Welcome to the @ecotrain magazine! We are gathering more steem and adding more amazing passengers every week! This week I am very happy to welcome @vegan.niinja, @riverflows and @thelaundrylady to the @ecoTrain! If you have been looking for a great community of people as well as fantastic posts then look no further, your search is over! We are posting on a wide range of topics on the theme of Things that help make this world a better place. Im sure after reading some of these posts you will understand what we are about!

Please remember to follow the passengers that you resonate with so that you can see more of their posts in your feed, and of course you can upvote them as well!

Have a great weekend everyone!

@celestialcow

Almond and Coconut Cookie Dough Cake! For those indulgent moments we all need sometimes!

I don't make deserts and sweets much but I had been eager to make an indulgent looking cake since my birthday, so this is my real birthday cake so to speak and only about a month late! Biting into the this sort of reminded me of the days when I used to buy Ben and Jerry's cookie dough ice cream, the texture was also somewhat like a cheese cake. But trust me this one beats all of those hands down and no diary or gluten involved! And so Healthy Too!

Making Homemade deodorant is Super Easy and Kind to your Body

There's a lot of information out there on the internet by mainstream consensus that tells us using aluminum products is safe because aluminum is naturally occurring in water, because this metal is everywhere and unavoidable. But how we process water in our bodies is one thing, that does not mean that exposing ourselves to aluminum continually is safe for us. As someone who worked with jewellery making we were always taught that aluminum is a toxic metal and you do not want to work with it as a metal smith.

Steemit Vision Quest #16: The most important gathering on the planet: Ode to the bees

Oh how it humbles me
to watch you bumble bee
without you how would I eat
for what you carry on your tiny feet
a basket of pollen
and with the fallen
particles you've collected
flowers and crops are protected

Oh how it humbles me
to watch you honey bee
They try to put a price on you
but if only they really knew
that your sweetness is not thine
but a gift of the divine

@afifa

Personal Growth and Knowledge: How to go about it

One of the main and most effective strategies for personal growth is to know what information is needed to achieve its goals . Once we understand what we need to know, we need to know how to collect this information.In fact, a person is not simply educated to the extent that he has stored knowledge, but insofar as he knows how to make his knowledge available by making it available to his own purposes.

The influence of television on kids

In the United States, 99% of households own a television set. The average number of televisions per dwelling is 2.24 and, in any case, there are three televisions or more in two houses out of three.
On average, every TV in the United States stays on for six hours and 47 minutes a day and two out of three Americans eat watching TV.

In recent years, children and teenagers spend many hours in front of the television throughout the day, even if the greater use takes place in the evening.
The peak of watching is for children (4-7 years) between 8:15 pm and 9:30 pm, while for older children (8-14 years old) between 8:45 pm and 9:45 pm.
At 11.00, about a million more boys are hypnotized in front of the TV.

A new study shows the link between sleep and creativity

If you are stuck on an issue that requires "unconventional" solutions, indulge in the luxury of a few nights of rest. That sleep is fundamental to strengthen learning and creativity is a known fact, but the role played by its various phases is still discussed. Now a new research hypothesis, which will be declined in the next five years, proposes that REM sleep ( phase that repeats several times during the night and is characterized by rapid eye movements) and non-REM (composed of alternating light sleep phases) to periods of deep sleep) work together, and in a complementary way, to facilitate creative thinking .

@sashagenji

Happy to get back to Steemit and some more positive news in my life

I can do anything

I am finally seating alone in my kitchen in my new home in Prague, Czech Republic. The lovely music plays as background and I finally have a chance to re-think what was happening with me in past few weeks. April and May were absolutely crazy months for me with jumping from one country to the other trying to make sure all is going to be as planned. I believe that the credo "I can do anything" was always a part of my life. Each project I have ever started was a personal challenge, my way to prove that I can go further than I reached last time. So this one I just ended was no differed. Yet, it is always an exhausting journey that sometimes lives very little time for doing something else that you would love to do.

@holisticmom

Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset: Everything's A Learning Curve, Right?

Hi there fellow Steemians. Wishing everyone a beautiful week ahead, with good intentions and loads of love to all.

This is an opportunity to learn.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little upset about the slug problem. However, instead of being defeated, it was time to address the problem, see where we had gone wrong and look for solutions before everything was gone.

Hey Gorgeous! The Self Forgiveness Challenge

I'd like to firstly thank @solarsupermama for nominating me for this challenge. You can read her article here:

https://steemit.com/ecotrain/@solarsupermama/hey-gorgeous-the-self-forgiveness-challenge

This is a topic very close to my heart so I felt empowered and quite touched to be asked to contribute my thoughts.

The Importance of Spirit Animals: Dragon Fly : Shifting our Perspectives

Animism is a spiritual perspective that animals and insects are guardian spirits, the animal symbol is sacred and symbolic and often used as crests for tribes, clans, families and chiefs throughout different cultures around the world, the animal spirit may even represent ancestors.

In our modern world where we are taught to live separated from the nature from which we come from, we need to more than ever to reconnect with the animal spirits around us and understand their powerful symbolism.

@nainaztengra

My Daily Quiet time

Some years back when I was completely engrossed in my corporate world and was not at my very best, I was reaching out for help to many to find that peace within. At that time one of the holistic healer that I was working with asked me. "Do you spend your daily Quiet Time" and I was kind of amused, and my instant reply was Yes I do, so she again asked me, So how is it that you spend your quiet time, to which I responded to her that I read, I listen to music, I spend time on internet, I like what I do and so on, to which she responded to me, "But all those are external stimulation's" what about your own Quiet Time and I was kind of speechless. then we had a good 2 hour conversation around it, those were the first days for me coming to a state of realization. All of this came to me very late in life but I am glad that I could find my path......

@trucklife-family

Nature, A Reflection Of Myself

Today I began my day feeling heavy, feeling bogged down. I had been thinking a lot about what is going on in my life at the moment and as is the way, I could feel myself starting to slip down into my sadness. Feeling sad is okay, it is part of life.But I do know that getting outside into my natural environment is one of my best therapies.

How My Relationship With A Horse Helped Me Tap into My Power

I have always loved horses, as a child I loved to be around them, but I never wanted to ride them. I still don't. I have never been a fan of humans using animals for their own benefit. But that said I two have 2 dog companions and 3 cat companions.

Two years ago I done a 2 month Trek across the Sierra Nevada with a friend of mine and our children. We had a horse each which we used to carry our belongings and sometimes our children. My friend had one boy at the time age 4 and I had my 2 girls aged 3 and 6. This was really my first time to actually get to really know these beautiful creatures. As I already said I always admired them, but it was always from a distance, I never had any, in my life before.

Why Do We Insist On Destroying Our Natural Instincts

When a baby is born , all they want is to be placed in the arms of their mother, but in most cases, they are taken away, washed, measured and weighted, sometimes these strange instruments are stuck up their noses and in their mouths. Their natural desire is to feel safe and secure, to hear their mothers heartbeat, the one sound they have become very accustomed to.

This sense of feeling safe happens when they are placed in their mothers arms and when this happens the mother and baby share an exchange of hormones that allows them both to fall madly in love with one another. But this needs to happen straight away after birth, both mother and baby need that time together, both of them are producing such a huge cocktail of love hormones for this exact moment. Yet so many do not get to experience this.

When Destruction Is Seen as Progress

I love Steemit, I write one post which engages some awesome authors on here and a discussion begins about said post and from there comes the inspiration to write another post. I have recently been added as an author to @tribesteemup, when I first discovered what this project was about I was very impressed. It was created by @kennyskitchen in order to help people who write about topics that are catalyst's for change, it started out as people he knew and now it has grown to over 200 authors. Being involved has allowed me to get to know some of these great authors and to interact with them, people that I can relate to on a lot of issues.

@vegan.niinja

CHOCOLATE (heaven) CUPCAKES! GF-VEGAN-SUGAR FREE RECIPE New Photo Shoot!

My recipe today for you all is an absolute chocolate bomb! I am so happy how they turned out! Perfect smooth chocolate filling on a crispy crust made of cinnamon granola! To make it even more delicate, I added some chocolate for the decoration together with some pomegranate seeds. PURE HEAVEN!!

Enjoy!

CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES WITH A CRISPY CINNAMON GRANOLA CRUST!

Feeling stuck and how to move on.

I woke up a few days ago, feeling stuck and misery. I knew I needed to change something in my way of living and thinking.

To feel stuck, means you need to move forward, to feel bad or depressed, means you need to change the way you live, in order to feel more fulfilled. It can be difficult to recognize those signs when you are used to feeling bad most of the time, and you think that this is how life is and should be. But if you have experienced periods of time with a lot of joy, fulfillment, and happiness, you will immediately see when something is not as it is supposed to be. We are here to live our dreams, to seek and find our purpose in life, to enjoy the journey. But in order to see that, we often need to go through suffering to realize what we are here for. Suffering is one of the greatest gifts we can get in life. Even if it sounds paradoxical, it is the greatest tool for self-realization. We are here on this earth, in this body, to develop as souls, to learn and to find our self. What we experience is a reflection of our inner mind, believes and thoughts. The way we see the world is the way we think of it. How I see the world is different than how you see it because we carry different thoughts and believes.

COMFORT PIZZA GOALS! Gluten free & healthy recipe! 4 ingredient crust!

Hi dear friends! It´s time for another epic recipe, today a pizza with a light crunchy crust, veggie toppings, and a homemade cream cheese.

I have this one as my new favorite pizza recipe, one that definitely will be on the menu every week from now on!
Usually, the crust comes out quite heavy when I make gluten-free pizza, but this one was light and held together very well! I only used oat flour, flaxseeds and psyllium husk for the dough, and if you haven´t tried that yet, then this is something really worth trying! I can imagine that this also works for sweet recipes, and for pies! Haha, I am getting new ideas while I am writing this.;)

@hopehuggs

You Cannot Escape a Prison If You Don't Know You Are in One

Do you see that lovely blue sea outside those bars? Wouldn't you love to take a swim, or walk along the coast admiring the view?

What is stopping you?

Are the bars real, or in your mind?

"You Cannot Escape a Prison If You Don't Know You Are in One"

This phrase should really make anyone who reads it think and question it...

@sharoonyasir

Is Life Actually Tough or Do We Make it Hard for Ourselves?

I have always believed that life isn't a bed of roses and straightforward, but from the past few months, this belief has changed drastically. I now think that life isn't as tough as we make it. It is we, our aspirations, desires, demands, wants and needs that make our life tough.

So we want something but we cannot have it and we start feeling miserable about it and support a complaining attitude. Our desires keep growing because we keep growing them and then when we cannot have what we want, we feel it is our life that is bad. If we do start to strive for our goals and what we want, we face obstacles and problems because hey, achieving big goals is never easy and then again we feel it is our life that is tough.

@eco-alex

Paying it forward to great Steemians for you to discover and follow! The @ecotrain Minnow Support Post

This is a new initiative to help those minnows who really do put the time and effort in to writing great posts, but don't get the rewards or attention they deserve! In this tie-up post you will find some great articles written by minnows that I have discovered and think deserve much more attention! The very best posts have also received an upvote from the @ecotrainvoting bot. I am using the proceeds from this bot to give back and encourage great Steemians to keep posting! I will also be using the SBD from this post to bot-vote next weeks minnows, and I will continue paying it forward each week! Please upvote this post to help me spread the reward pool to many more great people!

This morning i discovered 30+ Wild horses in the meadows! SO beautiful, wow!

Hey Gorgeous! The Self Forgiveness Challenge

Thank you to @solarsupermama for nominating me for this challenge because this is a topic that is important and very relevant to me. Forgiveness is something that we often think about when others do something bad unto us, and as many of us know forgiving people for their mistakes is not only a great gift to that person but also to ourselves because we are then able to give up our anger and pain towards them and free up a lot of mental chatter that may be going on. I know how many hours I have spent having bad thoughts to someone because of the things they have done, and only when I have found the compassion and good spirit to let go of it have my days become peaceful and pleasant again. The same can be said for self forgiveness, and its fair to say that many of us are even harder on ourselves than we are on others!

@solarsupermama

Hey Gorgeous! The Self Forgiveness Challenge

Oh, forgiveness. It's a crazy tricky topic, isn't it? Do we really need to forgive anyone for anything ever? Are we all really doing our best with what we have in any given moment, or do we just give lip service to that whole idea? We are especially hard on ourselves. I watched a video the other night. A man was talking about a conversation with a friend whose granddaughter had committed suicide. She was berating herself as most people do, and he stopped to ask her if she thought her husband had been neglectful. Was there something he could have done differently to create a different outcome in the situation? Did she blame him? Of course she said "no." We don't abuse others half as bad as we abuse ourselves. Do we really need to be sorry ever? Subsequently, do we ever need to forgive someone?

Little Changes, Big Difference: Reusable Bags

The Little Changes, Big Difference series is about making small, simple changes in your life that make a big difference for our climate, our planet, and/or our animals. I was an environmental studies major in college. It was an interdisciplinary combination of Biology and Geology. All my professors were very heady and quite fond of big words and complicated studies. I like to keep it simple. The point, for me, was always to communicate the problems and solutions to the masses of people. Clearly, the environmental movement has failed miserably at this task. Of course it's awesome if you can build an earthen, off-grid house and either not drive or charge your electric car from your off-grid system. It's fantasmagoric if you can have that home as the center piece of a permaculture design where you are not only self sustaining but providing food that nourishes both people and planet to others. This series of posts is for those of you that can't or don't want to do that. These are things that, from my perspective, can make a big difference for one of our big problem areas. Our first installment in the series was about cloth diapers. Now we're gonna talk about reusable bags!

Musings on Immigration, Humanity, and Exploration

Yesterday I had to go to the US Embassy here in Belize in the capital of Belmopan to pick up new passports for the children. They've run out of pages in there! We all went up together a couple weeks ago to fill out the applications and show nine hundred forms of identification, share family and dog lineage going back 1000 years and promise to be good US citizens. For that, we had to make an appointment. After the passport arrives, they usually only allow people to pick them up three afternoons a week. I convinced them to let me come in the morning because I had to get back to the town closest to me to go to immigration with the new passports. Stay with me. I know I'm explaining how the clock works, but I promise there's a point here.

@misslasvegas

The Irish are slowly being poisoned - Coming soon to a town near you! Part 2

In my last post about the poison lots of Irish are drinking every day, I mentioned Aspartame, the poison that can be found in most diet drinks and now also in some non-diet drinks. Unfortunately, this is not the only way the Irish (and possibly lots of others) get poisoned. Often these toxic chemicals bring illness and I wouldn't rule out death either. No one will probably tell us if Aspartame is a killer, but I think long-term use could mean just that.
So what else do we have here that is of great concern?

@riverflows

Dragonfly Dreaming: 💛 Garden Path Flys to Completion, and Art as Reverence for Life🌱

I have a fetish for dragonflies. I mean, they make love in the air - what's not cool about that? Well, kinda - they perform all sorts of acrobatics to copulate, but let's not get away from the romance of it - I choose to think about how sex and flying is a really cool concept. I also think they are fun to draw or create likenesses of, because they have really simple geometric shapes. They are reminiscent of what we love about nature, too - being of the air, they have an ethereal quality, and they remind us of summer days, lakes and sunshine.

The Relationship Between Surfing and Yoga: 🕉 Part 1: Connections to Something Bigger than The Self 🌊

Surfing and yoga have been two things central to my life for decades now. I can't imagine life without one or the other. Saltwater is in my bloodstream, the rise and fall of the waves like the rise and fall of my breath. Yoga constantly connects me to the divine and the eternal field of consciousness where all else falls away and I can find blissfulness and peace.

In many ways, surfing is the same meditative tool for me and in these steemposts, I'm going to explain why the two are interconnected - both as meditative tools that are ways of deeply connecting to the Earth, bringing a sense of joy through conscious awareness.

Funghi Friday: 😱 Ghost Mushrooms 🍄

Have you ever seen a ghost ................mushroom?

Last time we did, we called the teenagers over we were camped near - come on guys, check these out! GLOW IN THE DARK MUSHROOMS! By their reaction, there wasn't mush-room in their lives for such awesomeness. They merely grunted: 'yeah, kinda cool' and left us to our freaking outness - man! glow in the dark 'shrooms! And I'm not even at Rainbow Serpent!

@thegreens

Green Poem: Our Actions and Impact

Our actions and Impact

Tubuo Laura (PRO - The Greens) 2018

The earth we fill with smoke and dirt
Ourselves we kill because we can't breathe good air

Once clean seas and water now chocked with waste
Drink we fear coz death might make haste

The soil that used to be pure and full of Life
Now barren, making farmers to strife

Our home we tear, in hope she'll care.
Behold she's scared and screams in tears

And then we fear and suffer in tears
Just because we didn't care.

@artemislives

After-School Herbal Magic & Mommy's Eco-Herbal-Cocktail

Yup. It really WAS about 9am when I started thinking about a cocktail. Ha!! Only another mama raising her child without a resident partner or any family support will know that feeling. It is relentless - the 5am start with no lover's smile and maybe no text, tea consumed while writing lists and planning the entrepreneurial day whilst sorting uniforms, lunches, school notices and getting us showered and breakfasted and in the car by 7.15am. Quick shopping errand on the way home and by 9am, after traffic and chatter and Thai-K-pop whilst running through the metal list of all outstanding emergencies and the feeling of more being required than one human could reasonably give in a week, let alone a single day, I am making coffee but definitely thinking ahead for a cocktail when the school pick-up witching hour is done.

@ecoTrain

Supporting People Who Help
Make The World A Better Place

Discover previous ecoTrain magazines at @ecoTrain

DRIVER
@eco-alex

PASSENGERS
@afifa
@artemislives
@celestialcow
@clara-andriessen
@ecoinstant
@holisticmom
@hopehuggs
@misslasvegas
@mountainjewel
@nainaztengra
@omdemian
@riverflows
@sashagenji
@schoonercreek
@sharoonyasir
@solarsupermama
@stillgideon
@stillwatersart
@stortebeker
@thegreens
@thelaundrylady
@trucklife-family
@vegan.niinja

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