PozVibes

On Tuesdays, PozVibes gives you a hot tip to send you to a site that’s doing good in the world.

Perhaps you’ve heard of a woman named Oprah? Among her other projects, 10 years ago she founded the Angel Network to raise money for organizations around the world. To date, they’ve raised $80 million for schools, school supplies, and other international non-profits.

At the site, you can learn more about the organizations that receive funding, and if inspired, make a donation of your own to assist with the work. Because Oprah funds the Network, 100% of your donations go directly to the organizations.

On Fridays, PozVibes looks for the silver lining in the news.

And today I’ve got a doozy, as you can see from the headline!

Now you might find my headline improbable or perhaps just an affirmation, but a study funded and conducted by an international collection of agencies and scientists, found that people responded more positively to questions about their happiness in 2007 than 1981. Overall, the “Happiness Index” rose in 40 countries and fell in the other 12 where people were surveyed.

The survey credits several trends: economic growth in developing countries; democratization of countries; increasing gender equality; and tolerance of ethnic minorities and the gay population.

If you want to look at the data yourself, head over to World Values Surveys.

Canadian Happiness Index

On Thursdays, PozVibes provides wisdom from the ages…

From William Morris, 19th century writer and artist:

The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.

I have had the opportunity to slow down for the last couple of weeks, instead of rushing through my days, to take moments to look out from my balcony, visit with friends, read through old writings, prepare and chew my food thoughtfully, and put on the brakes during my bike rides. The city is full of green luscious trees, and my apartment is full of small comforts I too often take for granted.

What details of daily life give you pleasure when you remember to take an interest in them?

On Wednesdays, PozVibes provides words of beauty to stretch your soul. Try these, from Oscar Wilde, on for size…

We Are Made One with What We Touch and See

We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart’s blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.

With beat of systole and of diastole
One grand great life throbs through earth’s giant heart,
And mighty waves of single Being roll
From nerveless germ to man, for we are part
Of every rock and bird and beast and hill,
One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill

One sacrament are consecrate, the earth
Not we alone hath passions hymeneal,
The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth
At daybreak know a pleasure not less real
Than we do, when in some freshblossoming wood
We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good

Is the light vanished from our golden sun,
Or is this daedalfashioned earth less fair,
That we are nature’s heritors, and one
With every pulse of life that beats the air?
Rather new suns across the sky shall pass,
New splendour come unto the flower, new glory to the grass.

And we two lovers shall not sit afar,
Critics of nature, but the joyous sea
Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star
Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be
Part of the mighty universal whole,
And through all Aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!.

We shall be notes in that great Symphony
Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,
And all the live World’s throbbing heart shall be
One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years
Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,
The Universe itself shall be our Immortality!

After a few years of no weddings, suddenly I find myself going to four this summer! But the participants are old enough not to need kitchen appliances! To honour them, I want to make donations in their name to a non-profit. But I want them to have the option to make it the “charity of their choice.” (which also gives them an opportunity to talk together as a couple about what kinds of non-profits they would like to support). How to do this without going through a long conversation with people busy making wedding plans?

Charity Navigator and Network for Good have partnered up with an answer: the Good Card!

You decide how much you’d like to donate; the recipient chooses from over 5000 U.S. charities, which they’re able to sort through according to their own priorities, using the Charity Navigator’s database.

The donation can be sent as an e-card or a physical plastic card. And of course it’s good for any number of other occasions, besides weddings!

How do you like to honour loved ones?

Oops, I forgot to post that I would be taking some time off for a vacation, and to find a new, more positive, more spacious apartment! I highly recommend both!

I’ll be back next week with more recommendations, thoughts, and images, but to make up for the dearth of poz posts, here is a fantastic video for you to watch. I dare you to be unmoved!

You can learn more about Matt and his project at his website.

On Wednesdays, PozVibes presents the beauty of human creativity.

This gorgeous piece is called Corsican Fishing Village. The artist is French painter Charles Camoin (1879 - 1965), who founded the Fauves group of painters with Henri Matisse. The term means “Wild Beasts”, for their use of wild colour.

I want to dive into the photo and swim in the green-blue and hike the purple!

(If you are reading this by subscription and can’t see today’s PozVibe, please come directly to the site page).

On Fridays, PozVibes shares news to give you hope.

There are lots of people out there trying to figure out how to make our daily lives more eco-friendly. One inventing team in the UK has come up with a washing machine that uses only a cup of water per load. So not only does it save water, it saves on the energy spent drying clothes as well. It’s estimated to use only 2% of regular laundry water and energy use.

Even better news: the new machines could be available as early as next year.

Thursdays, PozVibes shares a bit of widom from the ancients, and not-so- ancients…

My friend Benita Stafford-Smith, who is also an awesome international life coach, sent me this quote from Greek philosopher Plato, through her newsletter:

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

And here are her thoughts on it:

This week as you enjoy the warmer weather and the beauty of summer as the earth decorates itself in many hues of brilliant colours, please spend a bit of time on forgiveness. Forgiving yourself and others. We must begin with forgiving ourselves and as we do, forgiving others becomes easy. Forgiveness leads to compassion and compassion leads to understanding. I do not mean understanding as in knowing what others people’s thoughts, dreams and desires are, I mean understanding that each person you meet, even the person who cuts you off in traffic is fighting a hard battle. Instead of adding to the hopelessness and despair in the world, let’s choose this week to add to the compassion and understanding. Let’s see if we can share hope! What a way to celebrate the summer!

Thanks Benita!