How to Save the World: One Man, One Cow, One Planet is the award winning documentary describing the Gandhi-like efforts of one elderly New Zealand gardener, Peter Proctor, to transform  agriculture in India.

150,000 Indian farmers have taken their lives since the mid-90s as agrichemical giants like Monsanto of America and Syngenta of Switzerland have taken their livelihood. These seed behemoths control the genetically modified seed, effectively removing the ability of 60% of Indian farmers to support their families in the millennia-old traditional ways.

Enter Peter Proctor armed with a bucket and cow manure. One farmer at a time he is giving back hope. Like Peter says, "Unless we have the right food, we can't think properly."

I invite you to view the trailer and purchase the video. You'll be supporting the efforts of a modern day Gandhi, a humble octogenarian who is living the change he wants to see in the world, and coincidently transforming the lives of countless people.

John
http://www.insearchofsimplicity.com/

Here's another Voices From the North interview sure to inspire. John Haines goes in depth with Sun and Light, a couple who have been together for 41 years and who are the co-founders of  Gentle World, the non-profit vegan community based in Hawaii and New Zealand. They speak with reverence for their early days and the reasons they became vegans. They speak with sincerity for a life dedicated not only to seeking the Truth, but to living it. They haven't wanted to protest the things they haven't wanted; they've spent their lives living the changes they want to see in the world.

They describe how they've overcome chronic health problems through their choices, choices founded on the premise that they don't want to support violence in the world; and their excellent health is only a by-product of their vegan lifestyle.

If you're not already a vegan, you'll want to be after listening to this passionate interview. Sun and Light explain how they came to New Zealand and found their incredible rural property called Shangri La. If there is one question that has predicated their choices in life it is, "Is it better?" As I said before, prepare to be inspired.

In this Voices From the North interview John chats with Shelley Rademacher, an accomplished homeopath who outlines how homeopathy works-even looking at the genetic tendencies and sensitivities passed on to each of us by our grandparents. Shelley touches on allergies, the effect of radium (from microwave ovens, television and computers), genetically modified foods, mercury, electrical exposure (electric blankets and more) She provides practical, down-to-earth solutions for everyone.

Other areas discussed are the effects of dairy products on the body, chlorine from swimming pools and drinking water, copper poisoning (including exposure when showering in homes with copper hot water pipes) Shelley focuses much of her talk on how these toxins affect children and how positively they can be treated with homeopathy.

Shelley specializes in the use of environmental antigens to treat chronic symptoms. She warns of the dangers of dioxins in tampons, feminine pads and disposable diapers and notes that dioxin-free diapers and organic feminine products are available. One of John's favourite songs is played, a song called So Much Magnificence.

 

John's special guest on Voices from the North on November 5, 2008 was Terri Stout. Terri describes the shift she made ten years ago from psychiatric nursing to the completion of four years of training to become a registered acupuncturist. She has a saying, ‘Listen to the whispers or get hit by a brick,' because her life is guided by meaningful coincidences. She describes the Chinese medical model which is based on prevention and puts the onus on the individual to take responsibility for their own health. She indicates that it is never too late to begin Tai Chi or Chi Gong. Practitioners may be ill in their 60s when they began and going strong in their 90s.

Acupuncture has been around for between 3,000 and 5,000 years and data is being collected today to show its possible assistance in cases of infertility, of all things. This is interesting, because the Alexander Technique has also been found to assist with fertility.

Terri is much more than an acupuncturist. She is an intuitive and a guide. She gives the example of a man who, through a couple of sessions, decided to completely revamp his life and work. Terri has found that people want to be given permission from someone else like herself to make changes in their lives. And she tends to be the visit of last resort, ‘the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.'

An inspiring example Terri gives is of a lady in her 80s with a motor neuron disease who has lost 21 pounds in weight in 5 weeks of treatment and who now has ‘Betty Grable' ankles. The acupuncture has helped her to release excess fluids from this woman's legs.

Terri describes moxibustion and cupping and gives an example of cupping drawing out accumulated toxins, the residue of old injuries. True healing occurs when symptoms move from inside the body outwards. Terri Stout provides her services on a donation basis or koha. Payment is sometimes given in fish, shellfish, furniture or ketes (Maori flax-woven baskets).

Acupuncture works on all levels-physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. New Zealand national health insurance (ACC) covers acupuncture visits. Terri presents an inspiring viewpoint of the role acupuncture can play in the establishment and maintenance of health and wellbeing. The song midway through the interview is Leonard Cohen's Dance Me to the End of Love.

John
http://www.insearchofsimplicity.com/

 

'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.'

Thomas Jefferson 1802

Deirdre Kent is a founding member of Living Economies http://www.le.org.nz,  a lifelong social and environmental activist, former city councilor and grandmother. She lives with her husband on an organic fruit and nut small holding in Otaki managed by permaculture principles. She's been my most recent guest on Voices from the North.

Deirdre Kent is the author of Healthy Money, Healthy Planet: Developing Sustainability through New Money Systems, that was published in 2005.

She claims our current financial crisis is not about toxic financial products or bad debts. We need to ask the more fundamental questions about how money is created in the first place. Why does every economist and politician claim we have to have economic growth? Deirdre has been crying out in the wilderness for a long time and the current domino effect of money problems around the world has been an unavoidable scenario in an unsustainable system based on constant growth of money and goods.

Deirdre mentions a book she's reading called The Creature from Jekyll Island. Put simply, this may be the most important book on world affairs you will ever read. It describes the formation of the Federal Reserve system at a conspiratorial meeting that took place on Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia in 1910. This highly secretive meeting marked the beginning of the complete takeover of the US government by powerful private bankers.

Deirdre explains why our current ailing system is dependent on continuous growth, which is, of course, not sustainable on a finite planet with finite resources. The current fractional reserve of banks is 70 to 1. That means there is only $1 backing every $70 in circulation. Does that sound prudent and safe to you? America stopped publicizing their money supply (the M3) a few years ago. Private banks determine the money supply, Deirdre states that politicians are very small players.Under the current intentionally flawed system, money flows from the poor to the rich in every instance. The interest we truly pay is built into the purchase price of everything we buy because a manufacturer borrows money to make the goods in the first place.

There are solutions. Deirdre suggests creating social bonds in your own local community and developing strong and vibrant community trading schemes, local currencies and barter systems. Green dollar systems sprang up in 1987 and some, as in Golden Bay on New Zealand's South Island and the Wairarapa on the North Island, are still going strong.  New examples are springing up all the time like the local currency on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. The success of these systems is based on trust and relationships. Deirdre suggests strongly that we need an organic model for international finance with an ethical base. She speaks about an example of a Time Bank system in Lyttleton and the positive possibilities of this sort of system in helping the sick and the elderly through more equitable ratios of job/work value.

The interview closes with a discussion about the enormous value of social networking. John mentions http://www.gaia.com/ at this time. Anyone anywhere can create a social network for free today using software like that from http://www.ning.com/.

Visit Living economies at http://www.le.org.nz/ to order Deirdre Kent's book, Healthy Money, Healthy Planet. Click here for the interview.

I just received an email today (June 20, 2009) with a link that is exremely relevant to the words above. Financial debt is the most subtle form of conquest and it is what we are dealing with today. Check this out:
http://www.justiceplus.org:80/bankers.htm

You can't solve a problem if you don't know its source.

John www.insearchofsimplicity.com

 

About ten years ago I received a vision, in the form of a waking dream. Receiving visions isn't something that happens to me every day so I made note of it and shared the idea with my family. I then let the vision rest because I didn't know what to do with it. Today I feel it's time to resurrect it, to share it more broadly.

A dear friend of mine is wont to say, "A dream experienced and kept to yourself is just a dream. A dream shared becomes a reality. May this dream, what I call Paths for Peace, with your assistance, become reality.

The vision I received was of a world webbed with an intricate network of walking tracks, where every village and town was connected with paths. These paths were lined with trees, often of fruit and nut varieties, to provide shade for walkers and food in appropriate seasons. I saw people of all ages walking these paths, often singing songs of peace. I saw this vast network of tracks contributing largely to making the world a more peaceful place. Hence the name-Paths for Peace.

In 2002 my family visited Canada. We had the privilege of observing a ceremony in which my father and many others were honored-with portions of the Trans Canada Trail being dedicated to them. Like the famous song, this enormous trail runs from coast to coast, sometimes on pathways, often on back roads. The Trans Canada Trail is a 21,500-kilometre recreational trail winding its way through every province and territory, from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic. We walked a part of the trail on an abandoned railway line through a small town.

More recently, I had the privilege on Voices from the North of interviewing Peter Griffiths, part of a team of people determined to link the length of New Zealand in one continuous trail. The project is called Te Araroa (meaning ‘The Long Pathway')Trust and its aim is to connect existing walking tracks, sometimes of necessity using roadways, from North Cape at the top of the North Island to Bluff at the bottom of the South Island.

America already contains vast walking tracks, not the least of which is the Pacific Crest Trail in the West and its sister in the East, the Appalachian Trail.

I find it heartening that the vision I recived in 1998 has obviously been embraced coincidently by many others. The seeds of our collective consciousness have obviously been sown.

I'll be writing further in the next while on this theme. In the meantime I'd love to hear of any of your experiences with new or existing walking trails that are contributing to our physical world in ways similar to what the internet in general and http://www.gaia.com/ in particular are contributing to our cyber world.

 

Ray Woolf has been in the music business for between 46 and 50 years, depending on when you begin counting. He speaks of his early days in England where he lived until he was 17. Early inspirations for him included sciffle music, Frank Sinatra and Elvis. For those of you that don't know (and I must admit that I didn't) sciffle music was the first mainstream music said to come from England and was a mixture of country and blues.

Ray Woolf sang pop rock music in the 60s and 70s. Ray was awarded the Entertainer of the Year Award in 1975, best T.V. light entertainer awards in 1977, 1978, 1979, and 1980 and the variety artists' BENNY Award in October, 2008. Ray also received recognition of his services to entertainment by way of a Queen's service medal in the New Year of 2008.

The music we spotlight during our Voices from the North interview represents a return for Ray to the Frank Sinatra-type American standards that he grew up with. Frankly, I think he sounds a lot like Sammy Davis Junior. Most of the songs are backed up by the very talented Rodger Fox Big Band, a group of young performers, mostly from Auckland.

Speaking of Sammy Davis Junior, Ray and John talk about Sammy and his extremely inspiring book Yes I Can. Sammy Davis paved the way for young black entertainers that followed and even Barrack Obama's success today.

Ray speaks of his experience with Type One diabetes, which he has had to deal with for 20 years. A lot of his charity work is related to diabetes as well Star Jam for handicapped folks. Ray and his wife grow a lot of their own food, organically. He strongly advises anyone getting going on their own garden. I find it refreshing to hear this well known character speaking so passionately about growing their own food. The diabetes has forced Ray to make a lot of changes. He's not a vegetarian but he sometimes goes a long time without meat. He stopped smoking and dramatically reduced his drinking. He's 64 today, looking great and still going strong.

The songs featured include Where or When, Goody Goody, The Day My Heart Caught Fire (first time ever played on the radio), Birth of the Blues and Feel So Young.

Ray's advice for a young person wanting to break into the business-really want it. Don't let anything stop you. He has learned to never say no to opportunities. You don't know what can come out of experiences. The things that come along unexpectedly can represent defining moments in your life. Ray is a passionate man and really likes the breadth of music that is available today.

 

 

I'm excited to announce that my book,

 In Search of Simplicity: A True Story that Changes Lives, is now available.

In Search of Simplicity is the true, exciting and serendipitous story of my journey through the wilds of Papua New Guinea, the Himalayas, around the planet and into the heart of life guaranteed to change the way you see the world. As part of the final edit I read the entire book out loud to my best friend and partner, Lucia, and she never fell asleep once!

In all seriousness, she and I both felt the energy in the book; and we know the story.

Click here to listen to an audio trailer as I speak for
just under 3 minutes on my adventures in
In Search of Simplicity.

 

In Search of Simplicity offers a gateway into a world in which your deepest dreams and wishes are fulfilled, even before you are aware of them, a gateway into that place of simplicity where you stop struggling and trying to make it happen and simply allow it to happen.

When you're in the right place, doing just what you want to do, and genuinely enjoying it, the Universe bends over backwards to ensure your success.

For more information and to read sample chapters navigate to http://www.insearchofsimplicity.com/

To purchase the book go to Amazon here.

 It's a 405 page trade paperback.