WELCOME BACK TO THE ONE AND ONLY @ecoTrain MAGAZINE!

This week we have a great selection of posts from our wonderful passengers. There really is something for everyone here, with every single post in this weeks selection being just briliant.. So a big shout out to all the @ecoTrain passengers for being who you are, and continuing to amaze and inspire us with your stories and messages.

As always, remember to follow the passenges that you like, and even resteem the posts that really touch you. It's so easy to forget, and then miss out on more great content.

@trucklife-family

The Unassisted Birth of my Daughter: Exactly 1 year ago

You sleep soundly beside me as I write this post. You who have brought so much love into my life, so much laughter and happiness. How can I ever imagine my world without you. Before you joined us, I did not even realize we were missing anything in our lives. But then you come along and You make our family complete.

One year ago today my day started as any other, you were still in my belly, so snug in my womb. I had your sisters to see to, breakfast to make. Dogs and cats to feed, the normal routine of the day. It was warm, as is the norm in the south of Spain and I spend most of my day outside, walking amongst the orange trees smelling the beautiful Orange Blossom. In the weeks leading up to this day you had the hiccups and oh how I loved that sensation. You were so active inside, such a little ninja, my little warrior I would call you.

Understanding the Nature of Change

I have been in Ireland now for just over a week. I initially stayed with my parents for a few days in the midlands. This is the same house that I grew up in. It is a house that holds many memories, memories that have been heavy to carry around, ones that I needed to let go of.

The original plan was that I would come to Ireland to my parents where my 2 sisters would meet me and we would sit down as a family and talk about the many painful things that we have been holding onto for far too long. It was to be a time of truth, of releasing, of healing and acceptance.

Life Source-100 Days of Poetry Challenge: Day Twenty Seven

Life Source

I sit with my babe in my arms
this rush of joy that sweeps through me
as I make contact with your eyes.
This feeling of contentment,
of wholeness,
As I feed you from my breasts,
As my whole body cradles you.
I am your life source
and you are mine,

@celestialcow

🌼 Spring time soup and Salad 🍃 and making a compost tea 🌱

You wont believe this but I only recently leaned about this eco craze called 'homesteading' since I arrived on Steemit, which I thought was only restricted to people who were off grid and had a large chunk of land they were working on day to day. Little did I know that the term is more broad than that and I finally have a word to describe what I have been up to for the last 4 years can be considered homesteading, even though I live in an apartment!

@sharoonyasir

My Thoughts on Monster Energy...

I was offered a free sample of 'Monster Energy' an energy drink today at the mall. My cousin was a part of the marketing team so I just took a can of it and kept it aside and thought to try it later.

I just took a sip of the drink and it sucks big time for me. I am not a fan of energy drinks at all. I hate their taste and I am not even go into the details of how unhealthy they are. The health viewpoint is not what I wanna discuss right now because I strongly feel energy drinks should not be consumed and I am just gonna throw this can right away. What I do want to discuss in this post here is the branding of the drink and how I feel the wrong marketing and product branding of products is negatively influencing the society.

Why We Must Take One Goal at a Time?

These days, I am full of a lot of energy and enthusiasm, and I am really positive about life in general. I have met a lot of amazing people in the past 2 weeks, some in real and some virtually, but all in all, I have had some wonderful interactions these past few days and all of this feels extremely enlightening.

@solarsupermama

The Spiritual Nature of Kids These Days: Why I love Millenials and Z's.

When my first child was a small baby I attended a Unity Church outside of Denver. It was a really wonderful community with a message that really resonated with me. One Sunday the pastor told a story that I imagine many of you have heard before.

There was a little boy whose parents had just had a second baby. The boy was little. Maybe 2 or 3. He seemed to be adjusting quite well to the new addition to the family and wasn't showing any signs of jealousy, but he kept asking his parents to leave him alone with the baby. It was sort of an unnerving request. If you've never had kids, toddlers are a shady bunch. You just never know with them. After a couple weeks of no incidents, the parents decided to honor the request but stay just outside the barely cracked door to listen and watch. They were rewarded for their trust with a beautiful scene. The boy sat on the couch with his sister carefully tucked in beside him so she couldn't fall. He leaned over to her and whispered, “Can you help me remember what God is like? I have almost forgotten.”

Unschooling 101 Part 1: How kids learn

I've been promising a post on the basics of unschooling. As I started to map it out, I realized it's going to be several posts. I know I have written about it before, but it's been a while, and I hope those of you who've been around will learn something new while I share with my friends who've just joined the party.

The whole point of unschooling is to completely deconstruct what is happening in modern education. It seeks to question the very premise of the education system and indeed the entire cultural understanding of how children learn. I've been digging into this topic for twenty years now. I've learned by reading. I've learned by watching. And of course I've learned by totally screwing up.

@hopehuggs

The Wolf That Howled Hunter - A Children's Story About Lying

There was a baby wolf walking in the forest at night looking for something to hunt because he couldn't sleep with a grumbling stomach.

Moon was a lone wolf who had no parents and only had the pack to protect him, who were fast asleep. He would chase bunnies and squirrels, but those prey were too fast for him without the help from the others. His legs grew tired and were too small to catch anything. Being disappointed and frustrated with himself, he gave a great long howl at the moon.

The pack awoke hearing Moon's howl and jolted out of the den to him. They split up climbing up the mountain and down the trail. When they showed up, the baby wolf knew you were only supposed to howl when there is danger, so he came up story that he saw a hunter nearby.

Molly Makes a Mistake - A Children's Tale About Contentment

Molly is sitting in the warm cozy sunlight on the windowsill like she always does, just looking out the window wanting to be in the outside world for once.

She can hear the birds chirping on the clothesline just begging to be chased. She can see the dogs walking with their owners and the cats below in the alleyway enjoying a buffet of mice. Oh, how she wishes she was not a luxurious housecat.

Her owner, Rosy, calls her to get her breakfast. Molly walks into the kitchen with much sadness and eats the same boring tuna every day, but she doesn't know how lucky she really is. Her owner loves her, takes care of her, feeds her, and plays with her whenever she wants.

However, she feels like there is more to life than this. Little did she know those strays outside would die to be in a home like this and have an owner.

@bristena94

I Wanna Fall in Love with Myself Again & Honouring the Grief of Letting Go

I wanna feel life throbbing though my veins once again.

I wanna dance like there was no tomorrow. I wanna write like this was my last testament. I wanna feel alive, once more.

I wanna reconnect to that sense of pure joy and wonder at existence that has permeated my being many times before.

I wanna realign myself with my inner source, and feel at one with existence as I flow once again with the river of purity and passion of my soul. I wanna be my radiant self, once more.

Steemit, I'm back! & Why I've been absent for so long

Hello dear Steemians, old and new friends...

This post has been slow cooking inside the oven of my soul for quite some time now, amongst various other concoctions that I've been up to in the past few weeks and months...

To be completely transparent, I missed Steemit. I missed Steemit quite a lot!

Pangs of remorse and guilt were striking me from time to time, reminding me of all the wonderful opportunities I'd discovered on this platform, all the incredible people I'd met here, as well as the sense of fulfilment and meaning I would accrue whenever I shared from my heart whatever was true for me at any given moment.

@eco-alex

Learn The 8 Brocades in 3 minutes, Part 5 of 8

Learn how to perform the 8 brocades in this guided 8 step video. Start Experiencing the incredible benefits of Qi Gong today. The tiger is just for fun!

This 800-year old exercise, which the ancients likened to beautiful brocade, consists of eight sections, is very popular among the Chinese people. Each section can be practiced on its own and each targets a specific organ or health need. The whole set of movements are fine and delicate with moderate intensity. It is like yoga, but is performed in a standing position and does not require much space or a yoga mat. The 8 brocades are also known as the silk brocades because of the very slow and flowing movements. I have been practicing the 8 brocades regularly for several years, and have found it to be one of my great pillars that keep me physically, mentally and emotionally in balance.

@sashagenji

A cup of tea and women soul talks

My friend and I are sitting at my home opposite each other. She talks a lot and I I know that she needs to get it all out so I just sit there and listen. I've seen this many times already. Moreover, the countless time I have been in her place with someone else sitting opposite of me and listening. There is something magical about this moment when suddenly the conversation flows into something more than it might seem. It is the moment when behind spoken words there is something bigger emerges and with every minute it becomes more and more clear.

@sagescrub

Wild Medicine: Pedicularis densiflora

There are these red flowers popping up all over the place here along roads and at the feet of trees.

They belong to the genus Pedicularis which includes hundreds of species widespread along northern United States and other temperate regions.

I recommend viewing an image search for Pedicularis and you might recognize one in your region... in any case they are all beautiful. Pedicularis have fern like leaves and flower stalks are spike like inflorescence.

In the case of this region in Southwest Oregon the species Pedicularis densiflora is common.

@mountainjewel

Wild Face | Encountering My Instinctual Self

There are many practices that can stimulate our reconnection to the instinctual self. Anything that involves us with the natural world- like digging in the dirt, walking in the woods, learning ancestral skills, eating food we've foraged or grown, and hanging out with the undomesticated animals- can mirror for us how to get back to our own animal bodies.
~ Belonging by Toko-pa Turner

The Great Forgetting & Remembering

Once upon a time, the earth was a part of everything on it.

Connection with the earth was acknowledged in song & dance, in ceremony & creed. The earth was known as The Great Mother From Whom All Things Flow Forth. Before building homes or starting new businesses, humans would have intense rituals embracing their need to have the protection & support of Mother Earth- for without her blessing, nothing would flourish.

@schoonercreek

Dyeing Red

Ahhh. The elusive and sacred color of red. How did traditional peoples obtain this color? Textiles from hundreds and even thousands of years ago were once dyed with the roots of a plant called Madder. This plant grows all over the world, there are several different species, and it is still used today by natural dyers such as myself.

Cloth found in an ancient Egyptian tomb contained alizarin, a pigment extracted from Madder. Madder is hardy to about zone 5 or 6 and can be grown in most gardens. It is related to the plant called Cleavers and is in the Rubiacea plant family. I have grown it before here in my garden. It has a sprawling growth habit and should be given it's own location to spread as a ground cover. The roots must mature in the ground for at least three years before being harvested.

@zpedro

We're on our way to energy sustainability!

The News. Some days ago it was revealed that in March, the production of renewable energies in continental Portugal was higher than the consumption. Which is something unique in more than 40 years! Talking in numbers, the total production was 4712 GWh, while the total consumption was 4647GWh.

In this last month, in two consecutive periods, the total demand was assured by renewable sources alone: 70 hours starting on 6 March, and 69 hours starting on 12 March.

Of course this is great news. We're breaking records again and again, thanks to a huge eolic and hydroelectric infrastructure!

How to make an awesome roasted tofu. Easy recipe

Don't dump your oven!

This is a great advice for some vegetarian people who are tempted to make everything in a pan. Me too, since I have no patience to cook for hours and I'm no gourmet guy or something. If I can make tasty food in the pan, why bother with ovens or grills?

But when I moved to this house, there was an oven available. And I noticed I was missing great recipes that take just a little longer because of this magnificent way of cooking stuff. I even went in a true marathon trying to cook two roasted vegan christmas meals at the same time. Here's me on that day:

@kiaraantonoviche

Product Spotlight Series #20 - Organic Cotton #GiveAShit Tote Bag

If you've ever researched how to begin eliminating plastic from your daily routine, many bloggers and zero-waste ‘gurus' list many of the same tips and tricks… one of which is switching from plastic bags to reusable totes when shopping. It is an easy change to make - it only requires the acquisition of a fabric tote and the ability to remember to take it to the store (pro tip learned from experience: leave it in the car so you don't forget it)!

Now you can get a reusable bag virtually anywhere. Many stores now offer them near checkout aisles and it's a popular item to sew/craft for online stores on websites like Etsy. So I feel that a specific bag is unnecessary to recommend - I simply chose this Organic Cotton #GiveAShit Tote Bagfrom Package Free because it supports one of my favorite stores and is made from organic material!

@ecoTrain

Supporting People Who Help
Make The World A Better Place

Discover previous ecoTrain magazines at @ecoTrain

DRIVER
@eco-alex

CONDUCTOR
@likedeeler

VIP'S WHO HAVE DELEGATED STEEM POWER
@omdemian
@kalima

PASSENGERS
@bristena94
@celestialcow
@clara-andriessen
@ecoinstant
@hopehuggs
@kiaraantonoviche
@misslasvegas
@mountainjewel
@sagescrub
@sashagenji
@schoonercreek
@sharoon-yasir
@solarsupermama
@stillgideon
@stillwatersar
@stortebeker
@trucklife-family
@zpedro

If you are new to Steemit, love to write, and would like to join the ecoTrain community as an official passenger please email me on [email protected]

** Click Here For More Information on the ecoTrain **