the best things in life are free

Recognition, appreciation, love, comfort, understanding, respect - we all thrive on them. What's even better is that they are free. And as a gift they cost nothing. But the deal is this: you have to give first. After that, the more you give, the more you get. For some reason it doesn't work the other way around. You can wait a long time to get if you are unwilling to give first. It's all about opening up, putting yourself out there, going out on a limb, and then enjoying all that comes back.

And it's gratifying both ways, for the recipient as well as the receiver. That's why volunteering is so rewarding. Or gift giving. Or helping. Or praising your employee or student for a job well done.  Do you know how good it feels when someone says to me "how can I help?" That question in itself is a gift. So give, give, and give some more. You may just like what comes back.

a shift, then a gift

Shifts are neat. A shift is when you suddenly think totally differently about something than just moments ago, and can't believe you haven't seen it in that new way all along. You can't seem to force shifts, they just happen - pop! Et voilà, your outlook has changed.

Eeewww, I thought the other morning when I opened the window and saw a swirl of insect eggs stuck to the  window screen. But the swirl was pretty neat in its shape, and I looked closer, wondered, took some pictures - and then my mind went pop. All of a sudden I thought, wait, whatever this is - I get to watch these eggs transform and hatch and do whatever these things do (I think these things are moth eggs). Suddenly eeewww transformed into a gift, a gift from nature. How neat is that!

this or that?

processed cheese slice with yellow dye #5

or

raw-milk artisanal cheese from a small farm?

canteloupe melons tasting like cardboard

or

freshly plucked cherry tomatoes bursting with sun-ripened flavor?

cornfed-antibiotic-supplemented-growth-hormone-infested beef from a feedlot cow with red dye #3 to make it look fresh

or perhaps

no meat at all?

this or that?

our unsung heroes

            In the end how much does an investment banker's work really contribute to my quality of life? Nada, nothing. Same goes for a real estate developer's work, a sports champion's work (some people may disagree, but I believe certain professional athletes are vastly overpaid for what they do), and many other overpaid and overvalued jobs that we have come to admire simply because they earn lots of money. Instead I'd like to sing a song to our unsung heroes, the farmers. They are generally underpaid and overworked for the long hours they work and the incredible risks they have to take year after year. Yet without them we are nothing, not even alive. No farms, no food, as the bumper sticker goes. Weather conditions are a real gamble and a constant source of worry for farmers. Wet or dry summers mean less money. And what about several-year droughts?  What about the difficult decisions between new technologies and true sustainability?  The question whether bigger is better?  Farmers simply don't get credited or appreciated for the importance of their work.

Many pioneering young farmers do this job out of conviction and passion for a better world, and unfortunately have to work for a pittance. The government should be giving away farmland to willing and qualified farmers to encourage farming in areas with a sustainable climate (certainly not out west). Why not subsidize small farms, sustainable farms, organic farms, new farmers? That would acknowledge the value of the farmers' life sustaining function.   We ought to thank our farmers, we ought to celebrate them, we need to support them.  

Guess where I went today?

Green Goddess Dressing

Oh, how I love that name.   It's the name that first sparked my interest in this dressing, the green thing came second. I'm very much into green foods these days, chlorophyll being the most direct translation of sunlight into living energy we can feed our body. And the goddess thing in a dressing name is just very timely in a day and age where we are perhaps (I so hope) beginning to realize again our interdependence with Gaia, and the importance of balance between male and female, when the male energy has been dominant for the past 2500 years or so. The interesting thing is that this dressing was actually invented over 100 years ago, as a blog post in Simply Recipes explains. The original recipe calls for a combination of mayo, sour cream, a few anchovy filets for saltiness, lemon juice, parsley and chives. It comes out pretty thick, rich and gloppy. But there are many variations out there, some more runny for a real salad dressing, some more firm to be used as a dip for anything (veggie sticks, for breakfast on toast, with fish, with tortilla chips, you name it), some substituting yogurt altogether for the mayo and sour cream, some adding garlic (I like that one), another one adding avocado for creaminess (super healthy, great idea, cut back on the mayo when you do this), and then of course adding tons of whatever herbs you have around - from the usual parsley and chives, to dill, chervil and tarragon, also mint or cilantro.   I like substituting the sour cream with whole milk yogurt (Greek and otherwise, depending on how thick I want the dressing/dip), I also like the garlic, but be careful with the anchovies - too many and it starts to taste fishy. A favorite breakfast thing in my native country is a dummed down version of the whole Goddess thing by simply mixing farmer's cheese (same consistency as Greek yogurt, which is a perfect substitute) with lots of chives and a pinch of salt, and eat it as a spread on black bread or toast.

Go green and try them all!

minding others

It irks me when someone walks directly ahead of me into a store or a building and lets the door slam right into my face. It annoys me when someone persistently, - and fairly slowly, mind you, - hunkers down in the left lane. It bothers me when someone yawns with their mouth wide open, displaying all their beautiful, or not so beautiful, teeth. Yes, I do care that people care.

Being aware not only that my freedom ends where your's begins, but also extending basic manners, like holding the door open for the person right behind me, are courtesies that smoothen the rough edges and make living together more pleasant. When I'm done passing in the left lane I return to the right lane to leave the left lane free for others who drive faster and want to get past me. When yawning I hold my hand in front of my mouth to spare people sights into the insides of my mouth.

Walking around with earphones even worsens incapsulation into a me-world that lacks consideration for others, or simply demonstrates obliviousness. By being a tiny bit more aware of our surroundings, by caring a tiny bit more about the people around us and acknowledging them, we can make the world a tiny bit of a better place.

let food be thy medicine

A lot of food bashing has been going on in recent years about the Western Diet, and rightfully so. While many cultures have been using foods to heal the body through their various properties (as in Chinese or Ayurvedic medicine for example), over here we have been eating food that actually makes us sick, as in cancer, diabetes, arthritis, food allergies, heart disease and what not.   Those sick foods have been euphemistically labeled the Western Diet. But what if foods could actually heal, as Dr. Hippocrates of Ancient Greece already said - "Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food." Eating properly actually keeps us healthy and full of energy, or supports the healing process by boosting our immune system if we have healing to do.

            Seems that many of us have to relearn what healthy foods are (also see my earlier post on live and dead foods). Healthy foods are not processed (if it has more than one ingredient and comes in a package or a can it's processed) but are as fresh and local as you can get them (more life energy), have not been sprayed with toxins (yuck, who wants those accumulating in their body?), have been grown in healthy and rich soil that has been fertilized as naturally as possible (otherwise, where are the minerals and trace elements supposed to come from?), meat comes from grassfed animals (corn makes cows and their meat sick!), as does dairy, which should also be unpasteurized, unhomogenized and raw. And make green and red your favorite colors. Leafy green vegetables have been labeled a superfood because they have such a concentration of vitamins, minerals and trace elements (more so than fruit!), and are high in fiber, low in calories and carbs, while the reds are loaded with antioxidants and phytochemicals.

            And lots of raw (no, I'm not an advocate of a raw food diet) is especially good for you (do green smoothies if you don't like to eat your greenies raw - blend an avocado, leafy greens (stems and all), lemon juice, an apple or a carrot for slight sweetness - voilà, the healthiest breakfast prepared in minutes (and believe me, it makes you feel full and satisfied).

bloodworms and brine shrimp

My daughter loves all animals, and her cats to pieces. She was never afraid of animals, not even when she was little and got bitten by a big dog.  A few months ago she got a Betta fish. Now she is doing extensive research on a proper diet for this predator of a fish, that sadly oftentimes only gets fed pellets and flakes in captivity. This diet can eventually lead to illness, as can feeding kibbles to cats and dogs, feeding grain to cattle, and the Western Diet to mankind. We are what we eat, and so are animals.   I am so pleased that she wants to give her little fish the best possible food for his kind, and realizing the importance of diet on a living thing. She told me that Betta fish thrive on blood worms (ahem...), preferably live ones (not so sure about that one...), and brine shrimp.

This post is really not about the specifics of Betta fish food, but rather about the direct connection between diet and health and wellbeing in all living things. I wrote previously about the homemade raw cat food our cats thrive on, and which emulates as closely and feasibly as possible what a feline would eat in its natural habitat. The dried foods the pet food industry promotes are less than sorry versions of a carnivore's natural diet, as are packaged supermarket foods for us. If you are still interested in the ideal Betta fish diet, here is a very humorously written webpage on it.

We all need our own version of bloodworms and brine shrimp.

August energy

After August 1 the energy seems to change for those of us who live in the northeast. August signals the beginning of the waning of summer, even though it is often warm long into the fall. Summer is overripe, as are the tomatoes, peaches and berries, and produce is available in such abundance that we can't prepare and cook it fast enough. Yet, the energy feels a bit melancholical. School summer vacation is past the halfways mark, the first cooler nights crop up, on some days the temperatures are barely reaching the 80s, school supply lists are coming out, some school fall sports are beginning soon, and friends are trickling back into town from their vacations.

In the same way the first part of any trip is oriented out, and we slowly begin to look towards home again on the second part of a trip, August is all about a slow reorientation process back towards regular work and school schedules and the fall. We are not quite there yet, we have a few weeks to go, we are hanging on to summer, but it gets dark noticeably earlier than when summer began.

Let's savor those sweet August weeks to the fullest.

the next healing frontier

The five eras of healing, as presented in The Healing Code book by Drs. Alexander Loyd and Ben Johnson, is an eye opening way to look at the history of medicine and healing and where we currently stand.             According to the authors the five historical stages we have gone through are praying and the belief in healing, herbal remedies, pharmaceutical/chemical remedies, surgery, and now energy healing. It is thought provoking to look at it from that perspective as we are beginning to realize the limitations of both surgery and pharmaceuticals, our most recent eras, although both can of course do wonders in critical and acute conditions.  When surgery is used for the removal of a malignant condition, removal doesn't always seem to get to the bottom of a condition and it may return, i.e. tumors. Pharmaceuticals have side effects, often debilitating, i.e. chemotherapy, and suppress or displace symptoms without healing the underlying condition. Moreover, pharmaceuticals can't seem to heal chronic conditions, merely keeping them in check.

Energy medicine, on the other hand, besides having no side effects and healing gently (no invasive procedures, no cutting), can dissolve underlying emotional knots, conditions and trauma, which have manifested in physical symptoms, dissolving those along the way. Mainstream medicine will of course resist this low tech approach as very little money is to be made compared to the billions that now flow into the medical and pharmaceutical industries. The fact that we call them industries is a problem in itself.  How about calling alternative healing modalities healing arts instead?