ABOUT THE GREEN MAN

While the information we’ve given here is by no means exhaustive, we hope that it has been useful to you. We also hope that what you’ve read here will spur you into thinking seriously about the choices and decisions we all make daily that affect our lives, not only as consumers, but as parents, friends and caregivers as well. Alternatives to toxic products exist, but it’s up to us all to utilize them. Educate yourself and make informed, healthy choices for yourself, your family and our environment. The choices you make today as a thoughtful, conscious consumer will speak volumes tomorrow. You really can make a difference, just by putting your money where your values are and shopping responsibly and intelligently.

The Owner

Bruce Sutton started The Green Man non-toxic home and business cleaning service as an alternative to the usual, chemical-friendly variety of cleaning business. His initially casual research into the ingredients of the products that people commonly use to clean their homes and themselves left him so horrified and appalled, that he launched on a continuing mission of seeking out non-toxic alternatives to the other stuff. Not being a chemist, he still can’t quite pronounce the names of most of the bad ingredients. He chose the symbol of The Green Man for his cleaning service because it symbolizes the renewal of life in the natural cycle, and is probably his favorite color. It also resembles his senior yearbook photo.





The Mystery of the Green Man

The Face in the Leaves
By Mike Harding

His face stares down at us from the roofs, pillars and doorways of our great cathedrals and churches, he appears on second century Roman columns in Turkey and in Jain temples in Rajasthan. He is found all over England, some parts of Wales and Scotland and a few rare places in Ireland.

On the continent he has been seen and noted in Germany, France, Italy, Holland and is said to be found in Spain, Hungary and Poland. India and Malaysia have their own Green Man and though he doesn’t seem to appear in Native American traditions he can be seen in his modern role as a bringer of fortune on the walls of banks in New York and Chicago.

His roots may go back to the shadow hunters who painted the caves of Lascaux and Altimira and may climb through history, in one of his manifestations through Robin Hood and the Morris Dances of Old England to be chiseled in wood and stone even to this day by men and women who no longer know his story but sense that something old and strong and tremendously important lies behind his leafy mask. One of the earliest English epic poems Gawain and The Green Knight may refer to yet another manifestation of the Green Man as the God that dies and is reborn. He is the Green Man, Jack in the Green, the Old Man of the Woods, Green George and many other things to many other men but one common theme runs through all the disparate images and myths death and rebirth and the Green that is all life.

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