As we wind down in 2008 and prepare for the new year ahead, it gives us the opportunity to look at our accomplishments throughout the year. As we live and grow, we learn much from our percieved mistakes, and try to put into perspective that which we have learned. As a person I have grown much in this past year, and I can honestly say there is more positive than negative in my Life.

One of my most passionate goals is to help protect this Earth and her inhabitants. As such I am happy to say that throughout this year one of my favourite champions of this cause, Defenders of Wildlife, has helped stop planned wolf hunts in Greater Yellowstone, secured protections for America’s vanishing polar bears under the Endangered Species Act, saved imperiled wolverines from trapping plans and won dozens more victories for our wildlife. Although there is still much to do in preserving our wild places and we have a long way to go in ensuring protection for all the wild creatures who roam this planet alongside us, I do believe we have a good chance of success. For this, I would like to extend a warm thank you to all who have helped in this important and worthy cause. Without all of you, it would not have been possible to do as much as we have thus far.

A Dangerous time for Wolves

We still have a great battle ahead of us, and it is especially alarming to note that Sarah Palin is planning what could be the bloodiest aerial wolf killing season yet in Alaska.

Already this winter, aerial gunners in Alaska have slaughtered at least 47 wolves. More wolves were killed this past November than in any November in the past five years. And, under Governor Palin’s out-of-control wolf-killing program, nearly 600 more wolves could die before this year’s season is finished.

Wolves are dying right now, and we need your help to stop the killing!!

Please let the start of 2009 be a positive move in the right direction. With new leadership in Washington and unprecedented awareness about Governor’s Palin’s senseless killing programs, we’re now in a better position to stop this terrible, needless practice and save wolves.

With the support of fellow Earth and animal lovers we can…

* Forcefully oppose efforts by Governor Palin and her Board of Game to arbitrarily kill even more wolves just to boost game populations for out-of-state hunting interests

* Shine the national spotlight on Governor Palin’s brutal wolf-killing programs and pressure her to end them

* Work with the incoming Obama/Biden Administration to close the loophole in the Federal Airborne Hunting Act that Governor Palin is exploiting to continue Alaska’s unfounded aerial wolf killing programs

* Build support in Congress for the reintroduction and passage of the Protect America’s Wildlife Act (PAW), federal legislation to end aerial killing of wolves once and for all.

With your help, I know we can succeed. Together, we were able to stop Governor Palin’s ghastly $150 bounty for the severed paws of slaughtered wolves, block Palin’s stealth campaign to stifle the voice of Alaska’s citizens on wildlife issues and spotlight Palin’s support for aerial killing and other anti-wildlife policies in the national media.

And, with the help of caring people like you, Defender’s sister organization Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund was able to help stop Palin from becoming our next Vice President and spreading her anti-wildlife politics across the country.

We can win, but we can’t do it without the help of loyal supporters like you. Please make a tax-deductible contribution of whatever you can today to help us save wolves. This is a Gift of Life in which we can all take part in.

Here’s to hoping 2009 is a Healthy, Prosperous, and Happy New Year. Let that which you do count for something, creating a positive present and future for all of us. May each of you be blessed with the fruits of Life, with many true friends to help Light your Path.

Teri
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I love walking barefoot as often as possible. And when I gather energy with Qigong, I practice outside in my bare feet. When we are at our Sundance ceremony we enter the shade arbor which surrounds the Tree, either in our bare feet or in natural leather moccasins, so we can connect to and feel the Earth’s energy as we sing and pray for the Earth and the People. It is no small wonder that indigenous people are so in tune with the Earth and the animals, as they understand how to utilize nature to be as one with their surroundings.

Little did I realize that wearing shoes with rubber soles contributes to the illnesses which plaque our bodies. Instinctively I have always understood how to connect with the Earth and her wonderful healing and protective energy, and this is perhaps one of the reasons I am so healthy. I truly must touch the Earth with my feet, or with my hands in my love of growing things. Have you ever wondered why you feel so good after soaking your feet in a cool stream or playing out in nature? I am always soothed after a walk through the woods, and generally we take our shoes off every chance we get.

You may wish to check out the following video to learn the shocking truth about how we are closing out the powerfully protective and healing energies of the Earth, just by putting on our shoes every time we go outside…

You may wish to take off your shoes and join the healthy people who know how to harness the power of the Earth and the energy which abounds all around us. Take a look at Eight Simple Qigong Exercises For Health – The Eight (8) Pieces of Brocade (YMAA) DVD

Please consider making a donation to help save Utah’s Redrock wilderness before it is too late! Time is running out, and the Bush-Cheney Administration is pushing through the auction of our precious wildlands to the highest oil bidder. This is serious business, and we need to stand up and let them know we won’t allow them to spoil our land.

Here is the latest news from Robert Redford, who is taking this to the courtroom to fight to keep our lands free and beautiful…

Why is it that we have such a sneaky and conniving President? One would think that our President would have the greater good of the planet, as well as the people in mind when making important and far reaching decisions. To rape and plunder the Earth is a crime beyond belief, and I feel quite strongly about our wild and natural places enough to declare my outrage in hearing about the Bush administrations latest travesty against nature. I firmly believe we have at our disposal the intelligence and scientific data that can give us a solution to our supposed fuel issues, which will keep nature in balance and free from pollution and destruction.

Phew! Here I am again feeling like I am running against the wind, and I am quite distressed at the lack of intelligence and foresight our President and his administration present in their crimes against nature, and the people they are supposed to take care of. Well I will not turn a blind eye, and I do feel it is all of our responsibility to steward this planet with compassion, wisdom and common sense. We can survive without turning the world upside down, and greed just begets greed, no matter how you look at it. These people who think to reshape this planet and harvest all of her resources will be gone soon enough, and what will be left? I do care what our planet becomes, as well as loving all the beautiful wild places that this Earth has for us to enjoy.

I wanted to share a message from a fellow Earth lover, and I did not want to take away from the original content as written by Robert Redford. Please read the following and add your voice in objection if you feel as so many do about this underhanded tactic…

Dear Teri,

No one voted on Election Day to hand over Utah’s Redrock wilderness to oil companies.

But the Bush Administration cynically chose that very day to advance an outrageous plan that will sell off leases for some 300,000 acres of spectacular Utah canyonlands to oil and gas speculators.

While America was voting for Barack Obama and his vision of a clean energy future, Bush and Cheney’s underlings were conspiring to plunder one of the crown jewels of our natural heritage for their fossil fuel cronies.

Please register your own opposition right now.

The auction of Redrock country will take place on December 19. At stake are world-renowned vistas near Canyonlands and Arches National Parks, as well as near Dinosaur National Monument. The highest bidders will earn the right to turn vast tracts of pristine wilderness into industrial wastelands.

It’s bad enough that Bush officials went behind the backs of the American people with this disastrous scheme. But what’s worse, they didn’t even tell their own National Park Service until after the fact.

In my mind, this theft of our heritage goes beyond the cynical — it’s criminal. What will be left to give to our children and their children if we allow this administration, in a parting shot, to destroy our legacy of public lands for short-term gain?

I hope you’re as angry as I am about this blatant land grab, because we’ve got to stop it — and we have to act fast. The NRDC Action Fund is mobilizing more than one million Americans in an outpouring of protest over the coming days.

Send your own message of opposition immediately. Tell the Bush Administration that you will not allow it to destroy one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

We’ll automatically send copies of your message to your two senators, your representative and to the Obama transition team, which has signaled their opposition to this disastrous attack on our Redrock heritage.

The Bush Administration is racing to complete the auction of our lands before Inauguration Day, which will make sales difficult to reverse.

We must fend off this land grab now — before the oil and gas companies can lay claim to the spoils.

Those spoils include stretches of Desolation Canyon, which has been proposed for national park status. Bush’s own Interior Department describes the canyon as “a place where a visitor can experience true solitude — where the forces of nature continue to shape the colorful, rugged landscape.”

The very idea of oil and gas operations invading these remote sanctuaries — which have remained untouched for millennia — is deeply upsetting. Once the dirty deed is done, our wilderness can never be restored. That’s why I’m asking you to help us sound the alarm and organize now.

Tell the Bush Administration to cancel the Redrock auction. Remind them that we the people are the rightful owners of this majestic wilderness and that we won’t stand for its destruction.

And thank you for joining with me and the NRDC Action Fund to save these beautiful wildlands for all future generations.

Sincerely,

Robert Redford
NRDC Action Fund

P.S. After you send your own message of protest, I’ll let you know of an easy way to spread the word to your friends and family. With only 10 days to mobilize one million Americans, I’m counting on you to rally everyone you know to speak out and save this precious wilderness from destruction.

As of its release in early 2007, Planet Earth is quite simply the greatest nature/wildlife series ever produced. Following the similarly monumental achievement of Blue Planet: Seas of Life, this astonishing 11-part BBC series is brilliantly narrated by Sir David Attenborough and sensibly organized so that each 50-minute episode covers a specific geographical region and/or wildlife habitat (mountains, caves, deserts, shallow seas, seasonal forests, etc.) until the entire planet has been magnificently represented by the most astonishing sights and sounds you’ll ever experience from the comforts of home.

You will find some absolutely stunning shots of this planet, and all the wonders our beautiful Earth has to offer. I would highly recommend this for anyones collection, and what a wonderful gift it would make for the nature lovers in your life! I have not personally viewed all of these DVD’s as of yet, but I am definately putting them on my wish list, and if my wish is not granted, well then I will get them anyway! LOL

The premiere episode, “From Pole to Pole,” serves as a primer for things to come, placing the entire series in proper context and giving a general overview of what to expect from each individual episode. Without being overtly political, the series maintains a consistent and subtle emphasis on the urgent need for ongoing conservation, best illustrated by the plight of polar bears whose very behavior is changing (to accommodate life-threatening changes in their fast-melting habitat) in the wake of global warming–a phenomenon that this series appropriately presents as scientific fact. With this harsh reality as subtext, the series proceeds to accentuate the positive, delivering a seemingly endless variety of natural wonders, from the spectacular mating displays of New Guinea’s various birds of paradise to a rare encounter with Siberia’s nearly-extinct Amur Leopards, of which only 30 remain in the wild.

That’s just a hint of the marvels on display. Accompanied by majestic orchestral scores by George Fenton, every episode is packed with images so beautiful or so forcefully impressive (and so perfectly photographed by the BBC’s tenacious high-definition camera crews) that you’ll be rendered speechless by the splendor of it all. You’ll see a seal struggling to out-maneuver a Great White Shark; swimming macaques in the Ganges delta; massive flocks of snow geese numbering in the hundreds of thousands; an awesome night-vision sequence of lions attacking an elephant; the Colugo (or “flying lemur”–not really a lemur!) of the Philippines; a hunting alliance of fish and snakes on Indonesia’s magnificent coral reef; the bioluminescent “vampire squid” of the deep oceans… these are just a few of countless highlights, masterfully filmed from every conceivable angle, with frequent use of super-slow-motion and amazing motion-controlled time-lapse cinematography, and narrated by Attenborough with his trademark combination of observational wit and informative authority.

The result is a hugely entertaining series that doesn’t flinch from the predatory realities of nature (death is a constant presence, without being off-putting), and each episode ends with 10-minute “Planet Earth Diaries” (exclusive to this DVD set) that cover a specific aspect of production, like “Diving with Pirahnas” or “Into the Abyss” (the latter showing the rigors of filming the planet’s most spectacular caves, including the last filming ever officially permitted in the “Chandelier Ballroom,” a crystal-encrusted cavern found over a mile deep in New Mexico’s treacherous Lechuguilla, the deepest cave in the continental United States.)

With so many of Earth’s natural wonders on display, it’s only fitting that the final DVD in this five-disc set is devoted to Planet Earth: The Future, a separate three-part series in which a global array of experts is assembled to discuss issues of conservation, protection of delicate ecosystems, and the socio-economic benefits of understanding nature as a commodity that returns trillions of dollars in value at no cost to Earth’s human population.

At a time when the multiple threats of global warming should be obvious to all, let’s give Sir David the last word, from the closing of Planet Earth’s final episode: “We can now destroy or we can cherish–the choice is ours.” –Jeff Shannon

Interested in the complete collection… Planet Earth & The Blue Planet Seas of Life (Special Collector’s Edition)

You may also wish to check out The BBC High Definition Natural History Collection (Planet Earth / Wild China / Galapagos / Ganges) [Blu-ray]

This is not an easy or comfortable subject to talk about. AIDS brings much suffering to those who have the disease, and to those who love the victims of this dreaded epidemic. Together, we can prevent the spread of this pandemic – through awareness, care, prevention, education and research. Although just the thought of catching AIDS brings about fear, many are not even aware of the consequences, and know very little about it. People are afraid to talk about it, so they like to pretend it doesn’t exist if it doesn’t affect them personally. This is a dangerous way to think, as it affects us all, and educating ourself and our loved ones is more important than most people realize.

HIV/AIDS has been a global epidemic for more than 27 years. Most of today’s youth have never known a world without it. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently published national HIV incidence (new infections) that showed much higher numbers than previous estimates. Being aware of the risks and dangers are just the first step in prevention of this deadly disease.

There are several ways to spread the word, and learn how best to educate ourselves and our young teenagers, as well as support groups to cope with the disease as well as for those who have suffered the loss of friends and family. You can visit the AIDS.GOV Blog to learn more about activities, and ways that you can participate and help raise awareness.

You can also join Bloggers Unite and either blog about this and other humanitarian efforts, or place a badge on your own site. Here you will also find many resources and links to AIDS awareness and help sites.

You may also like to visit Learn the Link to see some examples of how drug use and abuse can lead to unwise choices, and how it affects our ability to make good decisions. Learn the link between drug abuse and the spread of HIV in the United States. Here you can connect with those who have been affected by AIDS, and wish to offer support to others in similar situations. You are never alone, and if you are a teen, young adult, or even older adult, it is good to know there are others willing to reach out to help you.