One of the last performances of the wonderful nomad voice, Lhasa de Sela, before setting off to the “heart of the world”. A tribute to Fairuz, the greatest Lebanese singer, with lyrics written by Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran. Indeed, dear Lhasa, immortality lies in a song and the way you mingled your heart with your music makes you and your song immortal!
Lyrics: Kahlil Gibran
Music: Najib Hankash
Give me the flute, and sing /
immortality lies in a song /
and even after we’ve perished /
the flute continues to lament /
have you taken refuge in the woods /
away from places like me / followed streams on their courses /
Lucky is just 3 months old and had already a life full of pain behind him. We found Lucky one week ago, during the night, in the middle of the road, giving heart tearing yelps and trembling. He was already with two male who saw him being hit by a car which didn’t stop. We took him to the hospital, without too much thinking and the next day he was operated at his right foot, in the humerus area. He had a quite good recovery, just that we found out he has sarcoptic itch, which can be transmitted to humans as well and he is now in the hospital for at least 1 month, in order to treat the itch. The poor thing keeps sratching himself till the blood comes out.
He also had 42 degrees (Celsius) fever for three days in a row but now he is feeling better. The doctors don’t quite know where the fever comes from, as Lucky shows no signs of babesiosis.
Another hypothesis of mine is that of portosystemic shunt in dogs, which was brought about when Lucky had the echography done.
We jumped in to save Lucky having no idea about the costs of the whole treatment and now we realise how much it will cost altogether. We paid for the first investigations, surgery, antibiotics and treatment for lice and itch, food (some 250 euro) but now our budget has really come to an end. If you could help us pay for the hospital for one month and the analyses that are still to be done, it will be just so great!
If you can help, we are very thankful!
We have several ways through which you can donate for Lucky:
Nici nu m-am instalat bine in Bucuresti, si am fost luata deja de valul targurilor handmade. Deja am participat la vreo trei dintre ele, I Love Hand Made, Generatia Noua in Centrul Vechi, Green Fair, pe care nici nu am avut timp sa le anunt.
Iata si cateva impresii de la fata locului:
Cat despre targurile viitoare, promit ca de acum incolo voi anunta pe site toate participarile la targuri:)
Si ca tot veni vorba, in perioada 10-13 mai, ma gasiti la Targul Boierului, in curtea Muzeului Taranului Roman. Frunzele copacului abia asteapta sa va “ameteasca” cu culorile si formele lor!
Banii din vanzarile de la targ vor merge integral in bugetul pentru salvarea lui Lucky , asa ca faceti si o fapta buna, cumparand un cercel, o margica…
I have a very important information to make: even though I didn’t sell yet any jewelry made of the jequirity seeds, being involved in the field of natural jewelry making, I strongly advise you to stop wearing any jewelries made of the jequirity seeds, thought to be extremely poisonous, due to their content in abrin, a highly poisonous substance, who can kill in very small concentrations (3 micrograms), if inhaled or ingested.
I hope you all stay safe and keep loving seeds, in general. They have been used by natives for centuries and the majority of them has proved to be good for humans.
There is no 100% certainty about the hypothesis, but one should consider it seriously.
Dear friends, since today it is the first day of the calendaristic spring and the day of Martisor, a special day in some countries in South Eastern Europe, my homeland Romania included, I want to wish you all a beautiful, fruitful, sunny spring as well as an eternal spring in your mind!
Arbol del Mundo, keeping up with the Romanian tradition, has created for this day, starting from the two colours and materials (the red and white threads) and extending to natural materials (Opal, vegetal ivory – Tagua nut – and wooden beads and some Martisor to whish you all a beautiful spring!
What is Matrisor?
Martisor is an old Romanian celebration on March the 1st. Symbolically, it is correlated to women and to fertility as a means of life and continuity. The tradition is authentic in Romania, Moldova, and all territories inhabited by Romanians and Aromanians. Alike though not identical customs can be found in Bulgaria (see Martenitsa), while similar ones exist in Albania, Greece and Italy.
The name Martisor is the diminutive of marț, (the folk name for March in old Romanian), and thus literally means “little March”.
Martisor, marţ and martigus are all names for the red and white string from which a small decoration is tied, and which is offered by people on the 1st day of March. The string can also be black and white, or blue and white).
Giving this talisman to people is an old custom, and it is believed that the one who wears the red and white string will be strong and healthy for the year to come. It is also a symbol of the coming spring. Usually, women wear it pinned to their clothes for the first 12 days of the month, until other spring celebrations, or until the bloom of certain fruit-trees.
Yet, in modern times, and especially in urban areas, the Martisor lost most of its talisman properties and became more of a symbol of friendship or love, appreciation and respect. The black threads were replaced with red, but the delicate wool ropes are still a ‘cottage industry’ among people in the countryside, who comb out the wool, dye the floss, and twist it into thousands of tassels. In some areas the amulets are still made with black and white ropes, for warding off evil.
Origin of Martisor
Some ethnologists consider Martisor to have a Roman origin, while others believe it to have a Daco-Thracian origin.
In ancient Rome, New Year’s Eve was celebrated on March 1 – ‘Martius’, as the month was called in the honour of the god Mars. Mars was not only the god of war but also an agricultural guardian, who ensured nature’s rebirth. Therefore, the red and white colours of Mărţişor may be explained as colours of war and peace.
The Thracians also used to celebrate the New Year’s Eve on the first day of March, a month which took the name of the god Marsyas Silen, the inventor of the pipe (“fluier”, traditional Romanian musical instrument), whose cult was related to the land and vegetation. Thracian spring celebrations, connected to fertility and the rebirth of nature, were consecrated to him.
In some areas, Daco-Romanians still celebrate the agrarian New Year in spring, where the first days of March are considered days of a new beginning. Before March 1, women choose one day from the first nine of the month, and judging by the weather on the chosen day, they would know how the new year will go for them. Similarly, in other areas, young men find out what their wives are going to be like.
Symbolism of the Martisor Colours
Initially, the Mărțișor string used to be called the Year’s Rope, made by black and white wool threads, representing the 365 days of the year. ‘’The Year’s Rope’’ was the link between summer and winter, black and white representing the opposition but also the unity of the contraries: light and dark, warm and cold, life and death. The ‘’martisor’’ is the thread of the days in the year, spun by Baba Dochia, or the thread of one’s life, spun at birth by the Fates. White is the symbol of purity, the sum of all the colours, the light, while Black is the colour of origins, of distinction, of fecundation and fertility, the colour of fertile soil. White is the sky, the Father, while black is the mother of all, Mother Earth.
According to ancient Roman tradition, the ides of March was the perfect time to embark on military campaigns. In this context, it is believed that the red string of Mărțișor signifies vitality, while the white one is the symbol of victory. Red is the colour of fire, blood, and a symbol of life, associated with the passion of women. Meanwhile, white is the colour of snow, clouds, and the wisdom of men. In this interpretation, the thread of a Mărțișor represents the union of the feminine and the masculine principles, the vital forces which give birth to the eternal cycle of the nature. Red and white are also complementary colours present in many key traditions of Daco-Romanian folklore. These are just a few of the reasons why the Mărţişor is a sacred amulet.
Or, if you want an easier explanation for the red-and-white colour of Martisor, in Daco-Romanian folklore, seasons are attributed symbolic colours: spring is red, summer is green or yellow, autumn is black, and winter is white. This is why one can also say that the Mărţişor thread, knitted in white and red, is a symbol of passing, from the cold white winter, to the lively spring, associated with fire and life.
And here I have an invitation to an event I organised together with my friend and environmental activist Julian Gröger, tonight, in the Alt Moabit Street, nr 90.
An impressive movie about the curse of Gold in a community in Western Romania, my home country, as well about the amzing people fighting “Goliath”, the Canadian Corporation whicht is set to take out the gold from underneath one of the oldest settlements, rich in monuments of world importance, at no matter what price!
Invitation text in German follows
Einladung zur Filmvorführung “New Eldorado” am 16.02.12, 19 Uhr bei MitOst
Heute abend, den 16. Februar, um 19 Uhr bei MitOst, laden euch alle herzlich zu einer Filmvorführung Berlin ein.
Wir zeigen den Dokumentarfilm “New Eldorado” über die Planung der größten Zyanidgoldmine Europas im rumänischen Rosia Montana. Der Film verdeutlicht, was dort durch dieses ehrgeizige Projekt angerichtet werden soll, in dem die Menschen, das Kulturerbe und die Umwelt keinen Platz haben. Der Filmabend wird in Partnerschaft mit der rumänischen NGO Alburnus Maior in Rahmen des Rosia Montana Fests – vor 1881 Jahren erstmals urkundliche Erwähnung Rosia Montanas – präsentiert.
Synopsis: Irgendwo in den Karpaten gibt es ein wunderschönes Dorf namens Rosia Montana. Eines Tages kam ein kanadisches Unternehmen und versprach den Menschen: Es wird viel Gold und Silber geben. Es wird Arbeitsplätze geben. Hier wird das neue Eldorado entstehen. Ein tolles Angebot, nicht wahr? Gleichzeitig werden ein Zyanidstaubecken sowie ein 180 Meter Damm gebaut. Vier Berge werden abgetragen. Damit würde auch Rosia Montana und sein einzigartiges Kulturerbe verschwinden. Ein bewegender Film über den Fluch des Golds in Rosia Montana.
Nach dem Film präsentiert Alina Banu (Aktivistin der Kampagne Save Rosia Montana) die Eckdaten des Projekts sowie den aktuellen Stand des Projekts und der landesweiten Kampagne „Save Rosia Montana“ – als die größte Umweltbewegung Rumäniens). Weiterhin wird Natalia Toma-Kansteiner (Architektur-Restaurierung-Archäologie) die Argumente für die Aufnahme von Rosia Montana auf der UNESCO Weltkulturerbeliste darlegen.
Die Diskussion wird von Julian Gröger (MitOst Mitglied) moderiert.
New Eldorado (2004),
Dokumentarfilm von Tibor Kocsis (HU)
76 min.
Sprache: Rumänisch mit englischen Untertiteln
Trailer here Ort: MitOst e.V., Alt-Moabit 90, 10559 Berlin (3. Stock)
Link zum Veranstaltungsort http://www.mitost.org/footernavi/kontakt/anfahrt.html.
Wir freuen uns auf einen anregenden und interessanten Abend.
Just another pledoyer against buying and using DIRTY GOLD!
Most consumers don’t know where the gold in their products comes from, or how it is mined.
Gold mining is a dirty industry: it can displace communities, contaminate drinking water, hurt workers, and destroy pristine environments.
Did you ever ask yourself how ethical wearing a golden ring is? Looking at the statistics, you will slowly observe that it is as wrong, if not worse than wearing a fur coat, since its impact on the environment is much more devastating.
Here some general facts related to gold mining who will deter you, I hope, from ever thinking about using gold.
- Gold mining has been linked to human rights violations and displacement of communities from
their homes and livelihoods in Chile, Ghana etc.
- Open-pit gold mines obliterate the landscape (opening up vast craters, flattening or even
inverting mountaintops) producing 8 to 10 times more waste than underground mining.
- Cyanide is used to separate gold from ore. Cyanide pollution is a major concern. A rice-grain
sized dose of cyanide can be fatal to humans; concentrations of 1 microgram (one-millionth of a
gram) per liter of water can be fatal to fish.
- Metals mining employs 0.09 percent of the global workforce but consumes as much as 10
percent of world energy.
- Between 1995 and 2015, approximately half the gold produced worldwide has or will come
from indigenous peoples’ lands.
- Metals mining is the number one toxic polluter in i.e. the United States, responsible for 89%
of arsenic releases, 85% of mercury releases, and 84% of lead releases in 2004.
- In the case of gold, the end product of most of this mining activity is jewelry, which accounts
for as much as 80 percent of gold consumption.
- the production of one single golden ring generates 20 tons of mining waste;
- the biggest open pit mine in the world is the Bingham Canyon mine in Utah, US; it is visible from space and measures 1.5 km in depth and is 4 km wide;
- 120 000 tons of toxic mining waste were spilled in 2000 at Baia Mare, Romania, polluting the water source for aprox. 2.5 million people and killing 1200 tons of fish.
Communities impacted by open cast gold mining from all around the world are increasingly organizing and campaigning to make civil society and decision makers aware of the devastating impact of gold mining on communites and their environment.
The same goes for its cousin, silver, about which I will add an entry soon.
I invite you to think more about the impact your jewelry is having on the environment!
Source: The report produced by Earthworks and Oxfam America, called Dirty Metals. Mining, Communities and the Environment, to be found at the following link: http://www.nodirtygold.org/pubs/DirtyMetals.pdf
Some clean their homes, some bake cookies, some rush through shops in search for presents, some write postcards, some go skiing in the Alps (with the fall of the first snow) while waiting for the Christmas Spirit to drop by and make himself confortable.
This year, the Christmas Spirit came early and it turned out to be very workohoolic for me…Not having a precuniary or a demand-oriented output, but just the continuous drive of my hands who couldn´t stop from frantically working. It was alo due to the fact that my PC desk, normally clean and not used for handmade activities, was now filled with materials, and always when I was approaching the PC to press the “start” button, I was always taking some time to “play” with my seeds which were always resulting in hours and hours (sometimes more than 12 hours…) of work.
Here are some of the results of the inspiration the Christmas Spirit brought to me, even though the quality of the pictures, shoot again with my mobile camera, is awful.
After the workohoolic pre-Christmas period, where I simply couldn´t stop from creating mainly earrings and necklaces, just when I was about to pack my things and head towards the sunny Sardegna, Santa Claus came by, dressed in yellow, though (the colour of the German Post) and dropped a box I was so impatiently waiting for.
You can imagine my joy when I opened the box and saw the seeds sent to me from Medellin by my dear globe-trotter friend Dinu, travelling around South America for more than a year now, currently in Colombia.
For those reading Romanian, if interested in his at times incredible road-movie stories, also published by Think out of the Box, you can get an idea about his road to discovery and self-discovery.
And with the arrival of this box…my preparations for the trip were just postponed, as “duty” calls. My present needs to be cuddled and most of all, transformed into pieces of colourful jewelry!
I hope you will be as happy and inspired when you get to see your Christmas present as I was some minutes ago!
Wishing you a wonderful winter holiday and a new year full of inspiration, I return to the call of the “nature”!
Handmade organic jewelry, made of vegetal (hemp, seeds, dried fruits, wood etc.) and geological products from all over the world. An invitation to a bio-geological journey around the world and to sustainable consumption.
One of the personalities who inspired me the most, this nomad amazing voice left this Earth too soon in search of the "heart of the world".
Wandering around the world, singing with her heart, she understood that life, is "a road constantly changing and, being on it, you change too". I dedicate this tremendous change in my life to her, who, with her music, helped me to understand it and seek for the essence. Her legacy will live on
