Earth Charter Israel

This concludes this discussion on environmental education. Thanks for joining us! We will begin our discussion of how to build community on Thursday, July 5th. See you then!

הערות סיום:

הדיון הבא שלנו יתחיל ביום ה', ה-5 ביוני.
הנושא הוא: מעגל הנשים ולימוד בניית קהילה יחד.

Stephanie

At the Jerusalem ECI Group Elyahu Holley shared about Findhorn, a community, who like the shamen in our article, also listens to nature reaps wonderful and sustainable food despite the lack of arable land, in Scotland.

Here is the history of Findhorn and the website is www.findhorn.org

The Findhorn Community was begun in 1962 by Peter and Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean. All three had followed disciplined spiritual paths for many years. They first came to northeast Scotland in 1957 to manage the Cluny Hill Hotel in the town of Forres, which they did remarkably successfully. Eileen received guidance in her meditations from an inner divine source she called ‘the still small voice within’ and Peter ran the hotel according to this guidance and his own intuition. In this unorthodox way - and with many delightful and unlikely incidents - Cluny Hill swiftly became a thriving and successful four-star hotel. After several years however, Peter and Eileen's employment was terminated, and with nowhere to go and little money, they moved with their three young sons and Dorothy to a caravan in the nearby seaside village of Findhorn.

Feeding six people on unemployment benefit was difficult, so Peter decided to start growing vegetables. The land in the caravan park was sandy and dry but he persevered. Dorothy discovered she was able to intuitively contact the overlighting spirits of plants - which she called angels, and then devas - who gave her instructions on how to make the most of their fledgling garden. She and Peter translated this guidance into action, and with amazing results. From the barren sandy soil of the Findhorn Bay Caravan Park grew huge plants, herbs and flowers of dozens of kinds, most famously the now-legendary 40-pound cabbages. Word spread, horticultural experts came and were stunned, and the garden at Findhorn became famous.

Stephanie

Pnina
Hello everyone, I want to share my thoughts and experience about education and nature. I used to work for 35 years as a seniour kindergarten teacher in Israel. Tha most important teaching from my experience - is through personal example.We had projects who delt with the environment , nature, animals etc.but children like addults as well(some times),need to practice what they have learned in every-day's life, so I (being a great lover of nature ), built a wonderful garden arround the kinderarden's building, and everyday we had kids going out watering the flowers we planted, taking care of the little animals we had around us, helping the cats with food and water, looking at the trees which where growing in our yard, and through personal experience, these young children learned to keep a clean environment, taking care of animals arround us,cherishing the flowers and not letting anybody touch them or harm them. They used to come home and teach their parents about their environment and the ways to uphold it in a good condition, I was so proud to hear from my student's parents, that their children are actually living the project we had learned at class. As time passed, more and more parents approached me asking to help with this wonderful project, as they realized how important it became to their children, so we had weekly parents, comming with new plants for our garden, helping the children plant new greeneries and flowers, by the end of the year we had the most beautifull garden in Herzelia(the town in Israel where I live).A Buddhist philosopher once said: it takes only one person to change the world!!! Everything starts with us, our personal behaviour, personal example to our familly, friends , place of work, country etc. My dream was always, to live in a house with a garden arround me, my circumstances brought me to live in a town, so I created my own garden right in my living room, full of plants and trees, flowers, all around me and we have a beautifull cat called:Lotus, which gives us so much joy and loughter, and the atmospher at home is so good because of all these plants and trees, it is as if we sit in a garden.So, there are many ways to teach the younger generation the conectiness with nature and anumals and be in harmony with our surrounding.
Pnina

I would like to know what is an "indigenous person" in today's globalized world? I was a four generation Scotsman. My family fought for the British army in a Scots battalion in the trenches in the First World War (1914-1918) I love the poetry of Robert Burns (1759-96) who most Scots agree was the greatest Scottish poet that ever lived, a humanist (A Man's a Man for A' That), a drunk, and a womaniser. But my family never lived in Scotland in the 18th century - I've no idea where we lived. So I guess I was never "indigenous."

Could "indigenous" just be a anthropologist term for peasant? If so I feel blessed that we are not living in a world full of "indigenous people" however knowledgeable some might be. Most scientists today feel that humanity (homo sapiens) started somewhere in or near Ethiopia - so all the people of the world today are actually "immigrants" one way or another. And I'll drink to that!
-leslie

أنا الاخرى أرى أنه مهم جدا التواصل مع الطبيعة أو أستطيع أن أسميها الأرض الأم التي تحضن الكل بين يديها
أننا دأيما بحاجة إلى الأرض كما أن الارض بحاجة لنا لكي نعتني بها كما يجب
وهذا يقول ويفسر اننا يجب أن نحافظ على البيئة المحيطة بنا ولنكن صارحين مع بعض على كل شخص البداية من مكانه
ثم التوجة إلى نطاق اوسع من المكان الموجود هو فيه أو هي ذكر في المقال أنه يوجد تبادل فوائد أو أستطيع أن أقول أنه توجد
دورة حياة مشتركة بين الارض والأنسان وبنو البشروالكائنات الحية الأخرى وهي مكملة لبعضها البعض .

The Women's Circle, a Tel Aviv area monthly program that concentrates on building community together, talked about environmental education and community building a few nights ago. We said that in the past it was the women who passed down values to children, including care for the environment, taking only what you need, taking care of others and respect for nature. In today's world where schools and the media also participate in educating the young, it is not so easy today to get the attention of the young. That building a sense of community and caring for the environment is a lot about self-mastery -- taking responsibility for yourself and leading by personal example to help others do the same.

Stephanie