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Pollinating the Earth. Bufferfly Garden at a K-6 School
Butterflies and Bees are Pollinators.
So are we. When we put all of ourselves into a project--
body, mind, and soul, the project becomes something
spiritual and a delight to the Earth, as Ellen Bialik's Butterfly
Garden at her elementary school teaches.
Date: 8/28/2008 8:34:26 AM ( 16 y ) ... viewed 1597 times
6:21 AM
August 28, 08
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The Butterfly Garden at McAuliffe Elementary School
began as a classroom lesson, and has now metamorphosized
into a communitywide project.
Learn why butterflies are essential to the environment,
and how McAuliffe Elementary earned recognition
and was named a Monarch way station.
from the Video.
VIDEO ON ELLEN BIALIK's BUTTERFLY GARDEN:
http://www.koct.org/pages/inside_oceanside_AUGUST2008.html
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The woman in this delightful and inspiring video
mae by KOCT Channel 19 inside Oceanside
about the Butterfly Garden at McAuliffe Elementary
is Ellen Bialik. Ellen is the wife of Burt Bialik, who
is part of the Elijah Minyan San Diego Jewish Renewal Community.
Burt and Ellen co-lead a lot of Jewish activities
around Jewish Meditation and Healing in San Diego.
I went out to visit Ellen last year at her Butterfly Garden
in Oceanside.
Aside from her Spiritual Activities, she is an school teacher
both in her secular as well as Jewish Life.
She has really taken up this Butterfly Garden Project,
as this Video shows.
This is a wonderful Project,
that many schools can do.
Please take a look at the link above.
The video mentions a Simple Truth of Nature:
If you Plant it, they will come.
The kids and community plant the plants that draw
the specific pollinators. The only way we get the pollinators,
including the Butterflies and the Bees, is to plant the plant
they specifically eat.
We cannot survive without the pollinators.
There is a part of this story that really points out
something to me about the appropriate use of our Spiritual Practices.
I am sure there is no mention of anything Jewish about this Butterfly Garden,
however, part of what Ellen and Burt practice is Tikkun Olam,
the Repair of the Earth.
This is a Jewish practice. I am sure many religions today
have similar "Make the Earth Happy+Be One with the Earth" projects. There are more
than 8000 years of recorded wisdom from more than 1000 Meditative
points of view that teach living in harmony with our beloved earth
Edmond Bordeaux Szekely, the Co-founder of Rancho La Puerta
with Deborah Szekely, once had a project he envisioned called Mille Meditation,
a Journey of 1000 meditations that has inspired me to say this.
It was to be a mountain park near Jucumba. I walked a trail a number
of times before that land was sold. At key points, there were lovely
sacred sites dedicated to various Spiritual Paths.
I want to thank Ellen for doing this very noble Enchanted Garden work
that involves making the Earth more beautiful one plant and one dream at a time.
We are each pollinators of a new more beautiful earth.
We pollinate the earth through planting our deepest Soul inspired dreams
one dream at a time.
Religion as I see it, is not about preaching,
or sermonizing, although sermons can be inspiring
and uplifting and get us moving.
Religion in this day, as I see it, is more about what we can do to return to
KEEP the BEET
once again with our Mother Earth.
I am looking forward to doing a few simple Spiritual activities
this Fall where I go.
I will be up at the Whole Being Weekend in Idylwild in a few
weeks--September 12-14. I lead a Friday Night Shabat. You can be sure the orientation
will be the Journey through 1000 Meditations, and KEEP the BEET
Media Star will be the Headliner.
A few weeks after that I will be participating in the B'nai Horin
High Holiday Jewish Renewal Activities out at Brandies Bardin
Retreat Center, the largest holding of land in Jewish Hands
outside of Israel. Brandeis Bardin is in Simi Valley.
They have a garden up there at the retreat.
I enjoy saying hello to the horse. The horse says hello
to me as well.
This year I will be doing KEEP the BEET in a Big Way with lots
of support from Rina, the Jewish Enrichment Club Coordinator
and Liora Leah Zack, Enchanted Garden Club Member, who
is a delightful teacher with the Kids, as well as having personal
experience as a Mom, poet, writer, and artist.
Later in the Fall, I will be creating an Enchanted Garden Plant Your Dream
Altar for the Pacific Symposium, an event that always comes around
my birthday month in November.
Once again, KEEP the BEET will be the Primary Teacher.
Who among us cannot grow just one pot of our own food?????
Start with a locally grown organic beet. Put it in a pot. Keep the beet.
Eat the beet greens. Congratulations! You are a gardener.
What a way to go to God! Reestablish and Recover
your Earth Connection!
I realize more and more from my Cleanup of our Basement now,
we can only do so much with our time well,
or else we end up making a mess out our Immediate environment.
Our immediate mess has global proportions when it stops us
and others from planting and fulfilling dreams.
Doing too much fragments. Fragmentation, according
to an audio tape I am hearing every day now, is a form of
gluttony.
It may not be how much we do, but how much of ourselves--
body, mind, soul, we put into what we do.
When we put all of ourselves into something,
what we are doing becomes a Spiritual Activity.
Thanks to lovely mom, teaching, Jewish Educator, Environmental
Steward Ellen Biakik for pointing out that spiritual lesson
this early morning.
RELATED LINKS AND BLOGS:
WHOLE BEING WEEKEND:
http://www.thewholebeingweekend.com/
SCHEDULE:
http://www.thewholebeingweekend.com/schedule08.html
MONARCH BUTTERFLY CATEPILLAR
PHOTO FROM BUTTERFLY GARDEN:
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