Natural Clothing Blog

The best part of our green business, Natural Clothing Company, are people we meet. Anne from San Francisco introduced us to the project building a new medical center at the base of the Himalayas between Nepal and India. When our family moved away from Seattle few years ago, our son was in a serious health condition. We measured prospective homes in terms of how long would it take us to get him to the Children’s Hospital in emergency. For kids in Jambange a trip to medical help might be impossible right now.

Here is what Anne says: “As a yoga instructor, and customer of the natural clothing company I support the Jambange Project. We are raising funds to build a medical center at the village, and we hope to see in the future the village becoming sustainable by itself. Donating a contribution to the Jambange Project will help all the people at the village to get medical care. You can contact OmGuru for donations. Check out the Jambange website! www.jambange.com . Thank You all!”

Another beautiful part of green movement is that Anne is French, I am Polish, you are who you are. The project is in Himalayas and there are no boundaries to compassion.

I finally got to read “The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman. What a book! I heard a lot about it, so I expected somewhat of a dry preaching about the state of planet, how messed up we are and what exactly will happen to each species. What a surprise! The book is not like that at all.

It is wonderfully easy to read, elegant prose that taught me many things that I have never heard about. I learned about the ancient 18 stories deep underground dwellings in Turkey, provided shelter through thousands years of conflicts since 700 BC. I read with interests about place close to my heart – a 600 bison preserve in my native Poland. Alan Weisman writes about hundreds of small colorful details but paints them so lightly that you don’t feel overwhelmed but opposite – intrigued. Alan weaves gently like a painted landscape of  watercolors. As a reader you see different parts and eventually very slowly a bigger view reveals itself. Somewhere within the book, casually, a deeper understanding grows. It is about our role as species in regards to this planet called home. What was here before and what might be after… The nagging question starts to arise – what value did we really bring? What about all art, music, architecture? What did we really contribute here? What is the legacy we would leave? And who will be left to even theoretically benefit from our time limited presence?

It occurred to me that this question is a large scale of the true question that we try as parents to instill in our son’s and daughter’s hearts. “More ice cream” seems fun now. “Play now, work later” seems fun for a while.  ”I’ll try it just once…”, well, we know what happens… It is only if we look at things in magnified terms of long period of time or larger magnitude than ourselves, “what happens if we do all the time?”, “what if all others do the same?” that gives insight and correct judgment on the direction worth taking.

Alan Wiseman presented us that large scale very skillfully, showing gently by facts where we are heading, without the drama or nagging. It is very probable that each of us will take completely different lesson from that book. One thing is sure, we will never will look at the world the same.

Saw a huge eagle circling above the house. Like a good Momma Hen, I ran outside to protect my (remaining) chicken. I shook a stick at the Eagle yelling courageous “Shoo…”. He could care less, of course. The true majesty of his flight, seemingly without any movement, made me jealous…

A tiny town of Kamikatsu, Japan decided few years ago to limit their waste. They started with separating all household waste into 34 different categories designated for recycling. They found it cheaper and more environmentally friendly than alternatives. Look at the picture of their bins!

A bit of work but what if… all the towns do that? What if… all of us did that? The corporations…? What our planet will look like?

On a personal note, since we moved to the country, our joy of reusing material things increased: scraps got to animals, reused paper scraps go to compost, rich compost goes to our soil and we get these awesome vegetables. The unity of this cycle puts the soul at ease.