Thinking Outside Of The Box

In the studio with Elissabeth DeFreitas.  Lissa and I have been involved with many public service groups in the North Idaho area over the past decade or two. We had just finished an interview to air at a later date on Community Hospice Services . We left the mic on while we expressed gratitude for some (not all for sure) of our awesome community assets. Here it is. Thanks to Beth Pederson for permission to use "I Dreamed of Rain" written by Jan Garrett. performed by Beth Pederson from the CD "Christmas in Their Eyes"  Available @highmoonmusic.com or email: highmoonmusic@sandpoint.net. Thanks to Elissabeth DeFreitas for her Harp, Keyboard and Flute music from of the upcoming album Passage, we heard the track titled New Jerusalem   Thanks also to the estate of Scott Moulton for the guitar music used for our theme song and in the background throughout this episode. Find Scott in the iTunes store here: Scott Moulton Music And one more special thank you to th

 Daniel Bruce and Margaret Ruhl Urban Permaculture Pioneers   A youthful vivacious look at hope for our cities. Urban Farming is not a "dream" for these people. They have been working with the city of Spokane Wa. and it's residents to turn lawns into organic gardens.  The  success is overwhelming, and this is one area where I say say "Yay!!  to the word "overwhelm".  Bringing permaculture to the city is their passion and they are on the way to creating a model for the future. Vivacious according to Merriam Webster : "happy and lively in a way that is attractive."  This most certainly describes this couple from Spokane, Washington.  Our interview took place at the 2014 Inland Northwest Permaculture  Convergence  at the Heartsong Retreat Center. (BTW this is a "must attend" event for any Cascadians living east of the Cascades in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.) (Link below to find out more.) Daniel (also known as Elf) has been a Northwest res

Michele Murphree shares the experience of creating school gardens from the inception in 2010 through the success of creating a county wide program in elementary schools.  Michelle willing shares her ideas for working with schools, obtaining grants, the development of garden clubs; she offers equipment and seed lists  as well as   tips on how to build community relations with local businesses. “The purpose of this project is for our students to plan and develop an edible garden. This includes organizing and preparing the garden, planting the seeds and plants, tending the garden, and harvesting the produce. The fruits and vegetables harvested are included in the  school lunches and snacks, and shared with our families and communities, including the Bonner County Food Bank. At the elementary schools, we have created a "garden club," which meets once a week during gardening season, after school. At the Charter School, this type of garden is part of the curriculum for the sixth and sevent

  Michael Pilarski is a farmer, educator and author who has devoted his life to studying and teaching how people can live sustainably on this Earth. He has extensive experience in organic farming, seed collecting, wildcrafting medicinal herbs, plant propagation, horticulture, teaching, and international networking. Michael has personally worked with over 1,000 species of plants. He founded Friends of the Trees Society in 1978 and has authored many books on forestry, agriculture, agroforestry and ethnobotany. Michael has been involved in the permaculture movement since 1981 as a writer, teacher and networker. He has taught over 20 full Permaculture Design Courses in the USA and abroad . In the early 70's Michael committed his life to ecology and creating earth friendly system design and was pioneer in the American permaculture design movement. Today Michael is known regionally and nationally as one of the great permaculture designers.   In this talk, he takes the permaculture ideas onto a larger plat

Local architect and ex-president of the Eco Building Guild, Bruce Millard, discusses the evolution of sustainable design in his practice and the throughout the region. Moving to Sandpoint from the urban Philadelphia over thirty years ago,  Bruce had the opportunity to re-invent himself professionally  Designing in an open rural environment  presented many different design challenges and possibilities and he started exploring new materials - e.g., straw bale.  He also  realized that he was re-inventing himself and his focus and become  healthy sustainable living design. "Architecture is all about people and I realized that my focus had shifted from what I knew .  I had much more to learn so I started reaching out to others in the region to explore new ideas." In connecting with others he became part of the Eco Building world and sustainable design became the focus.  Bruce was president of the Ecobuilding Guild and started bringing builders, designers, realtors to Sandpo

    :   Website: http://www.losthorsepress.org/ Contact information: LOST HORSE PRESS105 Lost Horse LaneSandpoint, Idaho 83864 Voice: 208.255.4410Fax: 208.255.1560

 A conversation with Bob Merrill at the Inland Northwest Permaculture Convergence   Transforming tires, soda cans, old newspaper, straw bales into beautiful homes is all part of a day's work for Bob Merrill, owner of Hybrid Habitat.  Bob was one of the builders of Dennis Weaver's Earthship in New Mexico.  He now  lives in  Northport, Washington and we caught up with him at the Inland Northwest Convergence to share his forty years of experience building earth ships and other wonders using imagination and garbage. Following are excerpts from an article written by Bob on Hybrid Construction. There is a link to the complete article along with contact information at the end of this post. Hybridized Construction is an example of the way we can synthesize three spheres of human need; social, economic, and ecologic. Here is an example of how this worked in my community.   Socially: We came together to build a home for our associate pastor and his new wife. members.

Community gardens provide many things - spaces to grow, meet your neighbors, they are classrooms for children, they provide fresh produce for food banks and free raspberries to anyone walking by.   Today's guest, Pat Wentworth is the co-founder of Sandpoint Community garden and she is here to share the lessons learned and joy shared in building a garden in a city park that blends the generosity of strangers with the energy of newbie gardeners   kids and a few dedicated gardeners . As we learn  the skills of Thriving in our Bioregion, community gardens will  be playing a major role. The word thriving connotes many things, one of the first things that come to mind is growing and nurturing. Community gardens are one place where growing and nurturing is the main thing going on. There are many resources to help a community garden grow. One resource here in Sandpoint is the Facebook Group "Local Food Sandpoint"  this an example of networking in the local food growing and sharing

Scaling back for the Summer but still wanting to stay connected with you. Here is Leslie Villelli and a sample of a project we are working on together. We are going to produce a year's worth of "Daily Doses of Happiness"

The Flash Shift is a simple technique for you to (re) access the power of feeling connected physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually for optimal working, living and playing.It involves an easy-to-learn breathing technique, simple movement, an affirmation and a feeling state that integrates your Being in a few seconds. It is Demonstrated here on a YouTube video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWlB-Cutr-Q&feature=share The Flash Shift is a simple technique for you to (re) access the power of feeling connected physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually for optimal working, living and playing. It involves an easy-to-learn breathing technique, simple movement, an affirmation and a feeling state that integrates your Being in a few seconds. The flash shift can be applied to supercharge your work flow, mindfulness, gratitude, emotional flow, physical groundedness, being in the Now, regulating your stress reactions and re-wiring your brain for greater neuroplasticity. It is th

Ara MacDonald is a Mother, an Artist and very knowledgeable and dedicated Astrologer. She lives in Crestone Colorado, a very unique community backed up by the breath taking Sangre de Cristo mountains. Crestone has become internationally known as a locus for a large number of many different religious and spiritual traditions. This week we take a look at patterns and archetypes.  More to the point Ara and I discuss past and upcoming generations through the eyes of an Astrologer. The Age of Aquarius is here, we discuss the characteristics of different generations starting with the Flower Children and moving  through time to the Crystal Children coming into the world now. This is fascinating information regardless of your belief or disbelief in the science of Astrology. Pluto is on the proverbial  "center stage"  here and you can not deny the characteristics that arise out of the cycles Pluto goes through.  You may or may not be familiar with some of the lingo used here (c

The "Democratisation" of Sharing - NeighborGoods Revisisted. This Week, we will have another discussion with Alan Berger of Neighborgoods.net. In our last discussion we covered the ideology behind and advantages of new peer to peer sharing networks. Today we go into some details on how and where you can start a free sharing network. Do you ever have moments, when you just wondering what direction is my life going, do I need to stop, turn around,  go back?? If you listened to my last show, you will know that I am seeking to refocus Thinking Outside of the Box and that I really don't have an idea what that focus should be. Have I gotten any closer to defining that, Well --lllll l let's just wait and see. I will tell you that I'm sitting here at the computer scratching my head, another deadline to meet, so I Googled " what the heck am I doing with my life?" (verbiage modified)  I just feel I need to put some spark Back into my life! I need to recharge , I need to find that creative fuel.  Odd

The week you really get a peek inside of my process. The show notes are simply my script notes. And if you have listened you will know I am putting out a call for help from you.  I have taken my Spring Break and now wanting to move forward in the best possible direction.

Dr. Gabrielle Duebendorfer discusses the biology behind genetically encoded cellular memory of beliefs. Demonstrating that the unconscious mind has more power than we think.

The Art and Science of Being Happy       A series of practical articles by Leslie Villelli   Being happy is not mysterious. It’s a skill, a habit. Experiencing happiness and a sense of well-being is beneficial to us in many, many ways. Scientists predict that they’ve just scratched the surface of our ability to measure those amazing benefits. What we do know, now, is that the chemicals we manufacture internally when we are happy that we have, are, or can do something, are health giving, energy giving substances. And, we know we feel good.   Great. Got it. But how on earth do I conjure up feeling happy about something that I’m in the automatic habit of experiencing differently? Once again, it turns out to be easier than we think! The minute we decide to use one of the most powerful tools we humans have at our absolute disposal: language. Here’s an example:     “I have to write my Happy On Purpose article tonight

The Flash Shift is a simple technique for you to (re) access the power of feeling connected physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually for optimal working, living and playing. It involves an easy-to-learn breathing technique, simple movement, an affirmation and a feeling state that integrates your Being in a few seconds. The flash shift can be applied to supercharge your work flow, mindfulness, gratitude, emotional flow, physical groundedness, being in the Now, regulating your stress reactions and re-wiring your brain for greater neuroplasticity. It is the culmination of Dr. Frederic Wiedemann’s life-long study of wholeness and his forty years of in-the-trenches work with business, entrepreneur, psychotherapy, coaching, and vision quest clients. Once you learn the Flash Shift, you will be able to shift your state in under a minute, whenever you want. Depending on your learning preference, there are different ways you can learn the Flash Shift — from an ebook, MP3, webin

  Alan P. Berger Executive Director, Neighborgoods.net   Today, Thinking Outside of the Box goes into yet another new realm, economics. We are going to be talking about the sharing economy. The Sharing Economy is a burgeoning area that is allowing us to share peer-to-peer with sites like Air B&B, and get around.com and other car sharing, parking space sharing, you name it, if there is a need there is a network. With the advent of the Internet, it has allowed us much greater access to each other. It has given us ways to connect and share things that 20 or 30 years ago where not even dreamed of. Neighborgoods is a free peer to peer sharing network with its focus on the day to day needs that we have right in our neighborhoods. The site is not focused on making money it is just focused on getting back to the basics of how we care for ourselves our possessions and properties as well as how we care for each other in order to really enjoy day-to-day living. This interview is the beginning of a dis

Doctor Gabrielle Duebendorfer with the second in her series. The Biology of Belief – The Influence of Emotions and Beliefs on Health Dr. Sarno describes in his book “The Divided Mind” how 80% of his patients with musculo-skeletal pain get complete relief by understanding and accepting the normal physiological process of the mind substituting physical pain or other symptoms to prevent stronger underlying emotions from emerging into consciousness. The mind subconsciously needs to suppress strong rage, deep sadness or other emotional pain as it perceives them as more threatening to survival than actual physical pain. Accepting this understanding of the mind’s tendency to use pain as a distraction for self-preservation as a normal physiological reaction plays a large role in the disappearance of pain in Dr. Sarno’s practice because it undermines the brain’s unconscious strategy. Now this might sound quite unbelievable but there is m

Kristin Alice Mico Yoga Activist Speaking on the Transformative Power of Yoga, bringing Yoga to the streets  and Yoga as a healing modality for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from a somatic and neuroscience perspective. We talked about how pervasive stress is in our culture and the importance of maintaining a healthy nervous system.  Kids these days don't have any of the tools to move through the challenges they find themselves facing, and through connecting with breath and movent Yoga can be a transformative tool. Kristen can be contacted at http: mudlotusyoga.com or find her on Facebook at Mudlotusyoga A Yoga Story: As a three year old, my dad used to take me into the forest, helped me find a "thinking spot" and would leave me to sit, alone. These moments were my introduction to yoga and meditation. There are photos of me meditating in trees as a preteen. Looking back, I wonder if I was a yogi before I knew what yoga was, leading me to believe yoga comes from nowhere but your S

Leslie Villelli of the Happiness is Project is back with another engaging and informative topic. As always we discuss the Science of Happiness and the Power of Beliefs. This week's title is a take off on a phrase from the movie "Forrest Gump" It brings us real tools to bring to light the fact that  the only limits to our happiness are self imposed. Below some excerpts from articles Leslie has written. Being happy is not mysterious. It’s a skill, a habit. Experiencing happiness and a sense of well-being is beneficial to us in many, many ways. Scientists predict that they’ve just scratched the surface of our ability to measure those amazing benefits. What we do know, now, is that the chemicals we manufacture internally when we are happy that we have, are, or can do something, are health giving, energy giving substances. And, we know we feel good. Ken here. It is late and I am under deadline looking for text to accompany this great interview. I'm "winging it h