Our autumn issue is out now. In it, we chat to the folks behind Goleen Harbour. Dive on in to find out more…
Climate Change
In our Autumn 2021 issue, our resident gardening expert, Hans Wieland, took a look at the many health, social and environmental benefits of trees! Enjoy his words below.
Hema Vyas is an amazing psychologist and spiritual mentor who recently appeared at Positive Nights. She has great wisdom to share on how we can navigate climate change – read the insightful piece below to learn more!
April Danann is a medical intuitive, bee keeper and ‘natural rebel’ who is passionate about helping people to enhance their health naturally. She produces delicious barrel fermented Apple Cider Vinegar and Herbal Kombucha, and manages to forage, grow and seek out the natural everywhere she goes. She also has a clinical practice in Herbal Medicine and Naturopathic Nutrition in West Cork.
We are thrilled to welcome her for a very special evening in Bewley’s Café on Thursday December 12th to talk about the changing consciousness that both we and the Earth are experiencing. Consciousness is rising, we are waking up on the physical realms of life … and we are not alone in this journey inward. Our rise coincides with the ascension of the Earth.
Climate change? How about a consciousness shift?
April says: ‘Energy medicine, raising the vibration of our cells is not complicated or even difficult. What it takes is persistence, patience and discipline. You have to walk it, take each day as it comes, believe in yourself and most of all – trust your body to do the work.’
‘This is what ascension is all about: A vibrational shift taking place on a cellular level. This is not going to happen when you are eating McDonald’s or drinking water from the municipal supply. How would you expect your cells to shift (permanently) while a continuous supply of poisons are ingested. It is not going to happen.’
‘As an intuitive here is what I am certain about – you must change your diet, you must take exquisite care of your body, and you must carry on even under the most difficult of circumstances.’
Our evening with April will take place on Thursday December 12th, from 7.30 to 9.30 p.m. in Bewley’s Café, 78/79 Grafton Street, Dublin 2. Click here to book your tickets.
Positive Nights presents: Energy Medicine, Community, Healing & Climate Change
Facebook Page| Thursday, October 12th, 2017, 7:30pm | Eur 20 / 15 euros concession | Location: The Powerscourt Theatre, Dublin 2.
This evening we welcome Author, Neuropsychologist & Director of the Tara Approach Stephanie Mines to our Stage.
Stephanie and Paul will talk about the interface between healing and climate change and how all of us have a specific role to play in the Great Turning. Be inspired by Stephanie’s enthusiasm for human potential and our resilient capacity to resolve trauma in our own bodies so that we can steward for the children of the future. All of these themes are united in great hope for humanity as we cross the threshold into facing our greatest existential crisis.
The time for a New Story has come, heralded by climate change. Energy medicine is the surprising art that you can learn to ignite the brain resilience you need to move from I to We; to Love and Community. Find out how in this unique conversation about maximizing your highest potential health and creativity. They are, literally, at your fingertips. The world we live in is transforming in every regard. You can feel it and smell it in the seasonal shifts and the rising of the seas. This is not a doomsday warning. It is an awakening. People get ready; there’s a change a comin’!
We will have refreshing cold pressed juices at the break courtesy of Sisú
Click here to get your tickets or email us at positivenights@gmail.com for more information.
More about Stephanie
Stephanie Mines devotes herself to the resolution of personal and collective trauma. Her explorations into natural, non-pharmaceutical ways to unburden the nervous system from overwhelm have resulted in five books including the best-selling We Are All in Shock: How Overwhelming Experience Shatters You and What You Can Do About It and They Were Families: How War Comes Home. Dr. Mines is the founder of the TARA Approach for the Resolution of Shock and Trauma. She is also the convener and vison holder for CLIMATE CHANGE & CONSCIOUSNESS: Our Legacy for the Earth (www.ccc19.org).
Positive Nights presents: Energy Medicine, Community, Healing & Climate Change
Facebook Page| Thursday, October 12th, 2017, 7:30pm | Eur 20 / 15 euros concession | Location: The Powerscourt Theatre, Dublin 2.
This evening we welcome Author, Neuropsychologist & Director of the Tara Approach Stephanie Mines to our Stage.
Stephanie and Paul will talk about the interface between healing and climate change and how all of us have a specific role to play in the Great Turning. Be inspired by Stephanie’s enthusiasm for human potential and our resilient capacity to resolve trauma in our own bodies so that we can steward for the children of the future. All of these themes are united in great hope for humanity as we cross the threshold into facing our greatest existential crisis.
The time for a New Story has come, heralded by climate change. Energy medicine is the surprising art that you can learn to ignite the brain resilience you need to move from I to We; to Love and Community. Find out how in this unique conversation about maximizing your highest potential health and creativity. They are, literally, at your fingertips. The world we live in is transforming in every regard. You can feel it and smell it in the seasonal shifts and the rising of the seas. This is not a doomsday warning. It is an awakening. People get ready; there’s a change a comin’!
We will have refreshing cold pressed juices at the break courtesy of Sisú
Click here to get your tickets or email us at positivenights@gmail.com for more information.
More about Stephanie
Stephanie Mines devotes herself to the resolution of personal and collective trauma. Her explorations into natural, non-pharmaceutical ways to unburden the nervous system from overwhelm have resulted in five books including the best-selling We Are All in Shock: How Overwhelming Experience Shatters You and What You Can Do About It and They Were Families: How War Comes Home. Dr. Mines is the founder of the TARA Approach for the Resolution of Shock and Trauma. She is also the convener and vison holder for CLIMATE CHANGE & CONSCIOUSNESS: Our Legacy for the Earth (www.ccc19.org).
Positive Nights Schedule: 3 wonderful weeks!
Hi again Positive Nights Audience! We want to bring you a sneak peek of the next 3 weeks of guests and surprises at Positive Nights! Check out our schedule below.
October 12th
Stephanie Mines, PhD: Love, Community and Energy Medicine: Thriving in a Climate Changed World
This evening we welcome Stephanie Mines, PhD. Her explorations into natural, non-pharmaceutical ways to unburden the nervous system from overwhelm have resulted in five books including the best-selling We Are All in Shock: How Overwhelming Experience Shatters You and What You Can Do About It and They Were Families: How War Comes Home. Dr. Mines is the founder of the TARA Approach for the Resolution of Shock and Trauma. This evening will be incredibly educational providing us with great hope and how to thrive within this changing world. More info coming soon! www.Tara-Approach.org
October 19th
An Extra Surprise
Well… at this point, you know it be will great!
October 26th
Angel Therapy practitioner Corin Grillo
This evening we welcome Corin Grillo to the stage. Weaving a combo of both traditional and energy/intuitive based therapies Corin provides an ideal environment for clients to make profound and often rapid positive changes. She works collaboratively with clients and help them tap in to their own inner voice, so that they can listen to their own wisdom on how to support and ignite their path towards healing. More info coming soon! coringrillo.com
Humanity has entered a strange period: a time of immense opportunity, but also of great turbulence. Around the world, old institutions are breaking down, ecological limits are being exceeded, and we have an epidemic of loneliness. Its time to lead by example.
By Davie Philip
Many new institutions more fitting to the complexity of these times are rising up, but the pace of change is slow. The most difficult challenge facing us is not really about developing solutions to the challenges we face – it is about illuminating stories that empower us to look beyond a future of adversity and to see one of opportunity.
More of us are losing, or struggling to gain, a sense of purpose or meaning in our lives. Culturally, we are between stories and there is a lack of guiding narratives. In this era of extreme individualism, it is vital that we come together and co-create stories of a thriving relationship with both the natural world and one another. So how do we transcend age-old differences, win hearts and minds, and embark on a common goal of living on this planet in ways that are healthier and more collaborative?
For a long time I was part of a group screening scary films on climate change to communities around the country. We thought that when people ‘got it’, they would immediately begin to make the transition to a low carbon lifestyle. However, all we really did was frighten most people away. By challenging some deeply held assumptions without showing appropriate responses, we turned off our audiences. People tend to be very sceptical or dismissive of information that contradicts their worldview.
However, documentary film is a powerful tool for positive transformation, and a wonderful medium for sharing stories of change. Recently I was asked to take part in a panel discussion after a screening of Demain, an award winning French documentary. ‘Demain’ means ‘tomorrow’ in French, and without denying the scale of the challenge, the film focuses on very positive ways in which everyday citizens are making their communities and their local economies healthier, greener and more resilient today. In most cases, these were stories of citizens taking power back from governments and corporations, which – as author Jeremy Rifkin points out – may be the best way to undo the top-down policies that have set us on the fast track to destruction.
We’ve long bought into the myth that people are only motivated by their own self-interest, whereas the stories in Demain are about cooperation and people doing what they need to do together. This September, Cultivate will be coordinating the Convergence Festival, a fortnight of events around the country that will highlight stories of citizens engaging in the wellbeing of their communities. On the 23rd, the first European Day of Sustainable Communities will be held across Europe to showcase projects that are transforming local areas.
I think the key to winning hearts and minds is not to try convincing anyone of anything, but to lead by example, demonstrate that something is possible, and provide people with a larger purpose for changing their lifestyles. A compelling narrative really does inspire us to think and do things differently.
Davie Philip (davie@cultivate.ie) is a community catalyst at Cultivate and is based in Cloughjordan Ecovillage: thevillage.ie – He is also curating the Convergence Festival in September 2017 on the topic of Citizen Engaged, Community Led Transitions. If you have a story of a community led initiative email convergence@cultivate.ie
How many planet earths would we need to sustain us in our current lifestyles?
One Planet Living – Supporting the Planet Supporting Us. By Dave Philip
This is taken from our spring 2015 issue. | Subscribe in time for the summer issue and three more.
Our planet provides everything we need to flourish. However, since the 1970s humanity has been consuming natural resources at a rate that exceeds the Earth’s capacity to sustain us. It is estimated that to support everyone’s current lifestyle globally we would need 1.5 planets. There are, however, significant differences between rich and poor countries; if we all lived like an average American we would need five planets. According to WWF’s Living Planet Report, Ireland has the 14th largest eco-footprint in the world.
An Ecological Footprint is measured in global hectares (gHa), the area of productive land and water required to support our consumption and deal with our waste. To communicate the impact of this in an easily understandable way, our footprint can also be represented by how many planets would be needed to support us. On average in Ireland our Ecological Footprint is just over six global hectares per person, and if everyone lived like us we would need three planets to sustain us all.
…Recently, the Cloughjordan Ecovillage, which has 140 residents, had its Ecological Footprint measured by Dr. Vincent Carragher of the Tipperary Energy Agency. Along with the University of Limerick, he has developed a rigorous Community-Based Ecological Footprint assessment tool. The analysis shows that the Ecovillage has a footprint of 2 gHa per person, which is a third of the national average and equates to just over the capacity of one planet.
Our objective in having the footprint analysis done was to benchmark our activities and give us a measure that we can work at reducing over time. This was very important to do, as the Ecovillage is now a destination for learning about how a community reduces its carbon emissions and its environmental impact.
You would expect us to have a low footprint, with 6.5% of all of Ireland’s ‘A’ rated houses and 2.5% of the ‘B1’s in the Building Energy Rating scheme, our own farm, renewable energy heating district system and a car share club, but one of the surprising reasons for our low footprint was our high level of social cohesion and our ability to work together.
With climate change now seen as one of the greatest areas for us all to do better in, we require examples of what can be done to transition to a low-carbon society. To ensure a planet that can sustain life, we need to take immediate positive action to improve health, social, environmental and economic wellbeing. New technologies may contribute, but this will be best done through strong communities that can build resilience and be able to collaborate to reduce consumption, protect and restore biodiversity and learn to live on one planet.
Davie Philip is a group facilitator and trainer who manages the Community Resilience programme at Cultivate Living and Learning. He is based at the Cloughjordan Ecovillage and is a board member of GIY Ireland. davie@cultivate.ie. Cloughjordan Ecovillage offers free tours at 3pm each weekend, leaving from Sheelagh na Gig bookshop on Main Street, Cloughjordan, Tipperary. thevillage.ie
This is taken from our spring 2015 issue. | Subscribe in time for the summer issue and three more.