“A tree is best measured when it is down,” the poet Carl Sandburg once observed, “and so it is with people.” The recent death of Harry Belafonte at the age of 96 has prompted many assessments of what this pioneering singer-actor-activist accomplished in a long and fruitful life.
Belafonte’s career as a ground-breaking entertainer brought him substantial wealth and fame; according to Playbill magazine, “By 1959, he was the highest paid Black entertainer in the industry, appearing in raucously successful engagements in Las Vegas, New York, and Los Angeles.” He scored on Broadway, winning a 1954 Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Musical – John Murray Anderson's Almanac. Belafonte was the first Black person to win the prestigious award. A 1960 television special, “Tonight with Belafonte,” brought him an Emmy for Outstanding Performance in a Variety or Musical Program or Series, making him the first Black person to win that award. He found equal success in the recording studio, bringing Calypso music to the masses via such hits as “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” and “Jamaica Farewell.”
Harry Belafonte - Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) (Live)www.youtube.com
Belafonte’s blockbuster stardom is all the more remarkable for happening in a world plagued by virulent systemic racism. Though he never stopped performing, by the early 1960s he’d shifted his energies to the nascent Civil Right movement. He was a friend and adviser to the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. and, as the New York Times stated, Belafonte “put up much of the seed money to help start the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was one of the principal fund-raisers for that organization and Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center notes that “he helped launch one of Mississippi’s first voter registration drives and provided funding for the Freedom Riders. His activism extended beyond the U.S. as he fought against apartheid alongside Nelson Mandela and Miriam Makeba, campaigned for Mandela’s release from prison, and advocated for famine relief in Africa.” And in 1987, he received an appointment to UNICEF as a goodwill ambassador.
Over a career spanning more than seventy years, Belafonte brought joy to millions of people. He also did something that is, perhaps, even greater: he fostered the hope that a better world for all could be created. And, by his example, demonstrated how we might go about bringing that world into existence.
Feals CBD, Is What Your Wellness Is Missing!
Genuinely prioritizing your life will reveal that your wellbeing is the most important thing. Your relationships, your career, your goals, and ambitions are all going to feel out of balance if you're not focusing on the core of those things: you.
Supporting a healthy mind and body may feel like an insurmountable task, but it's necessary to your health — if your stress response is triggered too often, you're experiencing more stress than you need for survival. Chronic stress may lead to depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, digestive problems, headaches, and more.
Even if you're not experiencing chronic stress, it doesn't hurt to guard against stressors and maybe see how you can enhance your wellness routine and reach a level of mindfulness that can guide you to achieve your goals.
Meditation is part of the foundation of wellness, but if your wellbeing has been kicked to the bottom of your list for a long time, even 5 minutes of meditation can be agony.
It's best to find the most accessible in for you, which for many, can be CBD. CBD, or cannabidiol from the hemp plant, can regulate mood and ease aches and pains, without causing any psychoactive effects (feeling "high") leading to a calmer and more focused you.
One of the biggest misconceptions in the CBD community surrounds dosing recommendations. While some companies may offer a suggested dose, the truth is, everyone reacts to CBD differently, making it tough to get too prescriptive. While lower doses of CBD energize, higher dosages tend to have sedative effects.
When introducing hemp oil into your routine, it can be hard to commit to one brand. Feals, a premium full-spectrum CBD company, offers a $20 Flight that includes three different doses: 40, 80, and 160 MG — it's some of the most potent CBD on the market.
As CBD is one of the 113 active compounds or cannabinoids found in the hemp plant, it's best to find a full-spectrum oil so you can get the full benefits of the plant. CBD has been deemed safe for use and has been shown to reduce nervousness, stress, and aches and pains.
Developing a wellness routine can mean skincare and putting your phone away 30 minutes before bed. But CBD may help you address the roots of your stressors, focus and channel your energy into what you need to feel better.
So sit back and learn how to relax with CBD delivered right to your door. With Feals, if you subscribe to a full-size bottle, you'll get 30% off and peace of mind that you chose a solid brand.
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Why Your Wellness Routine Needs Feals CBD
Genuinely prioritizing your life will reveal that your wellbeing is the most important thing. Your relationships, your career, your goals, and ambitions are all going to feel out of balance if you're not focusing on the core of those things: you.
Supporting a healthy mind and body may feel like an insurmountable task, but it's necessary to your health — if your stress response is triggered too often, you're experiencing more stress than you need for survival. Chronic stress may lead to depression, high blood pressure, digestive problems, headaches, and more.
Even if you're not experiencing chronic stress, it doesn't hurt to guard against stressors and maybe see how you can enhance your wellness routine and reach a level of mindfulness that can guide you to achieve your goals.
Meditation is part of the foundation of wellness, but if your wellbeing has been kicked to the bottom of your list for a long time, even 5 minutes of meditation can be agony.
It's best to find the most accessible in for you, which for many, can be CBD. CBD, or cannabidiol from the hemp plant, may regulate mood and may ease aches and pains, without causing any psychoactive effects (feeling "high") and may lead to a calmer and more focused you.
One of the biggest misconceptions in the CBD community surrounds dosing recommendations. While some companies may offer a suggested dose, the truth is, everyone reacts to CBD differently, making it tough to get too prescriptive. While lower doses of CBD energize, higher dosages tend to have sedative effects.
When introducing hemp oil into your routine, it can be hard to commit to one brand. Feals, a premium full-spectrum CBD company, offers a $20 Flight that includes three different doses: 40, 80, and 160 MG — it's some of the most potent CBD on the market.
As CBD is one of the 113 active compounds or cannabinoids found in the hemp plant, it's best to find a full-spectrum oil so you can get the full benefits of the plant. CBD has been deemed safe for use and may reduce nervousness, stress, and aches and pains.
Developing a wellness routine can mean skincare and putting your phone away 30 minutes before bed. But CBD may help you address the roots of your stressors, focus and channel your energy into what you need to feel better.
So sit back and learn how to relax with CBD delivered right to your door. With Feals, if you subscribe to a full-size bottle, you'll get 30% off and peace of mind that you chose a solid brand.
These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
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This 4/20, It's Time to Go Green
CBD and legalized marijuana could help the environment.
Plants are extraordinary.
They give us so much beauty, nourishment, and medicine—and few plants are more beloved than cannabis, a genus of flowering plant that produces CBD and THC, among other treasures.
There are three main types of cannabis plants: Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. "Hemp" and "marijuana" are broad classifications of cannabis, with hemp generally referring to a type of cannabis that does not have psychoactive effects.
Since ancient times, the cannabis plant has been used as a treatment for mental and physical illnesses, and CBD in particular is rapidly growing in prominence as a therapeutic and relaxing force with far fewer side effects than its psychoactive sibling.
Today is 4/20, a date many know as the unofficial holiday of the cannabis plant. This Wednesday, 4/22, is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, a date dedicated to celebrating our planet and our connections to it.
As many of us turn to CBD and other natural products in this time of pain and suffering, it's the perfect time to thank our planet for all that it provides us. It's also a great time to get educated about cannabis, the environment, and our relationship to them.
The Cannabis Industry Is Actually Very Bad for the Environment
Here's the bad news: The cannabis industry can actually have extremely negative effects on the environment. (Tragic, right?)
First off, cannabis plants generally use a tremendous amount of water—nearly 23 liters per day for one single mature plant, according to a 2016 document (as opposed to 13 liters for an ordinary wine grape plant). The illegal indoor cultivation of cannabis also requires tremendous amounts of energy; this process alone consumes about 3% of California's electricity usage, leaching off tons of carbon dioxide in the process.
Furthermore, spikes in demand for cannabis plants can result in habitat destruction, erosion, deforestation and other environmentally devastating activities. The chemicals used to kill rodents and pests that damage the crops can also put wildlife in danger, especially when pesticides are deregulated.
But that's not to say that we should stop growing the devil's lettuce. There are many potential environmental solutions that could solve the issue of cannabis's environmental consequences. For example, hydroelectric dams could help circumvent the problem of increased carbon emissions. Some places like Boulder, Colorado are requiring cannabis growers to offset their carbon emissions, and others are investing in energy-efficient growing techniques. Legalization could also help ameliorate many of marijuana's worst environmental consequences.
Still, if you're worried about the environmental impact of your joint, CBD might be a great option.
How CBD Can Help the Environment
For all its negative effects, some forms of cannabis cultivation can actually be quite beneficial for the environment. One form of CBD in particular, industrial hemp, can be particularly beneficial for nature's ecosystems. Out of all the types of cannabis plants, industrial hemp may be the least damaging to the environment.
Industrial hemp is a member of the cannabis family that has a lower than 0.3% concentration of THC (by dry weight). Hemp crops can help control erosion, preserving nutrients and fostering healthy ecosystems while ingesting toxic chemicals and preserving soil health. (It was even planted to reduce concentrations of toxins at Chernobyl, for example).
Hemp can easily be recycled, and it may even be a potential biofuel that could help shift humans away from their reliance on fossil fuels. Plus, because CBD is legal at the federal level in America, growers aren't forced to keep it indoors like they are with marijuana, which means that the process requires far less energy and produces fewer emissions than its more psychoactive counterpart.
This isn't to say that we should all abandon THC for CBD. Instead, we should look to hemp's environmental benefits and examine how to extend them to the entire cannabis industry.
Hope For the Future: A Greener World
Legalizing marijuana could be an important step towards reducing the industry's overall carbon footprint. If marijuana growers can plant their cannabis in glass greenhouses rather than secret basements, this would help reduce the amount of electricity needed to grow the plants in the first place.
So the point is: You don't have to let go of your 4/20 celebrations in order to celebrate Earth Day. Instead, we all need to support widespread marijuana and hemp legalization as well as regulations that pivot us away from fossil fuels, towards cleaner, greener sources of energy.
Today, as you take your CBD or enjoy the cannabis plant however you prefer to do so, take some time to kick back and imagine a better, greener world. Imagine a world where cannabis is legal in all forms.
In this world, human beings work to heal nature while being healed by it. There's no more acrid smoke in the air, except for the fumes we willingly exhale as we tend to our backyard marijuana plots. Nobody is behind bars for marijuana possession; instead, everyone has a shot at a good job working with clean energy, rebuilding the world's infrastructure so that it relies on our natural resources—like wind, water, and sunshine. Everyone is healthier and calmer, because we all have access to plenty of nature's medicine. The pandemic is over, and we're all outside together in a park, with our reusable glass CBD canisters and our joints. The new Rihanna album is playing ambiently overhead.
Dreams, dreams… but this 4/20 and this Earth Day 2020, we all need some of those, right?
