Cultivating Connections Recommends - April 2012 Events in Metro Louisville

The mission of the Air Pollution Control Board is to protect air quality in Louisville to ensure healthy air for breathing, economic security and prosperity for our citizens and future generations. Its goals are to ensure healthy air for breathing and help local businesses meet air quality standards.

Lauren Anderson has been the Executive Director of the Air Pollution Control District since 2008. Prior to being Director, she served as the APCD's lawyer from 2003 to 2008. She has also worked for the Legislative Review Commission in Frankfort and was a staff attorney for the state Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet.

5 minute Presentation

Jim Whaley, Independent Chef

Jim's current independent work activity is focused on supporting local agriculture and promoting the restoration of cooking skills and healthy eating practices among all age groups. He has been associated with Farm to Fork Catering, executive chef at Southern Seminary at Southern Seminary, and food service director at Brooklawn Youth Services.

Now in its fifth year the purposes of the Louisville Sustainability Forum are:

1. We hold and promote the intention of sustainability for Louisville.

2. We establish and nourish relationships that strengthen community and create change.

3. We create a space for discussion that inspires, motivates and deepens our ability to catalyze social change.

Food & drink:

Heine Bros. provides us with Heine Bros. coffee. Feel free to bring a bag lunch. If you'd like to prepare extra food or drink to share with others, that is always welcome!

Friday, April 6 1:00 pm

"The Long Shadow of the Future:

Environmental Policies and Intergenerational Justice"

with Frank Goetzke

UofL Davidson Hall

U of L Lecture Series on Green Economics presents: "The Long Shadow of the Future: Environmental Policies and Intergenerational Justice"with U of L's own Urban & Public Affairs Professor Frank Goetzke, an expert in Urban and Regional Economics, Applied Microeconomics and Econometrics, Spatial Econometrics, Transportation Planning and Environmental Policy. Contact Avery Kolers, akolers@louisville.edu

Sunday, April 15, 11 am

Mark Steiner presents

We Are the Meaning-Making Species

Clifton Universalist Unitarian Church
2231 Payne Street

This talk explores the human's unique role as makers of meaning and the amazing powers contained therein. We will look at our role as meaning makers as individuals, as a culture and as a species and our responsibility to do so with great awareness.

Clifton Universalist Unitarian Church is located at

2231 Payne Street at the corner of Rastetter.

Sunday, April 15th from 4pm-6pm

15 Thousand Farmer's 15th Day Celebration

with guest presenter

Wren Smith

1515 Algonquin Parkway

This month we welcome Wren Smith, naturalist at Bernheim Forest, to speak with us on the topic of Gardening for Community and Fun: plants as doorways into hidden worlds.

Most of us know that gardening can be good for us and good for the planet, but passionate awareness of plants can become a doorway into hidden worlds. Wren Smith will bring along her treasure trove of simple sensory-rich experiences that will connect you more deeply to the natural world, and may help you nurture new generations of gardeners, naturalists, and citizens.

Since 2000, Wren Smith has been the Bernheim Interpretive Program Manager. She is also a gardener, naturalist, wild food forager, beekeeper and storyteller. Wren started Bernheim's award winning Naturalist-in-Training program and loves working with the dedicated volunteers that this program attracts. She is also passionate about the ways that plants, and gardening in particular, help root us to the earth, nurture community, deepen our connection to the natural world, and provide boundless opportunities for fun and festiveness. Wren has published several articles that extol the virtues of using plants to connect people to our natural and cultural heritage.

Please join other members of 15Thousand Farmers on Sunday, April 15th to drink in Wren's wisdom, enjoy a potluck meal, build community, ask questions, share knowledge, and trade seeds and plants!

Monday, April 16, 6:00 pm

Social Change Book Club

Betterness

by Umair Haque

Heine Bros. Coffee 119 Chenoweth Lane, St Matthews.

In April we will discuss a monograph, Betterness by Umair Haque, that is designed to shake up the economic world. It's a manifesto, a call to action for business - and the individuals who comprise it - to reach out to our highest and best natures, and pursue the highest good. The economy is no longer seen as structured around supply and demand, production and consumption, but rather on a system that serves our larger selves and lives up to our highest calling.

The Social Change Book Club is open to everyone who is interested in understanding, participating, leading, or supporting social change. Each month we select a book and get together to discuss. Selections rotate among three themes: social changes, how we work with others to make change happen, and the inner qualities needed to bring change into the world.

Please just show up if you are interested--no RSVP, commitment, etc. It is great when people have read the book, but that is not a requirement to come and discuss.

We got this going because there is a lot to learn about how to make social change happen and people who are interested in changing the world need opportunities to share stories and experience community with others who care.

Howard Mason

HowardMason@NewPossibilitiesAssociates.com

NewPossibilitiesAssociates.com

Tuesday, April 17, 7:00 pm

Greater Louisville Sierra Club April General Meeting

"Coal Ash and the Strategy to Win
Transitions and Closures of Coal Burning Power Plants".
Lead by Thomas Pearce and Kathy Little

at Clifton Center - 2231 Payne Street

Coal ash is an abundant and dangerous by-product of burning coal for energy. Despite its hazardous characteristics, coal ash and other coal combustion wastes are not subject to federal regulation, and state laws governing coal combustion waste disposal are usually weak or non-existent. Across the country, millions of tons of coal ash are being stored in precarious surface waste ponds, impoundments and abandoned mines. These put human health at risk from potential large scale disasters and from gradual yet equally dangerous contamination as coal ash toxins seep into drinking water sources.

Thomas Pearce is Associate Regional Organizing Representative for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign for Louisville and Western Kentucky. He is a former organizer of the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, the American Indian Movement, the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now, and has been with the Sierra Club for almost 2 years.

Kathy Little is the 2011 LEO person of the year, leader of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Cane Run Organizing Team, and has worked across the state to educate citizens fighting the negative effects of coal in their communities.

Our programs begin at 7:00 p.m. are free and open to the public.

Wednesday, April 18, 7:00 pm

YERT and Bluegrass Bioneers present

Green Screen Your Monthly Eco Flicks Fix

The Hidden Promise of Our Dark Age

with Joanna Macy

Highland Green Building's Discovery Center

1403 Bardstown Road

and a Brand New, Never-Before-Seen

YERT Short: The Godfather of Green Architecture Master Disasters

plus

Cool Bloom Elementary Media Club Videos

Free and open to the public

GREEN SCREEN: Your Monthly Eco Flicks Fix

7pm on the 3rd Wednesday of each month

Be sure to catch the 2012 Bluegrass Bioneers Conference - November 2-4 at UofL!

www.BluegrassBioneers.org

April 18, April 20 and April 29

Kentucky Interfaith Power and Light's

Green Sheep Programs

Kentucky Interfaith Power and Light is offering a series of educational events on faith and climate change that are designed to support the Green Sheep that are championing the call to respond to global warming in their various faith communities. Here are the April Events:

Wednesday, April 18 5:30 - 7:00 pm
Energy Stewardship in the 21st Century
at Fourth Avenue United Methodist Church, Louisville

Friday, April 20 7:00 - 8:30 pm
Cool Harvest:
Food, Faith and the Environment
at Clifton Universalist Unitarian Church, Louisville

Sunday, April 29 2:00 -4:00 pm
Mobilizing a Religious Response to
Climate Change
Hosted by Heartland Interfaith
at First Presbyterian Church, Elizabethtown

KIPL

For more details including program descriptions click here.

Friday, April 20 7:00 pm

Monthly Drumming Circle

at The Earth and Spirit Center

(located in the Barn behind the Passionist Monastery 1924 Newburg Road)

Ho Drummers,

Join us for a community drum circle to make in-the-moment music. No musical experience necessary! Bring your percussion instruments. Co-operation and collaboration are the glue to a community drum circle. The results can be those magical musical moments where one powerful voice is crafted out of the many. Dancers are welcomed too!

When we as a community drum together, sharing our spirit in the form of rhythm, it changes our relationship for the positive. As we play together, we give ourselves a rhythmical massage, an emotional release and a healing!

Ample parking is available in a parking lot just to the left of the monastery. Alongside the monastery, take the sidewalk which will lead behind the monastery to the large red-brick barn with green awnings.

(Please do not park in front of the Barn, use one of the big lots out front by the monastery. thanks)

Doug Van Houten

502.472.6563

An Earth Day Alternative to Thunder Over Louisville

Awakening the Dreamer:
Engaging the Possibilities Workshop

Saturday, April 21 - 1:00 - 6:00 pm

at 1741 Frankfort Ave, Louisville

Suggested donation $25

Attend this Life-Changing Workshop. The Awakening the Dreamer Symposium is designed to illuminate the root causes of the challenges facing humanity, the extraordinary possibilities emerging at this time in history, and your unique role in creating our shared future.

Featuring a dynamic multimedia experience bringing together state of the art video, respected scientific expertise, indigenous wisdom and connection-affirming processes, this workshop educates, inspires, and empowers participants to take an active stand in the world.

Facilitated by Mark Steiner and Marilyn Stoner of Cultivating Connections.

For their bios and more information visit the their website at www.cultivatingconnections.org

Hosted at 1741: A Collaboratory for Social Innovation

located at 1741 Frankfort Ave

We are in the midst of a global transformation. It is a movement of movements, a network of thousands of communities and organizations across the planet working to create a world that works for all. Awakening the Dreamer holds a special place in this movement with workshops that educate, inspire, and empower participants to take an active stand in the world.

The purpose of the symposium is to provide an experience that inspires participants to stand for, and live their lives consistent with, the magnificent possibility of our times: a human presence that is environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just.

Sponsored by Cultivating Connections

Call or email to register

www.cultivatingconnections.org cultivatingconnections@insightbb.com

502-897-2721

Sunday, April 22

Noon to 5 pm

Mighty Kindness Earth Day Hootenanny

at the Nature Center

The 5th annual Mighty Kindness Earth Day Hootenanny-

a community Unity Festival bringing together local earth, body, mind, spirit and heart friendly services that make our commonwealth more rooted and united.

The Earth Day Hoot was voted 2nd for "BEST FESTIVAL in LOUISVILLE," so bring all your family and friends for a celebration of kindness to Earth, ourselves and one another!

JOIN in the MUSIC at the COMMUNITY JAM TENT with Tom Boone,

Dan Bowlds & more!

Bring Your Own Instrument and make music! EVERYONE IS WELCOME!

*local FARMS*ART*Mighty KIDness Area*Healing & BODYWORK*

ECO, social justice & peace ACTIVISM* local GREEN BUSINESS*

FREE WORKSHOPS!

These are the your neighbors who give a Hoot: 2012 Sponsors-

Cultivating Connections**Heine Bros Coffee** Rainbow Blossom

Greenlist Louisville**Edible Louisville** Kentucky Resources Counsel

Woman2Woman Kentuckiana*** TimeBank Louisville

Bradley-Jones Candle Co**Tader Head Crochet** Shine

Louisville Premier Tattoo**Green Earth Outdoors*Magnificent Mushroom

Mighty Kindness is an outreach of Clifton UU Church

mightykindness@gmail.com mightykindness.org 502. 608. 1587

More information on

Facebook

Sunday, April 22 11 am

Anamchara Faith Community will be hosting an

Earth Day Celebration

at Bernheim Forest

Anamchara Faith Community makes a special effort to celebrate Earth Day each year.

Because of the beauty and mission of Bernheim Forest, they choose to celebrate there with the earth, air, water and animals of this sacred place. The focus of their gathering, inspired by the Earth Day Network is, "Mobilize the Earth".

Everyone is welcome to join Anamchara and participate in a liturgy of reverence and communion beginning at 11 am.

For more information:
Anamchara Faith Community www.soul-friends.com 502-893-4908
Bernheim Forest www.bernheim.org

Eco-Justice Worship and Collective Meal

Sun, Apr 22 at 4pm: EARTH DAY

"Reconciliation and Relationality"

Waterfront Park, great lawn

On Earth Day, Sunday April 22, all are welcome to gather for eco-justice-themed worship in the Christian tradition. This Sunday 4pm worship will focus particularly on the theme of reconciliation and relationality.

We believe we are created to be in relationship with one another, with the whole earth, and with God. We also believe that there is great brokenness in each and all of these relationships. Where and how, then, do we seek and experience reconciliation? Particularly on this Sunday following Thunder Over Louisville, we will explore the tensions of great family fun and celebration with the display of militarization that frightens some members of our community and the air/noise/water/soil pollution that also results from the event. In this context, we will worship God, recognizing our relationality with the creation around us. We will move, sing, pray, create, and act as we seek to be reconciled and reconciling people.

Come! Gather! Let us explore and learn and worship together!

Worship will begin at 4pm on the great lawn of Waterfront Park followed by a collective meal for those who wish to participate. Please bring a dish to share, as you're able, and your own table service.

The Eco-Justice Worship Collective is a Louisville-based, cooperative initiative that seeks to create dynamic, ecumenical, inclusive worship to engage in eco-justice concerns. For more information, contact Rebecca at r_barnesdavies@yahoo.com or find "Eco-Justice Worship Collective" on facebook or visit the blog at http://ecojusticeworship.wordpress.com.

This information brought to you by
Cultivating Connections

www.cultivatingconnections.org
cultivatingconnections@insightbb.com

Louisville, Kentucky

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