real paper books

I don't read e-books, and I don't own an e-reader. I like real paper books for so many reasons. For one I like to highlight things that seem important and that I'd like to find again later. When I get a new book I like flipping through it, take a look at the index, read some here some there, look at back and front cover, then start at the beginning and actually delve into it. I seem to get a better feeling for the geography of a book with the paper version and I know better how far along I am when I can see how thick the wad of pages is I already read compared to what's ahead. A paper book is warm and soft and has a smell to it. Slightly worn books even seem to have a certain aura to them while an e-reader is a cold machine in comparison. The continuous slight flickering of a screen and the blueness bother me after a while. Lastly, they say that screen reading at night may cause sleep problems, as the Huff Post reported not too long ago. And who knows about the radiation an e-reader would emit when sitting in my lap for hours while I read an e-book.

            Call me old fashioned, but I like stacks of books around the house and I like to curl up on a couch or in bed with a real book.

salutogenesis

It's a term I hadn't heard until I read an article this morning on approaches for dealing with the refugee crisis in Europe of all things, and coined by medical sociologist Aaron Antonovsky. Without ever having heard it called salutogenesis I embrace this model in my thinking, this blog and my upcoming book. It is after all about strengthening what is healthy instead of destroying or treating what's diseased. With regard to healing the body the idea is to strengthen the immune system and support the body's ability to continuously regenerate and heal itself through a deep mind-body relationship. Why? Because stress, negative beliefs and emotional problems are responsible for 85% of our health problems, as it's estimated. Salutogenesis is a proactive, preventative and positive approach, while our mainstream Western model is about fixing, eliminating, destroying, cutting out, or band-aiding what's diseased  in very broad strokes.

Translated to my deep living approach salutogenesis is about standing for and promoting more of what we want (healthy and rich soil, clean air and water, honesty and transparency, dignity for all people, sufficient food for all, and on and on) instead of ranting and raving about what we don't want (pollution, corruption, disease, poverty, refugee crisis and so on).

Do you like your glass half full or half empty?  It's all about turning our attention to the positive aspect of things.  You may also want to reread an older related post on the war against evil.

on forgiving

I find forgiveness incredibly important. Forgiveness is the key to avoid carrying grudge, resentment, anger, and all those other unpleasant low frequency feelings around with us, embedded in our cells for ever. It's not about forgetting what happened on this day, not about shoving it under the rug, but forgiving and overcoming helps to move forward. Stuck energy becomes stale. It feels good to let go and release. It makes you feel lighter. Like when you have cried your heart out, then sobbed some, then eventually the tears stopped flowing, and finally you were ready to take a deep breath. It feels so cleansing, so calming, and a bit like a fresh beginning.

greening your thumb

I used to have a definite "bad thumb," which has turned to a pretty green thumb over the years. While my son thinks houseplants are useless, and I used to care them to death, I have come to love them in recent years. Like my cats they are something like children to me - definitely cheaper, definitely less work, yet work nevertheless, and a lot of pleasure. I am pleased when my plants grow stronger, sometimes I talk to them, I love watching them grow a new leaf or new blooms.  I get especially excited when one of my orchids begins to sprout a new flower stem, which then grows and unfolds over weeks, and blooms for months. I find that plants add softness and life to a home, a calming and quiet living presence. Plants eliminate toxins from the air, absorb our carbon dioxide while emitting oxygen, humidify the air by releasing water, their presence seems to increase productivity in offices and adds to our wellbeing in general (apparently sick people get well faster if they are around plants).  From a decorative perspective they can make such a statement, such as a tall ficus tree in a big space, little succulents growing between pebbles in a pretty pot, or a basket planted with a variety of plants. Plants add to the quality of life in so many ways.

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?

artisanal cheese

this or that?

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!

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.

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?

more time for lunch

"Madame," the waiter in the small town of Amboise in France said to me with a serious face, "I cannot serve you if you don't have enough time for lunch." My daughter and I were on a breath taking whirlwind group tour through France and Spain and we had a 2:30 château visit scheduled. We had just breezed into town from Chartres. It was 1:45 when we sat down in the little sidewalk café, and I had just told the waiter that we had 45 minutes for lunch - not a lot. Well, the French like to take their time with meals, and rightfully so, have their wine, linger, chat - especially on the week-end. And here I came to tell the waiter to rush, on a Saturday of all days. It went very much against his grain as well as mine. I hate to rush meals. As a matter of fact, I hate to rush, period. Life doesn't get much better than a lazy summer lunch in a small French town in a small restaurant, choosing whatever house specialty is on the blackboard that day - a delicious tuna tartar one day, this time a big salad with roasted pork belly and local goat cheese, another time grilled squid and vegetables and an octopus salad, a glass of wine from the area, watching the people passing by, listening to the birds, and enjoying the fantastic weather.

Life is better when it's slow.