I'm happy to see you for this weeks roundup of posts from our amazing ecoTrain passengers. You know, I'm not just saying that, our passengers are really amazing people and have inspired me in many ways through reading their posts. If you are looking to meet and engage with some great people please do read some of these posts and then Say Hi!

We Want To Discover You!

Whilst you are here, I would like to invite you to comment any links to posts that you think are really good, but didn't get much attention. They will be upvoted and supported, and if they are really good I will resteem them to all my friends and followers. There are SO many great people on Steemit and we need your help to find them so we can support them!

Hive account@stillwatersart

Springtime - Love is in the air...or water

Springtime at Stillwaters Farm is when you can hear a distinctive chorus in the air coming from the pond...especially at night. Hundreds of toads find their way to the water and find a mate, or several mates if they are lucky I guess. When there is moonlight you can see flashes of light reflected from the water as they swim around. When daylight comes, you can walk around the edge of the pond and see the results of their nighttime orgys...strings and strings of eggs that look like little black beads strung in a transparent tube.

Here is a link to a little video that I did of them on Instagram. https://instagram.com/p/BhEusJ_FEuh/

Soon there will be thousands of tadpoles swimming around the edges of the pond eating the moss that grows there. Then their little legs will grow and their tails will disappear and a mass migration of half inch long tides will make their way out into the world. If they are careful not to get eaten or stepped on, they should converge back here where they were born to start the cycle again

A Beautiful Movie With A Timely Message - La Belle Verte

My lovely niece who lives in Paris sent me a link to this delightful movie. For those who dream of a better world, it will make you smile, laugh, and maybe shed a little happy tear or two.

It is in French with English subtitles. Enjoy!

Which Wolf Will You Feed - Original painting - A twist on a Cherokee proverb

An old Grandfather said to his granddaughter, who came to him with anger at a friend who had done her an injustice, "Let me tell you a story.

I too, at times, have felt a great hate for those that have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do.

But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times." He continued, "It is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him, and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.

But the other wolf, ah! He is full of anger. The littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger,for his anger will change nothing.

Hive account@celestialcow

Coffee now comes with a cancer label.... so what are the alternatives to drinking coffee?

I know there are sooooo many coffee lovers out there and this information is hard to believe, you may not want to believe it or you may not care 'because it won't happen to me' but it's better to be informed than not, so please keep reading.....

How is Coffee cancer causing?

The coffee bean has to be roasted and during this process a chemical called acrylamide which is a carcinogen present in the coffee, carcinogens can cause cancer. Now coffee companies will have to print a warning label

If this doesn't change your mind then the reminder of the coffee industry being for the very most part an unethical business that has caused the destruction of natural habitats and wildlife. coffee beans take a long time to develop and grow, its very labor intense and the plant is very sensitive to environmental changes, which may put the crop under threat entirely considering the climate is not stable. Yes it does provide jobs for people, but the work is hard and wages a low. Realistically long term into the future it's not a sustainable cash crop.

Hive account@solarsupermama

Kashata Vegan Coconut Treat

This ones for all y'all crazy vegans out there! I was veg for 14 years and vegan for 6 of those, so I like to share delicious treats with you when I find them. Vegan desserts can be a challenge to find sometimes! This one is gluten free even!

We have so much coconut here. They just rot on the ground. So, I am always on the lookout for yummy coconut snacks. My kids are weird about coconut. One likes the meat but not the milk or the water. One likes the milk but not the water or the meat, but everyone actually really liked these Kashata. That's cause they're delicious. They're also crazy simple. I found the recipe in my favorite cookbook. Yes, I still have cookbooks. It's called The World of Street Food. It's a marvelous compilation of street food dishes from all around the world. Kashata is Swahili in origin.

Lucy Parsons: Forgotten Radical Heroine

This is my entry to the @teamgirlpowa women's history month contest.

My first introduction to Lucy Parsons came from Utah Phillips. On the disc he did with Ani Difranco, Fellow Workers, you will find the song "Shoot or Stab Them." It's not exactly a totally true story, but the quote is, indeed, more or less, hers. She was an integral part of the radical movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was a brilliant speaker and a prolific writer. So, why have you never heard of her? Well, that has at least something to do with the fact that everything she had ever written was confiscated by the FBI before her body was even cold. For the entirety of her life, she had been a thorn in the side of the establishment. They had more frequently refused to grant permits allowing her to speak than allowed them in Chicago where she spent most of her life. So they didn't waste any time in confiscating her writings once she was dead.

Hive account@likedeeler

Who Got the Power?

I am still kind of not done with those recent big ecotrain questions about patriarchy, matriarchy, ideal society. Something is still bubbling inside, trying to express itself. I guess it´s that there are just too many angles and facets to those topics to express all my thoughts about them in one go.
So today I wanted to write an article about Kurdish feminism but it sort of got hijacked by some thoughts about power itself. Funny, how the monkey mind sometimes refuses to give up its grip on power.

The fighting women of the YPJ, the Women´s Defense Units in Rojava have got a lot of attention from the Western media in recent years, because women with guns always make for nice footage.

Hive account@hopehuggs

Bimble Bee Flys Another Day! Children's Story About Kindness Part 2

The suspense is over! Here is part 2 of Bimble Bee Flies Another Day!

Read Part 1 if you missed it.

In the weeds beside him Bimble heard a rustling sound “Hello” he called “is there someone there?”

The rustling got louder and then from the weeds appeared a spider “well, well, well what do we have here?” asked the spider

“My name is Bimble, I got lost from my swarm and have hurt my wing?” said Bimble

“Have you now?” asked the spider

“Yes” said Bimble “can you help me?”

Bimble Bee Flys Another Day! Children's Story About Kindness Part 1

Bimble Bee Flys Another Day!

Emma-Jane lived in the countryside, in a small house on a farm with animals, trees and flowers all around her. She lived with her Mummy who was a teacher and her Daddy who was a tractor driver. Emma-Jane was very kind and was always making new friends with the animals in her garden and on the farm.

It was a warm sunny morning and Emma-Jane was in the kitchen with her Mummy. “Mummy my finger still hurts” she said, Emma-Jane was stung by a bee the day before, and she showed her Mummy the finger that had been stung.

“It will get better soon” Said her Mummy and she bent down and kissed the finger better and Emma-Jane skipped away to play in the garden. “The bee only stung you because he was scared of you”

In the bee-hive at the bottom of the garden the bees were getting ready to go and get Pollen from the flowers nearby. It was the first day of honey making for a young bee called Bimble who had just got his yellow and black flying stripes. Standing by his daddy he was excited and looking forward to seeing all the pretty flowers his daddy had told him about.

I Am a Life Warrior - Poem Written and Spoken by Hope Huggs

I Am a Life Warrior

My path is a firey blaze
I won’t lie down to graze
No time to sit and wait
I decide my fate
Every minute is a step
No time to schlep
Got to keep going up
Thirst, never runner up

Hive account@trucklife-family

💎 Steemit Vision Quest - Week 9: “The Road”

What road will you choose? How will you make that decision? What is it that you are looking for? Do we really know how to ask ourselves these questions, do we really know what it is we want to ask? How to get in touch with our inner self?

My eyes close
What lies ahead?
A haze of remembrance forming in my head,
A vibration that travels deep down in my being,
I will continue to be at one with this feeling.

Gratitude: From Sickness to Flying To Ireland.

I feel like I have been undergoing a journey on so many different levels. I had been preparing to return to visit my family in Ireland and through Steemit I was able to finance the trip and my daughters passports. The build up was huge, we had not been to Ireland as a family in over 5 years and in that time I had another baby. We booked the flights, and awaited the passports.

They all came except for my youngest daughter who will soon be 1. Because she was not born in Ireland her's took longer. Our date of departure was approaching, everyone is super excited, but still no passport. After some local TD intervention, that my mother instigated, the passport came 6 days before our flight. Which also turned out to be the Equinox and my 40th birthday, so although I wrote a post that day about my double celebration, it was in fact a triple celebration.

Gratitude: Fromy Sickness to Flying To Ireland.

Hive account@sharoonyasir

The Power of Hugs

Hugs are so beautiful. Hugs are actually magical for me. When someone hugs me and particularly when someone loving and kind, and someone that I share a good, close bond with hugs me, I am lifted to a whole new level. I am actually transported to a completely new universe- a universe of warmth, love, care and one where nobody harms anyone and where there is peace all around. Oh, how lovely would it be to have that world in real. But you know what, if you can imagine and visualize something in your mind, you can actually have it too so I visualize a world full of hugs, warmth and all things lovely and I am so sure one day I'll have it, maybe in heaven haha.

Going Back to Home Sweet Home (A Short 50 Word Story)

Sisa took the final look at the lake. She had spent a good time there and had made some wonderful friends, but somehow she just could not forget her home. She knew she belonged only there so she got up and flew towards the forest- her home, her safe haven. What I wrote above is a really short story and a submission for the lovely 50 word story challenge started by @jayna. The prompt for this week is forest. The image I used above is a picture I took about 2.5 years back on a trip to Islamabad with my family.

10 Things I wish I knew Challenge

There is a lot that all of us experience and endure in life and I believe, if you have a keen and observign eye and mind, you learn many lessons every day. There is something meaningful every single day of our life offers- it is just about realizing that. Every day is beautiful and accepting your present the way it is helps you make the most of your time and live a better life. That being said, there are somethings a lot of us wish we knew or a lot of lessons we wish we had learnt earlier so we wouldn't have made many mistakes that we feel remorseful about now.

Hive account@mountainjewel

The Myth of Culture & How to Hack it

We all have one (or many), grew up in one and it is this pervasive set of social standards & beliefs which dictate many of our actions, thoughts, and desires from a young age to our death.

But what is it exactly?

What is its function and purpose?

Is it dangerous & if so why? If not, why?
Have you thought about your culture in this way?

I bet many of you have. We for sure have. We’ve trained ourselves to perceive ourselves as is from outside, like anthropologists.

Many times we receive messages that there is a person we “should be” or there are things we should do when we reach a certain age: behaviors, life activities, starting a family, etc.

Definition of Culture

Hive account@eco-alex

MATRIARCHY & PATRIARCHY - THE OPPRESSION OF MEN - FINDING THE BALANCE- A STONE LEFT UNTURNED

Wait a minute! Have I missed something? Whilst the @ecoTrain have been posting over the last month on patriarchy and matriarchy, I have been very down on patriarchy for all the things that it displays today. At the same time I have all been bestowing my blessings and desire for a more matriarchal world, to the extent that I have been imagining what a perfect world a matriarchy would be like. In the meantime, I have been missing something in my posts which I think needs to be said. @clara-andriessen has written about this, as have a few @ecoTrain passengers, and that point is that our ideal societal structure would be a blend of both matriarchy and patriarchy. When the balance shifts to either side too much, we end up at the same extreme point (its a circle not a see-saw).. and SO a full on 100% matriarchy would yield results that are just as bad as a full on patriarchy is.