For Writers and Artists - Your Demons

I'm reading a book called Writing Down the Bones, which was a gift from a friend who supports my writing endeavors.  Author Natalie Goldberg says, "If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.  Besides, those voices are merely guardians and demons protecting the real treasure, the first thoughts of the mind."

I'm going to keep this short.

We all have demons, but if you remember the ancient cathedrals of the middle ages, you'll know that the ugly, demented gargoyles were meant to protect the sacred from evil spirits.

Our ugly, demented thoughts may be willing to serve a similar purpose, guarding what's sacred inside us.  Rather than allowing those thoughts to defeat us, perhaps we can face them and befriend them.  Since they're inside our heads, maybe their real purpose is to protect us from darker, evil forces outside us. 

We can think of them as guardians, gatekeepers of our tender emotions.

DEMON (inner voice): I'm worthless.  I don't deserve to live.

MASTER (you): This is not true.  You're supposed to protect me, not scare me.

To put it another way, think of Fluffy, the 3-headed dog in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  Fluffy was huge and scary!  But Fluffy's job was to protect the treasure from Voldemort. 

Our Fight or Flight system is one part Fluffy.  Taking ownership and responsibility over our inner Fluffy means Fluffy can guard us in our most vulnerable moments.  Inner Fluffy is wild and untamed and doesn't recognize who's boss.  So we have to learn how to train her so she attacks enemies, and not us.  And all will be well in our heads.

Make someone else's day magical!
Mackenzie

RANDOM THOUGHT - Visual imagery to overcome fear

Get some place quiet, close your eyes and imagine yourself as a little kid, the littler the better.  You're in your pajamas with your favorite bedtime toy and standing in a valley.

There is nowhere to hide.

Think of a fear that's holding you back.

Now, imagine how big that fear is.  Estimate each unit of energy of that fear as a man.  How many men equals the power of your fear?

Now, put every man on a horse.  Is it a 100 men, or a million men on horseback?

(c) Getty Images

Hear those men on horse thundering towards you in your pajamas.  They stop at the crest of a hill and you're trembling.

One man gets off his horse and approaches you. 

You say, "Why are you always chasing me?  You're scaring me!"

He says, "You don't have to be scared of us.  We're your cavalry.  We've been trying to tell you that you're our Queen/King.  We'll take you anywhere you want to go.  Where would you like us to take you?"

This is owning your power.  

That energy you've been scared of is inside you.  It's YOUR energy.

All this time, you've been devoting your own energy into scaring the living shit out of yourself, when all you need to do is take full possession of it and direct it outwards.  Lead that energy, YOUR energy, outwards to conquer and have what you want in life.

The Anti-Politics Post

I'm so sick and disgusted by American politics, it's hard to even put it into words, which is a problem for a blogger.  Today, God bless today, I was turned on to a possible solution that mitigates political mudslinging during campaigns and has little regard for a 2-party system.

Do I have anyone's attention?  If you consider yourself a decent, upstanding citizen, then I have a feeling that you're just as disgusted by the Red State vs. Blue State sham!

There are 7 political parties besides Republican and Democrat in the State of Florida.  SEVEN!!!  And they are shut out of the primaries.  When the general election rolls around, nobody has any idea who these candidates are and they're ignored by mainstream media.  This is wrong!  They could be real game changers because people might get behind them if our elections were fair.

What if I told you there was a voting system in existence that:

• Reduces political mudslinging
• Encourages candidates to focus on the issues of the majority of the whole body of voters
• Already accounts for run-offs without demanding voters to go to the polls again
• Decentivizes candidates from attacking their opponents' character
• Fosters moderation and civility
• Leads to winners who are not repulsive to half the voters

Do you think I'm making this up?  

This system has been in place in #Australia for over a century.  #NewZealand and #Ireland use it too.  #SanFrancisco and #Minneapolis have it in place and the voters find the system easy to use and that it produces better elections with better qualified candidates.

I am not making this up.

It's called RCV, short for Ranked Choice Voting.  When there are only two candidates, it works the same as voting does now.  Its magic really shines when there are more than two candidates for a position in office.  Voters get three columns and rank their 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice.  If there is no clear majority winner, the system filters out the candidate who got the least votes, and then filters for 2nd choice candidates until a clear majority winner is chosen.

NO RUN-OFF ELECTION NEEDED.  
This saves voters time and effort and gas and lost work.

Here's more info on the fairvote.org site.  Be sure to check out the video clips of Minneapolis voters who used the RCV system.  So easy!  So positive!

Clearly, #Sarasota, I'd LOVE to hear from you.  If South Florida gets on board, the local governments can function for the people again and we'll keep growing upwards from there!

I'm so excited about the prospects of this system!!!

Make someone else's day magical!
Mackenzie

Be sure to hit the BLUE FOLLOW BUTTON near the upper right corner of the desktop version.

#RCV
#RankedChoiceVoting
#Australia
#NewZealand
#Ireland
#SanFrancisco
#Minneapolis
#Sarasota
#FairElections
#Advocacy

MEDICAL MARIJUANA - A Lobbyist for the PEOPLE

Florida voted overwhelmingly in favor of legalizing medical marijuana, but somehow Tallahassee has been dragging their feet on making it happen.

If you're one of the 72% who voted in favor of legalizing medical marijuana, you definitely need to vote FOR NICOLE FRIED for Florida's Agriculture Commissioner.

During the 2016 Legislative Session, Nicole Fried played an integral role in the passage of HB 307, relating to the usage of medical marijuana for those who are terminally ill.

Listen to an interview from a business perspective on the medical marijuana industry in Florida.
http://friedonbusiness.com/nicole-fried-medical-marijuana-in-florida-2/


Palm Beach asked Ms. Fried some questions and compared her answers to her opponents'.
https://apps.mypalmbeachpost.com/kycp2018/candidate/nikki-fried.html


Nicole speaking in Orlando about her advocacy for individuals, explaining the scope of power of the Department of Agriculture, and discussing the burdens that the state government has imposed on medical marijuana consumers and medical doctors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2hAeUP75U4

PERSONAL ESSAY - Letting the Diagnosis Sink In

Letting the Diagnosis Sink In
By "Anonymous"

One diagnosis didn’t convince me I had a mental illness.  I cherry-picked which diagnoses I’d accepted as mine and discarded the others like spoiled fruit. The first time, I thought I’d had a spiritual revelation.  The second time, I dismissed everyone around me as conspirators. The third time, the reports of my violent behavior skimmed the surface of my mind, as if they were fantasy stories about someone else. The fourth time, when my behavior threatened my employment at my dream job, I began to let it all sink in.  It forced me to stop distorting the reflection in my mirror. I’d believed my mind was my greatest asset and strongest defense, but it had turned on me and become my most formidable opponent. Could I outwit my demon and return to robust mental health?

It Came Out of Nowhere

My first manic episode happened in 2007, but I had no useful knowledge of mental illness in order to understand what was happening to my mind.  The attention from doctors and nurses was nothing more than a signal that I needed rest. Taking antidepressants was fine, as long as the condition was temporary.  The professionals weren’t sure how long I’d need to take medication, and it all seemed perfectly logical since I’d endured the trauma of my father’s death. But I hadn’t endured.  I’d collapsed. Without acceptance, I stayed collapsed.

The psychiatric staff gave me both physical and mental exercises to do to regain my functionality and I did them, temporarily.  I went a couple years off medications before another manic episode overtook me. That time, I refused to acknowledge anything I’d said or done was off.  My third manic episode let out rage but my conscious awareness was so sketchy that I didn’t know the full range of what I was doing or whom I was hurting.  The aftermath scared me, but it was all so confusing. I couldn’t believe I was capable of such violence against a person I loved. Denial shielded me from feeling shame.

Acceptance One - I Needed Meds

Through it all, I journaled, determined to deepen my level of self-awareness.  I also began seeing my medications as saviors. If I took them, I could stay out of the psychiatric ward.  I accepted that my condition was not a series of one-offs, but that I had slipped through a one-way door, never to return to normal-without-meds again.  That lasted for a couple years, until I was seduced by the futile hope that my meds were having no effect, and being without symptoms must have surely been proof that my meds no longer had a useful purpose.  I was wrong.

The offer of work at a prestigious spa with a storied past was the manifestation of a dream that I had pursued for two years.  I’d gone off my meds one August, started work in September, but by the end of December I was psychotic, loosely tethered to reality.  It’s kind of like being a hot air balloon that has a hole. I float up dreamily while the pinprick yawns into a gaping hole, and I fall towards an inevitable crash.  No amount of self-delusion can overcome gravity.

Final Acceptance

In the aftermath of that fateful day at Dream Job, the realization spreading in my perception was that I needed to shoulder some burden of responsibility for my state of mind.  I could no longer pretend Bipolar was a foreign language that I didn’t need to learn. I had to take charge of the totality of my health. If nothing else, I needed to be more involved in my own wellbeing.  The rivers of creativity and madness in my brain needed a valve regulator and that regulator was made of Risperdal and Cogentin.

While I believe my mental health practitioner needs to spend more time staying current and well-informed on the side effects of my prescriptions, I have my own access to the internet, and I’m not bad at vetting sources for reliability.  I’m now on low dose Abilify and don’t take normalcy for granted.

In the midst of it all, I’ve had to admit I have a voice and a good command of the English language, so I have no excuse for not writing it out.  With my meds as one link in my armor, I can face the daily challenges of life and regain trust in my mind and perceptions and senses. By taking my journey online, I’ve connected to a worldwide tribe who share their trials and strengths.  I’ve opened up to my cousin, who’s a good writer. She’s always wanted to write a book and my life was “great source material”.

The next links I’ll add to my armor are nutrition conducive to healthy mental states and daily exercise.  I plan to become formidable.

ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY HOUSEHOLD CLEANING PRODUCTS

It's 2018.  There's little reason to kill the environment while keeping your house clean and tidy.  Life is all about variety.  So I did a little digging on a few different household cleaning products on www.livegreen.life/peace and cross-checked them against the Environmental Working Group's database.

(c) unknown. Found on the Internet

CATEGORY	BRAND	SCENT	EWG GRADE	SHOP
General cleaning	Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Multi-Surface	Lemon verbena	C	LiveGreen
General cleaning	Earth Friendly Products All Purpose	Orange	A	LiveGreen
Wood polish	Method Wood for Good	Almond	D	LiveGreen
Glass cleaner	BioKleen Ammonia Free	Vinegar	A	LiveGreen
Kitchen cream cleaner	BioKleen Soy Cream Cleaner		A	LiveGreen

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why the Environmental Working Group rated the wood polish a "D".  See for yourself on their site here.


Make someone else's day magical!
Mackenzie

#Ecofriendly
#NaturalHouseholdProducts

VEGAN PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS THAT MAY ALSO BE ECO-FRIENDLY

Man, it's getting damn near impossible to shop with confidence these days!  Am I friendly to the earth, friendly to animals, friendly to humans or am I saving one but killing another?

One name I trust is PETA.  The list will help you narrow down which Vegan products are ALSO eco-friendly.  Not all are, but the descriptions are brief.  You'll find the right ones easily.

Make someone else's day magical!
Mackenzie

#ECOFRIENDLY
#NATURAL
#VEGAN

LOCAL SPOTLIGHT - Spiritual Healing at The Mandala Message

If your spirit has ever felt burdened, a Mandala workshop may be just what you need to lighten your load and carry on.  Lily Mazurek has created her own method of crafting mandalas especially for spiritual healing.  I sat down with her to learn more about how mandalas open pathways to healing.

Lily Mazurek holds a master's degree from NYU, which is where she was first exposed to mandalas. One of the textbooks was “Man and His Symbols”, which had Carl Jung discussing mandalas in it. She made a mandala painting of a sliced-open kiwi. This brief introduction was perhaps a seed that would lie dormant until years later when Mazurek was recovering from breast cancer surgery. She came across a video on watercolors that was laden with mandalas. Something about it resonated, and she found that the more mandalas she created with intention, the more she healed. In hindsight, she says mandalas are like that; they show up like a trusted guide when you're going through a major life transition.

While the watercolor video didn't attach any meaning to the mandalas, Mazurek kept making them, but with colored pencil and found she was healing. Her work got people's attention. Eventually, people asking, "Show me," turned into a workshop, which in turn became the Mazurek Method (TM) certification program.

Mandalas have a universal appeal because they show up in nature. Diverse cultures from Tibetan monks to Navajo have used mandalas for healing purposes for centuries. Even Gautama Buddha said that mandalas are a path to enlightenment. Tibetan monks create mandalas out of ground-up semi-precious stones. The stones make the color extraordinarily vivid. Being powdered, the mandalas are temporary. At the end of their ceremony, they carefully sweep the mandala grinds into the nearest body of flowing water, in the belief that sacred nature will deliver the blessings imparted into the mandala to wherever it's needed.

Navajo sand paintings are well known, not all are mandalas, but many are.  The only recording of a healing woman doing the ceremony was at the Ringing Rocks Foundation out west (no longer around). In the recording, Walking Thunder performs a ceremony, which Mazurek shows in her class because it’s very rare to see how it’s done. Interestingly, at the end of that ceremony, all the powders, pollen and herbs are taken outside and scattered.  Different cultures use mandalas for healing purposes.

Gautama Buddha advocated mandala practice as a path to enlightenment.  The word Mandala is Sanskrit, the ancient Indian language. Mazurek's understanding of the meaning of the word is "container of sacred essence."  A lot of cultures have used it in different ways for healing, wholeness, and learning to see the world differently.

While mandalas can be used for emotional, spiritual or physical healing purposes, Mazurek's interactive workshops utilize spiritual techniques, but the results can be financial, physical, emotional or on other facets of life that the student is working on. Participants don't need to have any special skills. It's a plus if anyone does. Skills in creating geometric, cartoony or realistic, symmetrical shapes are a bonus.  Part of the exercises help participants understand their own personal visual language.  There are a lot of different exercises with shape, color and meaning - symbols - so people can discover their own best way of expressing their love or confusion or anxiety or whatever the thought or feeling is, they have more tools to communicate.  Everything leads up to the 2nd half of the workshop during which they can create a healing mandala from scratch. Even if they don’t have any skills, they walk away with some skills.

You don't have to be in Pembroke Pines to participate. Workshops via Skype are coming too! You could be anywhere in the world.

Level 1 is on the art of the mandala, learning how to express with color, shape and symbol using colored pencils. Thoughts and feelings are vibrational.  Participants learn to express problem areas and translate to colors and shapes which they then use to create their mandala from scratch. Mazurek visibly got excited describing a student's enlightened reaction to the workshop. "They start realizing that mandalas are the common denominator in everything.  That usually shifts their perspective on life, sometimes dramatically. I had a girl whose whole outlook on life" shifted when we went outside, "because I always do a fieldtrip exercise, and as we were talking, she got it.  She got the connection and was so blown away. She was so excited at the shift in her perspective. When something like that happens, your personal vibration changes. You’re literally on a slightly higher vibration when that happens," says Mazurek.

To find out more about Lily Mazurek's Mandala workshops, see her Facebook page @TheMandalaMessage and website www.themandalamessage.com. Contact her directly with inquiries at mandalaworkshops@bellsouth.net.

Pembroke Pines

Workshops for one-on-one sessions or small groups can be accommodated in a private setting

Level 1 workshops begin in January 2019

Remember the man from Nantucket - Investment RESEARCH advice

I'll keep this short and simple:

Capitalism can and has been a major, world-changing force for good, and also for evil.  If you have a big or modest budget doesn't matter.  What matters is socking away as much as you can consistently for emergencies, vacations, college, retirement, mad money, etc.

I see the future like this:

• WATER (all you have to do is Google or YouTube "global water crisis" and you'll see for yourself how incredibly valuable this is becoming to the marketplace.  Knowing that poor people get screwed throughout history, you'll not want to be among them when water gets scarcer)

• MEDICAL MARIJUANA (screw Jeff Sessions and look to Canada)

• CLEAN ENERGY (we just have to make this work)

• ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND ROBOTICS (even the most soulful and socially responsible corporations will have to rely on these more and more to stay in business)

I won't make specific recommendations because that's probably an SEC violation (not that any government institution under 45's administration has any teeth anymore, but I'm a minority.  Why run the risk?)

Research those four categories to the best of your ability.  If it bores you, find ETFs to diversify your risk.  Talk to financial advisers for their professional opinion.  Consider starting an investment club with people who have similar time horizons and investment goals (www.betterinvesting.org)

Make someone else's day magical!
Mackenzie

International Peace Day - I really missed the sour cream and cheese

Today is International Peace Day and I saw a tweet requesting people to eat vegan so animals would have peace too.  I said ok.  I had a veggie burrito from Chipotle.  Normally, I get this with sour cream and cheese, but then I would have broken my promise.  I'm not going to lie; I missed the dairy, but the burrito was still very good without it.

Dinner, I kind of forgot my promise.  Not kind of.  I forgot.  I went grocery shopping at Trader Joe's (two weeks' worth of food for 100 bucks.  I'm tellin' ya, frozen food and fresh prepared are the way to go if you hate cooking).  Tonight's selection of ready made ravioli included PUMPKIN!!!  It's FALL!! YESSSSSSS!  That's what I heated up and tossed with Spanish olive oil and - here's where I failed on my vegan for International Peace promise - I sprinkled romano and parmesan.  By way of rationalization, I'd already had that cheese in the fridge so I caused no harm to any additional animal.

In terms of real impact, I'd been engaged in a pro vs con Twitter storm convo about Capitalism.  I'm pro-Capitalism and was promptly called a "f*cking ghoul" and a charlatan.  Here's the beauty of digital conversation:  live in person, there's a high probability that I would have flipped the f*ck out, but communication via a medium like Twitter meant I could pause, breathe, reach for my higher self and respond, rather than reflexively react.

In the end, the conversation resumed in the morning and it was defused back down to a civil discussion.  While I still feel Capitalism has no equal and is neither moral nor immoral, but depends on the capitalist, I'm open to hearing about its shortcomings and outright failings.  Maintaining my dignity online led to attracting a new Twitter follower, who turned me on to a website that I think deserves highlighting: https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/

I'm kicking around the idea of questioning my own stereotypical ways of thinking about poor people and poverty.  It's just too easy to dismiss them as lazy, and perhaps that's nothing more than an outright lie to throw us off the real culprits of income inequality.

This was the healthiest way I could think of to exercise my 1st Amendment rights in the interest of real peace.

Did you acknowledge International Peace Day today?  In what way?  Comments welcome.

Remember to click on the BLUE FOLLOW BUTTON on the website/desktop version.

If you'd like notification of new posts, shoot me an email mackenzielittledalewrites at blogspot dot com.

PEACE  ☮☮

Make someone else's day magical!
Mackenzie

#InternationalPeaceDay
#InternationalDayofPeace
#IHateCooking
#Foodies

KRATOM - It's Always F*cking Florida

I took a break from social media long enough to watch a little Netflix, and saw a trending broadcast called "A Leaf of Faith" about something I'd never heard of: Kratom.

According to numerous sources in the documentary, Kratom has been grown and harvested for various medicinal purposes - like pain relief - in Southeast Asia for hundreds (possibly thousands) of years.  It's been in use unregulated in the States for about 20 years.

The documentarian Chris Bell was pretty thorough and answered a long list of questions covering safety and efficacy, purpose, pros and cons.  The drug/plant/supplement started to sound too good to be true, and he heard from voices against keeping the substance legal.  The voices mainly came from people and entities that stand to lose boatloads of money if Kratom stays on the market.  The supplement industry, oddly enough, was also opposed, as of course so was Big Pharma.

One of the antagonists surprised me.  She's a State Legislator from (f*cking) Florida, State Rep. Kristin Jacobs.  I won't tell you how the story ended, but I will say this:  a natural, unadulterated substance that can replace opioids and heroin, relieve pain and has virtually no side effects and has little to no addiction risk is all right in my book.

The effect that Kratom has on dopamine is what I'd like to learn more about.  If I can safely switch from Abilify, I'd be very interested in knowing that's possible.

What have you heard of Kratom?  Were you one of the 23,000 people who reached out to the DEA to keep it legal?  If leaving a COMMENT proves problematic, shoot me an email to mackenzielittledalewrites at blogspot dot com.

Remember to click on the BLUE FOLLOW BUTTON from the desktop version.

By the way, one of the citizens who testified before the Broward County commission is Karl Dickey, a pretty cool vegan Libertarian in Palm Beach who writes the blog https://palmbeachlibertarian.wordpress.com/.  Check that out too.

Make someone else's day magical!
Mackenzie

#Kratom
#ALeafOfFaith
#Netflix

RANDOM THOUGHT - Time to talk about the Bipolar thing

The purpose of this blog was to discover what I even enjoy discussing, and to find an audience for my upcoming novel.  Going vegan at least one day a week, and where I eat, what I eat, when I have an epic fail - all fun.  Good times, good stories.

But I'm finding more than an audience.  I'm finding dialog with a tribe on Twitter (of all places). I'm finding people who deal with mental illness around the world.  You have no idea how badly I want this blog to reach Haiti and other countries where the symptoms of mental illness are thought of as demonic possession.  We're not in the grip of bad spirits.  Prayers certainly reach the ears of God, but we as humans are the hands and hearts of God on Earth.  Medicine and mental health providers are available and crucial.  Please stop tying people to trees.  Get them to a psychiatric practitioner of medicine!  If the first medicine doesn't work, try another.

I've seen it again and again that a person who needs treatment for cancer faces no stigma, but once something is wrong with the mind, the person is shrouded in stigma, as if she asked for it.

I didn't ask for mine. 

Stigma held it under wraps for many years, so I'm profoundly grateful to the less-than-a-handful of people I could talk to.  Without them, I might have gone deeper into the abyss. 

So many factors go into mental WELLNESS.  Healthy communication skills are vitally important.  I can't stress this enough.  Just as important is a support network that either understands my symptoms or is willing to journey with me as I educate myself on what my symptoms mean, what medications are available, whether I need a combination of meds and getting my dosage right.  My support network is quite small, but pretty effective and reliable.

The key is I have to be involved in my wellness.  That means asking my practitioner questions - grilling them if necessary.  It also means doing some research on my own.  Some professionals have ego issues and don't like being questioned.  I can walk right out their door until I find a professional who respects my input and involvement.  Right now, my psychologist would be totally useless to me if she didn't get me on Abilify.  She's condescending and I don't particularly like her.  But I have others outside her office who help me where she can't.

Meds are no joke.  Sometimes the side effects of psychotropic drugs are actually a worsening of psychotic symptoms.  That happened to me when I was prescribed too much Risperdal and Cogentin.  Just shifting the dosage downward made all the difference.  I stayed at low dose for years, until I was switched to the more modern Abilify (and happily my sex drive is back ON).

I want to say my bipolar is mild, but what does that mean?  My bipolar is wild, but the dosage I need to function is very low.  If my creativity is housed alongside the bipolar, then so be it.  If they are intrinsically bound, then I won't sacrifice one to get rid of the other.

My story is one of good fortune.  My bipolar was triggered long after my 20s, meaning my prefrontal cortex was already fully developed.  When it strikes youths, it can have very unpredictable effects on the developing brain.  Meds often don't work on the young because the effects are so widespread.  I'm LUCKY!

Admittedly, I need to take my own advice and get physically active, get the blood moving, get the arms and legs pumping.  I can be a couch potato, but it's social media that holds my attention, not television.  That sounds like an excuse, but I do need to get physically active.  Writing doesn't really lend itself to physical activity. I'll have to force myself to find a way.

Find me on twitter @MackenzieLitt13 and see who I follow.  You'll find lots of advocates, people with tips, and people who fight the good fight every day.  We're real.  We have each other and we have life with purpose.

Make someone else's day magical!
Mackenzie

#MentalHealthMatters
#KeepTalkingMH
#Bipolar
#DepressionIsReal
#EndtheStigma

JOYS OF VOLUNTEERING!

Yesterday was International Coastal Clean Up Day!  International!  This was the 33rd annual coordinated effort world wide to get dreaded garbage off the shorelines.

I made good on another promise - that I would volunteer, and so I did.  First, the approach to Oleta River State Park was amazing. There was a long line of cars ahead of me, and the line kept getting longer behind me.  I don't even know how many different groups of volunteers there were.  Groups were there from hotels like Newport Beachside Resort of Sunny Isles Beach, and schools, and friends of the park.

An organizer assigned me to group Friends One, and we set out with our garbage bag and recycling bag.  Maybe I've seen too many movies, but I was expecting mounds of easy-to-find trash that we'd just bag up and haul off.  But no.  In reality, the shore looks pretty clean.  Deceptively clean.  Finding people's trash takes time because sometimes the plastic is small, or partially hidden under rocks.  Or it's even become inseparably part of the rock.  The mission was to find recyclable plastic and cans (clear bag), trash (black bag) and cigarette butts (green bag).

Oleta River State Park shoreline 9/15/18
International Coastal Clean Up Day!
Photo: Mackenzie Littledale

 

Next time, I'll be more prepared.  You've never seen a less prepared volunteer.  No backpack (not even an unattractive fanny pack), no water, no bug spray, no gloves - just an attitude of total willingness to help out.  I literally carried my keys and my phone in my bra.  Next time, I'll know better!  Luckily, water, bags and gloves were provided.

Within less than an hour, our Friends One team had halfway filled up 2 garbage bags and 1 recycling bag. 

Some members of Friends ONE - volunteer group at Oleta River State Park 9/15/18

We kept going for a little longer and then took a break. Omg, some of us needed water quite badly.  It was super exciting to see so many young people caring enough about the environment to SHOW UP and DO SOMETHING!  I'm wondering what sort of earth-friendly inventions they'll come up with to replace plastic.  I'm wondering what's already available right now on the market.

It gives me hope.

Make someone else's day magical!
Mackenzie

#volunteer
#InternationalCoastalCleanUp
#OletaRiverStatePark

RANDOM THOUGHT - I think I love Netflix

My tv is a satisfactory size.  It gives me pleasure when I feel like watching.  Netflix is a fave, for sure.  And now I may never turn my tv off.  Now that Netflix has a series called "Explained", I've watched some heavy topic episodes like the global water crisis, but today, I watched The Female Orgasm episode.  Lots of ah-ha moments!

(c) unknown. Seen in Google images

Ladies, there's been significantly more research since Freud.  Several women with guts speak openly about the limits of hitherto male dominated research on our province.  The topic is no longer corralled by superstition.  As it turns out, our sexuality is a rich domain for further inquiry and serious study.  Not to mention, experiments solo or with a partner.

You'll never guess what led to the invention of the dildo.

I'll leave it at that.  The episode is eye-opening and lighthearted without treating us as a lightweight topic.  Don't worry, there's plenty about a female orgasm that's still quite mysterious.

Enjoy.

Make someone else's (or your own) day magical!
Mackenzie

#femalesexuality
#netflix

PART TIME HALF ASSED VEGAN NOTES - send a message

One of my previous posts for women only mentioned This is L feminine hygiene products available at Target.

However, I also wrote an ECO-FRIENDLY EVERYTHING post and ECO-FRIENDLY WATER ON THE GO post.  We have to get a grip on the single use plastic we're using.  No more plastic choking our marine life.  Nothing like tying things neatly together.

I just sent the following message to support@ThisIsL.com

I was wondering if the plastic strips and wrapping on your feminine hygiene products are actually plastic, or if they're biodegradable.  There's a company in Indonesia called Avani making certain "plastic" products out of cassava starch.  Zero negative impact to the environment.  I'm hoping you'll take your positive efforts one step further and switch to a biodegradable packaging and wrapping material.

Keep up the great work - just go one step further to biodegradable wrapping!

Best regards,

Please take a minute or two and copy/paste the message in an email to support@thisisL.com.  

We'll start one company at a time and rescue our planet!  If you take a look at their mission on their website, you'll see they're already committed to good causes.  

I believe they'll listen to us.

Make someone else's day magical!

Mackenzie