Canadian Artist/Environmental leader SHEILA COLE spends an hour with Jason talking about her art & its’ link to her Environmental roots !! Hails from Halifax, Nova Scotia !!! 3-3-2025. This episode of “The Neutral Zone Maui” offers a rich blend of environmental science, spirituality, and art through the lens of Sheila Cole’s extensive career and personal experiences. It highlights the importance of integrating common sense, holistic policy, community engagement, and spiritual awareness in addressing today’s environmental crises. Sheila’s art and advocacy serve as a testament to the power of creative expression in fostering environmental consciousness and hope. The episode calls listeners to action—both in personal lifestyle changes and community involvement—while reminding them of the deep interconnections sustaining life on Earth.
Summary & Transcript
The March 2025 episode of “The Neutral Zone Maui,” hosted by Jason Schwartz on KAKU 88.5 FM and Akaku Maui Community Media, features longtime environmentalist and artist Sheila Cole. With over four decades of environmental advocacy primarily based in Canada, Sheila shares her journey intertwining environmentalism, spirituality, and art. Initially focused on environmental work, she gradually embraced art as a medium to express interconnectedness and higher consciousness, drawing from themes such as sacred geometry, chakra alignment, and the awakening of global consciousness. Sheila’s work is deeply influenced by her love for Maui, which she describes as a spiritual home, and her commitment to environmental stewardship.
Throughout the interview, Sheila emphasizes the importance of common sense in environmental policy, the benefits of holistic and integrated government approaches, and the need for individual and community action. She highlights successful environmental initiatives in her hometown of Halifax, such as non-smoking laws, pesticide bans, and fragrance-free policies, showcasing how grassroots efforts can lead to significant change. Sheila also discusses the dangers posed by chemical exposure, pesticides, and “forever chemicals,” urging listeners to reduce their personal chemical footprint and advocate for systemic change.
The episode ends with Sheila inviting listeners to view and purchase her art online at artbysheilacole.com and encourages everyone to engage in environmental stewardship through actionable, community-based efforts grounded in common sense and spirituality.
Highlights
- [01:33] Introduction of Sheila Cole, a 40+ year environmentalist and artist based in Canada, featured on the show for the seventh time.
- [06:25] Sheila describes her transition into art, inspired by energy and spirituality, creating pieces rooted in sacred geometry and higher consciousness.
- [13:14] Sheila expresses her deep connection to Maui, calling it her spiritual home and explaining how it fuels her creativity and environmental passion.
- [27:24] ⚠️ Discussion on chemical exposure’s cumulative effects on health, with practical advice on reducing personal chemical load to improve well-being.
- [37:21] ️ Sheila shares successful community-driven environmental achievements in Halifax, including non-smoking legislation and pesticide bylaws.
- [43:55] Urges global chemical production reduction and highlights how individual actions contribute to broader environmental health.
- [46:31] Sheila reflects on humanity’s challenge to avoid repeating past civilizational collapses by embracing interconnectedness and environmental stewardship.
Key Insights
- [02:07] Decades of Commitment: Sheila Cole’s 45 years of environmental activism highlight the importance of sustained, long-term dedication to creating meaningful change. Her journey illustrates how persistence, even over decades, is critical to influencing policy and public awareness, especially in complex areas like environmental protection.
- [06:25] Art as Environmental Communication: Sheila’s art serves as a form of “activational” communication, using sacred geometry and energetic imagery to evoke higher consciousness and interconnectedness. This approach demonstrates how art can transcend traditional activism by engaging people emotionally and spiritually, fostering a deeper connection to environmental issues.
- [13:47] Place-Based Inspiration: Sheila’s profound bond with Maui underscores how specific environments can inspire lifelong stewardship and creativity. This place-based connection reinforces the idea that environmental advocacy is often deeply personal and rooted in local experiences and relationships with the land.
- [37:21] ️ Community-Led Policy Change: The environmental successes in Halifax—through non-smoking laws, pesticide restrictions, and fragrance-free policies—highlight the power of coalition-building among citizens, local businesses, government, and media. These examples underscore how grassroots movements can influence public health and environmental policies effectively when sustained and inclusive.
- [43:55] Systemic Chemical Reduction Needed: Sheila advocates for a global reduction in chemical production, emphasizing that individual lifestyle changes alone are insufficient. This insight stresses the need for systemic, international cooperation and regulations to protect environmental and human health, reflecting the scale of the challenge.
- [46:31] Interconnectedness and Civilizational Survival: Sheila’s perspective that humanity today faces a pivotal moment akin to past lost civilizations (like Lemuria and Atlantis) frames environmental stewardship as essential to civilization’s survival. This spiritual and historical context elevates environmentalism from a technical issue to a profound ethical and existential responsibility, urging a holistic worldview to guide collective action.
Transcript
00:09
hello everyone it’s already March 2025 can you believe it Welcome to our [Music] show hi I’m your host Jason Schwarz and this is the neutral zone Maui neutral zone.com we’re on KAKU 88.5 FM the voice of Maui not to be confused with the talk of Maui we are the voice of Maui and we’re also on akaku Maui Community media I think we’re on Channel 55 they change them around but akaku Community media also if you look for an app on the phone and you see Maui stream that’s the akaku TV channels
and the radio station you can also find us at Mau neutral zone.com you can go to youtube.com/@dreammaui1 and you will find us welcome on a Monday uh the world is having its way at the moment and it’s way big things and all kinds of crazy stuff but that’s the reason we’re the neutral zone we do what we want here and we’re putting that on a Shelf at the moment because we can always talk about politics but I ran into a friend who I know for 30 plus years and you’re seeing her this is
01:33
Sheila Cole Welcome to our show it’s nice to have you back again thank you so much Jason this must be like number seven or something oh I don’t even count you know we’ve been doing shows over 30 years I met Sheila 30 years ago in kii and I remember I’ve always found when I’m looking at things about environment stuff usually there’s a reason people foret and Sheila had some kind of an issue because of the cane burning I remember that way back and then I discovered she was actually a noted and
02:07
respected environmentalist who speaks all over the world but you’re based out of Canada how many years have you been doing that a long time I’ve been doing it for four and a half decades four and a half can you imagine this lady’s four and a half decades old anyway she was environmentalist and I’ve known her all these years and respect all her things that we’re we’ll probably talk about some of that but I discovered that she’s also an artist kind of kept it away from
02:35
us spirituality here on Maui I guess it really affected you because that’s where you started creating huh Welcome to our show Shield thank you you so much Jason and I mean I’m on my fourth decade not three three plus decades not four and a half decades right I’m just thinking only because it’s me get a little closer only because I don’t want I’ll move this you’re comfortable I just want to make sure is echoing all right okay anyway we’re good um right I four and a half decades means
03:10
45 years you’re starting uh let’s see how we took it from 45 down to 30 that was good but meanwhile we’ve appreciated that and I’ve appreciated I’m a I guess an environmental it’s not because I went out there and joined any groups it’s because I looked at common sense and I could somehow imagin that if all of us would start with that we’d have a lot smarter World exactly that’s a great Point let’s get back to your art because I know we can talk about environment and
03:47
we may because I don’t seem to find myself drifting too far we have lots of issues to talk about there but your art I mean when I saw it I thought wow she is at the Temple of Peace showing her art they had a great reception there and you were there I guess it’s now a couple of Sundays ago and um I just thought you would be great to bring on the show you’ve been on before about environment let’s talk about your art where it came from and and how you’ve been showing it and I don’t want to say what do artists
04:25
ever tell what it really means I guess they have their meaning but they let the world interpret right mhm so start wherever you want sheld all right well it’s interesting um I I’m not trained as an artist I never dreamed you know that I would be an artist and I was in the throws of my environmental Work It was 95 when I first came here and you know 1995 or 95 degrees probably both both okay but at any rate um yeah I was I was deep into my environmental work and you know identifying as an
05:06
environmentalist and um I became very interested in anything having to do with energy because I was uh you know having uh challenges with fatigue and things like that and so I was asking to you know learn things about energy and um I used to do a lot of little designs just my own thing that I would do abstractedly and somebody said why don’t you put some color to that so when I came the next year to Maui uh because I come every winter I can for months and months on end um I brought you know Sketchbook and
05:44
um and uh some pens with me and I started doing things uh in uh that that way in in pen pen on paper and um at the show at Temple of Peace all of those pieces are pieces that were created on Maui way back then uh the images started flowing out of me and right away people wanted to buy it and they said oh these are uh these are amazing this is sacred geometry this is the language of light it’s uh codes you know they’re like codes flashcards for the living library and all kinds of things like that and
06:25
can we buy some and I said well you know I’m not selling them right now I was still I was still not thinking that I was an artist but at any rate about 5 years later after it kept coming uh out of me continuously I I realized okay I’m an artist but I was still so busy with my environment work that I wasn’t bringing it forward to the world and finally a couple of years ago it started knocking at my gate you know saying over here I’m in the filing cabinet you know so I started bringing it forward and so
07:03
um one of the pieces that’s uh very popular and very important is called Lotus symbol of higher Consciousness we are you’ll see it up on the screen we’re going to put these up as b-roll for you that are on television or on the internet but on radio if you’re not seeing this you would say that looks like a Lotus and I see what you mean about sacred G geometry because your images it’s like watching where there are two pictures can you see the differences between these you can’t see
07:37
the differences because they’re really doing it beautifully balanced yeah wow it’s a so um I uh I’m just I so for my cards um I wrote a generalized thing that I put on the back of them so I have the name of each card and then under there’s a general message that I’m going to read okay it says the high frequency energetics of this art are attuned and aligned to the current Awakening of higher Consciousness on the planet this art is informed by my environmental understanding of the
08:13
interconnectedness of all things on earth and in the case of my art the interconnectedness includes the cosmos everyone who views these images see something different in general they evoke Joy inspiration and a sense of balance and Beauty in this way the art is activational transporting the viewer to higher states of awareness so um I avoided writing very much about the images because when I I see start to see the images inside in my inner Vision I’ll see certain lines and certain color combinations and so on and
08:57
have an idea to create it and um but people seem to want me to write a bit about it I don’t like to superimpose my interpretation too much on my art because of that fact that everyone who looks at it sees something different at any rate this stylized version of the lotus is very important because we are in the throws of Awakening of Consciousness on the planet many people all over the planet are are starting to build their awareness they’re uh exploring spiritual values um they uh you know returning to
09:40
connection to the Earth they Desiring of community so the uh lotus spirit of higher Consciousness can be a very beautiful image uh to have in your space to remind you of that great yeah let’s look at another one and then there’s another one here this one also very important this one is called Exquisite balance and uh as I sought to understand the U the importance of my work um that one Exquisite balance struck me um because um you know we’re we’re in a time when we’re experiencing
10:22
tremendous imbalance in the earth not only with the environment but uh you know with our Institution s and our uh inside our own families and so on and so forth so this evokes Exquisite balance and again if you have that in your environment that can be a a reminder and uh an Energizer of uh balance um in your life do you use um I want to say a measuring tool like when you do this do do you do it freehand or do you actually start and find your middle and CU I do almost everything freehand I used to do
11:09
it totally freehand in the beginning and then I had to um I was doing some that had pyramids in them and so on and I found that I had to uh measure a little bit better to get uh everything shape wise shap shaped up but um fortunately I’m blessed with a steady hand and and uh so um so I I do I do that um I really you know yeah I just I appreciate that um when I look at them specifically they really take they can create a personal interpretation I see your point we all have our own Vision it’s like when we’re looking at the
11:52
clouds in the sky but the fact that you have that uh that part of balance coming right into it it’s really interesting I’m as I’m looking I’m just noticing yeah I can see free hand you know we’re we’re in the age of AI Isn’t it nice to see individuality like I said wait this side has one it’s a little got a little very in this time of AI don’t what do they say don’t be confused we humans are still important don’t stop making your own Creations from you I just had to make that comment
12:34
because well that man you get fooled now you like what is going on well and there’s a good point there about um disengaging from media if you find that your life is just you know dominated by looking at your phone all the time or constantly watching things that are created try to um disengage a bit from that so that you have room room you know to hear and to see images that are coming in for you to spend time in nature and experience you know the beautiful breezes that we have here in Maui and the Sunshine and the ocean and
13:14
everything you as an environmentalist could have gone anywhere you kept coming back to Maui huh I did I fell in love with Maui I always say if Maui were a person I would have been married to Maui forever you know a lot of people around here say that I’m telling you I’m not getting anywhere else because every time I think oh maybe I should go here or go there I I come back to Maui every time because the connection is really really deep and um and you’re way up you’re North and I guess you’d say more East
13:47
than Maine right that’s right that’s right Nova Scotia is on the North Atlantic and it juts out into the ocean a bit more than New York for instance everybody is familiar with where New York is pretty much is it close I was going to say closer to Europe I imagine it’s I don’t know half is green land anywhere within shooting distance no no no oh no no no so if you if you imagine the climate in Maine that’s the same kind of climate that we have I see and uh however In My City My City is a a
14:23
Twin City My City is Halifax and across the harbor we have Dartmouth and if you look straight out the harbor if you kept going You’ you’d come to Europe so it is straight across uh from like 41 you know I’m trying to think I remember that you know these computers have made half Geniuses of most of us we all think we’re smart because we have all this information around don’t think that’s you that’s data being placed in front of you I I go back to that thing about AI again this computer age which is only a
15:01
few decades I’ve seen such a change in in younger people who don’t really realize just how precious it is to sit away from all this technology and like you said make yourself available for some input from the universe to you directly unplugged so this is unpluged Sheila this is definitely me unplug Ed you know I work in this structured world when I’m doing all my Environmental Policy stuff and everything but this is me just doing you know these Divine Images that that come to me what is this one and uh that one
15:44
is called uh chakra Attunement so Attunement and alignment of the chakras a lot of people are aware of the chakras and energy centers in the body and that’s part of keeping those you know tuned up and aligned is is is another way that you know that we can stay centered and grounded and um this was uh this was stimulated by um uh a very well-known um musician named yasas who used to come to Maui once in a while he was he yeah we you know he was living here a while and oh he passed away and he passed away right but at any rate um
16:27
I had gone you know that was in probably 96 997 and my friend Das Solaris uh had a a you know an evening for yasas at her place and he played his fabulous music and there were two pieces of art that came out of it one of which was this uh this chakra Attunement um I could actually see little lights at the side of my vision and when I went home um I created that one and I created another one from yasas as well um now here’s an here’s here’s one and this one I’m showing this one because this one is
17:08
called celebrating life and this is a really important thing for us to remember right now is that no matter you know how complex things seem to be around us remember to celebrate life there’s so much to celebrate and it’s also so kind of a form of resistance you know you’re just going to give me all this negative stuff well I’m going to love life and I’m going to get out there and I’m going to enjoy nature and I am going to celebrate the beauty of existence you have no argument for me
17:47
yeah we’re a you Maui has I Maui brings that out in in me and I think one of the reasons I’ve just been so energized over all these years is because it just just that when I’m here and you know my partner Ariel I enjoy just the beingness of Maui there’s a certain energy some people describe it and the reasons why so many ways but Maui is a special place all you people from all over the world you heard there was a fire on the west side I want you to know yes that was horrible and that
18:25
was Lina but the rest of Maui is perfectly happy looking forward to you returning and visiting and enjoying this incredible place it is still not keeping me away I tell you that nothing can keep me away from Maui unless you’re trying to R the hotel room and it’s holy mackerel that’s more than my rent that’s more than my house payment things are crazy I know but you know what that’s all over the world it’s all over the world I know um but I want to bring in something in relation to this celebration of life
19:03
something that I learned through Huna teachings you remember kpo kakua um he’s now an you know an elder and um um over on aahu but he spent a lot of time here on Maui and I had the uh you know the the Good Fortune to study with him and to have treatments with him and I learned so much from him and when I paid attention to to the Huna teachings one of the things I learned that I have used a lot um you know in my environmental work and talking with people too is that when you see something that is beautiful and that is
19:42
in balance and so on be it’s something in nature be it an experience you’re having be it a person um bless that it’s you know even if you’re doing it silently so blessing you right now Jason um it um it helps to increase the vibration of that kind of experience that kind of feeling that kind of thought and that’s something that we can all work with in our own daily lives here is uh you know oh you have this exalted feeling or someone has really touched your heart you know and instead of Paving over that
20:28
just be on the alert notice that and magnify that stay with that think about that remember that you know next week whatever it’s one of the ways of magnifying the the all that’s good around us well you know it just so happens is it that an environmental Steward is also talking to us about our beingness in spiritual I imagine that all your work through the years has been influenced by your more than a touch into spiritual search how’s the world doing are they growing up environmentally when you’re
21:12
out there you you sense a sense of the leaders and the people you speak to resonating with a more elevated presence I’m curious because you speak to people from all over well I do I do yeah and that’s one of the beauties of the international conferences that I go to is I get to meet with people all over the world and I get to learn about their best practices and I get to share best practices you know from my uh City and from my country uh with them and that helps to spread the word and not
21:49
everybody has to reinvent the wheel you know um but how are we doing well obviously not well enough but you know some of the areas that we are that we are doing well in is there’s a real push now for free energy that always used to be suppressed isn’t that amazing is yeah and finally now you know we really need it so unfortunately there’s still a push to keep oil and gas going which we need it to a certain extent but to do a lot of new development and so on I think that’s a mistake we’re pushing hard
22:25
against that in Canada and it’s something that doesn’t go away I mean we’ve got a developer from Australia who wanted to do there perhaps it wasn’t her who initially a couple of years ago they wanted to do coal mining in the Rocky Mountains not far from the City of Calgary the Rocky Mountains one of the most beautiful areas in the entire planet that people flock to and the citizens rose up and worked so hard and they finally put the kabage they finally yeah so this you know multi-billion dollar
23:02
developer comes along and wants to do it again and they’re faced with it all over again you know this isn’t right and um so we you know nature functions best when it’s left to its own devices when it’s left to operate within the Divine Design with which it was created do you guys in Canada have or I imagine you’ve had cycles of Fire and Rain not to quote James Taylor too many times but but you know all these things we’re seeing across the world now you know it’s like things have burned forever and I’ve
23:44
had but man came in and put things and said hey I have an idea let’s put this building here so when the water comes down instead of the building going here and the water going all the way to the Sea we’ll make a thing that go goes this way that’ll be convenient and then when the water comes it goes straight over that property and those houses and they turn into mud and we say how are we going to fix this we’ve got those kind of problems here you know I know and and that’s that Common Sense thing I spoke
24:16
about earlier yeah and it’s not stopping change it when it’s been 30 years and now you have to move an apartment building you know well you just have to keep speaking out about it and talking stuff I see that balance you see yeah I can see that environmental thing you know it’s it’s an interesting thing how they go together like Love and Marriage spirituality and environment that’s right so you know little little Brooks and little streams uh should be allowed to flow the way they were intended
24:53
because nature created them that way and when you try to fill them in or or divert them or whatever things do not go well and I know that’s an ongoing problem in Maui and it’s an ongoing problem everywhere I can only imagine it and so you know I mean we’re living on the planet the mother earth who sustains us and we need to respect that design and work with that design and I know that we’re you know we’re having more people understand that and uh the minds of some some wonderful young people
25:30
coming forward who are going to be working with experienced people in various Fields science te question about whether the leaders that you’re speaking to are grocking this whether they’re appreciating it at a level that we hope can make some change or not make it worse I think the word is because we already are in bed not to the extent that we would like so uh I was mentioning that I do a lot of uh policy work and what we notice is that one Department let’s so let’s talk the federal
26:09
government uh so the the Federal Department of Health and environment are fairly well connected but not completely and they they should be totally entwined but then you get water coming in there you get agriculture coming in there forestry coming in there they work in little silos so we are trying to break those down so that there’s more holistic understanding between the Departments so that everybody understands and uh I was speaking to someone the other day about this water problem that you’re talking
26:44
about and uh they were saying um well the planning department didn’t understand that I said well the planning part department certainly should understand about the the flow of water and one one of the things that I wanted to mention which applies to uh the Earth it also applies to us as humans and to all other living things is the uh concept of uh cumulative effects so if you’re having exposure to a lot of chemicals and then you’re eating foods that you know may not be the best and have a lot of additives in them and then
27:24
you’re living in a house where you’re having everything fragranced all over the place and just all these things are coming at your body it will start to affect your health and it could be everything from you know causing you fatig or brain fog or whatever all the way to Parkinson’s or cancer or whatever these terrible things are so the more that you can lower your uh total exposure to things the better it’s going to be for you so for individuals in their homes for instance taking away
27:57
fragrance is one of the easiest things that you can do to re reduce your load and have things just be uh fragrance free look for look for cleaning products and personal care products that are that are fragrance free try to eat organic obviously as much as you can but that’s expensive but then you can um try to find things that are uh not quite so sprayed as others and I wanted to mention a very good uh tool that uh people can look up online is the work of the um envir the environmental working
28:32
group that’s that’s based in the states ewg environmental working group and they have um lovely lists of the vegetables that have the most additives in them have the most pesticides and right so when you’re choosing you know do I buy apples or do I buy cherries well cherries are sprayed in a way that things are you learn that you know I got very important cherries environmental working group has a nice easy list people oh they do they have lists of many things and these days they’re doing
29:10
a lot of um they’re they’re also doing a lot of um education about uh uh posos the the forever chemicals what people call the forever chemicals that are in all of your not all of your pots and pants but the pots and pants that have no nonstick coating on them they’re in it just sticks inside yeah it sticks it does stick inside what does means like hey there’s a roadblock what is that oh that’s your pan it’s accumulated in your gut I know isn’t it I you’d think that
29:46
once people hear that they would say whoa I’m not going to use that anymore but we have unless it hits your system and you’re one of those unfortunate ones you really don’t think about it tell you how come I have Parkinson’s how did I get this thing going on you’ve been working at it a long time it’s like me when I get skin thing I’m like how did I get that I don’t haven’t got in the sun in 15 years it’s all the stuff together that I mean that’s what I always remembered
30:19
from way back with you when as I was I was already in environmental stuffed yes yeah you guys know that some of you the older on but um you always talk holistic just like me you know I may be talking about an integrated action plan and you’re talking about taking the government departments taking them out of silos so they work together because maybe this all fits together in a I was going to say sort of like it’s happening in the United States now but they’re doing it with a very rough unsharp sword
30:56
and they’re cutting Wild without being precise that’s not what I’m talking about but working together creates a Synergy that creates extraordinary results like that’s how I look at Canada I keep I keep thinking of you every time I hear in policy going on in Canada I think about see there Sheila she’s made some impact there got these people understand how we work together we all play in the same sandbox together well it’s a long it’s been a long time coming it but it’s worth it but you know
31:33
sometimes like in my case you know I’ve been working on it since the late 80s so you know uh uh sometimes I’d be at these big meetings with government and Industry and other environmentalists and you’re just shaking your head because you feel like the change will never come you know but then you go back at it again and you keep working and find finally it starts to come through but it often takes 15 or 20 years to really be measurable but you know we’ve got a lot of information out there we’ve got many
32:09
better ideas of how we need to support our environment and appreciate our been able to get enough statistics of what doing the wrong thing statistics you know when they can boil it down to numbers I don’t know why that is I don’t maybe it’s this whole profit thing but statistics sell yeah well well you know you started the show by talking about uh common sense and I’d love to come back to that because we were born and we still have fabulous common sense and science has its limitations and when we know when
32:51
something in our community is not right when there are too many chemicals around you know when our drinking water is isn’t clean and clear like it should be where we can’t just swim wherever we want to because of the influx of chemicals and um so hang on to your common sense and don’t be waiting for somebody to show you a scientific you know spreadsheet uh you know before you can do anything I’m totally with you I mean I we had a guest here with an unusual name his name is Federal Reserve
33:28
Brown oh obviously he has issues that he’d like to share very nice guy he lived in New Zealand where Dow Chemical had a factory Mak an agent orange and then they stopped and then they put all their excess barrels into the ground and then they build a Housing Development and then years later there’s toxicity their babies are coming out with three heads andd this is what happens there’s a new show on Netflix I’m only mentioning it CU it’s called toxic town as I was watching the first episode this was last
34:08
night I thought wow there’s another example of what uh Donnie Brown Federal Reserve Brown was talking about it in there we talking about it in olalo here where the water and the storage above the water table and they’re moving it but all the trips and that stuff between we learn slowly and have rules that have stuffed us at least in America I’m like I can say Canada you’ve done this just an outside view you’ve done a great job of respecting that it has to be integrated has to make sense for everyone you but
34:50
it is the Environmental things may not have been as measurable before maybe they were but we didn’t hear about it as much now you can really measure and say look these are the environmental costs in the short term in the long term it’s going to be overwhelming what happens and how much we spend and how much we have to going to move roads we have to rechange all kinds of stuff because we refuse to do those little individual things and all of us use our own good sense to not do that saying that’s causing a problem
35:30
that little bit of recycling that we think is nothing is it’s nothing to me also but it accumulates I can’t help but I have a friend you talk about I’m just going to mention it yeah we went to visiting looking for a site for a um taking green waste turning it into power and turning it into a growing product the regenetic project I talk about and I was showing him locations and we went by the company said ooh there’s the resources for us there’s like a mountain of platinum and gold in
36:07
all this trash that’s a new business as our world is doing we in the third world that’s a real business yeah they pay you know little kids money I mean it’s a very dangerous job but that’s the way some of the unfortunates of the world earn enough money to eat is mining the solid waste dump you know isn’t that amazing huh um uh but I wanted to say something about you know creating change because if we look at the big picture we’re just overwhelmed and it’s like I can’t think about that I
36:43
I think I’m just GNA you know eat some popcorn and watch whatever right because I can’t handle it well the way effect of change happens is in the community and that’s one of the things that I share when I speak internationally I very often talk about what we accomplished in Halifax and it was a small group of us that got together and we wanted to have a healthier environment where we were so we started off uh we had several different organizations involved and um we all worked together and we were able
37:21
we were one of the first jurisdictions to get non-smoking legislation and then we went and we um we created a pesticide bylaw so no use of pesticides on our Lawns and on our City properties around the schools around the hospitals people could go jogging and walking and not have to worry about pesticide exposure for themselves or for or for their pets and then we we did um uh no policies so fragrance-free policies which apply to all of our government buildings and a lot of people have incorported into
38:06
their homes and then we built uh two schools to the highest environment and health standards so if I’m speaking abroad I will speak about these subjects in general but I’ll speak about how we did that all of that that we accomplished was citizen Le we got the media involved so there was dialogue in the case of the uh pesticide bylaw we worked with uh local Lawn Care people the the the owners of the local lawn care companies we worked with the heads of the hospitals we worked with our members of the legislative assembly
38:46
we worked with our city hall councilors and um uh it took a it took a lot of work but we just stayed with it and and uh that’s that’s what we learned so you know when I tell people about that in other countries I have experiences like the uh the mayor of Singapore coming up and saying to me oh that’s phenomenal what you’ve accomplished in your city I wish we could do that in Singapore we don’t even have non-smoking legislation you know and our health costs keep going up and up you know people from African cities
39:22
when I first started talking about it back in well like in uh internationally back in um 2004 in the developing countries they couldn’t even get their head around any of this stuff because they were dealing with clean water and solid waste but you know 10 12 years down the line when I would see people from those cities they’d be coming up to me and saying we need what you’ve got and thanks so much for telling us about it and by being at these International conferences I found out that even the
40:01
Scandinavians didn’t have what we had we were a leading jurisdiction our little city because of the work that the citizens did together so I encourage everyone who’s listening to do not feel overwhelmed take you know the little thing that you can do in your area and look after that and that will be a wonderful contribution to your community that’s us that’s being and you by the way I’m going to comment now that light you know that I looked at my last show and I said am I losing my hair oh
40:40
the light shows and I I said we’ll see what it’s I may make changes this light the donut a donut of light mm you know it’s so important that the idea of people realizing that them local Al with Goodwill I’m sure that over time it’s the fact that you were coming back but weren’t there with a hatchet you weren’t looking you were looking to work with them toward a solution rather than create an adversar kind of approach exactly yeah so I really I don’t know what to say I that’s
41:22
why this I mean that’s why this show exists so we can bring everyone here and realize we don’t have hatchets here we’re looking to make it better which is the same thing that’s why we’re not adversaries right Russia and Ukraine right people of the world we want it to be better for everyone so let’s start to think about that you know this world is a holistic world if we are fractured I don’t know we’re asking for trouble that’s my personal comment but it’s just that’s that common sense and
42:02
Common Ground stuff that I like you don’t have to be you know rocket scientist get it right Common Sense common sense I mean as far as the uh spraying of pesticides and everything that even eventually affected uh little communities growing Taro in Hawaii how could that be possible you know uh I mean you know be in these beautiful places and see somebody with their little thing tied on their back some little individual you know spraying the Taro I I hope that a lot of that has been um has been
42:38
corrected I hope so but you know it’s just the influence of companies that want to to get there or someone with a county truck driving and spraying along the highway with round up oh yeah no we we stopped that we stopped that yeah and I mean the efforts to to get Round Up managed have been just phenomenal again the environmental working group the environmental working group did a lot of work with that to give people well there’s a lot of pesticides I mean they’re in our food you know they’re in
43:17
our Foods they’re in our everything that’s right and uh you know one of the things that I work on a lot and I never stop talking about it whether I’m at a local meeting or an international meeting meeting or national meeting in Canada is calling for the global reduction of chemical production global global chemical production reduction because we’re you know we we we can’t go on this way you know uh polluting ourselves and polluting the planet and all living things so we have
43:55
to reduce those numbers and and um I used to be uh very good friends with one of the senior toxicologists at the US EPA who I would meet at International meetings and uh he thought that was impossible well I finally persuaded him that that it could be possible first of all you have to have the idea then you have to want to do something about it then you have to put all the systems in place to reduce that and um um so I just want to put that idea out there into people’s heads and if you take if you take uh the move
44:34
to reduce the amount of chemicals that you’re exposed to in your daily life then you’re doing part of that you’re reducing the numbers of chemicals that are going down the drain when you wash your vegetables when you use all your products that have a million things in them you know yeah and you’re keeping your body you know healthier and uh that really does does a lot and also um you know we live in community and so there’s this thing where people will do what their neighbors are doing
45:09
you know so if you’re doing this after a while people are going to be observing you and it’s going to start rubbing off what you’re doing and it become more normal for everybody I hope so I I at some point remember when I saw jacqu kusto gave up what he was doing he said look I’m quitting because we’re already past the line we can’t save the Earth I’m giving up I don’t think we can give up I think that we have to double down and not necessarily fly off to another
45:46
planet like an Elon Musk maybe we can send Vance and Trump and Elon on the next rocket that’s it I well anyway but I think we have to start doubling down on these environmental things well now that you bring that up again that’s a fusion you know between environment art and spirituality is that um I I I continue to do my work because I feel that as a race as a civilization we have an opportunity to get through this period that we’re in right now with out um destroying destroying the
46:31
civilization like what happened with lamia and Atlantis and others before us so I think that’s the a challenge in front of us right now and part of the way that we do that is understanding the interconnectedness of everything and then looking after that web of life you know in our in our daily our daily lives and um they you know we are yeah yeah I understand that’s why it’s so well integrates with you know it’s a natural expression of who you are so your hope your policies everything comes out it and it’s really
47:10
great what are these These are bookmarks I know I got these are bookmarks and there are two of these um that I decided to Showcase uh one is called uh well I’ll do this one first because this is called the fertility of life so what happens when we have the abundance of uh pesticides and E other substances that were’re exposed to um we get endangered species because it starts poisoning everything you know so it’s poisons the fish it poisons the the sea seaweeds and the Liu um it comes back
47:49
into our food chain so we’re not right so fertility of life um we we have to look after everything including our elves so that we will have strong fertility and ability to you know to continue and ability to be fertility yeah ability to be fertile and to reproduce ourselves and keep other species uh safe and healthy so they can reproduce as well young people get it do do they get it as much as I would think they do well I think it’s it’s it’s kind of a an unfortunate and scary story
48:29
because um in human beings the U sperm counts are going down and women are increasingly having difficulties sometimes they’re having a lot of miscarriages and so on because they can’t retain the fetus in their womb or they’re having complications or perhaps you know giving birth to children that um have developmental problems or whatever and uh and then uh you know it goes on from there so you when I talk to teens and young 20s and so on I like to put that idea into their heads so they
49:08
can start taking action in their own lives to keep their reproductive organs safe and and healthy and you know that’s um yeah not to go too far a field here but the younger people I would think I used to think how can we hand this world over to Future generations with all these builtin mistakes in the way they are operating the system yeah and um I was thinking like where’s the resistance from older people who are used to I don’t need to pick up that can I don’t need to do that oh everyone else is
49:52
going to do it oh the young people let them deal with it themselves I hope that’s changing and as our governments how do we have a president who’s so old because we’re not the way I see it we’re not build you guys in Canada have younger leaders you know which I like seeing but we need to develop younger people into the places where their new sentiment where they understand just how incredibly important to the future of our planet is say that to old people and they say yeah you’re
50:30
right but we’re slow to change this is the way we are this is the way we are do you care about your kids how about your grandkids anybody can change any old time you know with these Mass environmental things how could anyone think how could anyone even imagine that it’s not because of the environmental things that we’ve degraded that have caused the con and created this condition that we’re in is I am say it’s time to double down yeah double down in this moment and then in the next moment
51:07
well I like the fact that your art I mean every time now every time I’m going to see it I’m going to remember and really make it important that it comes from an environment it makes total sense all of your work just shows that what’s the other one the other one this one is a this is a bookmark called solar activation solar activation and that’s a really popular one too and um when I decided that which ones I was going to reproduce I uh you know this is one of the ones that I picked because a friend
51:42
of mine came into the room where I had this and some other ones uh you know on the wall and she hadn’t seen it before and she looked at at it and she said oh my God I’m getting so much energy from that people can get energized just by standing in front of this image and so that’s what that’s what that is it’s an activational um thing and um that’s another reason why I encourage to people to uh go with whatever image appeals to them the most there’s something activational that’s drawing them to that
52:20
piece and when I used to do I have my own healing modality and I um I have have many times worked with my art showing people the art in advance and they will choose one or two pieces that appeals to them and I’ll just ask them you know why does that appeal to you and they’ll tell me and then I incorporate that into the uh into the healing oh and incidentally I mentioned I want to mention again um Kahuna kpo kakua because I learned so much for from kpo and I’m so uh appreciative um I was showing him my work one day and
53:00
I don’t have the image in front of me to be able to show you but he pointed at a certain one he said oh you could take cancer out of your body with that one so you know there each of them has their own um high frequency vibration and but I in hearing that my brain says see we take the wisdom the old conventional wisdom and the new wisdom and we marry them together no sense and get rid of the old and bring in the new when together they work in such a beautiful way that’s great to hear Kaio kakua can we find them online
53:43
easily you know yes we can yes yeah Kaio k a i poo and Kane auua k a n a k a n e k a n e k a a k a k UA a Kan AA yeah k a NE e man of God k n e Kua yeah and um um he um he has been quite ailing I’m hoping that he’s still with us but you can certainly find uh find him online how do we find you oh when I met him he told me he he knew I was coming he was waiting for me he had a message about it I found him because uh it was when I first got here uh you know back then there was a little area of the Maui
54:35
News where you could find out what was going on and there were these like these two tiny little lines that saying uh kanaku kpo Kaku would be speaking and it was a place that was across from the Cove they used to have a little Center there and there was a Healing Center in there so down I go when the time came at 7:00 to go hear uh kpo and of course I was very uh much um uh attracted to his teachings and um so then I’ve signed up and did some workshops with him and I also had uh individual healing with him
55:15
and one time he did this um very traditional uh healing modality on me in which he wrapped my entire body in Caster leaves and then put a little sheet over and I stayed about 40 minutes or something um with the the Caster leaves on me so those are precious things to experience you know and um are being PL you know I remember when we went to uh 30 years ago we went to uh Kawai and they were talking about castor bean plant it was a a poison and we have to get rid of it see so it’s really an interesting we only have 45 seconds oh
56:01
my goodness how do we find you online so everyone can you see their art on yes yes and they can order order some art if they want uh for my art it’s art by Sheila co.com art by Sheila cole.com s h l a Cole CLE e.com and there’s another Sheila Cole you’ll know that it’s not her work if it’s like Landscapes or something well thank you for joining us we are out of time you’re going to say bring her back again next time maybe on Zoom if you’re home or we’ll get you here thank you for joining
56:37
us we are out of here I can hard Sheila thank you for being here with me it’s you’re welcome Jason thank you guys come back again thank you aloha
