As you may already know, Lovemore believes in giving back, and doing so is one specific way we choose love more as a business. To that end, a portion of each Lovemore sale is donated to Earth Birth women’s health collective. We’ve written about Earth Birth and our connection to midwife and Earth Birth co-founder Rachel Zaslow previously, and you can catch up on that here. Today we’re excited to share a great video that will take you to the heart of Earth Birth and the important work they are doing in Uganda. We are incredibly appreciative to everyone who has embraced Lovemore and has enabled us spread the Lovemore message farther and wider. Together we are increasing the love quotient in the world, and what’s more important than that? (We can’t think of one thing.)

Random fun fact: the translators who work with Earth Birth have a very hard time understanding the American English accent, so you will hear Rachel and her partner Olivia display a couple different accents in this video.

This sure is a message for this particular time and place, isn’t it? Well, the chorus anyway. Not the whole lovers on the boulevard thing. Anyway, I wanted to share the cutest 5th graders in the world with you and then I started to ponder how believin’, as it were, and Lovemore are related. Angela and I have talked a lot over the past year about how there are simply more challenges for almost everyone these days. And like everyone else, we get all caught up in the panic from time to time when we momentarily do stop believing. Oh do we ever. Usually around midnight, speaking our fears and letting the tears roll on a park bench in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.

That said, we’re so thankful that we now have a spiritual home to return to in the mantra “love more.” Our belief that choosing love more is the answer to any and every question invariably grabs us by our shoulders, stops our spinning, and maneuvers us around until we are again pointed in the right direction. And from that perspective we see that there is an amazing gift in these difficult times. In the midst of a stressed out world, we as individuals can choose to grow our hearts big enough to hold this new level of challenge in love. We have the opportunity (perhaps unwelcome, but an opportunity nonetheless) to love*uncertainty*more, love*change*more, and love*vulnerability*more. As we practice bringing love instead of fear to what is tender, everything starts to shift and, well, we are 99.99% sure that is what will change the whole game. And that, we will never stop believin.

Sustainable, organic clothing doesn’t have to have hemp leaf allover print, or look like burlap. There are good-looking clothing options for the fashion-conscious conscientious consumer, even though we acknowledge that we are far behind the curve. The more we know, the more we see, the more we share, the bigger this eco fashion industry can grow – the better we can feel about the clothes on our backs.

Here here Seed & Sew, we couldn’t agree more and are so thankful for the props!

First things first. How pretty is he? And did you fall instantly in love? Or did it take a second? For the couple who rescued this kitty, and for me, it was instant. The photo alone totally tugged at my heart strings, and then there was more. The artist who took this photo shared the amazing love story behind the image. I’m reprinting the artist’s comments below, and if you click on the kitten pic you will be taken to the original where you should definitely leave a comment if you’re so moved. Thank you Casey for the awesome love you’ve shared with Odin and with us by telling your story. It makes a difference in the world!

Artist’s Comments

Odin is an amazingly special cat. Named for the one-eyed God of Thunder, Odin has a journey of a story which I feel compelled to share with those of you who are interested to listen.         

Odin had a hard life at the beginning, born to an abusive, neglectful family, he was an outside cat who got more than his share of beatings from both animals and people nearby. Scars are apparent on his ears, and especially his nose, of past battles. However, Odin wasn’t brought into the shelter until his eye was shot out with a pellet gun, possibly by his previous owner or a neighborhood kid. 

The shelter removed the pellet, but unfortunately his eye was lost. Our shelter isn’t innocent in some of the pain caused to him, however. The shelter obviously placed no trust in the fact that he would make it, because his eye wasn’t properly sewn, and they left in his right tooth, which was fractured from the impact, to abscess.

I saw images of Odin (called “Winky” by the shelter) on their website, and something about him pulled me. I begged my husband, who at the time didn’t want another cat, to at least let me go and take a look at him. He was about a year old at the time and still had the stitches in his eye when he was brought out to us. The woman handed him to my husband and he laid his head against my husband’s chest.

Call it love at first sight, the next day we were taking him home. He was clearly hanging on. A strong cat, he pulled through another surgery to remove the abscessed tooth and we discovered through the vet that his blood work returned with his blood sugar through the roof, meaning that not only was he suffering from his ordeal, he was diabetic. 

My husband worried for ages that he wouldn’t make it, but I kept hoping, kept praying. I applied medicine to his eye to help it heal and kept a close watch on the spot where his tooth was. 

Now nearly a year later, he’s gained to a healthy weight, his eye has healed marvelously, and his blood sugar is still maintained through insulin shots. He’s well behaved, never once fighting me while giving him shots. He sleeps on my legs at night, and purrs nearly every time I touch him. I believe that love, more than anything, kept us going, and has allowed him to be this part of my life. 

Even after everything he’s been through, he’s still beautiful in my eyes. Some may cringe, but I look at him and see an angel. {Editor’s note: us too!}

Edit 5.10.2009: Thank you all so very much for all the sweet and heartwarming comments! I can’t possibly reply to all of them, but I greatly appreciate everything said, and I have taken time to read every single one. Odin thanks you too, I’m sure. You’ve all been so sweet and accepting; and I feel I just can not express my gratitude in words!

Today when Ang and I went out in our neighborhood to grab lunch I thought it might be fun to share some pics of what life looks like around the Lovemore “office.” I uploaded my snaps from the afternoon to our flickr stream here: Lovemore Brooklyn Headquarters set on flickr.

Both Angela and I love calling Brooklyn home, and couldn’t be more proud to have Lovemore headquartered here. We’re so excited to be a new business in this historic community and look forward to getting connected to all the BK has to offer our mission of love. We also plan on giving back to our new home, so if you have a favorite Brooklyn-based charity that you think embodies the Lovemore mission drop us a line and let us know about it! Send an email to: hello@chooselovemore.com.