The Buzz

 Many people today, are concerned about the environment and wishing that they could do something to help stop climate change, species extinction and more.  We are all conserving electricity, cutting down on our driving and driving more conservatively.  But many people want to do MORE to protect the world for future generations!

Placer Nature Center has a great suggestion.  Community members that want to DO something about the environmental challenges ahead can make a big difference in the quality of our environment by teaching thousands of children each year -  how to make choices that help heal our environmental wounds.  In addition, they will teach children science concepts and make them more scientifically literate - contributing to better academic performance for the children.

Placer Nature Center invites concerned citizens to become Placer Nature Center docents.  A delightful 6-week training culminates in a festive graduation after which simple community members become official Placer Nature Center docents and take their place as an environmental leader.  Connecting children and adults with nature makes both people and then environment healthier. 

Through Docent Training, participants learn hoe to teach the natural history and cultural science programs offered to school children who visit our site on school field trips. Docent training takes place every Monday and Wednesday. Participants are encouraged to dress for the weather! For more information, call Linda Desai at 530-878-6053

Fall 2008 Docent Training Schedule:

September 8, 9AM-11AM Orientation & Tour of Placer Nature Center

September 10, 9AM-12PM  Curriculum:  Senses of Wonder - Preschool, Kindergarten

September 15, 9AM-12PM Curriculum:  Habitat/Life Cycles - 1^st, 2^nd Grade

September 17, 9AM-12PM Curriculum:  Maidu - 3^rd  Grade

September 22, 9AM-12PM Curriculum:  Food Chains/Ecology - 4^th, 5^th  Grade

September 24, 9AM-1PM Curriculum: Watershed - Paddlers/Stream Swimmers 12PM-1PM:  Graduation/Potluck

Placer Nature Center, a private 501(c) (3) nonprofit, is open to the public and maintains miles of trails on their 60-acre campus.  Programs offered for preschoolers to adults, scouts and other groups, astronomy classes, environmental lectures and seasonal workshops.  For information please visit http://www.placernaturecenter.org/ or call 530-878-6053. To date Placer Nature Center has served nearly 180,000 students and 200 teachers.

Placer Nature Center is located at the end of Dry Creek Road at 3700 Christian Valley Road, Auburn,

It is being said by many that 2008 is the beginning of great change/shift; and I agree because there appears to be a greater intensity in energy and many are in flux or change.   Friend Syl Bruce makes her transition in locating her 20-year business from Downtown Lincoln to the end of High Street where she should be located in March, ready to continue business as Southwest Silver; we wish her luck in navigating this latest challenge.  Friend Linda Lareau, Owner of  Courthouse Coffee fights to hold her own against the mighty corporations who do not have the superior location across from the Historic Auburn Courthouse.  Fight on, Linda.  And then there's friend Donna Arz who oversees ten holistic practitioners at The Healing Light Institute in North Auburn.  Arz also oversees a teen program and manages to recreate with running, tennis and golf; so Arz is smart in providing recreation with the demands of  entrepreneurship as a single mother; and we wish success to Arz.  And welcome home to Liz Pope as she returns to Auburn to find her place in the media where she has learned much about in Reno working for a radio station there.  Others in the retail and restaurant and real estate and mortgate business will face hard challenges until the cycle balances itself out.

 

 

My family has been self-taught in this asian practice, having read many of the top authorities in the field (including Daniel Kennedy's "Feng Shui For Dummies").

 

Many of the concepts seem like "voodoo" or "snake oil" but there is almost no cost to many of the "cures" prescribed in these books.

 

You don't need to hire an expensive "Feng Shui Practitioner" to examine your residence for Feng Shui flaws......just go online and "Google" the subject and you'll find a plethora of web sites that will provide oodles of information.

Another curious aspect of Feng Shui is that you don't have to believe in it, in order for it to work! My wife, daughter, and myself are all very skeptical and continue to say its "wacky" and "silly" but the cures we have tried continue to work to this day.

 

I'd like to see more discussion locally about this curious topic.

Should there be an interest in a discussion group, I'd be happy to lend my expertise (and experience) with various Feng Shui cures that we've implemented in our home.

 

Downtown Auburn refers to itself as "The heart of Auburn"; so we will refer to South West Silver owner Syl Bruce as the Queen of Hearts who is presently cashing out her 20-year-plus business.   As I witnessed--on a crazy Saturday-- the flood of stunned customers integrate the news that this long-standing business owner is  closing her business, I am struck by the feeling that because of high rents, small business owners can no longer sustain their businesses and landlords truly rule.  Good-bye Syl Bruce, you have serviced your community in a truly memorable way and to say you will be missed is understating reality.  We wish you well wherever you may land for the likes of your service we may not see again.  Farewell.  And, sterling silver lovers:  You have until the end of the year to scoop up the gems at bargain prices, and to wish Syl Bruce a fond goodbye. 

"Free of conditioned thinking, we experience our true nature.

Caught in conditioned thinking, we experience only who we think we are." - Tao Te Ching

As much as I love this quote from the ancient text of Daoist wisdom, it's missleading. We are all subject to conditioned thinking, that's how we get anything done. If we didn't condition ourselves to think like a golfer on the golf course, for example, we couldn't hit a shot. What is limiting is not conditioned thinking itself. The problem is that we believe we are free of pre-programed conditioning by schools, parents, media, pharmaceutical companies and our own unwillingness to take responsibility for what really matters to us. Habitual thought patterns of blame, denial and excuses are great examples of conditioning that doesn't serve anyone. Does your conditioning serve you? How can you tell? Look at your results. Look at the quality of your life. Is it what you want?

Question your own mind. Question your thoughts. Question whether or not your conditioned mind serves you, or makes you small. I may not know you personally, but I stand for what I know. I know you are bigger than that. I know what you are capable of. Choose conditioned thoughts that serve you.