spring blossoms!

cherry blossom is most stupendous

Benefits of wild ASPARAGUS

What's New and Beneficial about wild Asparagus

• Recent research has underscored the value of careful storage and speedy consumption of fresh asparagus. The key scientific finding here involves respiration rate. Like all vegetables, asparagus doesn't instantly "die" when it is picked, but instead, continues to engage in metabolic activity. This metabolic activity includes intake of oxygen, the breaking down of starches and sugars, and the releasing of carbon dioxide. The speed at which these processes occur is typically referred to as "respiration rate." Compared to most other vegetables, asparagus has a very high respiration rate. At 60 milligrams of carbon dioxide release per hour per 100 grams of food, this rate is five times greater than the rate for onions and potatoes; three times greater than the rate for lettuce and tomato; and twice as great as the rate for cauliflower and avocado. Asparagus' very high respiration rate makes it more perishable than its fellow vegetables, and also much more likely to lose water, wrinkle, and harden. By wrapping the ends of the asparagus in a damp paper or cloth towel, you can help offset asparagus' very high respiration rate during refrigerator storage. Along with this helpful step, you will want to consume asparagus within approximately 48 hours of purchase.
• Wild asparagus (Asparagus racemosus) is a species of asparagus with a long history of use in India and other parts of Asia as a botanical medicine. Many medicinal qualities of wild asparagus have been associated with phytonutrients present in its roots, and especially one type of phytonutrients called saponins. Recent research has shown that the species of asparagus most commonly consumed in the U.S. (Asparagus officinalis) also contains saponins, not only in its root portion put also in its shoots. Saponins found in common, everyday asparagus include asparanin A, sarsasapogenin, and protodioscin. Asparagus even contains small amounts of the diosgenin - one of the best-studied saponins that is especially concentrated in yam. Saponins in food have repeatedly been shown to have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties, and their intake has also been associated with improved blood pressure, improved blood sugar regulation, and better control of blood fat levels.
• You may have heard about two foods — chicory root and Jerusalem artichoke — that are widely recognized as providing health benefits for our digestive tract. These health benefits involve a special area of digestive support called "prebiotics" offered by a compound known as inulin. Both chicory root and Jerusalem artichoke contain rich concentrations of inulin, a unique type of carbohydrate called a polyfructan. Unlike most other carbs, inulin doesn't get broken down in the first segments of our digestive tract. It passes undigested all the way to our large intestine. Once it arrives at our large intestine, it becomes an ideal food source for certain types of bacteria (like Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli) that are associated with better nutrient absorption, lower risk of allergy, and lower risk of colon cancer. Researchers now know that asparagus belongs among the list of foods that contain inulin. While approximately 5% lower in inulin than chicory root and Jerusalem artichoke, asparagus is a food that contains a valuable amount of unique carb and may provide our digestive tract with some equally unique health benefits. 
•  NUTRITIVE VALUES OF WILD ASPARAGUS:
  
  NutrientDRI/DV
  
  
   vitamin K101.2%
  
  
   folate67%
  
  
   copper33.3%
  
  
   vitamin B124.1%
  
  
   selenium19.9%
  
  
   vitamin B219.2%
  
  
   vitamin C18.4%
  
  
   vitamin E18%
  
  
   fiber14.4%
  
  
   manganese14%
  
  
   phosphorus13.8%
  
  
   vitamin B312.1%
  
  
   potassium11.5%
  
  
   choline11%
  
  
   vitamin A10%
  
  
   zinc9.8%
  
  
   iron9.1%
  
  
   protein8.6%
  
  
   vitamin B68.2%
  
  
   pantothenic acid8%
  
  
   magnesium6.3%
  
   calcium4.1%

What is inner ecology

What Is Inner Ecology?

Inner Ecology makes the connections between the inner ecology of the individual human body and the larger planetary ecology, weaving personal health and ecology together.
The word “ecology” comes from the Greek word “oikos”, meaning home or habitation and logie, meaning study of. Ecology is the study of the relationships and interactions between organisms and their environment.

Inner Ecology is the study of the relationships between the organisms and environment within our home habitat, within our bodies.

Every definition of the word ecology defines it in terms of relationships, and this is the key to a whole new way of understanding health and wellness. Throughout this series, we’ll be looking at relationships- both internally, between the internal ecosystems and biological terrains of your body, and externally, between your body and the larger external ecosystems in which you live.

A Healthy Personal Habitat

Through Inner Ecology, we will explore what creates and sustains a healthy, balanced personal habitat. In the process, we will question many old school presumptions. What do we really mean by being in good health? Is health merely the absence of obvious symptoms and disease or is it better described as a state of positive wellness, vitality and functional ability?
Throughout the upcoming months, we’ll be looking at the concepts of Dynamic Balance, Inter-relationship and Sustainability they apply to health and wellness. Understanding the body as a living, breathing ecosystem in a constantly fluctuating, self-regulating state of balance can give us new insights into how to create and sustain health and treat disease.
We’ll be making connections between the way life functions in the natural world and the way our body functions. For example, in the natural world, change the pH balance in a wetlands ecosystem and the whole system will change. Certain organisms will overpopulate, others will die off and the effects ripple throughout the entire system and up the wetlands’ food chain.
The same is true in our bodies. Change the pH in your gastrointestinal tract by eating too much sugar, over-using antibiotics or undergoing heavy stress and the balance of microorganisms are bound to change. Typically, some types, like yeasts and fungi, can overpopulate and crowd out the “good” bacteria (like acidophilus and bifidus). The effects of that simple change can spread throughout your body’s entire ecosystem, like a chain reaction, affecting health in a variety of ways. For example, a yeast or candida overgrowth can compromise immunity, cause exhaustion and fatigue, impair cognitive function (brain fog), alter mood balance and disrupt a woman’s menstrual cycle.
Did you know that there are ten times the number of microorganisms living in your gut than cells in the human body, somewhere around 100 trillion? These organisms live in symbiotic relationship with us and perform a number of important metabolic functions, including: breaking down carbohydrates, enabling us to assimilate vitamins and minerals, and supporting healthy immune activity.
This idea of mutually beneficial symbiotic relationships is important in understanding both the planetary ecosystem and our personal ecosystems. What’s true in the macrocosm of the planet holds true in the microcosm of the body. Healthy vital habitats, whether small or large, arise from a vast web of interconnected, interdependent life forms in symbiotic relationship with one another.

The Thigh Bone’s Connected to the Hip Bone’s and the Hip Bone’s Connected to the…

Conventional medical science has been saddled with the heritage of the 19th century mechanistic, reductionist approach to the human body; viewing it as a machine, reducing it to smaller and smaller separate parts and bio-chemical processes. But increasingly, all biological sciences are switching to an integrative, systems perspective that studies complex layers of inter-relationships.
The growing understanding is that there is really no separate discrete immune system or nervous system or endocrine system. For example, classically the brain is considered the center of the nervous system, but it’s also a major organ of the immune and endocrine systems. The gastrointestinal tract contains 60 – 70 percent of all the immune cells in your body, so we would have to include it as part of the immune system, too. And, since it performs some critical hormone metabolism functions, wouldn’t that make the gastrointestinal tract part of the endocrine system?

You And The Environment Are Not Separate

Our cells are in constant communication, constant interaction with the world around us. They are continuously sending and receiving signals, responding to a never ending flow of messages and information from our inner and outer environment.
And, our mind and emotions are not separate from this communication network. Every thought we think, every emotion we feel, has an electro-chemical expression that floods through the blood stream and signals the cells. These messages can change how cells, tissue groups and organs function, and eventually may even change their shape and form.
Take a moment and think about this: With every breath, each inhale and exhale, you breathe the biosphere into your body and breathe yourself back out into the biosphere.
The truth is, we share the same biosphere and the same bio-chemical basis of life with all living creatures, from single-celled organisms to killer whales. All life on this planet is carbon-based and cellular in nature, and everything is inter-connected and inter-dependent.
We each have a natural right to be here, to be alive, to take our place in the larger environment and community of planetary life. We can collaborate and cooperate; we don’t need to dominate.
The prevalent belief systems that view human beings as superior to and separate from our environment, that imply that we are here to dominate the Earth and everything on it, are proving to have disastrous consequences, not only for the planet, but for each of us personally. We pay a very high price for feeling disconnected from our habitat, our physical home.

The Power Of Connection

Here at Inner Ecology, we want our audience to feel more personally connected to the planet, to feel the relationship between their physical body and the Earth from which it’s made. Awareness is the key to feeling connected. The simple act of paying more attention to your physical sense experience increases the feeling of connection and aliveness. This works on both the macrocosmic and microcosmic levels.
At the microcosmic level are all the internal sensations of your body. If you become more attentive and responsive to your body’s sensory messages about its needs (for fresh whole food, water, rest, exercise, etc.) you can strengthen the built-in feedback loop for wellbeing and vitality.
At the macrocosmic level, getting outside and bringing awareness to the sensory experience of the ground beneath your feet, the sun on your skin, the smell of the trees, the caress of a summer breeze all amplify your feeling of connection.
The more connected with one’s personal inner ecology, the more effective one can be at influencing the global ecology. As a single individual, the desire to have a positive impact on global environmental issues can feel daunting and overwhelming, but you can have a direct impact on the personal environment of your body, to act on your own and see the results. Besides the personal benefits of looking and feeling better, your actions influence others and affect the world around you in a myriad of ways. Small changes can make a big impact.
Take your daily food choices as an example. What are you teaching and modeling your children and family and when you select fresh, whole, local organically grown foods? How might that impact your children’s lifelong food habits and long-term health? What is the difference in your environmental impact between a diet emphasizing locally grown foods versus one based on foods transported from thousands of miles away or that have been highly processed and pre-packaged? What is the impact on local air, soil and water quality of switching to food grown locally without chemical pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers?
It all starts with everyday actions. In this column, we’ll offer practical suggestions for actions you can take to improve your inner ecology, ways to create more connection, vitality and wellbeing. We’ll be covering a wide range of topics, everything from how to re-balance the microorganisms in your gut to helping your body deal with exposure to environmental toxins, from restoring healthy immune function to balancing your hormones.
We can all do something, right here, right now. If we start with our relationship to our inner ecology, each of us has the ability to act on our own, to make changes and to see positive results. This generates a greater sense of personal empowerment and effectiveness, while also benefiting the lives of those around us, and the planet as well.
Most of all, connecting and cooperating with natural ecosystems, whether internal or external, FEELS SO GOOD!
Upcoming topics at Inner Ecology:

• How to Create a Happy and Healthy Ecosystem
• Four Critical Ecosystems for a Healthy Habitat
• Clean Up Your Inner Ecology: No Toxic Waste Dumps!
• It All Starts in the Center – A Happy Gut is the Core of Health
• Immune Confusion: Too Much, Too Little, Lost it’s Way
• Over-Fat and Over-Tired? Time to Regenerate
• Let’s Talk About Sex
• Can We Talk? The Mind-Body Connection and Cell Communication

Eco Filmmaking

Here are some of the movies based on eco matters:

ecoFilmmaking

Starchasers: Death Valley Dreamlapses

Death Valley National Park has one of the darkest night skies in the United States. In Death Valley Dreamlapse 2, Independent filmmaker Gavin Heffernan and his team captured spectacular night skyscapes there, including star trails, an incredible pink desert aurora, and a beautiful milky way pass...

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A FIERCE GREEN FIRE

The Battle for a Living Planet A FIERCE GREEN FIRE: The Battle for a Living Planet is the first big-picture exploration of the environmental movement – grassroots and global activism spanning fifty years from conservation to climate change. Directed and written by Mark Kitchell, Academy-Award...

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Rollin’ Safari Animated Short Films

Rollin’ Safari is a collection of animated shorts, featuring obese, bloated wild animals attempting to grab a bite to eat and relaxing in their natural habitat. The shorts were created  by students of the Institute of Animation, Effects and Digital Postproduction at Filmakademie...

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Allison Argo: Filmmaker, Conservationist

A Filmmaker With a Mission Republished with permission from Izilwane Allison Argo knew she had to do something when she first saw Ivan. He had spent nearly 30 years in solitary confinement in a 14-by-14-foot concrete cell. But he wasn’t in prison. He was in a shopping mall. Ivan was a...

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Landfill Harmonic: Music from Trash

Landfill Harmonic is an upcoming feature-length documentary about a remarkable musical orchestra in Paraguay, where young musicians play instruments made from trash. The film is a Semifinalist in the $200,000 FOCUS FORWARD Filmmaker Competition and is in the running to become the $100,000 Grand...

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Chasing Ice

Now showing in select theaters across America, CHASING ICE has won over 20 awards at film festivals around the world, including: 2012 Sundance Film Festival, Excellence in Cinematography, Documentary; and Best Documentary,  Environmental Media Award, to name a few. CHASING ICE is the story of one...

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Forests for People: UN International Short Film Contest

The United Nations Forum on Forests Secretariat, in association with the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival and leading nature filmmakers worldwide, invites filmmakers world-wide to take part in a first-ever global multimedia initiative, to remind us all how vital forests are. Submissions are...

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Sustainable Gown Graces Titanic Gala

Wearing a gorgeous, sustainable gown by Prophetik, Suzy Amis Cameron, founder of Red Carpet Green Dress, attended the London Premiere of the new 3D version of TITANIC with her husband, director James Cameron. James Cameron and Suzy Amis Cameron attend the world premiere of TITANIC in 3D at Royal...

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more to read on 

 http://www.ecology.com/ecoarts/eco-filmmaking/

SYMBOLIC MEANING OF GREEN

GREEN

Green is the color of nature. It symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility. Green has strong emotional correspondence with safety. Dark green is also commonly associated with money.
Green has great healing power. It is the most restful color for the human eye; it can improve vision. Green suggests stability and endurance. Sometimes green denotes lack of experience; for example, a 'greenhorn' is a novice. In heraldry, green indicates growth and hope. Green, as opposed to red, means safety; it is the color of free passage in road traffic.
Use green to indicate safety when advertising drugs and medical products. Green is directly related to nature, so you can use it to promote 'green' products. Dull, darker green is commonly associated with money, the financial world, banking, and Wall Street.

Dark green is associated with ambition, greed, and jealousy. Yellow-green can indicate sickness, cowardice, discord, and jealousy. Aqua is associated with emotional healing and protection. Olive green is the traditional color of peace.