You Don’t Have to Be a Russian Czar or Sherlock Holmes to Capture the Eco-Magic of Easter Eggs!

When I think of Easter Fun, I think of Easter Bunnies and Bunny workshops – busily designing and coloring the best Easter Eggs in the world (the equivalent of Santa’s Christmas workshop) – who then wrap their precious cargo inside hand-made (paw-made) baskets – and who then pass them onto Easter Bunny-shaped Gnomes who randomly hide these treasures underground and across the globe!  Our mission then as tradition-bound humans – is to find these precious symbols of rebirth, renewal, and happiness and incorporate them into our own unique springtime sunshine celebrations!  So if you haven’t done so already, here are some eco-friendly, eco-adventurous Easter Egg ideas from the Chief Easter Bunny himself!

1- Book Yourself a World-Class Easter Egg Hunt Vacation!

Easter Egg Hunts are great cultural festivities that come together with religious traditions to add fun and excitement to the Easter Bunny’s appearance for kids and adults alike.  Here then are four of the best Easter Egg Hunts in the world:

The Faberge Easter Egg Hunt in London, England – See www.The-Big-Faberge-Egg-Hunt-London Hosted by Russian jeweler, Faberge, and billed as the “World’s Largest  Luxury Easter Egg Hunt” as well as a major charity event, over 200 Giant Fiberglass Easter Eggs have been planted throughout the city of London decorated by some of the world’s most famous artists, designers, jewelers, actors and architects. Each egg has its own secret code word which finders use to text to a designated number.  The Grand Prize is a diamond encrusted Jubilee Egg made by Faberge in honor of the 60 year reign of Queen Elizabeth II.  Hunt organizers hope to raise 3 million dollars with the proceeds going to two charities – “Action for Children” and “The Elephant Family”.

The Beatrix Potter Easter Egg Hunt in Cumbria, England – See www.The-Great-Peter-Rabbit-Easter-Egg-Hunt Located in the Lake District of North Western England and covering 2600 square miles of terrain, this year’s annual Easter Egg Hunt will be celebrating the 110th anniversary  of “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” written by English natural scientist and conservationist, Beatrix Potter.  One hundred and ten ceramic eggs have been hidden all over the countryside and once all the eggs have been found the great Peter Rabbit Easter Egg Hunt of 2012 will be over.

The Annual Easter Egg Hunt at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, USA – See www.VisitNC-Annual-Easter-Egg-Hunt-at-Biltmore This year’s Easter Egg Hunt coincides with the opening weekend of the 27th annual “Festival of Flowers”.  Three hunts are scheduled beginning at 11am, 1pm, and 3pm.  Magic shows, Children’s music and stories and Photo opportunities with the Easter Bunny are included as well.

The High Altitude Egg Hunt at Copper Mountain, Colorado, USA – See www.Copper-Mountain-Easter-Egg-Hunt Located between the ski resorts of Vail and Breckenridge and billed as the largest Easter Egg Hunt in Colorado with 50,000 eggs to find, there will be an “all-new Egg Putt-Putt – 9 holes of “greens” on the snow with Easter eggs for golf balls.

2- Get Tickets for an Easter Egg Rolling or Tapping Contest!

You don’t have to have a spoon or an invitation to the “White House” in Washington, D.C. to participate in an Easter Egg rolling contest nor do you have to fly to Russia to compete in an Easter Egg-knocking contest.  The tradition of egg rolling competitions goes back centuries across the globe – in England and Scotland, in Germany and Denmark, in the Netherlands and Lithuania and even ancient Egypt.   And if you want to see some serious egg-tapping, check out Marksville, Louisiana which holds its internationally recognized “Easter Egg Knocking Contest” on the courthouse square every year on Easter morning.  Note: All chicken, duck, turkey, and guinea eggs are allowed.

3- Go High-Tech with Easter Egg Geocaching!

They are doing it in La Vergne, Tennessee and in Boulder Junction, Wisconsin – in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania and from Cape Cod Massachusetts to the Sacred Rocks Reserve in southern California – Families across the nation are using their GPS devices to locate the coordinates of hidden Easter Egg treasures.  After finding each cache, the Easter Egg hunter signs a log or takes a picture to prove that he or she has completed this part of the search.  Prizes are awarded at the end or with each cache found.

4- Go Underwater with Easter Egg Diving!

Billed as an “Easter Eggstravaganza”, children are being encouraged to dive, splash, and swim for eggs at the ‘5th Annual Easter Egg Dive’ at the Fairmont Aquatic Center in Salt Lake City next month.  And in Key Largo, Florida, adult divers and snorkelers are getting “egg-cited” about the upcoming “12th Annual Underwater Easter Egg Hunt” headed up by Captain Spencer Slate of the Atlantis Dive Center who dresses up each year in a giant bunny costume with dive gear. Participants are taken out to a secluded location on glass-bottom boats to one of the Keys’ pristine reefs “where revelers plunge for the hard-boiled hoard during the two-tank trip.”  The proceeds from this popular hunt acts as a fundraiser for handicapped and needy kids within the area especially during this holiday season.

5- Go Gaga Egg Watching at an Easter Egg Drop Near You!

Easter Egg Celebrations are now ‘High-Flying’!  All across North America, Easter Egg Hunts are now beginning with ‘Easter Egg Drops’ where thousands of plastic Easter Eggs filled with candy and prizes are dropped from Helicopters or Hot Air Balloons.   Many are church-sponsored or parks and recreation-sponsored. They are doing it in small town places to big city places – from Alachua, Florida to Montgomery, Alabama, from Glen Mills, Pennsylvania to North Las Vegas, Nevada, from Burlington, North Carolina and Bluefield, Virginia to Owasso, Oklahoma and The Twin Cities of Minnesota and from Marion, Illinois and Rochester, New Hampshire to Laguna Hills, California and Portland, Oregon.

6- Host An Easter Egg Tea Party!

In keeping with an organically-themed Easter Egg tea party, offer your invited guests eco-rich reminders of  sensory verdancy with springtime favors, décor, and food items including: 1-Pastel-colored recyclable napkins, a hand-stitched tablecloth with ribbon-accented designs and handmade soy and beeswax candles; 2-Reusable papier-mache eggs and bunny and chick figurines made from recycled wool sweaters or leftover milk jugs and juice cartons; 3-Freshly-picked floral cuttings and garland arrangements straight from the garden along with twig-decorated candle rings; 4-Homemade-styled Easter basket or Easter bonnet place settings filled with a selection of real grass, organic lollipops, nuts, tea bags, carrot and celery sticks, all-natural jelly beans, and ‘fair trade’ dark chocolate candy; 5-Freshly-made finger sandwiches and dips with deviled eggs, scones and crumpets and locally produced whipped cream, butter, jam, and honey; and 6- After-party keepsakes – an Easter Egg-Dying Starter Kit containing cage-free chicken eggs, red cabbage leaves, spinach and turmeric leaves, lemon peels, yellow onion skins, blueberries, beet juice, and a few unused crayon nubs – and – perhaps a personalized Easter Egg Tea Party Photo Memento set inside an eco-friendly recycled magazine picture frame.

So in conclusion, you may not be a Russian czar or czarina, rich enough to own a bejeweled Faberge Egg yet! – OR – be a world-famous super sleuth like a geeky Sherlock Holmes, able to find even the smallest clues in any Geocaching Easter Egg Hunt! – BUT – you now have creative ideas of your own to making your own Easter Fun eco-magical!

Reference Footnote: Easter Fun for me is also a special reminder of my ancient celebratory family heritage- – I can trace my own unique “Holmes “ ancestry back to one Francis Holmes, a 17th century English Puritan and Early Settler and Co-Founder of Stamford, CT. in 1640 America, who is my 9th great-grandfather – – and my unique Russian heritage can be traced back to the 10th and 11th centuries – a time period in which the first Christian monarchs of Scandinavia and Eastern Europe were suddenly bursting upon the scene including: 1- Prince Mieszko I, First Christian Ruler of Poland, my 35th great-grandfather; 2- Saint Stephen I of Hungary, my 31st great-grandfather; 3- Saint Ludmila of Bohemia, my 38th great-grandmother; and 4- Yaroslav I the Wise, Prince of Novgorod and Kiev, my 33rd great-grandfather and 5- Saint Vladimir Svyatoslavich the Great, my 34th great-grandfather.  However, I am still looking for an Easter Bunny in the family tree.

A “Shore-Fire” Remedy for the Winter Blues: A Beachcombing Vacation of Sand, Sea Shells, Sea Glass and Glass Fishing Floats along America’s Treasure-filled Coves and Coastal Ways!

It’s that time of year up here in the northeastern quadrant of the USA when warm sea breezes and the soft splash of a royal tern taking a plunge brings back eco-memories of winter breaks in the Florida Keys. But this January, I am going to stay closer to home and renew myself by expanding my sand and sea shell collection to the shores of southern New England and Long Island. And If I am feeling sleuthy enough in a week or two, I shall then attend next month’s glass float scavenger hunt on Georgia’s Jekyll Island held every January and February since 2002 which allows visitors to hunt for colorful hand crafted glass treasures along the beach!

So let’s take a behind-the-scenes look at collectors of sand, sea shells, sea glass, and glass fishing floats and determine which beachcombing activities best suits your plans for a “Beat the Winter Blues” vacation!

-COLLECTING SAND

A collector of sand is called an “arenophile”. For most collectors sand is a tangible reminder of a special outing or exotic vacation – a unique bit of geology and geography encapsulated within its grains that comes in a variety of colors, textures, grain shapes, angularities, and elemental minerals that range from the green grains of olivine, to the clear grains of quartz, to the black grains of magnetite and to the pink grains of garnet. Some collectors look for gemstones in sand and others tiny fossils but for those collectors who are artistically inclined like myself – scooping up sand samples into a reusable plastic storage bag or empty film container is an easy and inexpensive way to bring home eco-memories for my next art project – a sand picture on canvas or a ship-shaped sand bottle. A good place to start meeting fellow sand collectors and swap samples is to join “The International Sand Collectors Society” based in North Haven, Connecticut – www.sandcollectors.org/All_About_Usx.html.

-COLLECTING SEA SHELLS

With over 50,000 types of shells in the world, there is no shortage of places to find a remarkably rich variety of shell shapes, patterns, and colors. However certain beaches in the USA stand out from the rest in their bounty of prize shell specimens. They are as follows:

1- CALIFORNIA – Stinson Beach, Silver Strand State Beach (Coronado Island) & Point Reyes National Seashore
2- FLORIDA – Sanibel Island, Captiva Island, Marco Island & the Gulf Islands National Seashore off of Pensacola
3- GEORGIA – Cumberland Island National Seashore
4- HAWAII – Shipwreck Beach on Lanai, Tunnels Beach on Kauai & Waikiki Beach on Oahu
5- MARYLAND – Both Calvert Cliffs State Park & Flag Ponds Nature Park at Lusby
6- NEW YORK – the Great Peconic Bay and Shelter Island nestled at the eastern end of Long island
7- NORTH CAROLINA – Ocracoke Island on the Outer Banks
8- OREGON – Bandon in Coos County, on the south side of the mouth of the Coquille River
9- TEXAS – Galveston and San Jose Island
10- WASHINGTON – Point No Point Beach in Hansville on the northern tip of the Kitsap Peninsula – and – Point Roberts in Whatcom County bordered by Canada and the waters of Boundary Bay

For some of these special places, you might want to consider booking a “shelling tour” in advance if your time is limited such as “Capt. Mike Fuery’s Tours” based in Captiva Island, Florida – Check out www.islandinnsanibel.com/things-to-do-sanibel-island/tours/captain-mike-fuerys-tours. And for those of you with the ambitious itch to collect shells outside the continental USA, check out shell collector and guide, Peggy Williams, at www.shelltrips.com and be sure to check the web as well for regional Shell Club offerings. Once again, for those of you with artistic inclinations, sea shells offer limitless possibilities for sea shell craft projects – from sea shell wreaths to sea shell napkin rings – from sea shell Christmas tree ornaments to sea shell picture frames – from sea shell hair clips to sea shell candles and sea shell mobiles and even a sea shell sewn tote bag!

-COLLECTING SEA GLASS

The “Sea Glass Mecca” for collectors around the world is ‘Glass Beach’ located at the town’s edge of Fort Bragg in Mendocino County California. Founded as a military fort prior to the American Civil War, and used as the town dumping ground for discarded glass, appliances, and cars up until 1967, the beach is now covered with lovely smooth shards of sea glass after decades of pounding waves pulverized and polished broken clumps of glassy debris.

In addition to Fort Bragg, California, the top spots for collecting sea glass in the USA include the following:

1-CALIFORNIA – Seaside State Beach & Monterey State Beach in Monterey
2-HAWAII – Glass Beach on Kauai
3-MAINE – Bar Island in Bar Harbor
4-MASSACHUSETTS – Spectacle Island in the Boston Harbor
5-*PUERTO RICO – Beaches along Old San Juan Bay & Beaches in Rincon i.e. Antonio’s Beach, River Mouth, Punta Beach
6-WASHINGTON – Rosario Beach on Fidalgo Island & Glass Beach at Port Townsend

*Established as a U.S. Commonwealth in 1952.

Sea glass collecting has grown tremendously within just the last decade as these beach treasures are perfect for jewelry, jar displays, mosaics and other creative projects. Consequently, there are a number of regional sea glass associations and sea glass festivals all across America but a good jumping-off point would be to check out the “North American Sea Glass Association” (www.seaglassassociation.org/) which organizes a yearly conference bringing together collectors, artisans, and retailers – (last year’s conference was held in Long Branch, New Jersey) – and issues a newsletter. Three other great reference guides are the online magazine, “The Sea Glass Journal” (www.seaglassjournal.com), Richard LaMotte’s book, “Pure Sea Glass”, and the “Sea Glass Hunter’s Handbook” by Carole S. Lambert.

-COLLECTING GLASS FISHING FLOATS

Most glass floats remaining in the ocean are drifting in a circular pattern of ocean currents in the North Pacific. These hollow glass balls, once used by fishermen in many parts of the world to keep their fishing nets and lines afloat – (the Norwegian and Japanese glass fishing floats being the most well known) have become so popular in recent years as a collectors’ item for both beachcombers and interior decorators alike that American glassblowers and glass artists are being asked to replicate these glass floats as a way to meet demand. And now Tourism Councils and Chambers of Commerce on both the East Coast and West Coast of the United States have caught onto the idea of enticing vacationers to their area by offering Glass Float Treasure Hunts!

But for those purists, the best places to find glass fishing floats in the USA are on the shores of Oregon at Astoria, Washington state at Long Beach, and at the Alaska Peninsula/Bristol Bay area – particularly after a winter storm during the months of February, March, and April. To learn more, check out “Glass Fishing Floats of the World: The Collector’s Price Guide and Identification Handbook” by Stu Farnsworth and Alan D. Rammer and “Beachcombers Guide to the Northwest” by Walt Pich.

Are you ready now to beat the “Winter Blues”?

Take A Walk On The Wild Side This Year – With Some of The Coolest Eco-Art Destinations in the World for Travelers and Artists Alike!

If you want an authentic travel experience filled with novel art ideas, products, resources, and opportunities that raises your environmental and cultural awareness to a heightened level of thinking and expressiveness – Take a Walk on the Wild Side This Year! – and Check Out Anyone of These Cool Eco-Art Destinations – and Who Knows You May Find An Eco-Inspiration of Your Own Making!

1-Cancun’s Underwater Art Museum– Just off Mexico’s eastern coastline in the waters surrounding Cancun, Isla Mujeres and Punta Nizuc lies the world’s largest underwater sculpture park – a work-in-progress by British artist Jason de Caires Taylor – who is creating a submerged art gallery made of a series of specialized cement sculptures i.e. ‘The Collector’, ‘The Silent Evolution’, ‘The Archive of Lost Dreams’, ‘The Gardener of Hope’ and ‘Man on Fire’ that have been designed to form artificial reef structures, encourage coral growth, attract marine life (as well as scuba divers and snorkelers), and raise awareness about ocean health. Check out his www.underwatersculpture.com.

2-Western Canada’s Thunderbird Park & The Royal British Columbia Museum – Located side-by-side inside the harbor area of downtown Victoria on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada are some of the greatest First Nation’s totem poles ever collected and preserved. These heraldic tall red cedar poles carved with aboriginal family crests and ancestral supernatural beings are the eco-art symbols of a clan’s lineage from a particular array of animals. Other totem poles recount notable legends or events in the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. A number of contemporary totem poles designed, carved, and painted by well-known artists of today are also displayed here. Check out www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/.

3- Sweden’s ICEHOTEL and Sculpture Park – Located in the village of Jukkasjarvi on the shore of the Torne River, right next to the town of Kiruna, the northernmost city in Sweden in the province of Lapland which sits way above the arctic circle — the artistic ice creations within this hotel and the natural wilderness around it together with the Magnetite-carved sculptures surrounding the hotel make this an eco-art destination like no other. The ice hotel rooms and its famous ice bar are open to guests by mid-December and the ice church and main hall are completed by Christmas. Artists are invited each summer to create something new for the sculpture park of magnetite (iron ore is an abundant local resource) and artists and architects alike are invited each winter under the direction of the ICEHOTEL Art & Design Group to create next year’s version of the ICEHOTEL. This winter season of 2011-2012 there will be 47 rooms in total including 16 Art Suites, 20 Ice Rooms, and 8 Snow Rooms. This hotel location also makes it a good place for skiing, dog sledding, and observing the northern lights. Check out www.icehotel.com.

4-Newfoundland’s Fogo Island Art-In-Residency Program – Situated up in Eastern Canada, Located off the northeastern coastline of Newfoundland and Centered around old fishing cabins that have been converted into art studios – lies the Fogo Islands where visual artists, filmmakers, writers, artists, musicians, curators, and thinkers from around the world are now being invited to come “to create a world-renowned destination for artistic, cultural, ecological and culinary pursuits” – “a rural renaissance” model – within this endangered rugged community of 2700 people. Inspired in part by Zita Cobb, President of the Shorefast Foundation, and in keeping with the islander’s unique cultural and natural resources, the goal is to make Fogo Island (and the Change Islands) a leading “geotourism” destination and by so doing develop an alternative sustainable economy that will support community innovation and cultural resilience. Already being built is a boutique hotel, an eco-art gallery, and a locavore-focused restaurant. Check out www.shorefast.org/ and www.artscorpfogoisland.ca/.

5-Michigan’s Rabbit Island Eco-Art-In-Residency Project – Located three miles off the northern shore of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula on the edge of Lake Superior lies an uninhabited 91-acre island recently purchased by a New York City-based physician named Rob Gorski who together with London-based Andrew Ranville, the Principal Artist-in-Residence, and ‘The Keweenaw Land Trust’, plan to turn this deserted place into a sustainable artist residency – “a chance to creatively explore ideas related to the absence of civilization in a well-preserved microcosm”. Plans have already been made for buildings using the island’s own stone and wood including a sauna, a treehouse studio, and an amphitheater made of fallen sugar maples. For more information, check out www.rabbit-island.org.

6-Denmark’s Tranekaer Int’l Centre for Art and Nature (TICKON) – Located within the magnificent park grounds of Tranekaer Castle, a 13th century fortress on the Danish island of Langeland – is an outdoor gallery of environmental sculptures that is continually evolving – animated by the wondrous landscape of this 60 acres castle park. Artists featured include Chris Drury, Andy Goldsworthy, David Nash, Jorn Ronnau, Alan Sonfist, Herman de Vries, Nils-Udo, Hermann Prigann, Marc Barbarit & Gilles Bruni, Patrick Dougherty, and Guiliano Mauri. For more information, check out www.langeland.dk or contact – mail@alfiobonanno.dk.

7-New Zealand’s Connells Bay Sculpture Park – Located at the south-eastern end of Waiheke Island in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf, a luxurious rental beachfront cottage is quietly nestled in amongst 60 acres of rolling farmland and unique New Zealand sculptures “where art and nature are united to create special spaces for site specific sculpture”. Tours are given by appointment only which features some of New Zealand’s best artists including Graham Bennett, Chris Booth, Phil Dadson, Neil Dawson, Paul Dibble, Kon Dimopoulos, Fatu Feu’u, Regan Gentry, Christine Hellyar, Virginia King, Gregor Kregar, Barry Lett, David McCracken, Cathryn Monro, Peter Nicholls, Julia Oram, Phil Price, Bob Stewart, Richard Thompson, Jeff Thomson and Denis O’Connor. This collaboration of artist and environment grows each year with new temporary sculpture installations and three new photographic exhibitions displayed at the park every other year. For more information, check out www.connellsbay.co.nz.

8-South Korea’s Mt. Yeonmisan Nature Art Park – Ever since 2004, the “Yatoo”, the Korean Nature Art Association hosts a biennial international nature art exhibition around Gongju city of Chungnam Province in South Korea – known as the ‘Geumgang Nature Art Biennale’. For three weeks artists from all over the world live together and create their nature art works at Mr. Yeonmisan Nature Park. Their works are open to the public thereafter and constantly change based upon their life cycle. During the ‘pre-Biennale’ period of 2009 alone, more than 200 pieces from 135 countries were submitted for consideration by the Organizing Committee for the 2010 Geumgang Nature Art Biennale. The final selection was made using a strict screening process, whereby the submissions were whittled down to 20 Korean artists and 17 foreign artists from 15 nations. Food, accommodations, as well as transportation costs were provided by the biennale organizers. The next biennale is due to take place this year between July 25th and August 17th and the theme this year will be “Nature, Human Being, and Sound”. The entire Nature Art Park will be open for viewing on August 19, 2012. For more info, check out www.natureartbiennale.org/.

Are you Ready Now for Your Next Eco-Art Traveling Vacation?

Colorize Your Next Travel Plans! – Discover The Latest Eco-Trends at America’s Greenest Hotel Chains!

It used to be that whatever your budget, hotel chains were a standardized home away from home – with just a few extra perks – complimentary newspapers and continental breakfast, an indoor or outdoor pool, an assortment of vending machines and television channels to relax away your free time and of course, an array of miniature soaps and shampoo bottles nestled on top of your bathroom counter.

But in just the last few years, much like the old black and white television sets of the 1950’s and early 60’s, America’s largest hotel chains have now undergone a color transformation – from black and white – to GREEN!!!!  So much so that they are even encouraging their customers to participate in their sustainability programs with whole websites dedicated to their projects for viewing and exploring.  These leaders of the hospitality industry include the InterContinental Hotels Group, Wyndham Hotel Group, Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Kimpton Hotels, Choice Hotels, Carlson Hotels, Best Western, Accor Hospitality Group, Global Hyatt and La Quinta Inns and Suites!

Indeed, green practices and technologies are being incorporated in everything from power-flush toilets to low-flow showerheads, from motion-detection sensors to energy efficient compact fluorescent lighting, from green heat-reflecting roofs to photovoltaic solar-electric systems, from eco-friendly shampoos and soaps in bulk dispensers to non-toxic biodegradable housekeeping cleansers, from in-room recycling bins to recycled artwork and office furniture, from organic dining to organic bedding, and yes, from wireless digital media communications to hotel invoices, brochures, and keycard sleeves made of recycled paper with soy-based inks.

Here are some of the most innovative examples:

1-‘Eco-Friendly Uniforms’ – Yes, the Hotel Front Desk Staff at Wyndham wear two-piece suits made of 25 two-liter recycled plastic bottles woven into soft fabrics which do not require professional laundering.  In another major innovation, Wyndham Hotels now offers ‘Allergy-Friendly Rooms’ known as “CleanAir Rooms” whose air purification system and specially treated bed linen eliminates anywhere from 98 to 100% of all viruses and bacteria.

2-‘Eco-Innovative Investments’ – Marriott International is actively involved in rainforest protection and water conservation through a portfolio of innovative conservation initiatives which include a two million plus commitment to preserving 1.4 million acres of rainforest in Brazil and a half million plus commitment to protecting the mountain sources of fresh water for 2 billion people in Asia.  This latter environmental initiative helps rural communities to develop sustainable businesses such as mushroom farming and honey production whilst reducing erosion and water quality contamination downstream.

3-‘Eco-Friendly Landscaping, Building Construction, and Food and Energy Supplies’ – The Hilton Hotel in Vancouver, Washington is one of the most environmentally advanced hotels in the USA.  Not only does it feature a recyclable brick construction, a unique irrigation system to water its native local plants, and fueling stations for electric cars but a restaurant menu of locally sourced meat, fish, cheese, wine and bread.

4-   ‘Earthcare Performance and Monitoring Tracking System’ – Kimpton Hotels is in the forefront of environmental stewardship – introducing new eco-friendly products and corporate services both internally and nationally through its many partnerships and alliances with environmentally minded organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, The Trust for Public Land, and Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program.  ‘EarthCare Educational and Training Program’ – Kimpton Hotels has established its own employee selected “EarthCare Champion Teams”’ who build and support ecologically responsible hotel standards and procedures. ‘EarthCare Building Preservation Program’ – Kimpton Hotels is well-known for restoring, revitalizing, and converting old historic landmarks for hotel usage including notable office buildings, department stores, a telephone switching station, a general post office, a fruit and vegetable canning plant, and the 10^th oldest building in the USA.

Yes, indeed, we have come a long way since the Howard Johnson’s motor lodges of the 1960’s when American hotel chains were simply an overnight stop for our road trips across the USA.   Today they are a reflection of our eco-conscious society and a colorful high quality experience not to be missed!

“What To Do On Your Next Stay-cation? How About Eco-Musing at Your Local Art Museum and Following the Trail of Mistletoes, Chestnuts, and Sunflowers?”

Money is tight for me this summer and my home state, Texas, is suffering from one of the worst droughts on record.  So rather than spinning off to the lushness of Hawaii or traipsing the local countryside, I decided to spend my vacation at home – taking day trips to nearby art museums – what is commonly referred to nowadays as a ‘Stay-cation”!  Luckily for me, the Dallas-Fort Worth area has some of the best art museums in the country and fortunately this year it is host to some of the world’s most iconic traveling exhibitions.

So with audio tape recorder in hand, following the numbered ‘beeps’ of my art gallery guide, I made the rounds of the most prominent museums – wandering through rooms full of paintings and collections of Modern art, Asian art, Western art, African art and more till suddenly – I hit upon the idea of following my own trail – the trail of mistletoes, chestnuts, and sunflowers.   Feeling like a member of Kit Carson’s scouting party, I soon encountered sprinkles of ‘mistletoe’ popping up in Norman Rockwell prints and avenues of ‘chestnuts’ melting across the distant horizon in Alfred Sisley’s  landscape paintings until after a long trek across the dusty plains, I saw in the dim light of a nearby campfire – a circle of packs and saddles huddled around the glow of  flames – it was Vincent Van Gogh’s still life sentinel – his seminal ‘sunflower’!

Used by artists and astrologers alike in their interpretation of life’s imagery- mistletoes, chestnuts, and sunflowers are dreamy symbols of ‘affection’, ‘abundance‘, and ‘adoration’.   For me they are seasonal symbols of  ‘good times’ past: winter scenes of Christmas kisses and Christmas songs with mistletoe lyrics and “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” – and – summer scenes filled with sunflower farms, spring-fed mudholes, and sunbathing girls from the city.  But what of the scientific eco-truths behind mistletoes, chestnuts, and sunflowers?

Long misunderstood as a parasitic pest that killed trees and destroyed habitats, ‘mistletoe’ has now been rehabilitated in the scientific world as an essential eco- element of forests and woodlands.  Various birds make their nests in mistletoes and many butterfly species are attracted by its nutrients.  So it is that the greater the amount of mistletoes in an ecosystem, the greater the biodiversity of animals.

Similarly, chestnuts are an important food source for squirrels, deer, jays, pigeons, and wild boar and many insects feed on its seeds. Note: There is a huge difference between ‘horse’ chestnuts and ‘sweet’ chestnuts.  Horse chestnuts are toxic if eaten raw whereas sweet chestnuts can be used to make a whole host of cooking products:

1)  They can be dried and milled into flour which then can be used to make breads, cakes, pancakes, and pastas.

2)  They can be ground up and used as a thickener for soups, stews, and sauces or to make a delicious chestnut stuffing.

3)   They can be boiled and brewed into an exotic form of beer or a coffee-like drink and –

4)  They can be grilled, roasted, or candied as a nice snack food.  Indeed chestnuts were the ‘energy bars’ of the Greek and Roman periods having twice as much starch as potatoes.  Alexander the Great planted chestnut trees all across Europe on his various campaigns and Roman soldiers were given chestnut porridge before battle.

And long before Native Americans were harvesting corn – they were harvesting sunflowers as far back as 8000 years ago!  Today’s oilseed sunflowers are commercial hybrids and are the number two crop in the world for vegetable oil production world wide – second only to soybeans.   Their counterpart, the confectionary sunflowers, produce large black and white seeds that are roasted and sold for snacks or baked in breads or grounded up into ‘sunbutter’.  They are also the preferred food for a wide variety of birds.  But for me, the most amazing eco-fact about sunflowers is their innate ability to remove toxic waste from the soil with their extensive root systems – toxins like lead, arsenic, uranium, Cesium-137, and Strontium-90.  Indeed hundreds of acres of sunflowers are now being planted around the fallout zone of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan to help decontaminate the radioactive soil that resulted from a massive earthquake and tsunami last March.  And now a new technology has emerged that revolves around sunflowers called  ‘rhizo-filtration’ – “a form of bioremediation that involves filtering water through a mass of roots to remove toxic substances or excess nutrients”.  To date, 95% of the residual radiation in ponds surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine (whose #4 reactor exploded back in 1986) has been extracted by floating rafts of sunflowers.

But the sunflower’s ecological importance does not stop here – in Holland, the fibrous roots of sunflowers have been used to reclaim marshy land areas and turn these areas into farmland.  And their dried stems have also been used to produce fuel – hydrogen fuel and vegetable-oil based fuel which burn 75% cleaner than standard petroleum based diesel products.

As for Vincent Van Gogh, sunflowers were symbolically a vibrant source of happiness.   In spite of his mood swings and great depression, he continued to paint them.  I wonder now if Van Gogh was onto something greater – addressing the needs of future generations – perhaps our own “green pursuit of happiness”?

Looking for Buried Treasure and Family Ghosts With A Cup of Tea? Meet the Curious Cox Curator of Orange Valley: the Eco-Cultural Green Knight of Bermuda!

Seared into the heart of the Bermudian landscape – into the brackish bosom of its Devonshire peat marshes — lies the buried treasure of an old sea captain – a magical, awe-inspiring sea chest wrested from the depths of Davy Jones’ Locker –  half-ghostship – half-house.

Docked alongside a pier of dry-stone walls – Hidden from view by a profusion of wild palmettos and cedars and evergreen fiddlewood trees—–this well-pressed twin-masted chimney structure with two-storied shuttered riggings and two centuries-old cedar beams across its hallway-like-foredeck neither lists today from hurricane-slashing barnacles or subtropical dry rot upon its hull – but rather this bewitching “house ship” is cocooned within a protective casing of the old sea captain’s making – ‘the jeweled fruits of his labor’ after years of sailing – many a citrus-flavored, life-extending plant traded from British Guiana, parts of the Caribbean and various ports of call on the Atlantic seaboard – known locally to all as “Orange Valley”.

Fate had once brought me here eleven years ago as an American expat but now here I was resolutely returning to present its curious owner, John Cox, the great-great-great grandson of Capt. William Cox — with a Green Knighthood Award – the First of its kind in the World – for thirty plus years of selfless acts of eco-cultural chivalry.

Entering thru the Front Room – one is immediately received by both the warm smile of its casually garbed curator and the rhythmically hospitable tick-tock behind him -Capt. William Cox’s prized possession – his mahogany-made 18^th century grandfather clock brought over from London, England – one of a series of catenated ‘eco-links’ to the soul of the house.  Indeed there are ten clocks throughout the home and according to Mr. Cox “some work, some are beyond laboring, and some sit quietly, suspended in their own time.”

And to my right – not far from the drawing-room – I am greeted once again by the portrait of the mysterious Capt. William Cox himself – his eyes  still dazing upon the well-preserved and lovingly displayed dining accoutrements of holidays past – including his own pink and silver French tea set still scented by orange pomanders – whilst other paintings seem to bob and weave throughout the house – alternating between wind-blown ships of sail and pastoral settings of a Bermudian-like Eden – a chilling reminder perhaps of the great hurricanes of 1839, 1899, 1926, 1948, 1987, and most recently Hurricane Fabian of 2003.

Indeed, neither the charm of Mr. John Cox, nor his tenderly cared-for limestone-hewed home and woodland gardens that constitute ‘Orange Valley’, show any signs of weary-worn decay during these past eleven years nor have they lost their priceless ‘eco-cultural lustre’ – that harmonious union between human culture and ecological sustainability. To put it sociologically – there is a unique bond between the Cox Family’s ethical community practices of past and present with its own well-managed attendance of its natural ecosystem and the conservation of its unique biodiversity here at ‘Orange Valley’ – ever mindful of the climate, and the weather patterns, and the many generations to come.

Perhaps that is why the Family Ghosts love it here so – Three ghosts to be precise.*  The first spectral inhabitant to be noted for its whimsical hauntings is that of Mary Robinson Cox, first wife of Capt. William Cox, who died of pneumonia at the young age 41 in 1806 whilst her husband was away trading salt for sugar and molasses in the West Indies.  It is she who loves to hover around the first floor of the house – sometimes settling in the guest bedroom (formerly the original kitchen) conjuring up aromatic herbal brews and at other times, she is seen sailing thru the front hallway perhaps looking to welcome home her husband’s invisible footsteps. Next in line is Laura Cox, the spinster daughter of Capt. William Cox, who died of palsy at the premature age of 51 in 1861 and is now a lively Patroness ghost of her once beloved Rose Garden which had lain derelict for years but has been carefully restored.  And then there’s eccentric Aubrey Cox, the grandson of Capt. William Cox, who died of an anxious heart at the precipitous age of 67 in 1928 and who never ever tires of looking at the magnificent grounds below him from his tidy upstairs bedroom window in the back of the house.

I have often thought that ‘Uncle Aubrey’ is a ‘frustrated ghost’ – confined to his boxed-in quarters – having to grudgingly look from afar at his great-grand nephew’s (John Cox’s) splendiferously inviting outdoor afternoon tea party spreads from beneath a decidedly somber-crusted window sash – where splashes of colorful chinaware dancingly interplay with light and laughter happily bee-buzzing around a quizzical cone-shaped ‘buttery’ next to me – another architectural wonder unique to Bermudian culture – a not-so-long ago reminder of the days when household plumbing, electricity, and refrigeration was not a commonplace feature of Bermudian life.

And never wanting to deny his guests a moment of light delectable humor along with his perfectly presented organic almond cake and Bermudian-strengthened high tea, are — Mr. John Cox’s very own freshly prepared cucumber sandwiches with an eco-twist – brilliantly disguised orange nasturtium flowers squeezed into bits of triangular-baked bread servings that are commonly mistaken for bits of wild caught salmon by his gullible guests!  And as is required of the author of ten culturally rich historical books including “Life in Old Bermuda”, “At Home in Early Bermuda”, “Bermuda Lore”, “A Tale of Two Houses”, and “Lords of the Marshes” — one is never left bored or abandoned by the fanciful floodgate of stories of this raconteur’s repertoire.  And these stories, much like their annotated footnotes, are neither inseparable nor inconsequentially delineated from Bermuda’s unique ecosystem.  Indeed, the biodiversity of plants within these stories allows us to step into the past right into Bermuda’s golden era of sailing.  They often offer ‘green’ clues into Bermuda’s role within the context of the British Empire – and still others the status of the Cox Family itself.

And it is this Cox Family collection of plants that make Orange Valley what it is – a priceless outdoor ‘eco-museum’ – artfully complimented by Mr. John Cox’s decorative collection of fine Royal Sevres porcelain inside the home – each of which seems to have transported with it a superstitious tale of its own.  And in addition to the impressive array of fruit trees on the property – mandarins, sweet oranges, sour oranges, limes, lemons, guava, grapefruit, pears, peaches, pomegranates, mammy apples, large bananas, dwarf bananas, loquats, red figs, shaddocks and Surinam cherries – AND – one large black mulberry and one smyma fig – there is a maze of exotic trees to bedazzle the first-time visitor:

1)   There is the Royal Poinciana Tree, also known as “The Flame Tree”, or “The Flamboyant Tree”. It is a native of Madagascar and the world’s most colorful ornamental tree.

2)   Then there is the Indian Rubber Tree, a native of southeast Asia, first planted by Capt. William’s son in 1847 that marks the original carriageway to the house.

3)   Then there are the Coffee Trees native to subtropical Africa and southern Asia – No “Starbucks Coffee” needed here!

4)   And finally, there are the rare Black Ebony Trees, native to Africa, India, and Asia – known today for their variety of attributes in making fingerboards and keys for musical instruments.  Note that ‘Ebony’ is the Greek word for “Fruit of the Gods” and wands made of ebony were thought to have magical powers and drinking goblets made of ebony were considered an antidote for poison that could be used to ward off evil intent.

In closing, I am reminded of a taunt once aimed at me as a teenager by a high society friend out in west Texas upon my arrival at her new family home.  She had just moved from Los Angeles for the third time and to use the nautical vernacular, her boast  “knocked me down a peg” for she and her daddy had “never lived in a second-hand house”.   I had no answer at the time, having been, up-to-then, an insular 13^th generation American living within the same 200 mile radius of the Eastern seaboard.

But I hope you, my eco-savvy reader, will now appreciate my rapid advancement in the ways of articulate etiquette – noting both the beauty and the history – AND – the ecological magic – that makes ‘Orange Valley’ an eco-cultural wonder and not just some ordinary half-spun ‘second-hand house’.   But above all, I must personally thank Orange Valley’s remarkable steward, Mr. John Cox, today’s recipient of Cherlton’s Green Guide’s “Green Knighthood Award” for his fearless and unflinching support, maintenance, and documented dissemination of Bermuda’s eco-cultural connections and traditions in the face of today’s ‘Bluetooth’, fast-paced, modern world of sentimental-swatting cyber gnats,  ‘Tick’ video games, and Mosquito iPods.  (For more information, please refer to my new encyclopedic eco-website at www.cherltonsgreen.com)

How metaphorically eco-appropriate then is the fact that the placement of Orange Valley’s lone silk cotton tree, first planted by Capt. William Cox two centuries ago, still firmly stands as the centerpiece of ‘Orange Valley’ – the oldest of its kind on the island – a much misunderstood tree by the casual passerby of Bermudian yesteryear.  Known elsewhere in the world as the ‘kapok’ tree, the ‘sacred tree’ or ‘the tree of life’, this fabled tree was first worshiped by the Mayans and later venerated by generations of other indigenous peoples of Central America in the centers of their plazas and villages.  To those who believe, this supernatural tree wards off evil (and time itself) and its mythical branches hold up the heavens and its roots extend to the underworld – and rarely, if at all – is this tree ever cut down – even if it happens to be in an inconvenient spot and in the way of human traffic.   So it is that the secret of the buried treasure of an old sea captain lies faithfully here.

Footnote: Legend has it that my own 8^th great-grandfather, Thomas Cox, first arrived at Virginia before sailing up the coast to New Amsterdam and marrying Elizabeth Blashford on April 17, 1665 at Maspeth Kills, Newtown, Long Island. His marriage is the oldest marriage license on record in the state of New York – given by the First British Colonial Governor of New York, Sir Richard Nicolls.  Thomas Cox’s middle son in turn, was John Cox – my 7^th great-grandfather – and John Cox’s nephew in turn was Colonel John Cox, Assistant Quartermaster to General Nathaniel Greene during the American War for Independence – and his grandson, in turn, was John Cox Stevens, the Founder and First Commodore of the New York Yacht Club.  Hence, there’s more to the ‘Cox’ surname than one would think at first glance.

*Special Note: There is the distinct possibility of a fourth ghost lingering around Orange Valley – that of Capt. William Cox’s own mother-in-law! For the present-day Coxes of Bermuda all descend from Capt. William Cox’s second wife, Mary Ann Dill, whom he married on October 16, 1806. Interesting enough, Mary Ann Dill, was the daughter of another enigmatic mariner, Captain John Dill of Devonshire, a time-honored member of the ancient ‘Dill clan’ of Bermuda, and his psychic wife, Christiana (Love) Dill – whose preternatural gifts of ‘second sight’ are as legendary as the number of times she has been seen floating over the various family estates in which her present-day descendants live.

Summer Fun: Rescuing the Earth by Re-evaluating Junk or The Joy of Eco-cycling Your Way Thru the Best Flea Markets in the World!

For me, summertime means a series of flea market adventures.  Numerous books have been written on the subject and others eulogize its bounty of second-hand offerings in ‘Shabby Chic’, ‘Thrifty Chic’, ‘Vintage Look Collecting’, and ‘Flea Market Decorating’ tips along with copious notes on ‘Behind-The-Scenes Treasure Hunting Secrets’.  And along with the explosive growth of  eco-chic outdoor flea markets across the USA, Europe, and now globally around the world comes a flood of trendy articles on ‘eco-renovating’ and ‘eco-accessorizing’ your home with old flea market finds and exotic craft work. But amongst all this ‘flea-bitten’ obsessive literature, I still have yet to find one critique that colorfully addresses the paradoxical joy of culling thru unusual time-worn objects of flea market junk in order to rescue one’s own personal junk from being thrown out – another words – the joy of being both environmentally responsible and artistically creative by combining eclectic junk materials found at flea markets with your own well-worn, imperfect junk at home.  And in the process creating your own masterpiece of cultural second-hand treasure – an “eco-makeover gift”.

But what constitutes an “eco-makeover gift”, you ask?   A little homework, yes, a few magazines to energize your imaginative juices, yes, but above all – a sharp shopper’s eye for discerning under-rated and over-looked junk.  Hence, the best way to start is to make a list of small to mid-size objects that you currently own around you that you consider hopeless – either out-of-date or out-of-place or just badly damaged or perhaps missing a part or section.  The key here is that you are hesitant to throw it out – just yet.    That’s good – your instinctual knack for conserving is working fine!  Next, check with your local library or your local bookstore and the internet as well for a few “Do-It-Yourself” and “Ready Made” magazine issues and ‘simple lifestyle’ type magazine issues such as “Country Living” and “Living Crafts”.

Next, whilst looking thru the many picture pages of these magazine issues, see if any of the home objects on your ‘misfit’ junk list have potential worth that you may have not considered before and then consider the range of flea market possibilities that might do well in conjunction with your own items which would give them added value.  If you can make this connection, you have then made – theoretically-speaking that is – an “eco-makeover gift”.

These are but a few examples of my favorite handcrafted “eco-makeover gifts”:  1) a vintage lamp assembled of odd and end saucers and teacups accumulated from home and my local flea market 2) a ‘geeky’ serving platter and teenage table top covered with old computer keyboard buttons, typewriter keys, scrabble tiles and misplaced domino pieces collected from home and my local flea market 3) decorative paper table runners, garlands, and posters and photo frames made from discarded easy-to-recycle children’s books, science fiction novels, and old college text books found at home and used book markets and 4) curios of one-of-a-kind hats, necklaces, pillows, napkin rings, and coasters made from stitching recycled linens and woollen sweaters together with a stockpile of lost buttons, pins, earrings, key chains, cuff links, and broken wrist watches from a myriad of flea markets and my own home.

So instead of waiting to shop at the end of the year for that perfectly labeled, monogrammed and personalized holiday gift – start now, this summer, and save money, (and your own garbage disposal) and have fun creating your own gifts by eco-cycling your way thru the Best Flea Markets in the World – and don’t be surprised who you might meet next to the table full of hand-me-down toys – for Santa Claus has gone green and is now ‘flea-ing’ as well!

BEST FLEA MARKET DESTINATIONS BY COUNTRY

ARGENTINA

Buenos Aires – San Telmo Flea Market at Plaza Dorrego

AUSTRALIA

Sydney – The Rocks Flea Market

BELGIUM

Bruges – Bruges Flea Market

Brussels – Place du Jeu-de-Balle Flea Market

Ciney – Brocante Fair

Waterloo – Waterloo Flea Market

CANADA

Ottawa – ByWard Market

Saint Eustace (near Montreal) – St. Eustace Flea Market

Toronto – Dr. Flea’s Flea Market

Vancouver – Vancouver Flea Market

CHINA

Beijing – A) Panjiayuan Weekend Flea Market

B) Hongqiao Market

DENMARK

Copenhagen – A) Norrebro Flea Market  B) Israels Plads Flea Market  C) Gammel Strand Flea Market  D) Fredericksberg Flea Market  E) Lyngby Flea Market F) Kongens Nytorv Arts-and-Crafts Flea Market

ENGLAND

London – A) Portobello Road Market B) Camden Lock Market C) Camden Passage Market D) Petticoat Lane Market  E) New Calendonian Market or Bermondsey Market

ESTONIA

Tallinn – Balti Jaama Turg

FRANCE

Lille – La Grande Braderie de Lille Flea Market

Nice- Cours Saleya Flea Market

Paris – A) Marche aux Puces de St.-Ouen Porte de Clignancourt B) Le Jules Valles Market C) Le Marche Serpette  D) Porte de Vanves

GERMANY

Berlin – A) Die Nolle @ Nollendorfplatz B) Museum Island Flea Market  C) Mauer Park Flea Market D) Moritzplatz Flea Market E) Arkonaplatz Flea Market F) Strasse des 17.Juni Flea Market

Munich – A) Theresienwiese Flea Market B) Auer Dult Flea Market & Crafts Fair @ Mariahilfplatz

GREECE

Athen – Monastiraki Flea Market

HUNGARY

Budapest – Esceri Flea Market

INDIA

Goa – A) Anjuna Flea Market B) Mapusa Friday Market

IRELAND

Dublin – Blackberry Fair Flea Market

ISRAEL

Tel Aviv – Jaffa Flea Market

ITALY

Alba – Mercantino di Torino

Arezzo – Arezzo Flea Market

Florence – Mercato Delle Pulci Flea Marketd @ Piazza Del Ciompi

Lake Maggiore – Borgo D’Ale Flea Market

Milan – Cormano Flea Market

Rome – A) Porta Portese Flea Market B) The Underground

Turin – Carmagnola Flea Market

JAPAN

Tokyo – Ameya Yokocho or Ameyoko

MALAYSIA

Singapore – Sungei Road ‘Thieves Market’

MEXICO

Puerto Vallarta – Puerto Vallarta Flea Market

MOROCCO

Tangier – Casa Barata Flea Market

NETHERLANDS

Amsterdam – A) Albert Cuyp Market B) Waterlooplein Flea Market  C) Noordermarkt Flea Market

POLAND

Krakow – Sunday Flea Market @ Plac Targowy Unitarg; Warsaw – Kolo Flea Market

PORTUGAL

Lisbon – Feira Da Ladra

RUSSIA

Moscow – Izmailovo Souvenir Market

SPAIN

Barcelona – A) Placa de la Seu Flea Market B) Mercantic Flea Market

Cap de Creus (Catalonia) – Cadaques Market

Madrid – El Rastro Flea Market

THAILAND

Bangkok – Chatuchak Weekend Market

TURKEY

Istanbul – A) Sahaflar Carsisi B) Grand Covered Bazaar C) The Egyptian Bazaar D) The Arasta Bazaar

URUGUAY

Montevideo – ‘La Feria de Tristan Narvaja’ Flea Market

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Dubai Flea Market

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CA – Alemeda – Alemeda Flea Market

Long Beach – Long Beach Antique Flea Market

Pasadena – Rose Bowl Flea Market

San Francisco – Alemany Flea Market;

San Jose – San Jose Flea Market

FL – Daytona Beach – Daytona Flea & Farmers Market

IL – Chicago – Maxwell Street Market

Wheaton – All-Night Flea Market

IN – Shipshewana – Shipshewana’s Flea Marke

MA – Brimfield’s Outdoor Antique Show

NY- New York City – A) The Antiques Garage B) Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market C) Brooklyn’s Flea D) GreenFlea

TX – Austin – Austin Country Flea Market

Canton – First Monday Park

127 Corridor – Jamestown, TN – North Covington, KY –  Gadsden, AL – World’s Longest Outdoor Market and Yard Sale – Covers 630 Miles and 5 states

Spring Is In The Air! – As Well As Handcrafted Soap, Artisanal Tourism, & A New Breed of Eco-Cultural Entrepreneurs!

There is an unmistakable scent in the air – from Maine’s wildflowers to Floridian orange blossoms – from California’s freesia’s to British Columbia’s lilies. It is part of a quiet revolution – a ‘soap revolution’ – taking place on bathroom and pantry shelves all across North America – not just of finely made teacup candles and freshly perfumed linens – but of organically made, eco-friendly artisanal soaps – tokens of exotic places and pristine places we recently visited or wished we had.

It used to be that Italy, France, and Spain were the arbiters of soap fashion and luxury (i.e. Savon de Marseille and Castile Soap) – going back centuries to the Middle Ages and beyond. But in the last twenty years, America has come into its own – not only in handcrafting soaps as works of art – but in promoting ‘natural’ soap-making as a small- scale, naturally-sustainable economic livelihood for individual entrepreneurs and as a cultural heritage destination for tourists attracted by the natural resources and artisanal heritage of uniquely distinctive communities and regions.

In other words, much like the mid-19th century Hudson River School of landscape painters, today’s 21st century American artisanal soapmakers now take their inspiration from the natural environment around them and in turn are creating new organic soaps that expand upon the historic and cultural treasures of their locale. Rejecting commercial soap products and many of its synthetic additives and chemicals, this new breed of eco-conscious soapmakers is leading the way to a healthier lifestyle of skin care. Indeed it was Sigmund Freud who once said “Soap is the yardstick of civilization.”

One outstanding example of this can be found right in my home state of New Jersey in a collection of handcrafted soaps based on the legendary creature of the New Jersey Pinelands – an 18th century mythical beast called the ‘Jersey Devil’. Christine Mecca’s online store introduction says it all: (We at the ‘Jersey Devil Soapworks’) “have taken the spirit of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, its pitch pines, cedar streams and sugar sand roads and combined it with all natural ingredients and fragrances to produce fine, hand-made artisan soaps. We have taken our inspiration from one of the Pine Barrens most popular legends and have tried to infuse that into every bar of soap we make.”

But eco-conscious soapmaking is more than just a means to improving our own natural beauty – natural handcrafted soap is now being used to save the very ecosystems from whence the soap was made. Uniquely marketed in 100% recycled paper boxes, BirdProject Soap, created by Christine ‘Tippy’ Tippens of New Orleans is an exemplary example of how an artisanal soapmaker can make a difference in the recovery and restoration of a region’s coastline – in this case the Louisiana coastline. Spurred on by the BP Oil Spill disaster and the disastrous effects on brown pelicans and sea turtles, this eco-conscious entrepreneur is using her handcrafted soap as a means to raising money to fund both the environmental cleanup and animal rescue efforts along the Gulf Coast shoreline. Within each of her black, bird-shaped handmade glycerin soaps is a white ceramic bird made of Louisiana clay as a ‘reminder’ of the region’s precious natural and cultural resources.

Yet there is something more to this ‘reminder’ that is intrinsic to both the popularity of this ‘soap revolution’ and today’s ‘Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild’, organized originally in Ohio in 1998. Just as artisanal soapmaker, Frank Asquith, founder of Yosemite Soap Works, is bringing the spirited waterfalls and the high spring air of the giant sequoias of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California into his handmade olive oil soaps – and – Susan Houlihan, founder of Alpenglow Skin Care in Alaska, is now bringing the wild softness of Alaskan snow and berries of the Kenai Mountains into her handmade goat milk soaps – today’s North American eco-conscious soapmakers everywhere are distilling a bit of luxuriant sensory utopia right into their naturally made soap creations. They are inventing and re-inventing organically made soaps dedicated to an American Shangri-La – – an eco-American Shangri-La- – that gives people not only a greater sense of self, a brighter outlook on life, and a more youthful appearance – but a heightened awareness of environmental harmony. Yes, indeed, Sigmund Freud – today’s handcrafted eco-friendly soap is now the new yardstick of civilization!

L’Art de Vivre – To Be Sure There is Nothing Quite Like French Glamour – But Do You Know Your French Eco-Glamour?

What does Chanel #5, the world’s most famous perfume and Catherine Deneuve, one of the world’s most beautiful women, have in common? The answer is French Glamour.

And what of Limoges Porcelain, Gobelins Tapestry, Louis Vuitton Handbags, Savon de Marseille, Aubade Lingerie, and Fine Jewelry and Watches handmade by Van Cleef & Arpels all have in common? The answer is French Glamour – Yes, also synonymous with ‘LUXURY’.

And what of Monet’s Water Lily Paintings, and Claude Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’ and the Musee du Louvre itself, one of the greatest museums in all the world have in common? ‘GREAT ART’ – True! – But the answer, once again, is French Glamour.

And finally what do you think of when you hear the brand names – Givenchy, Christian Dior, Pierre Cardin and Yves St. Laurent? –Yes, ‘HAUTE COUTURE’ truly! – But once again the imagery that these great houses of fashion can evoke is much like the Palace of Versailles, the Castles of the Loire Valley, and the Vineyards of Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Champagne – a sumptuous collection of French Glamour at its very best.

My introduction to French glamour had its roots in both its language and its cooking style as it developed over the centuries – for I am the product line of a mad dash of 10th century Dukes of Normandy, a sprinkling of 12th century Counts of Poitou and Provence, a splendiferous mix of 13th century Capetian Kings and Plantagenet Kings and an unshakeable pinch of 17th century Huguenot craftsmen. But that is not why I and 80 million other tourists go back to France each year making France the world’s most visited country. Have you not heard? France is undergoing a ‘Green Revolution’ and its leading image is now that of Style AND Sustainability – in essence – FRENCH ECO-GLAMOUR!

You can see it in their development of glamorous green tourism businesses, (‘camping ecologique’) now taking France by storm – in moderately priced eco-campsites like the ones being offered by Celine Bossane’s ‘Huttopia’, which offers eco-camping in Versailles, Rambouillet and Senonche, Font-Romeu in the Pyrenees and Rillé in the Loire Valley – to luxury-priced eco-yurts in the Dordogne county of Aquitaine in southwestern France. Perhaps the most glamorous of these five-star eco-campsites is my favorite – ‘Camping Les Moulins’ – whose tents were designed by Cartier no less and are located on the lovely beaches of Ile de Noirmoutier in the picturesque Vendee region of West Central France. You can also see French Eco-Glamour in their sustainable farming techniques – my favorite being the production of ‘French Rabbit Wines’ by the Boisset family in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France – and in their eco-glamorous cutting-edge ski resorts – my favorite being Kalinda Village at Tignes les Broisses, the first and biggest eco-village in the French Alps.

You can also find French Eco-Glamour in their ‘Reversible’ brand-named eco-handbags made of recycled materials and Katell Gelebart’s transformation of food packaging into eco-chic dresses, jackets, and aprons and ‘Iroisie’s’ eco-beauty products for women, an organic skin care line of ‘cosmetiques biologiques’, founded by Anne Bontour whose source of inspiration came from her summers spent with her two grandmothers – countrywomen who lived by the sea in France’s northern Brittany – ‘Mer d’Iroisie’. How romantic-sounding is that? Not to be outdone by such eco-inspirational beginnings are the forests of France which have now doubled in size since 1950 making France the third largest forested surface area in Europe after Sweden and Finland. In particular seven miles west of Nice beyond the glitz and glamour of Cannes on the French Riviera, perched high above the medieval village of Saint-Paul-de-Vence in southeastern France, are the glamorous cedar wood lodgings of ‘Orion Treehouse B&B’ – the very definition of charm and excitement.

But not all that is French eco-sophistication and eco-glamour is new – indeed the conceptual birth of “Eco-Museums” originated in France back in 1971 – the brainchild of George Henri Riviere and Hugues de Varine – an idea which promoted special places whereby communities could actively participate in the preservation, interpretation and management of their own cultural heritage for sustainable development thru both indoor and outdoor exhibitions. As a result half of all the three hundred plus ‘Eco-Museums’ in the world today are in France.

And then there is the eco-glamorous ‘Paris Flea Market’, locally known as ‘Marche aux Puces de Saint-Ouen’ – the most renowned flea market in the world which covers 17 acres and welcomes 70,000 visitors per week with rows of discarded shards of civilization – bits of ‘distressed couture’ saved from bulging landfills and dumpsters. Opened in Paris in 1885, the Paris Flea Market offers shoppers with ‘upcycling’ talent – everything from hand-forged antiques to vintage clothes to decorative curiosities to playful kitsch and outright castoffs at bargain prices. Today, there are now customized ‘junk picking’ tours operating out of the USA to visit its 3000 plus stalls which gives ‘couture cycling’ new meaning – a sense of eco-glamour – which again is worth repeating – there is nothing quite like French glamor whether it be on the Avenue of the Champs-Elysees or your own repurposed French patterned pavers.

Crop Circle Sightings – Genuine or Global Graffiti Hoax?

Most researchers say that crop circles are man-made graffiti. But there is about 20% of these patterned crop anomalies that cannot be explained away easily – instances of electromagnetic distortions or Eco-Paranormal Phenomena whereby watches, mobile phones, batteries, cameras, and radio equipment suddenly fail to work within these areas.

Whatever the strange effects – why is it that crop circle sightings appear all over the world? This is not a conclusive list – but to date, I have found a history of crop circle sightings in the following countries: Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, England, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Isle-of-Man, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, Poland, Russia, Sardinia, Scotland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tasmania, Turkey, Uruguay, USA, Wales – the most recent sighting being in the rice fields of Central Indonesia on January 23, 2011.

What’s more, there are now crop circle tours and crop circle groups for adventure-seekers throughout continental Europe and especially England – particularly as southern England in the county of Wiltshire appears to be the center of most crop circle activities. Some of the best crop circle tours are as follows:

1- Spiritual Quest Journeys – http://www.spiritualquestjourneys.com/choose-a-journey/

2- Journeys with Soul – http://www.journeyswithsoul.com/cropcircles.html

3- Crop Circle Tours – http://www.cropcircletours.com/

4- Glastonbury Symposium – http://www.glastonburysymposium.co.uk/tour.html

5- Megalithic Tours – http://www.megalithictours.com/tourDiary.htm

6- Magical Mystery Tours – http://www.magicalmysterytours.com/cropcircle3.html

So if you are looking for some amazing eco-phenomena and exquisite formations of cosmic art this summer – YOU ARE NOT ALONE – and be sure to include a stopover at “The White Horse Inn”, a lovely family-run pub in the village of Compton Bassett as well as a research center for today’s leading crop circle investigators!

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