Sunday, April 23, 2006

Another Earth Day rolls around at MSeeds


eday_tokaiT
Originally uploaded by dalbhat.
This year the kids at Mustard Seeds Library joined in on the Earth Day T-shirt D-Zine Contest and I must say we got some pretty exciting entries. This shirt, designed by Tokai Mukherjee, was chosen as the winner. But it has to be said that everyone is a winner if they are thinking about the EARTH and what they can do to create less of an impact on her -- on April 22nd!

eday_cake
Originally uploaded by dalbhat.
After turning in the T-shirt entry forms we baked our own banana-carrot Earth Day cake decorated with lemon icing and flowers from our garden. Then of course, another round of our annual HAPPY EARTH DAY TO YOU!

Thanks to our environmental activist friend, Amanda Suutari, for sharing these nice Earth Day quotations with us all. We have them posted on our Earth Day display in the library:


- We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. ~Native American Proverb

- There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew. ~Marshall McLuhan, 1964

- You can't be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet. ~Hal Borland, Sundial of the Seasons, 1964

- Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money. ~Cree Indian Proverb

- Environmentalists have long been fond of saying that the sun is the only safe nuclear reactor, situated as it is some ninety-three million miles away. ~Stephanie Mills, ed., In Praise of Nature, 1990

- I conceive that the land belongs to a vast family of which many are dead, few are living, and countless numbers are still unborn. ~A Chieftan from Nigeria

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Card Corner at Aalcha


cardcorner
Originally uploaded by dalbhat.
When I heard that my friends at Aalcha were planning to open a lending library and bookshop I asked if I could get in on the fun.

Keeping in touch through cards and letters is something that seems an inherited gene in my family so setting up a small card and stationary corner seemed obvious to me. I am hoping that more people can keep alive the art of letter and postcard writing, even in the midst of this internet/email heyday we are living in.

Products are mainly sourced through NGOs and artists so you just cannot go wrong if you buy your greeting cards and thank yous from here. Beautiful handmade diaries, notebooks and gift bags are also available.

Located in Shyambati in Shantiniketan.