When I came home from teaching today, I put together a salad of sprouted lentils, celery, spring onions, and walnuts, dressed with walnut oil and aged, organic balsamic vinegar. What made the salad special was freshness of the lentil sprouts, the subtlety of newly ground pink himalayan salt and the little luxury, the balsamic vinegar. In the summer, it would be great with a new cucumber from the garden on a bed of fresh mixed greens.
I received this email last night that I wanted to share. If you own a house in the District and haven’t gone solar, think about it. If you rent, write your landlord. If you live in another jurisdiction, work with like-minded citizens and work for alternative sources of energy. FYI, since my solar panels were active, my highest electricity bill was $20 (and for the past two months, the meter has run backwards).
Here’s the full text of the email (with a link on how to get involved at the bottom):
Today, thanks to your hard work the Distributed Generation Act of 2011 (19-10) passed the DC Council. The vote was unanimous!!! We only await the Mayor’s signature for the bill to become law. Although, there may be a lag of up to a year for SREC prices on the spot market to recover–we expect the bill to create a strong vibrant solar market in DC for the next DECADE!! In response to the expected improvement in market conditions SOLSYSTEMS announced today the availability of an upfront SREC payment through its installer partners of $1,200/kw installed. This means for example, that you could get $4,800 up front for a 4kw system!
Many many people worked on the bill! Many of you showed up to testify! More than a thousand of you signed the petition in support of the legislation. http://signon.org/sign/build-dc-solar-dont-let?source=s.em.cr&r_by=118605 Many of you sent emails or made phone calls. Many of you showed up to deliver our petition to each of the Council Member’s offices. Many of you turned out to create a field of sunflowers–in the Council Chamber during the first reading of the bill! A special shout out to MDVSEIA that worked hand and hand with us throughout the process!
It is important that the DC Council understand that this bill has very strong, and broad support from across the city. We want them to feel good about passing this bill and feel good about passing similar legislation in the future. This bill will create the market mechanism to allow homeowners, churches, community organizations, businesses and government buildings to go solar! While there is much left to do to make solar affordable and accessible to every DC resident—this bill is a very important step.
PLEASE write to the DC council today and THANK them for their support! dccouncil@dccouncil.us A quick email, a quick thanks! Thank them for leading DC toward a solar future.
Anya Schoolman
President
DC Solar United Neighborhoods
Thinking of Going Solar? Want to Get More Involved ? Become a DC Sun Member– Join the Discussion at
It was the kind of
Day when celestials sported
In the sunlit clouds.
My gardening friends have been commiserating and worrying about the abnormally dry weather. For the past couple of days, we have all been concerned that this storm has brought so little needed rain, although we are grateful to get whatever rain comes. Other acquaintances were complaining yesterday that it still wasn’t sunny. When I mentioned drought conditions, they had not noticed. If they noticed once it was pointed out, they suggested reasons why for them personally, it would still be a better thing for it to be a sunny day. Part of the reason I garden is to keep me connected with the rhythms of the seasons and the weather. If we do not grow our own food and depend on the fruits of our labors, nor are taught the relationship between the weather and our survival, there is no reason to know it. We become disconnected from nature and from the earth.
For me, connection to the earth deepens my connection to myself and to spirit. How can we know ourselves if we do not know how the earth nourishes us and how we relate to the earth? How can we recognize the light within ourselves, if we are disconnected from nature? At the same time, the practice of yoga, with its inward questing (antar-vimarsha — the quest to touch or reveal the true Self), by revealing to us the subtle energies and knowledge of the relationship of body and mind, can lead us back to yearning for a deeper understanding of the world around us and for a healthier relationship between the give and take between us and the earth. We can thus reach spirit both by being more aware of the outside and seeing where we are disconnected in our practice off the mat and by reaching inward using our spiritual practice (the Anusara principles are designed to be a pulsation of reaching outward and inward for an ever growing expansion and understanding of mind and spirit) and then knowing the outside is not aligned and needs to be shifted. All this is the process of vimarsha, like a little more rain in the drought to nourish and encourage the unfolding of spring.
Every day, it seems, another cucumber (though this shall pass soon enough). And baby carrots–first new carrots of the season. I asked friends and neighbors who were at the house this morning whether they would like a cucumber. As fellow gardeners who are also members of a CSA, they denied with almost a shudder. It is evidently a good year for cucumbers not just in my garden.
