentrate, to formulate my ideas and visions, to ponder upon my choices and to design a way forward. Meditating is an ode to living in the present because it allows no room for what lies beyond and what has already passed, thus we should invite its gift into our lives as a dreamy panacea and utterly transcendent balm. After all, we are kindred spirits to the sun drunk bees chasing honey, so let us look and headily tuck in as the flowers unfurl their petals for us.

[dominiquehowden-blog]

White Bougainvillea Vegetation

If you like your felines and you like wild animals, do them both a support and also maintain your cats inside Pet cats reside longer, far healthier lives as interior pussy-cats, and animals as well as your neighbor's veggie beds profit from not possessing your pet cats. wandering the area. The plants will certainly after that generate white colored blooms in the spring season to provide rate of interest in an additional time. Given that I reside in a home, I believe there is one thing metaphysical concerning horticulture as well as am grateful to go to this neighborhood landscape at the highschool. You may get these pest-eating bugs, including ladybugs or praying mantis, off garden outlets to get rid insects. In this particular welcoming garden, no one's home, however from the appearances from it, they might return quickly. However even certainly there, these convenient boards could be used in many countless as well as creative methods to solve several typical backyard concerns. That is actually certainly, considering you have a place in your landscape that gets a minimum from six plus hours of direct sun light, and a lot of well-drained abundant dirt. The moment every week along with the intent to control the development of small weeds, you have to examine your garden. A phone call to the regional distributor and also our team arranged for a delivery of a backyard from premixed landscape dirt to become provided - 50/50 leading dirt and also compost. Blue blossoms include intensity as well as powerful healing vibrations to a perimeter filled with pink, lavender, as well as white colored blossoms. An example of these functionalities is the launch from 2 new cutting-edge items for this year's Landscape season: The Pennington Smart Feed Spray Unit and also our AMDRO PowerFlex Pest & Pot System. Thus if you are searching for the flawlessly straightforward party motif for your little favorite, a ladybug yard theme is exciting, and also the integrated style makes the decoration very simple to perform. Spheric buttercups grow extremely in hilly regions, yet are simple to launch to the backyard. You ought to wash this every full week for younger grass that grow out every now and also at that point when you've planted your garden. See her web site to read more of her gardening write-ups, learn the most recent information from her natural kitchen area backyard or hear the free of cost once a week net radio reveal The Alternate Home kitchen Landscape. The color white is prevalent in lifestyle modifying activities as well as links recent simply click generic_anchor_text.dat to the future. No cottage landscape will be actually complete without the mid-summer blooms of leopard lilies. Thanks for dropping in and also I wish this encourages you to plant florals in your landscape. The decorative sculpture was actually given to us through adjacent neighbours coming from our final property which were actually downsizing to a retired life standard due to the beachfront that possessed no garden. Therefore, I had a flight to a few of my mom and pop backyard centers and also started inquiring questions. The comprised of 53 guest rooms as well as suites, eleven garden homes, as well as a loft space area. After buying the shrubs for your white rose landscape, get rid of any packing product around the origin, and permit the origins to soak over night in a container of water.

[bethestaryouareradio]

Parks Not Pills

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul” John Muir

How often are you outdoors? Are you spending most of your time sitting in a chair staring at your computer screen? Do you feel lethargic, tired, and anxious?

You are not alone and help could be right outside your door. In today’s technological world, many people, including children, are increasingly living their lives indoors. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20% of children (one in five) and 30% of adults (one in three) in the United States are obese.

Back in 2005 when I was doing my weekly radio broadcast, StarStyle®-Be the Star You Are!® (www.StarStyleRadio.com) on World Talk Radio out of studios in San Diego, I invited author Richard Louv to be a guest on my program with his newest hardbound book at the time, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. Before the program, we sat in the sound booth lamenting the startling facts that the average child of the day could identify TV personalities yet know nothing about bugs, flowers, trees, or nature in general. Kids were not outside playing as we did as children because they wanted to be plugged in and tuned out. His book and the interview have remained lodged in my psyche as a warning that we don’t want our child to be the last to witness the woods.

Fast forward to 2019 and although nature-deficit disorder is not an official medical disease, children and adults are more alienated from nature than ever before with increased attention difficulties, higher stress levels, poorer body image, obesity issues, and a plethora of physical and emotional illnesses. Pills have been prescribed yet people are sicker.

Could spending more time in nature be the answer to our woes?

Physicians throughout the ages have encouraged people to go outside more. Hippocrates wrote that walking was “man’s best medicine.” To ward off aging, physicians in the Han dynasty suggested outdoor “frolicking exercises”. In the 19th and 20th centuries, people were instructed to visit the mountains to enjoy the “magic airs” or “take in the waters” at a mineral spring to mitigate a variety of infirmities.

Science supports the fact that exposure to natural stimuli, especially gardening, lowers blood pressure, bolsters immune systems, reduces the levels of stress hormones, improves our disposition, increases confidence, promotes healing, lessens inflammation, minimizes obesity problems, and decreases our dependence on pain medication.

Besides having fun, a brisk walk in the park three or four times a week may stave off cognitive impairment for older adults. For kids, the exercise and fresh air of playing will help with maintaining a healthy weight as well as heighten their cognizance of the natural world. Community gardens offer people an opportunity to commune together to grow and harvest fresh food promoting better health.

Nature is a healer. For me, my garden is my happy place, my refuge, and my innovator. I get all my best ideas for my endeavors while outside listening, watching, tasting, feeling, exploring, experiencing, doing, and being. Right outside my office, a beautiful redheaded house finch perches on my gurgling fountain singing his heart out daily. The frogs croaking, the buzzing bees, the wind in the palms, the scent of the star jasmine, the rustling magnolia leaves, the beauty of blossoms, the trickle of the water, the cooing of the doves and the chants of the quail activate my imagination and soothe my soul. The repeated refrains of Mother Nature are my nurture and my medicine.

It won’t be long before physicians everywhere will be writing prescriptions for parks instead of painkillers. Being in the outdoors inspires awe and wonder. We are blessed to have an abundance of open space, meadows, trails, mountains, and local parks where we can experience the tranquility and magic of the outdoors.

It’s summer. Nature is calling. Get up, get out, and welcome the fresh air. Spend more time in a garden or a commons. See for yourself how you feel. Although I’m not a doctor, I am prescribing more parks instead of pills. There is no downside.

“All my hurts my garden spade can heal.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Cynthia Brian’s Garden Goddess Guide for Increasing Health Through Nature

IMPROVE physical skills for kids by getting them to play outside more. BUY a supersize bubble wand and blow bubbles in the yard. EAT healthier with a Mediterranean diet loaded with freshly harvested vegetables and fruits. SOURCE produce hyper-locally at your Farmer’s Market or rural fruit stands if you are not growing your own. Summer is the optimum time for the freshest fruits and vegetables with high nutritional values. Did you know that the USDA defines purchasing local produce and food as within 400 miles of your state? Most food on the American dinner table has traveled between 1500-2500 miles according to the Worldwatch Institute meaning that nutrients and antioxidants have been diminished. If you really want to pack a punch with your food, you have options. Eating in season while growing your own or being part of a community garden is the number one solution. Frequenting farmer’s markets will reduce your carbon footprint and offer fresher alternatives. Or take a drive to a local farming community to purchase freshly harvest crops at road stands. This serves a dual purpose of getting you out into nature as an RX for better health and stocking your kitchen with food that will be delicious and nutritious. FLOAT bougainvilleas blooms as a creative centerpiece. SOAK your tired feet in a bowl of warm water filled with healing marigolds and chrysanthemums. COOL off on a cushion of green moss. EXPRESS awe at a dragonfly hovering on a reed in the water. ENLIGHTEN your perspective with a copy of Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. PICK chamomile flowers to make a soothing tea. Save some of the seeds to plant. INSTALL a birdhouse and a fountain to entice the songbirds. WANDER through a colorful succulent garden to see the various textures and forms. WONDER at the sight of a flower that you’ve never seen before. SOAK in the beauty of the delicate blossoms on a silk tree. GAZE at the clouds and be grateful for your health. DRINK plenty of water to stay hydrated. LISTEN to the sounds of our beautiful earth to experience calm.

Happy Gardening. Happy Growing! Photos and more at https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1310/Digging-Deep-with-Goddess-Gardener-Cynthia-Brian-Parks-not-pills.html

  Cynthia Brian, The Goddess Gardener, raised in the vineyards of Napa County, is a New York Times best-selling author, actor, radio personality, speaker, media and writing coach as well as the Founder and Executive Director of Be the Star You Are1® 501 c3. Tune into Cynthia’s Radio show and order her books at www.StarStyleRadio.com.

Buy a copy of her new books, Growing with the Goddess Gardener and Be the Star You Are! Millennials to Boomers at www.cynthiabrian.com/online-store.

Hire Cynthia for projects, consults, and lectures. Cynthia@GoddessGardener.com

www.GoddessGardener.com

___________

parksnotpills,opiodeiudemic,naturehealing,#gardening, #cynthiabrian, #starstyle, #goddessGardener, #growingwiththegoddessgardener, #lamorindaweekly

[goddessgardener]

Parks Not Pills

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul” John Muir

How often are you outdoors? Are you spending most of your time sitting in a chair staring at your computer screen? Do you feel lethargic, tired, and anxious?

You are not alone and help could be right outside your door. In today’s technological world, many people, including children, are increasingly living their lives indoors. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20% of children (one in five) and 30% of adults (one in three) in the United States are obese.

Back in 2005 when I was doing my weekly radio broadcast, StarStyle®-Be the Star You Are!® (www.StarStyleRadio.com) on World Talk Radio out of studios in San Diego, I invited author Richard Louv to be a guest on my program with his newest hardbound book at the time, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. Before the program, we sat in the sound booth lamenting the startling facts that the average child of the day could identify TV personalities yet know nothing about bugs, flowers, trees, or nature in general. Kids were not outside playing as we did as children because they wanted to be plugged in and tuned out. His book and the interview have remained lodged in my psyche as a warning that we don’t want our child to be the last to witness the woods.

Fast forward to 2019 and although nature-deficit disorder is not an official medical disease, children and adults are more alienated from nature than ever before with increased attention difficulties, higher stress levels, poorer body image, obesity issues, and a plethora of physical and emotional illnesses. Pills have been prescribed yet people are sicker.

Could spending more time in nature be the answer to our woes?

Physicians throughout the ages have encouraged people to go outside more. Hippocrates wrote that walking was “man’s best medicine.” To ward off aging, physicians in the Han dynasty suggested outdoor “frolicking exercises”. In the 19th and 20th centuries, people were instructed to visit the mountains to enjoy the “magic airs” or “take in the waters” at a mineral spring to mitigate a variety of infirmities.

Science supports the fact that exposure to natural stimuli, especially gardening, lowers blood pressure, bolsters immune systems, reduces the levels of stress hormones, improves our disposition, increases confidence, promotes healing, lessens inflammation, minimizes obesity problems, and decreases our dependence on pain medication.

Besides having fun, a brisk walk in the park three or four times a week may stave off cognitive impairment for older adults. For kids, the exercise and fresh air of playing will help with maintaining a healthy weight as well as heighten their cognizance of the natural world. Community gardens offer people an opportunity to commune together to grow and harvest fresh food promoting better health.

Nature is a healer. For me, my garden is my happy place, my refuge, and my innovator. I get all my best ideas for my endeavors while outside listening, watching, tasting, feeling, exploring, experiencing, doing, and being. Right outside my office, a beautiful redheaded house finch perches on my gurgling fountain singing his heart out daily. The frogs croaking, the buzzing bees, the wind in the palms, the scent of the star jasmine, the rustling magnolia leaves, the beauty of blossoms, the trickle of the water, the cooing of the doves and the chants of the quail activate my imagination and soothe my soul. The repeated refrains of Mother Nature are my nurture and my medicine.

It won’t be long before physicians everywhere will be writing prescriptions for parks instead of painkillers. Being in the outdoors inspires awe and wonder. We are blessed to have an abundance of open space, meadows, trails, mountains, and local parks where we can experience the tranquility and magic of the outdoors.

It’s summer. Nature is calling. Get up, get out, and welcome the fresh air. Spend more time in a garden or a commons. See for yourself how you feel. Although I’m not a doctor, I am prescribing more parks instead of pills. There is no downside.

“All my hurts my garden spade can heal.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Cynthia Brian’s Garden Goddess Guide for Increasing Health Through Nature

IMPROVE physical skills for kids by getting them to play outside more. BUY a supersize bubble wand and blow bubbles in the yard. EAT healthier with a Mediterranean diet loaded with freshly harvested vegetables and fruits. SOURCE produce hyper-locally at your Farmer’s Market or rural fruit stands if you are not growing your own. Summer is the optimum time for the freshest fruits and vegetables with high nutritional values. Did you know that the USDA defines purchasing local produce and food as within 400 miles of your state? Most food on the American dinner table has traveled between 1500-2500 miles according to the Worldwatch Institute meaning that nutrients and antioxidants have been diminished. If you really want to pack a punch with your food, you have options. Eating in season while growing your own or being part of a community garden is the number one solution. Frequenting farmer’s markets will reduce your carbon footprint and offer fresher alternatives. Or take a drive to a local farming community to purchase freshly harvest crops at road stands. This serves a dual purpose of getting you out into nature as an RX for better health and stocking your kitchen with food that will be delicious and nutritious. FLOAT bougainvilleas blooms as a creative centerpiece. SOAK your tired feet in a bowl of warm water filled with healing marigolds and chrysanthemums. COOL off on a cushion of green moss. EXPRESS awe at a dragonfly hovering on a reed in the water. ENLIGHTEN your perspective with a copy of Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. PICK chamomile flowers to make a soothing tea. Save some of the seeds to plant. INSTALL a birdhouse and a fountain to entice the songbirds. WANDER through a colorful succulent garden to see the various textures and forms. WONDER at the sight of a flower that you’ve never seen before. SOAK in the beauty of the delicate blossoms on a silk tree. GAZE at the clouds and be grateful for your health. DRINK plenty of water to stay hydrated. LISTEN to the sounds of our beautiful earth to experience calm.

Happy Gardening. Happy Growing! Photos and more at https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1310/Digging-Deep-with-Goddess-Gardener-Cynthia-Brian-Parks-not-pills.html

  Cynthia Brian, The Goddess Gardener, raised in the vineyards of Napa County, is a New York Times best-selling author, actor, radio personality, speaker, media and writing coach as well as the Founder and Executive Director of Be the Star You Are1® 501 c3. Tune into Cynthia’s Radio show and order her books at www.StarStyleRadio.com.

Buy a copy of her new books, Growing with the Goddess Gardener and Be the Star You Are! Millennials to Boomers at www.cynthiabrian.com/online-store.

Hire Cynthia for projects, consults, and lectures. Cynthia@GoddessGardener.com

www.GoddessGardener.com

___________

parksnotpills,opiodeiudemic,naturehealing,#gardening, #cynthiabrian, #starstyle, #goddessGardener, #growingwiththegoddessgardener, #lamorindaweekly

[photomaniacs]

Macro Safari: Turn Your Backyard Into a Photo Adventure http://ift.tt/2t2WWJF

Yesterday was a rainy, hazy day at home. I didn’t feel much like going anywhere but I needed to find something to do that didn’t involve sitting or work. I decided to break out one of my macro lenses and a flash with soft box diffuser to go macro hunting around the house.

The random breaks in the rain would give me a few minutes at a time to venture beyond the front door to explore all the plants we have around the house. This macro safari managed to keep me entertained for the afternoon and on into the evening. I started out photographing some flowers but soon found some other more interesting subjects.

I chose for this residential adventure the versatile, amazingly capable AF Minolta 100mm Macro f/2.8 coupled to a Sony a7R II via a dumb (no communication with the camera) metal adapter.

A photo of the Minolta mounted to an a7r II with battery grip. A very reasonably sized package for handheld macro work!

This lens is capable of reaching 1:1 reproduction without an extension tube. I picked this lens up from a local camera shop a few years ago for a swell, used price of around $250. Considering the fact that it’s the same optical design as the modern Sony 100mm macro (Sony now owns Minolta), it’s a no brainer.

Minolta Maxxum AF Macro 100mm f/2.8 (1st Generation, 1986-1993) The aperture can be stopped down to f/32.

Why spend many hundreds more just for a Sony badge? This old Minolta mated to one of the most advanced, high-resolution cameras on the market shows just how good it still is. You’d be hard-pressed to find anything modern, at any price, that can outperform it.

Coming up are some photos made with this lens. Flowers and insects abound in Florida!

A Tequila Sunrise Hibiscus flower.

Here is a 1:1 macro of this same flower’s stigma (red bit) and anther (yellow stuff).

Another 1:1 shot, this time of the tiny white flowers nestled between the pink, papery leaves of a Bougainvillea vine.

I have no idea what kind of flowers these are. Each is about 1″ in diameter and sits in a hanging basket alongside some other pretty stuff.

A striking portrait of the new flowers on one of the Crepe Myrtle trees that line the driveway. Using a fast shutter speed and a tiny aperture of f/32, all ambient light was cutout, leaving only the flowers exposed by the closely positioned flash mounted in a 12″x12″ soft box. I like this shot because it includes all phases of growth: new buds, opening buds, open buds and then the full flowers.

I spotted this teeny tiny Long Legged Fly (Dolichopus Condylostylus comatus) resting on a frond of a palm tree; it’s about 1/2 the size of the common house fly but at 1:1 reproduction, you can really get in close to see all the interesting details. To me, it looks like some kind of alien flying machine.

After about half-an-hour of not finding anything else to shoot, I went inside to call it a day. That’s when my wife spotted a Florida Scorpion (Centruroides hentzi). These little guys are very common around here. They’re only about 1.5″ long, head-to-tail, and pack a very non-threatening venom that causes about the same sort of short-term discomfort as a bee sting.

Up close, I think they look like land lobsters. I’m not a fan of eating bug meat from the sea so this doesn’t bother my appetite any. After catching this little guy, I placed him on a piece of old, weathered Live Oak I staged on the dinner table. The scorpion was quite happy to remain on its perch no matter how many times I repositioned it or nuked it with the flash.

I had some closer shots but I preferred these images that showed the whole body. What an interesting critter! The scorpion never attempted to strike at me, preferring to lie flat and still, hoping I would just go away. When I was finished shooting these photos, I took the little guy outside and let him loose in a mound of pine needles at the base of a tree. I don’t mind having these around since they help control the population of other, ickier insects.

What a fascinating way to spend an afternoon! A good macro lens can have an enlarging effect on your sense of the world around you. Your neighbors will probably think you’ve lost your mind as you become more and more obsessed with crawling around in the dirt and rummaging through your planters looking for new things to get up-close with, but it’s worth it. Even the tiniest of yards will provide an endless supply of subjects if you’re willing to look hard enough.

If you aren’t already kitted out for macro photography, it doesn’t have to cost a ton of money. A simple extension tube set can cost less than $20 and will allow you to mount a lens you already own to get down into 1:2 or even 1:1 reproduction ratios. A cheap manual flash and a sheet of white paper is about all you need for lighting. There are plenty of websites out there with suggestions and reviews for this sort of thing. The world of macro photography promises to challenge you in new ways while showing you how much detail there is in nature that we often take for granted.

About the author: Tom Leonard is an amateur photographer, engineer, and father of 9. You can read his musings and follow his travels on his blog. This post was also published here.

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June 24, 2017 at 07:01PM