Folks from Transition Milwaukee are in the initial stages of planning “Power Down Week.” This will be a week of people working, playing and living in community, more or less off the grid. The week starts on Summer Solstice (Monday, June 21) and goes through Sunday, June 27, 2010.
This event is open to all levels of participation. Choose your challenges, or go all the way off the grid. As Sarah Moore writes, “Power Down Week will be a game, a challenge, a dare, a drill. It’s real and it’s play. It will be hard, it will be fun. It’s workshops, it’s a conference of neighbors, it’s the best staycation you will ever have.”
We will bike, walk and bus. We will cook and bake in solar ovens. We’ll shut off our computers, turn our refrigerators into ice boxes, and exchange our cell phones for a 24-hour central communications headquarters. We will attempt to eat locally grown, organic food.
We will call back the spirit of our ancestors and call forth the spirit of a future generation who will discover new ways to power our world, free from our current addiction to oil, coal and nuclear power which are destroying our planet.
We will find better ways. More creative ways. Ways that may take longer, but which build stronger relationships and deeper understanding of the way things work.
You decide how far you want to go: Help with planning, attend or host events, join in on the challenges, or lead others in a tour, a demonstration or a reskilling.
This is a community event. All people on all levels are welcome. The challenge will be living without things we’re accustomed to. The game will be discovering the fun of closer human interaction, of doing things in community, and of learning new skills that will change us for the rest of our lives. These will be experiences to remember!
If you have any area of skill or just an interest, let us know. We are looking for both leaders and learners. Examples include: building solar ovens, knitting, darning socks, weaving classes, broom making, slingshot making, beekeeping, food fermentation, composting, making hand crank or bike generators for radios, mills or whatever.
The heart of the event will happen in Riverwest, but we’ll also be arranging for tours all over Milwaukee. If you have favorite sustainability or natural environment places or projects, let us know.
We will attempt doing all of this without money changing hands, by using the new Milwaukee Area Time Exchange, time for time. Please sign up now.
And last, this will be one long party! Look for the creative side: poetry reading by candle light, human powered fun, yoga, group solar showers, backyard bonfires and drum circles. Planning has just started — join us for the fun of dreaming it up!
Milwaukee is officially on the Map: www.EarthHourUS.org/map.php. Globally, 1,485 cities and 9 out of the Top 10 cities in the world are going dark for Earth Hour.
Sunday, April 6
11 a.m.-noon at the corner of 12th and Wisconsin Avenue.
To raise consciousness for freedom of speech, press, assembly and human rights for both Tibet and China.
KT Rusch (Mali Blues, Universal Love Band) and fellow musician Saskia Pretorius are sponsoring a Rally for Compassion to raise awareness of the human rights violations in Tibet and China. They ask supporters to wear red to symbolize compassion, and to bring signs to promote compassion, and photos of the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King and Gandhi.
What is so remarkable about the human spirit is that the monks who witness these atrocities and compile these photos are not just praying for their homeland martyrs, they are praying for the Chinese in prayers such as “May the Buddha Consciousness of compassion increase in the Chinese†at their peaceful demonstrations in India.
*****************************************************
Please join us at RALLY FOR COMPASSION!
Bring coffee, smiles, open heart, meet new friends.
A note from KT, the organizer:
I received photos from Buddhist monk, Tenzin P. in India that show evidence of Chinese brutality in Tibet. I have posted a short piece on the Tibetan Uprising here: http://www.milwaukeerenaissance.com/KtRusch/TibetanUprising2008
On Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 8 p.m., join millions of people around the world in making a statement about climate change by turning off your lights for Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund.
Earth Hour was created by WWF in Sydney, Australia in 2007, and in one year has grown from an event in one city to a global movement. In 2008, millions of people, businesses, governments and civic organizations in nearly 200 cities around the globe will turn out for Earth Hour. More than 100 cities across North America will participate, including the US flagships–Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco and Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
We invite everyone throughout North America and around the world to turn off the lights for an hour starting at 8 p.m. (your own local time)–whether at home or at work, with friends and family or solo, in a big city or a small town.
Join people all around the world in showing that you care about our planet and want to play a part in helping to fight climate change. Don’t forget to sign up and let us know you want to join Earth Hour.
One hour, America. Earth Hour. Turn out for Earth Hour!
