Seeds of Hope

I’ve been hosted by an association of organic growers to tour their rainforest nurseries of every shape and size, who all received the same dream that I did less than two years ago. It’s a demonstration of consciousness planting the seed of an idea, within many people who each took action to make it real.

Little by little, these growers met one another, formed an association to help one another and share information on the best organic methods for growing trees of the forest, and then through synchronistic messages crossing cyberspace, found me. How *that* happened is a movie of coincidence – too long for the short time I have to be online today – but we all agreed is a miracle of Consciousness directing what Nature wants to have happen.

Back to our process of planning for tree deliveries…

While we work on the plans for the delivery of the first 1,000 trees within the next week, there are now other towns who are hearing of what we’re doing with Cunha, who hope to receive trees in the future.

Sent from my iPad
Alana

Sent from my iPad
Alana

I’m in Guarantinguta, working with a community of tree growers, and hopefully will find the way to upload the photos to the blog via iPad soon… Until then you can find some on our http://www.changents.com/rainforesteco photo album. We’re arranging for the transportation of 1,000 rainforest trees that are a year old, to their new homes about 50 miles away in neighboring communities, where they will reforest pastures. Ideas are coming up – trees in taxis, trees in transport trucks, trees on bus passengers laps, trees on motorcycles – we’re going to build a movement, and HOW the trees arrive in their new homes will be part of the Great Mystery!

Stay tuned for the how, while I go visit more nurseries to learn more of the entire cycle of rejuvenation, from seed to seed.

While there have been definite tones of Mission Impossible these last months, thanks to the incredible generosity of many people, we are able to really begin our planting project in Mata Atlantica this coming week.

I’m writing this from the plane, en route to Sao Paulo, where I’ll journey to the countryside and be at home in Mata Atlantica by tomorrow at this time, to meet with a cooperative of growers next week. We’ll be able to secure the first 1,000 trees and prepare for transport and planting within a 50 mile journey, and I’ll learn how to use our new camera to record the process here…

Can’t quite figure out how to upload photos to blog from iPad yet – but hey – I have another16 hours in the air and airports to figure it out!

Have had the most wonderful experiences with two classes of homeschoolers in Los Angeles a few days ago, who take heart and hope that combined efforts will achieve the goal of reforesting Mata Atlantica, increasing cloud cover by 2% and turning the tide toward global cooling.

I look forward to seeing our KFESA – Kids For Environmental & Social Action show themselves here to participate in the conversation. Such beautiful young people, so wise and full of contribution. They will be doing research, editing the video I shoot, and corresponding with youth of the rainforest (hopefully!) in the days ahead.

In case you’re reading this and haven’t done so yet, I’d love to see you as a “backer” helping to spread the good news of our progress as it unfolds on our http://www.changents.com/rainforesteco website, where I’ll focus my efforts.

Hugs from 20,000 feet!

Sent from my iPad
Alana

There are a lot of people who’ve inspired me over the last couple of decades: Jean Houston who first planted the idea of being a social artist in my mind; Lynne Twist who gave me a fundraising lesson by phone, after Jean suggested it. Little did I know then how much those two women would still be influencing me more than 20 years later, and that I would become an ardent supporter of the Pachamama Alliance and the work of Awakening the Dreamer.

Marianne Williamson started to influence my thinking during the 90’s when I first read “A Woman’s Worth.” Food for a lot of (at the time unsettling) thought. In 2004 I followed her to Washington, D.C. to learn how to lobby with Love, for Peace. A Department of Peace.

Then along came John. Amazon John. Amazon John Easterling that is. He influenced me tremendously as a social entrepreneur who was making a real difference to the people of the Amazon rainforest by creating an enterprise for them to share their healing plants with the people of the North, for the forest itself through the Amazon Herb Company’s support of the Aceer Foundation, and through those of us who consumed the products they marketed here for health. I was blessed to discover the company in 2001 and to illustrate a small book for them on the healing properties of the plants they used.

Working on those illustrations, knowing they would be part of a circulating stream benefit really moved me beyond words. I am extremely grateful for the gifts I’ve been given – my long standing relationship with the plant kingdom as one of its spokespeople, my skill as an artist to portray their messages, and for to the mentors who helped to show me a path I could walk upon, as a person who can make a difference in this world by applying the experiences and gifts of a lifetime for something much bigger than I would dare to dream, by myself.

What are your gifts? What’s your big dream? Wake it up – it’s time to live it.

Who’d know that I had the same wonderful mentor that Fred Smith had during his napkin days of dreaming impossible dreams about flying small objects around the world from a central hub, if I didn’t write this post today?

Frank was a founding executive of FedEx, an advisor to Colonel Saunders when he was starting KFC, a White House correspondent for JFK and LBJ, and he discovered, then hired Ted Koppel at ABC. The only thing he remembered as a regret, was not sitting down to share a Coke with JFK when he bumped into him one night in a dark, quiet White House. He was feeling shy in that moment – but never would again after that.

This is the 77th anniversary of Frank’s utterly astounding life, and we all wish he would be physically here with us to share the occasion. But he is here through a remarkable spirit who still puts wind beneath my wings, while I remember what he taught me.

1 – Never, ever, ever believe anyone who tells you you can’t do what you’re dreaming or that your dream is too big. Nuts. Just leave them alone and find the people who will help you, they’re out there.

2 – Trust your gut. When you feel that something’s going sideways in a relationship, trust it, it is. Take care of yourself and your business baby right away. Walk if you have to, with your head held high. When you find the people who you know are there to help achieve the goal, be there for them. They’re family.

3 – Always keep listening and learning and adapting to the flow of the moment. You can always learn more.

I remember sitting in his home, telling him about my dream of starting RainforestECO to benefit the forests of Brazil before going in Dec. 2008. His wife Carmel was making us lunch, and I was explaining how we could make fabrics from my rainforest art that would inspire people to become rainforest ambassadors. Uh huh. It didn’t sound like much of a business to him, but he was kind and he was listening to a dreamer. Carmel was able to see that dream more easily from her background as an interior designer.

But by the time I came back from my trip and was completely fired up that we could make a massive difference by creating a revenue stream for rural families to reforest the degraded lands, and I’d found the people who could make that happen, everything changed. We were in the same kitchen, while Carmel was making us another amazing lunch, and this time Frank said “I want to help, what can I do? What do you need? We have to do this…”

A few meetings later (some on their lazy river boat, some on their back deck, some in restaurants where Carmel always knew how to make the staff know they too were the most important people in the room), I developed the courage to let this Dream be the keynote of rest of my life. Even if the economy looks like it’s crumbling. So what. We’ll rebuild it.

There’s always a way when the wind is beneath your wings, and Frank Maguire is at your back. I love you Frank, and I refuse to miss you because you are still at my back and I feel your strength when my own is flagging. Thank you and Carmel for your extraordinary generosity of time and spirit. Thank you for sharing your tears with me when we watched Van Jones together, and your laughter when we watched Peter Sellers. Thank you for showing me how to lead a legendary life.

In this wonderful world of marketing that we have today, everybody’s got these massive brand phrases. Not only the ‘Absolutely, positively overnight,’ Federal Express is famous for, but I’m talking to you about the fact that we as a group, have taken on a very ambitious, but also a doable goal. It is our role and the role of everyone who gets involved with us, is to have an effect and an impact on every single human being on the face of this globe… And our job is to reestablish, to revitalize, to renew, to regenerate the lungs of this great planet earth.

Join us physically, join us emotionally, and if you are blessed, join us financially, because our journey has just begun. And, we are so fortunate to have been involved in this wonderful opportunity…

So as I said to my friend,”Count me in!”

Francis X. Maguire
Founding Executive of FedEx

Another problem caused by deforestation that we don’t often think about:

Thank you Freda, for bringing this to our attention!