sacred agriculture

Agriculture is only about 10,000 years old and it has shaped today’s cultures fundamentally.  Agriculture enabled population growth and the population explosion of the past 50 years.  Agriculture is also what has brought forth culture as we understand it; it is specifically agriculture that enabled the development of the first great cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Agriculture was a new concept then, as we moved from a nomadic lifestyle and collecting our food through hunting and gathering, to settling down and harvesting food from the same surrounding area year-in and year-out.  The hunter-gatherer lifestyle permits nature to renew itself naturally, while agriculture, if not practiced wisely and in tune with nature, depletes the soil – and then what?

Agriculture is the unification of nature and man.  We exhibit our current disconnection from nature through the type of agriculture we have created – soil-depleting monocultures that require outside chemical input to produce food at the expense of environmental and human health.  However, the significant growth of the organic (funny -  until about 150 years ago all agriculture was organic), sustainable (better than organic), and  biodynamic (the best) agricultural movements demonstrates an emerging awareness of the deep connection between ourselves, nature and our food supply.  We exist as part of nature, not apart from nature, and strictly on the basis of light and water.  Without nature we do not exist. Sacred agriculture!

health is a balancing act

I selected this post to be featured on my blog’s page at Culture Blogs.

Healing is much more than “fighting” symptoms with mechanical or chemical means in order to get rid of them.  Health is an ongoing balancing act that requires continual and never ending internal adjustment.

When you are in tune with your body you begin to notice even slight imbalances, such as fatigue, digestive system upsets, aches, or stress.  Such minor imbalances can easily be rebalanced with gentle methods, like rest, better food, lifestyle adjustments, or energy healing methods (EFT, acupuncture, homeopathy and others).

It’s actually all about your needs. When your emotional and physical needs are met your body, mind and spirit all function in harmony and unison and you are healthy as a consequence.  When, on the other hand, you have unmet emotional needs and you keep ignoring them and your body’s nudging messages, more serious physical symptoms are eventually bound to develop from this stress.

“Perfect health” is fleeting and unattainable on a continuous basis, healing is ongoing as long as you live.

yum - raw milk

Our cats love the cream from the top of the milk.  Not only cats digest raw milk, which has neither been pasteurized nor homogenized, better than the processed version.  Many people, who are supposedly lactose intolerant, also have an easier time digesting milk the way nature made it.  The health benefits of raw milk versus its processed compromised poor cousin are tremendous.  Today was our milk pick-up day.  We take turns with a few other local families, coop style, picking raw milk directly up from the (currently) only dairy farm in Orange County approved to sell raw milk by the Department of Health.  So we actually get to meet the cows that provide us with our milk.

Personally, I love the cream on top even more than the milk.  On the photo you can see how much cream comes with a ½ gallon of milk, more than a cup.  I use it for making ice cream, deglazing, in quiche, and as a treat for our cats.

Yum - raw milk!

love those germs

Enough fighting already!  We fight too much – enemies, wars, illnesses, death.  They are all simply another aspect of the same thing. Balance, not eradication, is the answer. A little dirt, a little dust, a healthy amount of bacteria is actually good for you. Most of us know by now about the drawbacks of antibiotics – those indiscriminate bacteria killers prescribed much too liberally to humans and animals over the past decades in an effort to kill all the “bad” bacteria. A new book was recently published on the possible relationship between our modern germ killing frenzy and the surge in recent civilization and autoimmune diseases, possibly even autism.

So eat your yoghurt, sauerkraut, kimchi and pickles (naturally fermented, not the supermarket vinegar kind), drink your kefir, kombucha, wine, beer or mead, and clean your home and body with gentle and natural cleaning and cleansing products instead of those germ killing antibacterial soaps and cleaners.

why eat organic?

The stale and narrow premise that what distinguishes organic from non-organic foods is simply their nutritional content is on the table again in today’s NY Times article by Kenneth Chang about a new megastudy to that effect.  But, as Sonya Lunder,a senior analyst with  the Environmental Working Group stresses, many who buy organic foods are aware of the complexity of issues beyond mere nutritional aspect. The nutrition debate leaves, as in the past, a whole host of other reasons why to buy organics off the table.  Besides ingesting less residual toxins from pesticides buying organic groceries, produce, meat and fish means choosing the health of the environment and biodiversity over sprayed monocultured fields, it means voting for the health of the farmworkers so they don’t get exposed to toxic pesticides and herbicides, in the case of meat and fish it means choosing not to ingest antibiotics and surface bacteria (another relevant article in today's paper), it also means voting against genetically modified plants and animals, and it means choosing the more humane tending to, raising and slaughtering of animals for meat.  Lastly, if buying from a nearby farm, choosing organic is linked to choosing local over global.

So, buying organics is a vote for a multitude of betterments, not simply a choice for more nutritious food.

cucumber and green tea scented soap

Puzzled I kept walking up and down the hallway where it smelled like Cutter bug spray.   Then it dawned on me that I had purchased a soap I usually don’t buy (forgot to get my usual natural soap the other day).  I asked my husband whether he noticed the smell.  He replied ”smells like chemicals, what I grew up with.” At Target I had scanned the 6-packs of soap bars – nothing natural available.  The lesser of two evils seemed to be a 2-pack of soap that promised cucumber and green tea scent.  Sounded reasonably good.  But my sense of smell has changed over the years of not using mainstream cleaners, toiletries and cosmetics.  I have not even repurchased my once-favorite perfume because I now smell artificial fragrances from a mile away.

Not only did that soap bar have this artificial green tint of pistachio ice cream (which clashed with the mellow beige bathroom, although that was minor), it also smelled so overwhelmingly synthetic that I had to get rid of it.  

forever young

The world shapes itself around your beliefs.  Positive beliefs empower you, negative beliefs, on the other hand, hold you back. Whether you believe you are starting to “become old” when you notice a little ailment here or there, or whether you consider it simply a passing appearance that will self-regulate back to perfect health,  is based in no small part on your beliefs.  Whether you are an old 30 or a young 30, an old 90 or a young 90, has so much to do with your beliefs about life, the body, aging, sickness and health, and your attitude in general.  Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer staged the famous experiment with the nursing home residents who were brought to live for a few weeks in an environment that emulated a period several decades earlier.  Well lo and behold, their minds literally turned their bodies’ physical clock backward in small but significant ways (read more about this amazing study in her book Counter Clockwise).

Some beautiful examples of older inspired and inspiring people have come across my Facebook page.  They remind me that your attitude and beliefs can keep you forever young until the day you die.  One of them is the 94-year old yoga master Tao Porchon-Lynch, another one that brings a smile on my face every time is the older piano playing couple, and the last one is the former Rockette Louise Neistat who tap danced until her recent death at 92.

Two more well-known examples of the power of the mind are world records - it is not unusual for several more people to break a world record as soon as someone has broken one – and the supposed difficulty in conceiving children –  couples who have resigned themselves to adopting a child  oftentimes conceive as soon as they have actually adopted.

organic epiphany

(photo by captrosha)

I had this epiphany a while ago when I needed to buy a new duvet cover and saw an organic cotton one on sale.   Previously, I had mostly thought about organics in terms of the health benefits to my family and myself - that buying and eating organic foods would prevent us from eating pesticides, harmful additives, antibiotics and growth hormones, genetically modified and weakened foods in general.  But the perspective is much more encompassing, which is why I ended up buying the organic cotton duvet cover.  With this purchase I voted for a healthier environment and a healthier agriculture, because that cotton didn’t get sprayed with pesticides or subjected to chemical fertilizer,  I also voted against the industries that develop and manufacture these fertilizers and toxins,  I voted for the health of the farm workers who weren’t subjected to the poisons, and lastly I voted against GMO crops and the big conglomerates that develop them.

the best cat food

Yesterday was cat food day again, which happens once a month at our house. “Garbage in – garbage out,” or the flipside “quality food in – health out,” is a motto that works for us as it does for animals. Our older 3 ½ year-old tomcat was raised on “high quality” dry food - out of ignorance. Well, the consequences began to show last year. He had gained weight and had become lethargic. So, besides getting him an adorable little black female companion from the shelter, I researched cat food. Since then I have been making my own from scratch based on a recipe by vet Lisa Pierson. It is a mix of raw and semi-cooked chicken, gizzards, livers, and various supplements. The results speak louder than words. Within three months our cat had naturally slimmed down and regained his vitality. Both cats have shimmery shiny fur, chase each other through the house, and maintain an ideal weight. Our holistic vet confirmed that making your own cat food “is the best thing you can do for your cats.”