Okay, we’ve almost got plastic grocery bags eliminated – I’ve seen everyone from moms to tattooed biker guys with their canvas bags at the grocery store. Fantastic! We even have canvas bags for sale at my other web site: Hippy Grandma.

But I found myself reaching for plastic produce bags the other day in the produce isle at my local grocery store and wondering what the heck I was doing. You know those little clear plastic bags we put potatoes and beans and carrots in? I had reduced using those bags by a long shot – preferring to not use them at all for bananas or oranges and other stuff that gets peeled or doesn’t drip. But when I bought swiss chard or walnuts in bulk I was stuck using a small, plastic bag.

Then the other day in the checkout line I saw a shopper with all her produce in mesh bags that were clearly reusable. I asked her where she got them and she mentioned The Market Kitchen, a kitchen supply store on Granville Island.

So then I started doing a little research and found a number of great ideas for replacing plastic produce bags. My favorite so far is Lioli, for a few reasons:

1. It comes as a large tote for groceries with six little bags for produce.
2. The smaller bags come in mesh style (for produce) or cotton canvas for things like nuts or grains. (Produce Or Grain – POG. Get it?)
3. The large canvas tote has an outside pocket to hold the little POG sacks.
4. The coloured bags are made with azo free low impact dyes and all lioli bags are made fair wage/fair labour.
5. A portion of the proceeds from all bags goes to the David Suzuki foundation.

Colour me happy!

namaste,

Zoey

Zoey Ryan
life & business coach for women
inspiration * clarity * wisdom * enchantment
www.shaktisage.com
604-323-3700

“Coaching for your heart & soul & the heart and soul of your business.”

One of our favorite parts of summer and early fall here at Shakti Sage, is shopping for produce at our local farmers’ markets. We are very fortunate that there are many in our area, including the Ladner Market and the various Vancouver farmers markets.

One of the reasons we love to eat locally, is that we can become friends with and support local farmers. As we all become increasingly used to big box stores and ordering merchandise online, it can sometimes be easy to forget that there are people and lives behind the food that ends up on our table.

One such family has been providing healthy, organic fruits and vegetables for tables here in BC for more than three decades. Organic farming is definitely not a flashy trend that the Forstbauer’s from Chilliwack have just caught onto. They’ve been farming organically for over 30 years! In the late 1990s they also began to farm biodynamically. (You can read more about biodynamic farming here.)

It can’t ever be easy to be a farmer, and at a time when Statistics Canada is finding a steep decline in the number of family farms in our country, we suspect it’s even more difficult than ever. Luckily there are still a few people, like the Forstbauer’s, who are passionate about healthy food and healthy families.

Why not hug your favorite local farmer this week? Better yet, buy some of his great produce!

namaste,

Zoey

Zoey Ryan
life & business coach for women
inspiration * clarity * wisdom * enchantment
www.shaktisage.com
604-323-3700

“Coaching for your heart & soul & the heart and soul of your business.”

Let’s talk healthy skin! Here in southern BC the temperatures soared this past summer. We broke temperature records in July, and although the sun is less intense now, there’s always a need to take care of our skin and our children and children’s skin.

So that brings to mind some natural ways to do this. Two of our favorite product lines are Keys Natural soaps and skin therapies and the Tawna Hill Baby line of chemical-free products.

Keys has an international reputation for providing products that are chemical-free, vegan, gluten free, and therapeutic. Not to mention that they never do testing on animals. The company was founded by Wendy Steele after her bout with skin cancer. Her research about cancer and its causes, and her sensitive skin, made her realize that so much of what we put on our skin is actually full of chemicals and very bad for us. Her company’s products are consistently ranked high on the list of safest brands by the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Report. (Key’s sunscreen is #1 again this year.) Wendy’s mission is to increase awareness that products that are clean, green and therapeutic are a better choice that those filled with chemicals. They even have products for pets! You can go to keys-soap.com and search for a retailer in your area.

The story of Tawna Hill Baby products has more than one commonality with Keys. Tawna Hill’s baby line is chemical-free, preservative-free and has no carcinogens. But even more interesting is that this company was also started after a battle with cancer. Tawna received the news that she had a brain tumor while she was pregnant with her daughter Olivia, and so began educating herself about the dangerous chemicals and preservatives found in the products we put in and on our bodies. One mom we know swears by these products so completely, that even though her “babies” are now 8 and 5 she still uses the Baby skin care line – especially for herself! For a retailer in your area, click on ‘Retailers’ at the bottom of the page when you go to TawnaHillBaby.com.

Stay safe (and green) in the sun all year long!

namaste,

Zoey

Zoey Ryan
life & business coach for women
inspiration * clarity * wisdom * enchantment
www.shaktisage.com
604-323-3700

“Coaching for your heart & soul & the heart and soul of your business.”

Remembering Three Amazing Women & Your Self-Care Enchantments

“What we have not known is how to begin from our own centre, how to begin from our own experience, how to make ourselves as women the subjects of the act of knowing”

- Dorothy Smith (A Canadian Sociologist, known for her work with feminist theory and women’s studies)

This quote is a wonderful reminder that each of us women, has a center point, a still point, an internal place of equilibrium, of power and energy that can fuel us, feed us and inspire us. Inspire us, to get to know ourselves intimately and to get to know each other intimately. A friend, fellow coach and colleague, Debra Rafel, in fact, used this concept as her key business identifier.

This inner center is your “shakti sage” place and I have written quite extensively about the shakti sage qualities over the past year.

During this time of “All Hallowed Eve, Dia de los Muertos and All Saints Day” I want to acknowledge and remember three amazing shakti sage women who embodied their shakti sage essence and inner knowing and have now passed on.

I mentioned Debra Rafel earlier. Debra left us far too early after a brief critical illness. Debra leaves behind young twin daughters and her husband. Debra introduced me to yoga and we shared numerous cups of tea over deep and interesting discussions.

I also wish to remember and acknowledge Anita Roddick (the founder of the Body Shop). I had the great pleasure of hearing Anita Roddick speak in Vancouver in the late 90’s. She walked on stage, wearing a funky understated outfit and totally captivated the audience of over 2000 women. She modeled her “shakti sage” essence to me by standing fully in her powerful presence. It was clear to me then as it has been in the ensuing years that she “wore her skin well”, that she knew who she was and what she stood for and that this “knowing” informed all of her actions.

Finally, I want to remember my mom, Renata Wenzel Johnson, who passed on Thanksgiving Day 1996. Mom introduced me to the “act of knowing” and taught me patience and humility.

So, lovely shakti sages, for this week, your self-care enchantments are to use the following questions to explore your inner knowing:

1. Who do you wish to remember and acknowledge?
2. How can you engage with your shakti sage presence daily?
3. How can you deepen your self knowledge?

peace & namaste,

Zoey – founding hippy at hippy grandma

Zoey Ryan
life, business & leadership coach for women
inspiration * clarity * wisdom * enchantment
www.shaktisage.com
604-323-3700

“Coaching for your heart & soul and the heart & soul of your business”

Are you a heart-centered and “soulful shopper”? Know of a new baby arriving? Keep the heart, soul & hippy love flowing for generations with purchases from Hippy Grandma: an Eco-Boutique selling fair trade, one of a kind, earth friendly treasures.
Through your purchases, you help local artisans, hand-crafting grandmas on a pension, women’s fair trade co-ops and programs designed to support vulnerable mamas & babies. Please share Hippy Grandma widely and wildly with your soul sisters. www.hippygrandma.com

Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, has been doing a series of articles this year on different book clubs from around the country. The articles show up periodically in the Focus and Books section of Saturday’s paper and have profiled clubs from Moncton to Victoria.

As the series has unfolded, one of the most interesting aspects of it has been that every book club profiled has been so different from every other one. What they have in common is that the members love books and reading, after that the commonalities stop.

The latest article features a club in Ontario that meets just three times a year, rather than the more common once-a-month. This group of retirees has created a club schedule that fits into their busy lives.

Another club that we were fascinated to read about was a mother-daughter club, also in Ontario. Founder Karen von Jagow came home from her adult book club a few years ago to find herself peppered with questions from her then-11-year-old daughter. Von Jagow realized that her daughter had observed how important her mother’s club was to her and was, in her own way, expressing a desire to be involved with a group in a similar way.

The idea for a mother-daughter club was born and they’ve been meeting now for three years. One beautiful thing the mothers have noticed is that their girls have transformed from being a bit shy about talking about the books to being more confident about hosting, leading a discussion and creating provocative questions for the group to discuss. The added bonus of keeping conversational doors open between parent and child during the teenage years is one we’re sure these mothers are happy about too!

Do you belong to a book group?
If not, would you like to create one?
Who would you invite to join you on the reading journey?

namaste,

Zoey

Zoey Ryan
life & business coach for women
inspiration * clarity * wisdom * enchantment
www.shaktisage.com
604-323-3700

“Coaching for your heart & soul & the heart and soul of your business.”

Mystic Mama’s Infusion of Inspiration and delight for Conscious Parents….

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
-Melody Beattie

‘Tis the season to give thanks; however, as we all know, a special day is really unnecessary. Every hour of every day is the perfect time to express gratitude.

This month, I would like to reflect upon “thankfulness” and explore ways we, as parents, can foster “attitudes of gratitude” within our families.

So much more than a social nicety, thankfulness is an incredibly powerful

Each word spoken is recorded in our saliva – a vibratory
reflection of the essence of the message. Being nearly
99% water, saliva holds a “memory” of all that passes
through our body/mind/spirit. A healthy human
produces nearly 600 milliliters of saliva each day –
enough to fill a 12 oz. bottle.

Talk about swallowing our own words!

As conscious parents, I know we all recognize the genuine power of gratitude. Many of us keep personal gratitude journals and count our blessings on a daily basis. However, it can be a challenge to incorporate thankfulness into our busy, everyday family lives. Gratitude is admittedly hard to muster when our toddler is having a meltdown in the grocery line or our At times like this it is easy to sink into self pity and ask, “why me?”

When we are thankful

This week, practice making gratitude a natural part of your family life. Write thank you notes to one another. Create a family gratitude jar or journal. Hug your child and tell them, “I am soo thankful for you.” Start a thankfulness ritual that feels perfect for your family. Model thankfulness and talk about all the things you are grateful for. I would love to hear your ideas

Yours in gratitude.

Namaste,
Shannon Rosnau
Mystic mama, Shakti Sage Life Coach, Advocate of love

I hope you enjoyed this article by Shannon. It is a great reminder of the power of families and how important it is to keep the love & gratitude flowing!

peace & namaste,

Zoey – founding hippy at hippy grandma

Zoey Ryan
life, business & leadership coach for women
inspiration * clarity * wisdom * enchantment
www.shaktisage.com
604-323-3700

“Coaching for your heart & soul and the heart & soul of your business”

Are you a heart-centered and “soulful shopper”? Know of a new baby arriving? Keep the heart, soul & hippy love flowing for generations with purchases from Hippy Grandma: an Eco-Boutique selling fair trade, one of a kind, earth friendly treasures.

Through your purchases, you help local artisans, hand-crafting grandmas on a pension, women’s fair trade co-ops and programs designed to support vulnerable mamas & babies. Please share Hippy Grandma widely and wildly with your soul sisters. www.hippygrandma.com

Here in coastal British Columbia, we enjoy a pretty mild climate, especially when compared to the rest of Canada. Even so, if you walk anywhere in the Vancouver area in winter you’ll see dogs in gortex (or fleece) jackets.

This sight always brings one word to mind: simplicity. Because a dog in a gortex jacket is such a great metaphor for the things we don’t need but feel we must have.

I sometimes talk about the simplicity of the life in places like Yelapa, Mexico and the desire I feel to be mindful about the choices I make in life, especially around the latest toy or gadget.

As we become fully immersed in our fall schedules, and life gets much busier, perhaps we could try to retain some of the simplicity from summer into our ‘regular’ lives. A simplicity that resembles that of a good vacation; less rushing, more time for conversations with family and friends, less drive to chase those things we think we need.

I invite you to ask yourself:
1. What matters most to me?
2. Where could I invite more simplicity into my life?
3. How could that simplicity improve my relationships with my family and friends?
4. Are there any places in my life where I feel I’ve got a “dog in a gortex jacket”?

namaste,

Zoey

Zoey Ryan
life & business coach for women
inspiration * clarity * wisdom * enchantment
www.shaktisage.com
604-323-3700

“Coaching for your heart & soul & the heart and soul of your business.”

Choices Market is a locally owned and operated grocery store here in the Vancouver area (they just recently added a new store in the BC Interior town of Kelowna, as well). As Western Canada’s largest retailer of natural and organic foods, Choices has always been a leader in the local business community and have always placed a focus on supporting local growers and producers. They have also led the way in making choices (pun intended) and taking action to ensure that their stores operate in the most sustainable way possible.

And they listen to their customers! (How often do you encounter that in a large retailer these days?) Choices customers have voiced their opinion that less packaging is better, and as usual, Choices is listening. They’ve created the Sustainability Program.

From their web site (choicesmarket.com): The Choices Sustainability Program will allow proactive Brand Owners the opportunity to fully close the recycling loop.

The program is simple.

* Select Brand Owners will approve the return of all their packaging to Choices Recycling Centre
* Shelf signs with the Choices Recycling Centre logo will be placed in front of products that may be returned to Choices Recycling Centre
* Consumers return authorized packaging to the Choices Recycling Centre
* Packaging is collected by the Choices Recycling Centre and sent off to the appropriate recycling depot
* Any revenues for collected materials will be donated to local charities.

Choices Markets strives to take responsibility for the full life cycle of the products we sell. We are proud to incorporate this program into our store and we are excited to be an integral part of the solution.

From everyone here at Shakti Sage, congratulations once again to a community leader, Choices Market, for a great idea and for taking one more step toward a fully sustainable future.

namaste,
Zoey

Zoey Ryan
life & business coach for women
inspiration * clarity * wisdom * enchantment
www.shaktisage.com
604-323-3700

“Coaching for your heart & soul & the heart and soul of your business.”

The Bag Project works like this: Varveris has sourced hemp/cotton bags, appropriate for groceries or other purchases, and produced locally at HT Basics. She commissioned struggling artist Jason Bouchard to provide the artwork for the outside of each bag. The bags are sold by Roger Wilson, a man who lives on the streets around Commercial Drive. (Bags can also be purchased at the Open Door Yoga studio Commercial Drive location.) Profits from the sale of each $13 bag are then divided between Jason and Roger.

Varveris explained to the Vancouver Courier newspaper that she was inspired by Pivot Legal Society (who we’ve written about on this blog) and their work in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Pivot’s Hope In Shadows project distributes cameras in the Downtown Eastside community and holds a contest with the resulting photographs. The 12 winning entries are then used to produce a calendar, which community members sell on the streets of Vancouver in the late part of each year. The sellers receive 50% of the sale price of each calendar. In 2008 the calendars sold out.

Each one of us can make a difference in our community. Georgina Varveris and Pivot Legal Society know this intimately.

We leave you today with this quote:

Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
- Margaret Mead

namaste,

Zoey

Zoey Ryan
life & business coach for women
inspiration * clarity * wisdom * enchantment
www.shaktisage.com
604-323-3700

“Coaching for your heart & soul & the heart and soul of your business.”

Pivot Legal Society works to use the law to achieve social change, addressing the root causes that undermine the quality of life for those on the margins. They practice strategic legal advocacy, meaning they are not a legal aid society, but one that focuses on the causes of problems rather than the symptoms and tries to find ways that the law can address those causes.

For example, a few years ago a hotel in the Downtown Eastside (Canada’s poorest neighborhood) was closed due to long-standing maintenance issues. The City of Vancouver had the power to rectify those issues through the Standards of Maintenance By-law but had not done so. Pivot took up this issue on behalf of the residents of the closed hotel, and on behalf of all those in the neighborhood who rely on single room occupancy hotels for housing, and sued the City for not enforcing the bylaw. In March of 2009, Vancouver City Council resolved to enforce the bylaw, following presentations by Pivot and others; with the support of the council behind it the bylaw is now working.

Based on the premise that everyone deserves a safe, secure place to live, Pivot has once again used the law to enact positive change in a desperately poor and drug-ravaged neighborhood. Go to Pivot’s web site (pivotlegal.org) to find out more about all the amazing projects and initiatives that they have going on in the name of a healthy, inclusive community.

namaste,

Zoey

Zoey Ryan
life & business coach for women
inspiration * clarity * wisdom * enchantment
www.shaktisage.com
604-323-3700

“Coaching for your heart & soul & the heart and soul of your business.”