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muka-a-a-ashi mukashi,
way back in the day of one
forever ago, il y avai un petit team of anges, for lack of a better word,
who called themselves
the Nantokas.

these Nantokas
left traces of themselves on Earth occasionally, but not in the somewhat kita-nai way that the Ningen-tachi People so often do. their traces were cleaner, much cleaner, than that of a standard ningen Person. in fact, these anges left traces which were even cleaner than those of most of their fellow kind.

Examples of the Nantoka's traces, therefore, were very difficult to detect and the anges, thus deprived of an important point of quantification, risked losing employment.

usokoke! you may say. God does not fire his angels!

but I assure you, the risk was utterly real. seppuku, and similar acts which seek to feed the fruits of violence to our Friends the Mycelium People, effectively banish once happily employed angels to the breadline, which vexes them to no end. and gives them a stomachache.

And so our story begins.

keep reading...

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image - a scene from a mountaintop removal protest event in Charleston, West Virginia during the spring of 2007.

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Tōryanse, tōryanse

Koko wa doko no hosomichi ja?

Tenjin-sama no hosomichi ja

Chotto tōshite kudashanse

Goyō no nai mono tōshasenu

Kono ko no nanatsu no oiwai ni

O-fuda wo osame ni mairimasu

Iki wa yoi yoi, kaeri wa kowai

Kowai nagara mo

Tōryanse, tōryanse

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Let me pass, let me pass

What is this narrow pathway here?

It's the narrow pathway of the Tenjin shrine

Please allow me to pass through

Those without good reason shall not pass

To celebrate this child's 7th birthday

I've come to dedicate my offering

Going in may be fine, may be fine but returning would be scary

It's scary but

Let me pass, let me pass

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hi everyone
hope you are well

there will be a recording session at the Jacksonville Center's silo conservatory this Saturday, please contact the center at 745-2784 for more details.

also tomorrow there is a get-together at the center from 5 to 7. more info can be found below.

ja ne, thanks for reading, have a beautiful day. - Suzy

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You are invited

Please join us tomorrow, March 23, from 5 to 7 pm as we celebrate art, music, democracy and community ties at the Jacksonville Center in Floyd, VA!

Things to see & do

- Studio artists at Jacksonville Center will hold a New Works reception on Friday, March 23 from 5-7 pm. Glass artist Linda Osborne will highlight her personal bead collection and her wide variety of jewelry and handmade bead items. Sarah McCarthy, home from displaying at the New Jersey arts and crafts show, will show her gas fired pottery vases, bowls, glasses and tableware. Wood fired pottery will be just a part of McCabe Coolidge's functional works display. And Karen Day will show handmade books.

- Several guest artists will share the studio spaces during the open studio event on Friday. Look for Gretchen St. Lawrence's pastels, Anne Vaughn's jewelry, Glenda and Don George with shibori fabric and wood working.

- A Traces Library Open House will be highlighted by Suzy Nees and live music will be provided by Billy Miller during the Open Studio event on March 23. Traces Library installation sites on March 23 include studio 119, the silo conservatory, and the Maple, Oak, and Kentucky Coffee rooms in the Center's residence building.

- Leon Davis will be answering questions and hosting tours during this event to introduce visitors to the Jacksonville Center's straw bale building, which is in the final stages of completion.

- Friends of Community Agriculture at the Jacksonville Center invite you to take the "Is Spring a Miracle?" quiz, which features free take-home art and land stewardship activities.

Refreshments will be offered in abundance, all at Jacksonville Center just south of town on Route 8. This is a free event, and all are welcome. Hope to see you there!

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Upcoming events at the Booker T. Washington National Monument

Blockades & Stockades: Shortages on the Southern Homefront during the Civil War

April 7 – 2:00 p.m. Ranger Program
Discover how life changed dramatically for people on the Southern Homefront during the American Civil War.

A Mother’s Prayer: Jane Burroughs Ferguson
April 15 – 2:00 p.m. Ranger Program
Discuss the significance of Jane’s prayer for freedom during the Civil War.

An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore
April 22 – 2:00 p.m. Book Club Meeting
The Booker T. Washington Book Club recognizes Earth Day, 2007 through discussion of the former U.S. Vice President’s stand on global warming, climate change, consequences and solutions.

The Strange Career of Jim Crow by c. Vann Woodward May 5 – 2:00 p.m. Book Club Meeting For Future Generations: Preserving the Burroughs Plantation May 16 – 7:00 p.m. Historic Preservation Month Celebration Discuss the protecting and preserving Washington’s birthplace. Food, Fiber and Flowers May 27 – 2:00 p.m. Garden Tour Learn about gardening techniques and cultivated plant varieties of the 1850's.

Juneteenth Gospel Music Celebration June 16 - 11:00 a.m. Special Event Enjoy the food, fun and fellowship as the community celebrates freedom. Freedom Train: The Story of Harriett Tubman June 23 - 10:00 a.m. Young Reader's Book Club To Be a Ranger June 30 - 10:00 a.m. Junior Ranger Summer Program Explore the duties of a NPS Park Ranger.

Tears of Freedom July 7 - 11:00 a.m. Experience the emotions felt on the Burroughs Plantation during emancipation. Blockades & Stockades: Shortages July 8 - 2:00 p.m. Discover how life changed dramatically for people on the southern home front during the American Civil War. Trouble Don't Last July 14 - 10:00 a.m. Young Reader's Club To Be a Leader July 21 - 10:00 a.m. Junior Ranger Summer Program Develop leadership skills like Dr. Washington.

What is the Price of Freedom?
August 4 - 2:00 p.m.
Explore Washington's vision of the National Negro Business League.

Sojourner Truth: Voice of Freedom
August 11 - 10:00 a.m. Young Reader's Book Club

To Be a Naturalist
August 18 - 10:00 a.m. Junior Ranger Summer Program
Study plants and animals like a naturalist.

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Karst & water quality info

via Wikipedia

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Water drainage and problems

Farming in karst areas must take into account the lack of surface water. The soils may be fertile enough, and rainfall may be adequate, but rainwater quickly moves through the crevices into the ground, sometimes leaving the surface soil parched between rains.

Source of the river Loue, a karst spring.

A karst fenster is where an underground stream emerges onto the surface between layers of rock, cascades some feet, and then disappears back down, often into a sinkhole. There is an example of this in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania.

Water supplies from wells in karst topography may be unsafe, as the water may have run unimpeded from a sinkhole in a cattle pasture, through a cave and to the well, bypassing the normal filtering that occurs in a porous aquifer. Karst formations are cavernous and therefore have high rates of permeability, resulting in reduced opportunity for contaminants to be filtered out.

Groundwater in karst areas is just as easily polluted as surface streams. Sinkholes have often been used as farmstead or community trash dumps. Overloaded or malfunctioning septic tanks in karst landscapes may dump raw sewage directly into underground channels.

The karst topography itself also poses some difficuties for human inhabitants. Sinkholes can develop gradually as surface openings enlarge, but quite often progressive erosion is unseen and the roof of an underground cavern suddenly collapses. Such events have swallowed homes, cattle, cars, and farm machinery.

The Driftless Area National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa protects Discus macclintocki, a species of ice age snail surviving in air chilled by flowing over buried karst ice formations.

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Press release from Studio Row at the Jacksonville Center

For immediate release - March 17, 2007

The Jacksonville Center welcomes you to a reception on Studio Row on Friday, March 23

Studio artists at Jacksonville Center will hold a New Works reception on Friday, March 23 from 5-7 pm. Glass artist Linda Osborne will highlight her personal bead collection and her wide variety of jewelry and handmade bead items. Sarah McCarthy, home from displaying at the New Jersey arts and crafts show, will show her gas fired pottery vases, bowls, glasses and tableware. Wood fired pottery will be just a part of McCabe Coolidge's functional works display. And Karen Day will show handmade books.

In addition guest artists will share the studio spaces. Look for Gretchen St. Lawrence's pastels, Anne Vaughn's jewelry, Glenda and Don George with shibori fabric and wood working. Traces Library Open House will be highlighted by Suzy Nees and live music will be provided by Billy Miller. Refreshments offered in abundance, all at Jacksonville Center just south of town on Route 8. This is a free event, and all are welcome!

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Discover your local ambient library!

A memo to ideapark.org readers - the Traces library for creative literacy is currently housed in studio 119 and in the student residence building at the Jacksonville Center in Floyd. Traces is a public art project and ambient library designed to foster awareness about land care, cultural conservation, and sustainable, compassionate living.

From now until April 1, visitors at the Traces reading room in studio 119 will find artwork, writings, antique maps and locally made musical instruments on display along with furnishings from the collection of the Traces library. This exhibit is open to the public from 9 to 5 on weekdays and noon to 5 on Saturdays.

Other items from the Traces library collection are also installed in the Oak and Maple rooms of the Jacksonville Center's residence building, known to some as the Little House at the Jacksonville Center. The Oak and Maple rooms of the Little House will be open to visitors on March 23 and April 14, 2007. Music samples, ceramic work, Japanese handicrafts, and stone sculpture are just a few of the exhibit items to be found in the Oak and Maple rooms during this installation.

On the evening of Friday, March 23, 2007, a free public reception will be held at the Jacksonville Center to celebrate a collection of new works now on display on Studio Row on the first level of the main building at the Jacksonville Center. These works include handmade books, photography, drawings, ceramic work and much more. Live music and refreshments are being offered during this event, and all are welcome.

The Jacksonville Center is located about 1/2 mile south of the stoplight in Floyd. For more information on the Jacksonville Center, please call 540-745-2784 or visit their website at www.jacksonvillecenter.org.

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March 17 concert to celebrate culture & resistance

via ohvec.org

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March 14, 2007

Concert for Mountain Justice, A Celebration of Culture and Resistance

By HNN Staff

Charleston, WV (HNN) -- The Concert for Mountain Justice will feature musicians with a history of singing for the mountains and people on Saturday, March 17, 2007 at 7 p.m.

This concert will feature Andrew McKnight, Elaine Purkey, Here's to the Long Haul, Keith & Joan Pitzer, and Sound Storm in WVSU's Capitol Theatre at 123 Summers St, Charleston, WV.

The program is being organized as a fundraiser for Mountain Justice Spring Break and is being co-sponsored by the Student Environmental Action Coalition and the Sierra Club's Environmental Justice Program. Tickets will be sold at the door for either $5 or a larger donation which is encouraged for those who can afford it. In efforts to protect our mountains, musicians are giving inspiration to and telling stories of people who are fighting to preserve their homes in Southern West Virginia.

While many of the artists who will be performing are featured on the compilation CD Moving Mountains: Voices of Appalachia Rise Up Against Mountaintop Removal, there will also be new voices featured. Elaine Purkey is a legend not only for her activism during the steelworker strike in Ravenswood, but also her distinctive and amazingly strong singing voice. Pete Seeger wrote that her, "songs carry on the great tradition of Ella May Wiggin of Gastonia, South Carolina, and Aunt Molly Jackson of Harlan County, Kentucky." In the same evening, one can also hear Here's to the Long Haul, a duo of singing student energy justice organizers with an eye on stopping mountaintop removal.

Also performing that evening will be two acts on the Falling Mountain Label, Andrew McKnight and Keith & Joan Pitzer, who have performed at past Moving Mountains events including Shepherd University, Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, Blacksburg, VA, the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, TN and in Washington D.C at the Institute of Musical Traditions. Each of these artists have tracks included on the Moving Mountains CD. Singer/songwriter, poet and activist Andrew McKnight contributes the lead track "Company Town" from his latest CD Turning Pages, while West Virginians Keith & Joan Pitzer from the Cheat River Valley penned "Underneath a Blackened Moon", a song inspired by a visit with Larry Gibson up on Kayford Mountain, especially for this project. Moving Mountains was compiled by lifelong musician and activist Jen Osha, who will also be performing as part of the Morgantown based group, Sound Storm.

This concert is being organized as a part of and fundraiser for Mountain Justice Spring Break, a youth-led and solidarity based effort to stop mountaintop removal. This week includes educational workshops, celebration of Appalachian culture, and protest with Southern WV community groups. The week is being organized by the Southern Energy Network and the Student Environmental Action Coalition.

For more information on this concert, contact Daniel Chiotos at (304) 886-3389 or Daniel.Chiotos@Gmail.com . For more information about the CD, proceeds from which continue to support coalfield residents, please see www.fallingmountain.com/mtr .

Sprouted sunflower nutrition info

via vegparadise.com

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Across the nutrient scale, raw sunflower seeds contain impressive figures. Usually found in trace quantities, thiamin registers 0.41 mg, riboflavin 0.04 mg, and niacin 0.81 mg. The champion of folate, raw sunflower seeds contain 40.88 mcg for 1 ounce (28 grams). Minerals make a good showing with 6.68 mg calcium, 0.39 mg iron, 20.38 mg magnesium, 39.63 mg potassium, and 0.29 mg zinc. Because raw sunflower seeds are high in phosphorous, eat them in small quantities to prevent loss of calcium.

One of the richest sources of vitamin E with 50.27 IU for 3 1/2 ounces (100 grams), raw sunflower seeds are a powerful antioxidant that rids the body of harmful free radicals that pose risk for heart disease.

The figures for toasted sunflower seeds are slightly lower for most nutrients while calories are slightly higher at 175 for one ounce (28 grams). The fat content goes up to 16.1 grams, 1.7 grams saturated. Protein rates 5 grams with fiber at 3 grams.

Unsalted sunflower seed butter provides 164 calories for one ounce (28 grams) with 6 grams of protein. Total fat registers 13.5 grams with 1.4 grams saturated. Vitamin A content is 15 IU, while folic acid jumps to 67.3 mcg. The seed butter has a good range of B vitamins with the exception of the absence of B12. Calcium levels measure 34.6 mg, iron 1.3 mg, and magnesium 105 mg. There's even a good supply of zinc with 1.5 mg.

Sprouted sunflower seeds produce impressive nutritional data. Imagine, a little sprouted sunflower seed contains enough nutrients to start a whole new plant growing, one that can reach 6- to 12-foot (1.8 to 3.7 m) heights. In the germination process, all nutrients, including enzymes and trace minerals, multiply 300 to 1200%.

One of the richest sources of protein, 3 1/2 ounces (100 grams) of sprouted sunflower seeds contains 22.78 grams. The mineral content soars in the sprouted state. That 3 1/2 ounces (100 grams) offers a notable 116 mg of calcium, 5.06 mg of zinc, 689 mg of potassium, 1.75 mg copper, and 354 mg of magnesium.

Vitamins increase during sprouting when the seeds are producing a new life. Vitamin A increases to 50,000 IU, and Vitamin E offers 52.18 mg, while Vitamin D provides 92.0 IU for 3 1/2 ounces (100 grams). The Vitamin B family offers niacin at 4.50 mg, riboflavin at 0.25 mg, and thiamin at 2.29 mg. Sprouted sunflower seeds are also a rich source of iron, providing 6.77 mg for 31/2 ounces (100 grams) that can be a benefit to people with anemia.

Mature sprouted sunflower seeds are a rich source of chlorophyll noted for cleansing or detoxifying the liver and the blood. Chlorophyll benefits many functions within the body including building blood supply, revitalizing tissue, calming inflammation, activating enzymes, and deodorizing the body. Most commercial breath fresheners contain chlorophyll.

Read more...

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Lyrics to Bob Marley's "Stop That Train"

Stop that train: I'm leavin - today!
Stop that train: I'm leavin - anyway!
Stop that train: I'm leavin. and I said:
It wont be too long whether I'm right or wrong;
I said, it wont be too long whether I'm right or wrong.

All my good life I've been a lonely man,
Teachin' my people who don't understand;
And even though I tried my best,
I still can't find no happiness.

So I got to say:
Stop that train: I'm leavin' - oh, baby now!
Stop that train: I'm leavin' - don't care what you say!
Stop that train: I'm leavin'. and I said:
It won't be too long whether I'm right or wrong;
Said, it wont be too long whether I'm right or wrong.

Some goin' east; and-a some goin' west,
Some stand aside to try their best.
Some livin' big, but the most is livin' small::
They just can't even find no food at all.

I mean, stop it:
Stop that train: I'm leavin' - leavin', mm-hmm.
Stop that train: I'm leavin' - I don't mind!
Stop that train: I'm leavin'. and I said:
It won't be too long whether I'm right or wrong;
I said it wont be too long whether I'm right or wrong.

Stop that train: I'm leavin' - leavin'!
Stop that train: Im leavin - cant take it!
Stop that train: I'm leavin' - got to be better!
It wont be too long whether I'm right or wrong;
I said it wont be too long whether I'm right or wrong.

/fadeout/

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Memorial service at the High School tonight for Joshua Cantrell

Dear reader,
On February 26, Joshua Cantrell of Floyd, Virginia went Home after a courageous fight against brain cancer. A memorial service will be held at 7 pm for him tonight at the high school in Floyd. Details on Joshuas memorial service can be found by scrolling north on the ideapark.org loop.