World Nature Conservation Day (7/28)

What's better the vertical or Horizontal Forest? Hmm, seems pretty clear (cut)

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Bhumi Devi: Nature Spirit

World Nature Conservation Day is an annual event held on July 28th. This day stresses the need for preserving a healthy environment and natural resources to maintain a stable and healthy society. Saving plants and animals that face the threat of extinction is one of the primary goals of World Nature Conservation Day. Also, the celebrations emphasize keeping the various components of nature such as flora, fauna, energy resources, soil, water, and air intact. In addition, World Nature Conservation Day underlines the need for preserving the environment for future generations. We are therefore tasked with the need to leave a healthy planet for those coming after us to enjoy. More: nationaltoday.com/world-nature-conservation-day/

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Earth Day 2025 with Space Smiley Face

Earth Day 2025

(EarthCam) April 22, 2025: 🌍 Celebrate Earth Day with EarthCam. 🌿 Watch stunning views of our planet in real-time, captured by EarthCam’s cameras across the globe. From breathtaking landscapes to vibrant cityscapes, let’s appreciate the beauty of our earthly world. 🌱

Amazon created with 'dark earth' recipe

Unseen beings live here: spirits

The Amazon rainforest, the lungs of the planet (along with the chlorophyll plankton of the ocean and Siberian forests) are not natural. They were artificially made by humans [with help from advanced species from space or the center of Hollow Earth]. As humans went far afield, they planted "dark earth" (terra preta), a rich recipe of organisms and nutrients -- mycorrhizae and more -- and grew the forest like a giant garden. Such earth can still be taken from place to place to expand the enormous jungle that is shrinking due to human abuses as animal slaughterers burn down tree groves to make pasture for cows to send methane into the atmosphere (because of being fed inappropriate foodstuffs) and then be killed for their flesh, with rendering plants polluting the waterways.

Recipe for "dark earth" finally uncovered in the Amazon's depths

Some activities contributing to dark earth. A: Processing cassava. B: Waste in middens. C: Backyard crop cultivation. D: Sweeping ash and charcoal from a hearth. E: Kuikuro II village with locations of other photos. F: Spreading cassava waste. G: Spreading ash and charcoal around trees. H: Burning in fields and waste disposal areas. I: Burning waste and crop residue (Schmidt et al., Science Advances, 2023).

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(ScienceAlert) For such a lush, verdant paradise, the Amazon rainforest's soil can be surprisingly barren. Yet mysteriously fertile "dark earth" called terra preta can be found in patches across hundreds of sites, the origins of which have sparked debate among scientists.

Now new research (science.org) from the U.S. and Brazil says ancient Amazonians intentionally enriched areas of the forest to nourish crops for centuries, locking up carbon in the process.

Modern indigenous groups still use these ancient soil secrets, which could inspire agricultural [ScienceAlert.com: New report predicts southern Amazon rainforest is heading for collapse by 2064] practices and efforts to mitigate climate change.

"Our results demonstrate the INTENTIONAL CREATION of dark earth," the authors write, "highlighting how Indigenous knowledge can provide strategies for sustainable rainforest management and carbon sequestration."

Researchers had been working with Indigenous communities in the Amazon since the early 2000s, and those observations and data were analyzed alongside newer data from 2018 and 2019.

What lives in the Amazon Rainforest?

A: Locations of Kuikuro villages and archaeological sites. Inset shows the study area (red star) and documented archaeological sites with dark earth (black). B: Modern Kuikuro II village. The white circle shows an historic village. C: Seku archaeological site. Magenta dots mark the sample collection locations in B and C. (Schmidt et al., Science Advances , 2023/ScienceAlert).

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Darker soil around archeological sites in the Kuikuro Indigenous Territory intrigued lead author Morgan Schmidt, a geographer and archeologist who was then at the University of Florida.

"When I saw this dark earth and how fertile it was, and started digging into what was known about it, I found it was a mysterious thing – no one really knew where it came from," Schmidt says.

Located in the Upper Xingu River basin in the southeastern Amazon, the Kuikuro Indigenous Territory has modern villages as well as archeological sites that their ancestors likely inhabited.

"Archaeological research has demonstrated cultural continuity from ancient to modern peoples in the Upper Xingu region," the team writes, "offering an opportunity to examine linkages between present and past activities that have modified soils."

In a modern village, Kuikuro II, the team discovered soil that was strikingly similar to that in the archeological sites. Hundreds of people live in Kuikuro II and rely on the fertile soil to grow food like cassava [tapioca, boba].

In both the ancient and modern sites, the soil fertility was higher in the residential centers than in the periphery.

Throughout the residential areas, "middens" are created for waste and food scraps. After decomposing, these waste piles mix with barren soil to form dark, fertile soil that villagers plant crops in [in what is essentially the definition of modern urban and suburban composting].

"We saw activities they did to modify the soil and increase the elements, like spreading ash on the ground, or spreading charcoal around the base of the tree, which were obviously intentional actions," Schmidt says.

Kuikuro people were interviewed and co-authored the research paper, and it was clear that they intentionally produce dark earth through modern village practices.

To dig into the past, soil from plazas and roads surrounding ancient villages was compared to terra preta from middens – in residential areas and surrounding the roads and plazas.

RESULTS: Samples from both modern and ancient residential areas had significantly higher levels of organic carbon and lower acidity than those from peripheral areas.

"The key bridge between the modern and ancient times is the soil," says Samuel Goldberg, a data analyst at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at the time.

"These practices that we can observe and ask people about today, were also happening in the past." 

Some elements, like phosphorus, potassium, and calcium, were more than 10 times as concentrated in the residential samples.

"These are all the elements that are in humans, animals, and plants, and they're the ones that reduce the aluminum toxicity in soil, which is a notorious problem in the Amazon," Schmidt explains.

A conceptual model of an ancient village showing locations of middens and enriched soils (Schmidt et al., Science Advances, 2023).

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At one ancient site, Seku, researchers estimated 4,500 tonnes of soil carbon were stored, while the modern Kuikuro II village had 110 tonnes of carbon stored in middens.

"The ancient Amazonians put a lot of carbon in the soil, and a lot of that is still there today. That's exactly what we want for climate change mitigation efforts," Goldberg says.

"Maybe we could adapt some of their indigenous strategies on a larger scale, to lock up carbon in soil, in ways that we now know would stay there for a long time." The study has been published in Science Advances. Source

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• Rebecca Dyer, ScienceAlert.com via MSN.com, Oct. 2023, Recipe for "dark earth"; Dhr. Seven, Kelly Ani, Xochitl (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Cave: A Guided Meditation (audio)

Hey, don't go in there! It could be dangerous!

This is a special meditation. Linda Pappa has intuitively been drawing caves and Earth vortices for the past few years, feeling very grounded and connected to them.

We can work with [the archetype of] The Cave in a subtle way. Fall approaches, and darkness starts to creep in. The Cave can be a symbol of winter shelter and journeying within.

My relationship with pure Earth (artist Linda Pappa)

Chiang Mai, Thailand (Linda Pappa)

Will we listen and go inward, or will we stay superficial? During a Winter Solstice ceremony, I led a meditation guided by The Cave. It felt like nothing else.

Caves, where does one begin? Caves are places of profundity, density, and form.

Caves bring us into the present, representing a sacred space of retreat. It has always been so. This is womb-consciousness, Bhumi/Gaia/Tierra's own. They are temples, holy places of offering, where introspection and deep inner transformation can take place.

• 10 best cave trails in Buddhist Thailand (All Trails)
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This is Mother Nature's womb, our birth canal? - Well, yeah, I mean, in a way, metaphorically.

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Returning to Earth’s womb means returning to our own center, returning to our Source and Ground, to the dark inner point of a sacred labyrinth.

I forgot I buried all that to not have to feel it.

The Cave resides inside, the deepest, most intimate spot. It holds our secrets, our traumas, our pains, and our potential for magic.

Our modern way of living does not encourage us to go into a place like this at all. It’s dark and scary. But if we dare to visit often enough, we will not only transform ourselves, but also our ties to others, our ancestors, and the greater whole.

The Great Weave, Lamu, Kenya (Linda Pappa)

The Cave can be a place of HEALING, begging us to FEEL so that we can finally process our emotions, take their lessons, and pass them through us as we notice, acknowledge, and claim them.

Inner fire digests food, warms and builds us.

The way to make ourselves feel comfortable going into darkness (and wanting to stay there long enough for transformation) is to work with the elemental energy of fire, or temperature (tejo-dhatu).

Not only is fire in the womb needed for alchemical transformation, it is also a comforting presence. The Cave can otherwise feel cold and uninviting.

• [Caves are warm and inviting, quiet and stable, which is why humans have retreated into them for ages. They provide safety, security, and refuge from outer chaos.]

What crystallized treasures are hidden here?

In the stillness, fire brings us into the present moment, now, directly reminding us of how our ancestors lit fires inside. The Cave connects us, and fire warms us to the bone.

Cave and fire take us on a trip to the center, into the primordial beginning.

Fire + Earth (Linda Pappa)

Linda Pappa and her partner David recorded the following with love, using grounding frequencies and a shamanic drum. They invite listening to this meditation by first preparing a space and holding self as safely as possible. It runs deep.

May you be guided by the inner body of Earth and yours. 

May you be warmed by your own Holy Fire. 

May you be led to dance to the rhythm of your inner drum.

• AUDIO: The Cave Guided Meditation

• Linda Pappa (lindapappa.com) edited by Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly

International Day of Forests: Hooray for Trees

International Day of Forests images (bing.com)

International Day of Forests, March 21, 2024 (bing.com)

If we could thank Sujata, we would. We can't. But we can thank the trees and the descendant of one in particular. It lives in Sri Lanka, and we have seen it. It's descendent is back in India.

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Awakening under a tree

Buddhism began in the forest -- the woods, the jungle, the wild wilderness -- when the ascetic Siddhartha had had it with the company of yogis and set off to practice more extreme austerities alone in breathtaking groves.

Five fellow wandering ascetics followed him. He increased his penance, punished the body (for what turned out to be the mind's doings) and fell flat on his face while going to pee. It was no way to live. He ate less and less, shriveled up, and stopped taking air. Not breathing, air (and life-giving prana) entered through his ears. He fainted and fell to the forest floor exhausted.

• International Day of Forests 2024: New solutions for a better world (msn.com)

How did you do it? We thought you gave up!

Invisible woodland fairies (bhumi-devas), seeing him, said to each other that they would feed him their food through his pores. He overheard them and refused, thinking it would be a form of lying if others thought he was fasting but was secretly being fed manna (or whatever energy sources it is those devas ate). He abandoned his companions and tucked deeper into the woods to find a tree.

What is at the heart of a tree? Heartwood

Under a magnificent big sal tree, he determined to make a breakthrough. But it didn't work. Instead, a woman named Sujata came and offered him food. He accepted it from her hand, her maidservant looking on. They thought he was a dryad, the spirit of that tree manifesting in human form to receive their offering of gratitude. Sujata had wished on the tree to become pregnant, and it had worked. She and her servant had prepared the special offering as a thank you.

Massive Japanese Buddha built in Bodh Gaya

Bringing him home in a barrel, according to some versions of the story, they nursed him back to health to help him regain his strength. His fellow ascetics turned their back on him for these "sins" -- talking to females, receiving things from their hands, breaking his fast, reverting to a life of luxury and ease. Siddhartha was washed up among the forest tradition of spiritual seekers.

Restored to health, he returned to the woods and found another tree, a nearly 35-year-old pipal tree (Ficus religiosa), enormous with beautiful flowers soon to bear tiny figs.

Trees are easy to love and respond well = vibes.

It was spring, the month of May, his birthday approaching. We know this because that tree was born on the same day he was (Vesak, the full moon day in the month of Vesakha or May) and came to be the most revered tree in the world, the original Bodhi tree. It is the oldest documented tree in the world, even if California has noble bristlecone pines that are much older, according to scientific tests (the counting of rings) rather than human records.

This place is in what is now called Bodh Gaya in Bihar, India, at that time just a breathtaking grove near a river in the Kingdom of Magadha. The area came to be called the state of Bihar because there sprouted up so many viharas, Buddhist monastic complexes, for the many male and female wandering ascetics who came to join his sangha and find the same enlightenment. The specific location is now called "Enlightenment Grove" (Bodhi Gaya), a Buddhist pilgrimage destination of great importance, site of the Maha Bodhi Vihar or "Temple of the Great Awakening."

This is a descendent of the original Bodhi tree the Buddha sat under when he gained enlightened and first touched nirvana. The original parent tree was felled maliciously by marauding Muslims angry that people were venerating a tree.

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The Maha Bodhi Temple built next to the tree

He ordained followers of the Path, turning them from the home-bound life into wandering ascetics of the left-home life. They did not live anywhere but wandered through forests for meditation and towns for alms, walking far from their former homes to shake any sense of parochialism, leaving their family ties and petty involvements to dedicate themselves to realizing the ultimate truths. Buddhism began as a forest tradition in the refuge of the woods.

It didn't end there with so many events happening in this forest or that after long foot journeys through the woods. When, 45 years later, it was time to call it a life and be done with rebirth, the Buddha and his attendant monk, Ananda, set off for the woods, into the middle of nowhere (near modern-day Gorakhpur, India, near the border with Nepal). When Ananda understood that the end was near, he asked the Buddha to get out of there and go to a big kingdom instead of the boondocks of Kushinagar.

The Buddha responded that what was now a wilderness was in ancient times a great city and state. Moreover, it was at the crossroads, a no man's land, of various kingdoms. In this way, no one could claim his body. Instead, it was partitioned, and stupas (burial mounds) were built to house the relics (shariras) by various kings and even some devas from space.

When it came time for the Buddha to lay down the burden, he walked a long way into the wood (now Kushinagar) and looking for a suitable place, he saw twin sal trees and reclined between them to enter final nirvana. His last act was entering the absorptions (as if he were visiting those worlds corresponding to those meditative states to take his leave of them just as he was doing for the human plane).

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  The Awakened One, the Buddha Gautama

  DETAILS, DETAILS: Nirvana is achieved only while alive. Glimpsing it is called stream entry, the first stage of enlightenment. There are further stages, traditionally four but actually there are more. Stream enterers at most must endure up to seven more rebirths. But there are different kinds of stream enterers, as defined in the Path of Freedom (Vimutti Magga). That number of rebirths gradually declines with progress until it is one more rebirth. That is the second traditional stage, the once returner, which refers to more rebirth on the human plane. But one might, by not laying down the burden and achieving full enlightenment in that life, would be reborn again but now in the rarefied Pure Abodes and attain final liberation there. The next stage is the non-returner, who will never be reborn anywhere but the Pure Abodes and attain final liberation there. The final stage is full enlightenment, the arhat (arahant), achieved while living, even in this very life. At that point one is done with all rebirth and suffering. Although, due to the limits of language, this is called "full" enlightenment, it is not actually the highest form of enlightenment. There are two superior forms, which are extremely rare. In essence, all enlightenment entails full enlightenment, it's just a matter of when: within seven rebirths, within two rebirths, within one rebirth, here and now with no further rebirth at all. The two superior forms are supreme enlightenment (samma-sam-bodhi) with the power to teach and supreme enlightenment without that ability (pacceka-buddhahood). What does a Buddha know that an arhat does not? Everything essential for final liberation is present in all three kinds of "full" enlightenment. So one way we like to think of it is that there are three kinds of buddhas: Supreme Buddhas, Silent Buddhas, and Personal Buddhas, that is, Self-Awakened Teachers, Self-Awakened Non-Teachers, and Enlightened Disciples. We can become any one of these; however, Silent Buddhas are extremely rare and Supreme Buddhas are so extraordinarily rare that they arise occur in a world-system (cakkavala) a few or fewer times in an aeon (kalpa). If we had forever, and in a sense we do, we might choose to be just like the Buddha and know all that he knew. We do not have forever, in another (in an ultimate) sense, because we do not even have two consecutive moments to string together, such is the radical impermanence (anicca) of the universe. There is tremendous suffering (dukkha) in choosing the path of supreme awakening with or without the ability to teach the path for others to awaken -- which entails establishing the Dharma in the world again and establishing a fourfold noble sangha, of male and female monastics and lay disciples who have awakened to at least the first stage. That is what "noble" (aryan) means -- having experienced a "change of lineage" (gotrabhu), becoming one of the "noble ones." Many think this refers only to buddhas or only to arhats. It, in fact, includes all of those who by way of insight have awakened to the Truth and glimpsed nirvana. For having glimpsed it, one might re-experience that ultimate bliss of the deathless in life many times over, spontaneously, confirming that the path-and-fruits (magga-phala) have been realized. This is not something one would wait for death to know, because death always entails rebirth until one makes an end of all further rebirth and suffering by the path culminating in arhatship or "full" enlightenment.
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• TEXT: Dhr. Seven; Pat Macpherson and Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly