giving is good for your health

Having just finished Lynne McTaggart's new book The Power of Eight, which compiles ten years of research on intention experiments, it becomes evident that giving is more health inducing than receiving.  Time and again, the author observed, with skepticism at first, how participants in her intention groups healed more so when they sent healing intentions than when they received healing intentions.  Wow!  Goes so much against our grain of thinking.

Research had already shown that volunteering is good for you, and that a good social network promotes longevity.  But Lynne's experiments now indicate clearly that, "it is better for your health to do the giving," and that, "giving also appears to be central to longevity."  She also refers to what psychologists call the "helper's high," feeling great when you do good.

Over the decade her research was conducted about two thirds of her participants healed as a byproduct (if that is a way to express this phenomenon)  of engaging in sending regular healing intentions to others.  Just wow!  So, instead of wishing or praying for your own healing, or having others send you healing thoughts, looks like an easy way to heal is to send healing thoughts to others.  Give in order to get!  That takes a shift in thinking.  

oh those lectins

Looks like lectins are culpable of just about any disease, from auto-immune, to heart, to diabetes, to anything inflammatory, digestive, and even respiratory.  Turns out that lectins destroy our gut inhabitants and intestinal wall, causing havoc all over the body because the immune system collapses.  Lectins, and gluten is only one of many, albeit supposedly not the worst one, are toxic plant proteins that protect seeds from germinating too early and animals from eating them. 

Turns out that some food preparation techniques were developed to remove lectins, but we forgot about them - techniques like fermentation, soaking nuts and grains before consumption, peeling and deseeding peppers and tomatoes, pressure cooking beans and quinoa.  But there is more to the lectin story.         

I am currently reading Steven Gundry's The Plant Paradox.  Dairy is another pitfall (don't consume dairy from the ubiquitous northern European Holstein cows, only from southern European cows); grains, and in particular whole grains, are out because of the particularly toxic lectins in the bran (if you must eat bread, white sour dough is it, and no whole wheat pasta either).  Another one of Gundry's gripes is the nightshade family (peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes), and lastly squashes and beans.  These last three vegetable families were only brought from the New to the Old world about five hundred years ago, and therefore our digestive systems have not developed a tolerance to the lectins in them, hence their toxicity to most of us.  Digestive systems adapt over thousands and even millions of years, so five hundred years is nothing.

It sounds like this diet is a true panacea, and the book is a must-read not only for all healthcare practitioners, dieticians and nutritionists, but pretty much everybody else as well.  Will keep you posted, trying it myself.

a pregnant pause

A pregnant pause..........is a metaphorical pregnancy that builds tension, in communication used to  build suspense.  In expanding the notion beyond communication it becomes a moment full of possibilities, full of as yet unrealized creative power. 

All creative processes are preceded by such a period - when ideas are churning, perhaps somewhat chaotically, awaiting order by the creator.  The pregnant pause may be understood as the quiet before the creative storm, or the perhaps somewhat random accumulation of information and materials from which a new creation will be born.  This period feels full of energy, full of impatience about the tension between the lack of order of all the accumulated ideas or materials, and the desire to build artistic order from it.  The intriguing thing about the pregnant pause is that the outcome is as yet unknown, yet is full of potential and possibilities.

It's not about the destination but the journey, as you know.  The pregnant pause is the time before the journey actually begins.  It's the point when you revve up the engine but have to hold back until it's time to start.  Winter is a pregnant pause before spring's burst of growth and unfolding.   Standing in in my kitchen in the evening, contemplating my dinner supplies and knowing I need to make a meal from what's in the fridge, is a pregnant pause.  I can create any number of meals from the many available ingredients, it's up to me to decide which ingredients to use, and what to make with them.

Culturally we are somewhat in the midst of a pregnant pause, a tumultuous time full of change, chaos, possibilities, chance for reconfiguration and redefiniiton, an incredibly creative time full of potential and possibilities.  What is your dream for the future?

delicious words

Words can be expressive beyond their attributed meaning.  While we associate a specific meaning with the word flour, the word itself is not exactly remarkable.  But there are words beyond those mundane ones like flour, or dog, or tree.

An onomatopoeia is the first kind of word that comes to mind when I'm thinking of fun words, delicious words, words that taste good in my mouth when I say them out loud, or that are delightful in my mind when I read them.  An onomatopoeia is a word based on the sound it expresses.  Yikes is such a word - it sounds like lightening strikes.  When you hear meow you can imagine that cute kitty sidling up to your leg and talking to you, and you can hear that croaking frog croaking when you read the word ribbit.

Of course there are synonyms for the word delicious, and they are delicious in their own right.  Taste them in your mouth, slowly - luscious, scrumptious, or ambrosial.

Then there are delicious words that convey such a wonderful experiences that I call them delicious.  Enjoy these words for wonderful feelings - exuberant, tickled, giddy, glorious, euphoric, on cloud nine, in seventh heaven, elated, and enraptured.  Wouldn't you want to feel like that?  Now savor some words for wonderful sights - exquisite, fantastic, stupendous, wondrous, and sublime.   Just leaves me speechless....

To close, here are words of mysterious meaning because they are so uncommon that we don't know them, hence can't use them.  Enjoy these funny sounding words -  absquatulate, bobsy-die, floccinaucinihilipilification, haruspex, kinnikinnick, luculent, ogdoad, peely-wally, snollygoster, and finally triskaidekaphobia.  Just delicious....

astrology to the rescue

Believe it or not, despite it's reputation (from people who don't know enough about it) astrology is a good tool if you need direction in life or have perhaps questions about your predispositions.  Not until I saw a reputable astrologer many years ago did I understand just how much spiritual inquiry is part of my inner make-up.  It made all the difference in deciding to go back to school for a master's degree and how to direct my studies. 

With great interest I read multi-talented Eric Francis' monthly column and horoscope section.  Originally an investigative journalist, he is the astrologer for several magazines, and the founder of Planet Waves.  His pieces on the correlation between current events and astrology are most interesting and enlightening.

More recently, I needed to help my daughter with her college search.  From her activities I had gotten two different messages about potential study areas and was confused on how to direct her - this way or that way.  Astrology to the rescue, the answer was clear, extremely helpful, and totally pertinent. 

You'd be amazed at how relevant and invaluable astrology can be if you feel stuck or have major life questions or challenges - no woo-woo, just clarity.

watch the millennials

Did you know that creativity and innovation thrive much more under challenge and chaos than under privilege?  Did you know that the plague in middle age Europe helped to propel the Renaissance because it completely upset the apple cart?  And that the wealth and stability of Golden Ages promotes complacency?  Eric Weiner says so in his The Geography of Genius, which I am currently reading.

This is of relevance to our current cultural, political, and environmental drama, and seems to promise more creativity and innovation than in the relatively stable decades we have come out of.  As a matter of fact, as we watch the deconstruction of a very long yang-dominated era, an era characterized by warfare, domination, and competition, things seem to become quite a bit more messy out there.  This is a climate (pun intended) ripe for birthing new values, new ways of doing things, and leaving outmoded conventions behind.

The millennials are showing the way.  They've got it.  Look to the younger generation how they do things, how they think.  Tiny houses, cash instead of credit, sharing, less stuff and more sustainability, animal rights, women's rights, minority rights, hour exchanges, less work and more play - these are all examples of what's to come.  Sounds good to me.

eat your tops

       "Do you want me to cut the tops off?" the young man at the farm stand asked me this morning when I handed over three purple heads of kohlrabi.  No, I eat my tops.    Carrot tops, beet greens, kohlrabi tops, celery tops, turnip greens, fennel tops/fronds, green upper part of leeks. It's all good, no reason to cut them off, no reason not to eat them.   Way back in the 60s, still back in Germany, my mother already looked in disbelief at the bin at our little local grocer where they discarded all the kohlrabi tops.  She took them all.

      Sauté them, make carrot top pesto, greens soup, juice them, smoothie them, put them into a salad - but don't cut the tops off and discard them.  Greens are sooo healthy, low carb and low cal, and our most direct way to ingest sunlight transformed into food.  Waste not, want not.

we need people

Going it alone is not the way to a long and fulfilled life.  We live longer when we have a good social network, and emotional support from friends and family is not only an important quality of life component, but also better for your health and mental wellbeing.  With life expectancy on the up and up our prospects for a long life are further improving if we can develop and maintain a solid social network.

 But building one, and then keeping it alive, takes work.  It's pretty easy to make friends anywhere you go on a regular basis, where you run into the same people over and over.  Any committee in your community, that does something that tickles your fancy, will do, any organization with regular meetings, any cultural or sports activity around town, all sorts of school activities (if you are a parent of younger children), church or temple of course, gyms and exercise classes, community events - so many opportunities.  For retired people volunteering is really meaningful because it feels good to help and be useful.

Maintaining your network is key to remaining engaged and always having a good social network to draw on.  In order to get invited you need to invite, in order to have a conversation you need to engage, in order to remain in your friends' minds you need to remind them.  And kindness follows you.  Call, send birthday wishes, ask your friends to do something with you, drop by their house for tea, offer your help.   It's reciprocal.  If you don't reach out they may forget you or think you are not interested. 

good change

I just finished Neale Donald Walsh's book, "When Everything Changes, Change Everything."  Often we look at change with fear or apprehension; Walsh's book shifts that perspective completely. 

When I am the one initiating the change I look at the change as welcome.   Looking for, and starting a new job for example, is a big life change and a thrilling experience.  When something unexpected happens that I would tag as "good," it's also exhilarating, and even more fun because it's serendipitous, like winning the lottery.  However, when something unexpected presents itself that I would initially tag as "bad," I'll feel nervousness, anxious, or fearful.  I recently broke down with my son's car uphill, on a hot day on a busy road, and had to be towed - definitely unexpected, and definitely not fun.

Walsh's premise is that all change is ultimately positive, and to embrace all change without resistance, because all change moves stalemates forward and promotes personal development.   His premise is that all "bad" change ends up being "good" change eventually.  He invites us to test this theory by picking a negative event from our life and inspecting it from the hindsight-is-always-20/20 perch.  Turns out that our son's car was at the end of its useful life, confirmed by two mechanics, and it was much better that we discovered it here at home where we could help, than risking his breaking down on his way to college.  All's well that ends well.

Think back to something unpleasant that happened to you some time ago, then look at the later consequences or its influence on your personal development.  Definitely a new way to look at change.  What do you think?

honorable harvest

...the Native American concept of "taking only what you need, and using everything you took,"  needs no further explanation.  Also consider rereading a previous related blog post nose-to-tail.