Welcome to the ezine produced by SGI Buddhists that prompts the positive, kindles the constructive, highlights the hopeful and leaves you feeling - well, up!
Published on Thursday, 07 May 2009 19:00 | | 
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An inspirational figure in the gardening world, Beth Chatto is renowned
for her diverting, instructive books as well as her famous, informal garden in Essex, The Beth Chatto Gardens.
Chatto started the nursery and garden in 1960, on a patch of wasteland that had been part of her husband’s fruit farm.
Undaunted by the poor soil conditions, which ranged from ‘starved gravel to soggy bog’, Beth took her lead from nature and worked with what she had rather than trying to create a garden blueprint. Her ecological approach, which was deeply unfashionable at the time, encouraged a generation of gardeners to work with the prevailing conditions and to explore naturalistic planting.
Published on Thursday, 07 May 2009 04:50 | | |
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I started to practise Nichiren Buddhism in 2001 while on a yoga retreat in Turkey, writes Clea Myers.
The galvanising factor was the generous spirit of my new yoga instructor who had invited me on the retreat in the first place. Her energy was highly attractive and unlike other experiences with yoga groups, her attitude was wholly inclusive, warm and uncompetitive.
One morning over fresh fruit and yoghurt she told me about Nichiren Buddhism. A sense of recognition overwhelmed me because the basic tenets fitted with my own perceptions and beliefs about life.
Published on Monday, 04 May 2009 19:00 | | |
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ESO's Very Large Telescope has shown that a faint gamma-ray burst detected last Thursday is the signature of the explosion of the earliest, most distant known object in the Universe (a redshift of 8.2).
The explosion apparently took place more than 13 billion years ago, only about 600 million years after the Big Bang.
Published on Sunday, 03 May 2009 19:00 | |
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James Kuhn is a Michigan artist - he describes himself as a 'drag queen, former nudist, born again Christian, and average 46-year-old guy' - who uses his own face as his canvas. In March 2008, he began a project to create a new facial design every day for a year. He got the idea after being snowed in for a week.
Published on Friday, 22 May 2009 19:00 | |
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In the West we like to humanise our animals, writes Diane Southam. Cuddly little creatures with human traits and foibles pervade our children’s stories. We take our domestic pets along to beauty parlours and even psychiatrists.
Inuit Eskimos also believe in the existence of an animal-human connection. They claim that animals understand human speech and credit the bear with having a human soul. The similarity, however, ends there.
Published on Saturday, 02 May 2009 19:00 | | |
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As the world panics about swine flu there is surprisingly little talk of the cause of this latest livestock endemic, writes Julia Stephenson.
The infamous Smithfield Foods, a billion pound US food conglomerate, has made its fortune by buying farms in the US, Mexico and around the world, turning them into vast pig factories.
Published on Friday, 01 May 2009 19:00 | |
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In her desire to share
ancient Chinese wisdom with the 21st century, Beijing professor Yu
Dan has updated the works of Confucious
and met with controversy in her homeland.
The Sage advised that ‘the secret of happiness is to find peace within.'
Nothing new there then.