Awesome Stories 238

/ September 5, 2015

This week Awesome Stories brings you mysterious forests, StoryCorps, artistic cycling, mindfulness and Hugelkultur.

Mysterious Forestsforests, Awesome Stories

I would love to see these mysterious forests. They are a mixture of beautiful, whimsical and mysterious. The colors in the Hallerbos forest above look incredibly inviting. I would love to wander around, lay in those purple beauties and ponder my navel. The Crooked Forest is definitely mysterious, the Stanton Moore looks like a perfect home for elves and fairies, and the Goblin Forest is a little creepy! How about you. Which of these forests calls out to you?

What’s Your Story?

Join us in collecting an archieve of human wisdom and value. – Dave Islay 

StoryCorps, Awesome Stories

I love this project. Dave Isay is driven by the idea that everyone has a story that needs to be told and heard. He opened the first StoryCorps booth in NY for people to share and record their stories. The recorded stories are given to the person interviewed and archived at the American Folklife Center at the National Library of Congress. As the winner of TED’s 2015 $1 million prize, Dave is working to spread his vision globally using an app for smartphones so anyone, anywhere can record and share their story. StoryCorps has already amassed the largest collection of human voices ever recorded, and wants to create a digital archive of human stories and wisdom to share with the world. What a wonderful vision! And regardless of whether we join StoryCorps, it reminds us of the power in listening and sharing our stories.

Artistic Cycling!

I’ve never even heard of this, but apparently there is a new Olympic sport called synchronized cycling which comes from artistic cycling groups like ACT 4 Slovakia. They are amazing to me! What do you think about this performance?

Benefits of Mindfulness

Most of us can relate to feeling too busy, rushed and distracted. Especially when we try to do multiple things at once. Mostly, I’ve stopped doing more than one thing at a time, having learned that multi-tasking doesn’t really work. Being mindful while doing anything is a great way to center ourselves and return our attention to the present moment. Mindfulness can also help with our health, ability to focus and overall performance on tasks. Maybe they should teach mindfulness in more schools and jobs! Here’s a good article offering 5 more reasons to be mindful. And if you’re inspired, you can join a global 21 Day Mindfulness Challenge that started September 2nd.

HugelkulturHugelkultur, Awesome Stories

Hugelkultur is a fairly new idea for creating low maintenance mounds to grow things on. It’s permaculture with a twist that seems to need a lot of debris, organic matter and labor initially. But the benefits of Hugelkultur appear to be worth the effort. One of the key benefits is large water holding capacity with little or no need for watering! Additionally, the slow decay of the wood and organic matter can feed the crops for years. Have any of you tried this method for garden crops? I would love to hear if any of you have tried it or something like it.

What areas in your life would benefit from more mindfulness?

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47 thoughts on “Awesome Stories 238”

  6. Had to spend a bit of this morning wandering and wondering when am I going to get out and see these magical & mysterious forests you showed here. The photo of the Belgian forest, with its green canopy with a floor covered in bluebells is awesome, but then every single one of these places holds similar greatness. What a dream it would be to walk into these places. Cheers ~

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  7. Oh I love those mysterious forests! I like the one you shared from Belgium – that green and purpley blue is so beautiful, but Stanton Moor in the UK really spoke to me. ❤ I also liked the autumn trail in the reportedly haunted forest in Romania, I've seen stories about that place, so creepy and mysterious…
    I enjoyed the video of the synchronized cycling, pretty cool!
    I know what you mean about the multitasking – I've always been good at it, but it's not the way I enjoy living, and the older I get, the more easily I get stressed out trying to overlap too many things at once. Ah sweet peaceful mindfulness… that's the way to be. Teaching more mindfulness in the schools is a great idea. A friend of mine is working on starting up a charter school here in the area with an emphasis on mindfulness and I'm looking forward to being a part of that. She says I can work there and share my love of nature and gardening with the kids! Of course, it may be years before it's up and running, but that would be such a great job to have! 🙂
    That Hugelkultur gardening sounds really interesting…
    Thanks for the great stories this week Brad, hope you have a wonderful weekend!

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    • Wonderful Julie. Wouldn’t it be fun to stroll through those forests? Whether enchanted or haunted, they would be an adventure! I’ve found that multi-tasking doesn’t work for me anymore and is stressful as you mentioned. I bet you would be a wonderful teacher of finding delight in nature and garden. Maybe you could find similar work until the new school is open? Thanks for sharing the path with me Julie. To weekend wandering…. 🙂

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      • Well, without free-wheeling mechanism it would probably work 🙂
        I know, there are some bicycle couriers here (Frankfort, Germany) who use free-wheeling mechanism free bikes (what a description!!) for their jobs, because they want to avoid to always pay for the brake parts… But I assume, they’re all riding forwards 🙂
        I think, shortly after midnight now, I’ll be in favour of some exiting dreams about artistic cycling !
        Cheers,
        Michel 🙂

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  9. Those enchanting forest are stunning…The one you chose was my favorite too — love me some purple!! Oh, boy does mindfulness ever need to make a wild comeback. I’m as guilty as the next person in believing I can multi-task. Unfortunately, in my case, this results in scattered accomplishments. That’s why traveling is my best therapy because it forces me to put down my gadgets and get out there and live life firsthand. A work in progress, I will always be…

    Have a magical, mindful weekend Brad.

    P.S. I’ll be out of the country for the next three Saturdays but will do my best to catch up on your wonderful blog either from overseas or when I return. xo

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    • Thanks my dear friend. You always help brighten my day. The purple looks so inviting and soothing! We’re all works in progress and I’m grateful to have friends along for the journey. Enjoy your traveling and don’t worry about blogs! But please bring back photos and stories so I can have my vicarious thrills! 🙂

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  10. Great stories brad, I love reading new interesting facts… I love forests and fairies too… Mindfulness is great to practice all the time… Being conscious of each moment, this is how we stay out of trouble. Good weekend to you brad…

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  13. I love the mysterious forests link – they are stunning! Thank you so much for introducing them!! And the use of hugelkultur is quite unique, they look beautiful as in the link included. I wonder if that could be implemented in tropical countries..

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  15. I love those purple flower lined forests. The closest I get to it is in spring when the Virginia bluebells are in bloom and I know just the place by the river…. I have a friend who tried Huegelkultur and it seems to be working for her. Would like to try it for myself as there is plenty of dead wood and branches lying around here….

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  16. A field of bluebells sounds wonderful too Annette! And I remember a yard that was filled with purple fall crocus that was delightful. Thanks for reminding me! Let me know if you try the Huegelkultur!
    to beauty where we are…

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  17. Hi Brad.. at last I made it here 🙂 I hope you had a great weekend.. we did.. 🙂
    First loved forest photo and link.. Beautiful woodland with bluebells, we have some great bluebell woods near here too 🙂

    and loved the bicycles in action too, Now I need go learn ride a bike. ( I did n’t have a bike as a child, and rode a boys bike when aged 7 that was much too big for me, and fell off hurting myself.. I never rode one again.. Despite hubby’s encouragement when our children learn to ride )

    The Hugelkultur is a great idea.. and I suppose the closest we came to making one is where hubby levelled off our old compost heap in the allotments, and its growing amazing squashes.. 🙂 as the soil is enriched with all the waste which was decomposing ..

    Hugs Sue x

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    • I’m glad you have your own beautiful bluebell woods to explore. Compost piles do seem to grow great volunteers! I’ve started putting my waste directly on the beds and letting it decompose directly. I still love riding and the feeling of play and joy that comes with biking for me.
      To doing whatever makes our heart sing! 🙂

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  18. Another great selection of stories Brad! Those forests look amazing, what a trip that would be, visiting amazing forests :). Also like the Story corps, I will have a look another day seems like you need to spend a bit of time on there. Thanks again

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  20. Thank you for these awesomely positive stories! The forests remind us what a beautiful and precious planet we live on. The bicycle ladies show how anything is possible, story corps takes out outside the predominantly negative mainstream media box, and as far as your question about mindfulness in my life: driving and eating are two things I want to be more mindful of. One at a time though, 😉

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