heres an url to my kid's article, about building solar and living off the land basically near Scotland. She was there a month or so volunteering her labor.

wow, my kid overwhelms me. I feel lucky she came here through me. sorry to brag so much, but parents do that! also, the subject matter is important, about how all of us could think about the future, about alternative energy sources.

http://www.emagazine.com/view/?3956

Your kid did good,
Dear Alysia!  

She has written a delightful and instructive report! Motivating too!
Writing runs in the family, eh?

We had such a solar heater for fifteen years in Illinois and we loved it!
It was not allowed then by building codes to be the only source of hot
air and water, but it substantially cut our energy bills. When I do go back
there I take a peek and so far, 25 years, it's going fine!
Life can be simpler and greener!

Congrats on providing a talented insightful human to our world!

Love, Bets

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 Kewl, thanks for the link Alysia!   I'm pretty interested in this kind of stuff myself, as well.   I don't yet know too much about it, so i'm always curious to read stuff like the above.  Your daughter sounds like an interesting, talented, and idealistic person.   No wonder why you are proud.

 Becky and i got to visit Findhorn up in Scotland, briefly.  Pretty neat place, which tries to live by green principles, as well as having a pretty good dosage of spiritual principles and ideals too.  One of the best and most effective ways, in general, of helping out the Earth and our fellow humans, is to go vegetarian but that's kind of a complicated issue and relative for the individual.  

 Either way, i don't believe we have to be too worried about pollution, over population, etc., despite the seemingly very destructive path humanity (& especially Americans) seems to be somewhat stuck on.  Plenty of changes coming to help that out in very noticeable and dramatic ways.  At the same time, i believe its important to live in the now, and make constructive choices for the now always, too.   Dunno, its an odd, but necessary and fine balance between detachment and active concern and doingness..

yes Michelle is something. always organizing our small family. America does not eat well, too many convenience eating habits. we want to live in France or Italy someday Justin, we already planned this. every day we will go to the open fresh vegetables and fruits markets on the street, just like it was in times gone by. the walk to the store is exercise we need, or we will bike in. lots of bikes over there, then we will prepare our own fare and teach each other who is the best cook in the house. we will bake bread as nothing tastes quite so good as baked fresh bread.
on this kind of diet, one does not get overweight either.
theres a totally different feeling overseas, a more lively atmosphere I noticed, they express themselves differently, they are more spontaneous in their expression; there is less concern with making money but a lot of good natured haggling over it at the same time.

love, alysia

 Yeah, i've noticed that overall, more Europeans as a whole, tend to be more mature than Americans as a whole.

 But America/reborn Atlantis, is of the extremes.   We have some incredibly bright lights in this country, but there is a lot of deep and pervasive lack of light co-existing at the same time.  Europe in general, is a little more smoothed out between the two, not quite as extreme.  

I have a feeling that if i ever visited France, i would feel some very sad and overwhelming feelings there.   I was abandoned by my mother in France, and then killed at a young age.   My mom thought she was doing what's best for me, but she didn't realize the severity of the situation when she went into the convent.  She thought she could trust the people she gave the care of me too.  

  Course, that was me balancing karma for when i had to abandon her, i was forced to do same, but it was my diddling around with my d*ck which caused the whole mess to begin with and what got me in trouble with the authorities of the time. Oh well, now we're married and we're moving past that difficult and sad stuff.    

 Italy was a tough one for me too, got betrayed and murdered there too.   Man, how many times do i have to get betrayed by people i think i can trust, for me to learn the goshdarn lessons?  The highest lesson of all, is complete forgiveness...but like the man said, "be ye wise as serpents, but gentle as doves."    Kind of like my tag below.

wow Justin I just saw your post. thats a lot of stuff you have to deal with. from looking at it, and then looking at my own other life stuff, it took a few years to stop carrying it around and I can understand better who you are by what you went through. sometimes it can seem these other places and times can be burdensome to remember, but good for you, you wouldn't remember unless you could handle it. I hope, quicker than it took me. I had some tragic things occur with my mother. u might have read about it. its ok now though! really you know about the forgiveness, thats the first step.
isn't it funny how we commit spiritual incest?  ;D a few of here has brought this up. we must be little sexless blobs of spirit out there cooking up all sorts of schemes...my word...it's enough to curl your hair the things we do, and the things we leave undone.

I too had to deal with lessons in abandonment from early age. I can say there is hope within the heart that has courage and to just learn to let it be like the Beatles tune Mother Mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
bless you, sorry for all our differences in the past. alysia

Alysia, can you make a few more kids like this one. Like maybe a few thousand is all it will take for us all to become contagious of such? Com`mon, you can do it, you`ve already proven that to us now! ;-) seriously great and yes - brag brag brag, you have every reason to! Lova ya, Nanner

ah, you're nice to me Nanner. I like to get kudos. remember in the old days parents pull out their wallet, in the wallet is pictures of their kids, when they met someone new, they flash the pictures around. a matter of pride. we don't do this anymore. maybe we should. you should see how it makes the kids glow. we need to make our kids glow don't u think?

u r right. thanks for the reminder. its ok if I have pride in them. love, alysia

Absolutely Alysia! We have become IMMUNE to PUL. Have you noticed this too? Yes, pull out those pictures all the time, everytime, every where with the intent to share LOVE. Maybe even with such an introduction like: I love you so much I want you to take part in my pictures.

The trend of most is: My car, my house, my wife, my boat! ...lol..Its competional...
I`ve never heard a person with those types of nuances come out with:

My first child, my second, my third, my forth one and heres a family picture of all of us!

It would be so great!