replenishing naturally

Lawns need fertilization.  Leaving the shredded grass and leaves after lawn mowing nourishes the soil on an ongoing basis. If you use a clippings bag you need to fertilize your lawn artificially eventually, and that never works as well as the natural way because of the chemicals.  Forest floors replenish themselves in a never ending cycle of falling leaves and other organic matter that decay and decompose back into the soil.  Houseplants especially need added nutrition since they grow in  the confined environment of a pot.  As the roots absorb minerals over time, the soil  depletes in the same way agricultural soils deplete if we don’t put nutrients back in.  I put the yellowed leaves from my houseplants back into the pot to perpetuate the continuous cycle of adding natural nutrients back, and I use the leftover water from steaming greens for my plants. 

Our minds and bodies are no different.  If you take out, you have to replenish lest your capital shrinks until there is no more.  Today’s Times has an article about the many rich who now work constantly because enough is never enough for them, and they operate on a treadmill of accumulation for the sake of accumulation - 85% of their assets are locked into investments!  But for what?  To make it to the finish line aka death with tons of money in the bank?   A business coach told me a while ago, when we were discussing some hang-ups over money, “Money is an incredible vehicle to purpose and pleasure in life.”  Locked-up money may give us a sense of security, but it doesn’t nourish the mind and gives you no purpose and pleasure.  Money by itself, sitting in an investment, account does not nourish your mind and body. Doing something with the money, dislodging it from its investment vehicle, is what moves mountains, creates meaning and nourishment not only for ourselves, but also for our society.  

If you keep taking out of yourself, by working constantly without putting back in, meaning, experiences, friendships, you deplete your human capital and your ability to experience joy and satisfaction.  Supplements can only go so far in replenishing your body and mind, coffee, alcohol and medications can help over a hump but do not replenish or heal naturally. 

How do you fertilize and replenish your mind and body the natural way so you experience meaning and joy on life?

birds of a feather

A few days ago, Monica Potts, who recently moved back to her hometown to research a book on rural America, wrote in the NY Times how the residents of Van Buren County, Arkansas live with a “prevailing sense of scarcity,” and “believe there just isn’t enough money to go around.”  They exist in their own scarcity bubble, opposing for example the salary raise from $19hr to $25hr for their county head librarian with a master’s degree, because they truly believe that “We are not here to pay your excessive salaries through taxation or in any other way,” based on the fact that most private sector jobs in the area pay only $10-$13hr.   Yet, elsewhere in the country there is plenty of money to go around.  The author describes a merry-go-round belief system that creates a self-fulfilling prophesy and can seem hard to escape. 

When we are unaware that we are engulfed in a thought or energy system that is detrimental to our mental health and wellbeing, we can become depressed and even physically ill, and see no way out.  We externalize this emotional mindset and see the world through gray colored glasses – life is difficult, I’m jinxed, I’m just unlucky.  

However, through pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, sudden awakening, the way Eckhard Tolle describes his own unexpected shift from deep depression to deep joy in The Power of Now, or through active visualization techniques as described in so many popular books by Mike Dooley, Jennifer Grace, Rhonda Byrne, or Esther and Jerry Hicks among others, you can get out from under this blanket of heaviness and recreate your outlook and your life.  

What seems illogical and nonsensical to many people is that your belief system shapes your reality, not vice versa.  So, YOU need to shift, not everyone and everything around you.  Pott’s point in her Arkansas context is that people with a different outlook move away from Clinton County to more affluent areas, associating with people who share their beliefs and energies.

What do your surroundings and the people you associate with tell you about yourself?

there's no catch

“There’s got to be a catch,” a recent food workshop attendee said.  We have come to mistrust goodness and can’t believe that you “can have your cake and eat it too,” meaning if food is delicious there’s got to be a catch.  

Coming from a religious perspective the idea may be that “good food” has to be sinful.  From a cultural perspective “good food” has been associated with sweet, fatty and “bad,” without qualifier. The underlying conclusion would then be that healthful food must be bland, boring, fatless, virtuous, depriving, and joyless.  What misunderstanding! 

Of course, the worst food can kill you, just like a gun can be used either to kill a person or simply for target shooting; just like chemical knowledge can be used either for warfare or simply to understand the Maillard reaction when searing a steak.  It’s never the food, or the gun, or the chemical knowledge that’s bad. It’s what we do with it that’s essential. 

When we use our knowledge in a life enhancing way, food heals, food connects people, food is delicious, food nourishes body and soul, food is an adventure, food is sensuous.  That’s the kind of food we want to make and eat.  When you learn how to make it both delicious and healthy, it becomes a win-win situation without reservation.  Is the Mediterranean Diet not considered one of the healthiest in the world?  It’s delicious!  Aren’t the Japanese with their sophisticated cuisine one of the longest living people in the world?  Their food is an adventure. 

Bon appétit!

the need to repersonalize

I have not yet switched to online banking and stop by the branch for many transactions instead of using the ATM.  Often, I get into a quick chat with one of the tellers, and leave smiling that this brief interaction was so worthwhile the extra time.  Yesterday, my husband, on the spur of the moment, stopped by a customer he hadn’t seen in person in a while.  A chat here, an exchange there, and lo and behold, he walked out with an unexpected order.

In business, we often hide behind our emails and wonder why some issues don’t get resolved, why misunderstandings arise, or why some things take an awful lot of emailing back-and-forth, with lag time in between.  Picking up the phone can resolve something in a heartbeat, and seeing someone face-to-face can move mountains and achieve so much.

In an effort to “save time,” our culture has moved relentlessly to remote, internet and email based business and communication.  However, not only does the human connection get lost, we also don’t get the full picture because the interaction is depersonalized.  So do we really save time? 

Hearing a person’s voice, reading their emotions and body language, and looking into their eyes, all provide a deeper level of communication that we seem to underestimate, and that is lacking in email correspondence.  Go to lunch with someone, pick up the phone, stop by and see your customer.  Repersonalize!

psychic cats

Our cats are psychic. But then telepathic communication is nothing new to animal communicators, who communicate with animals on our behalf when we think we can’t.”  Internationally known animal communicator and author Amelia Kinkade writes in The Language of Miracles, “Everybody receives nonlocal information.  The real question is how much you pay attention to the signals you get.”

Our fish loving cat Peter Pepper comes running, making his very specific fish meow, every time I go towards the pantry to get a can of tuna, or open the fridge with the intent of pulling out some fish.  No fish scent needed.  

In the evening, when I get up from the couch to get ready to retire for the night, Peter Pepper looks at me with his soulful eyes and seems to ask, “Is it time?” Then he follows me ritually into the bedroom, even though the cats are not sleeping with us, walks around once or twice, then I kiss him goodnight and tell him I’ll see him in the morning.   

My daughter has developed an understanding with our cat Mieze that she can go outside without a leash if she stays within a safe zone and refrains from going under the porch (it took a few cold hose sprays to reinforce that rule).   With our daughter off to college, Mieze still expects her daily outings.  When she reaches the end of the safe zone I call out her name, and she knows and turns around.  When she has had enough dust bath, grass munching, and insect chasing time, she usually runs back towards the porch door on her own.  

Previously, I have written about our fledgling animal communication attempts – see link here.  Do you hear your animals talking to you?

product or produce?

The other day I had a casual conversation with two friends about cauliflower crust pizza, the new gluten-free and low carb alternative to regular wheat dough pizza crust.  I said that I had made it and like it.  To which the other friend replied, “Oh, I guess you don’t just go to Trader Joe’s and buy a frozen one?”

In the name of time and convenience - their sales strategy, with a hidden profit agenda - do you support Big Food and Big Ag and buy a product with multiple ingredients and a long production chain that feeds many profit driven cogs in the economic wheel? Or, in the name of health, taste, and control of ingredients, do you buy a cauliflower, steam it, rice it, add a few eggs, a bit of binding flour of choice and some spices, and bake it?

Do you choose product or produce?

a real cup of tea (or coffee)

Having a real cup of tea (or coffee) goes with sitting down and serving it in an actual porcelain cup, taking time to relax, tasting and enjoying the beverage, and using the moment as a chance to take a break, either by yourself or with others.

On the run and on the go is our motto, a quick cup of coffee scooped up in a cardboard cup at the corner take-out or gas station, protecting its content from spilling out while quickly walking to your office, or drinking while you’re driving.  Or perhaps quick cup of coffee, often of inferior quality, poured on the run in the office by the water cooler, coupled with a quick chat, and back to your cubicle and computer.

The question is whether you actually taste what you’re drinking?  Enjoy what you’re drinking?  Appreciate the container you’re drinking out of? Or has it become so transactional that only the idea of “a nice cup of tea (or coffee)” remains? Even a mug, compared to a cup, is a way to increase the amount your container holds, and decrease the effort to fill it up again, simply sipping more slowly and truly lingering for a bit.  

A real cup of tea or not? That is the question.

our antiquated mindset

It can all be so overwhelming – climate change with its scary apparitions in the form of runaway Amazon rainforest fires or melting polar ice caps, the state of our agriculture which has decimated the insect population (produce and fiber crops) and contributed hugely to greenhouse gases and earth’s warming (mainly industrial beef and pork farms, but also the poultry and dairy industries), the grip corporations have over our lives, and on and on.  

And then – we need to remember that we’re wired evolutionarily to react to danger and the negative – to escape that potential saber tooth tiger.  Such physical dangers are no longer there as we as a species have come to dominate life on earth.  Instead, the danger is our antiquated competitive mindset geared to warfare, violence, and attack mode.  Yet, as we have opened up to Eastern philosophies and meditation in the past few decades, we have learned that we can gain control over our mind. Just got to visit those gremlins up in the attic and become conscious and aware of them – and then an amazing shift can happen.

Times are changing and we have to evolve with them.  Our minds are still operating according to paleolithic patterns, while the world around has changed so much.  Because of our danger oriented thinking patterns we have a hard time appreciating the ease with which we live nowadays (i.e. running water, hot showers, warm homes and comfortable clothes, as well as abundant food), the privileges we have gained (i.e. education, freedom of speech, freedom to practice any religion), the natural beauty that’s all around us, the endless opportunities we have in this new world (i.e. choice of vocation), the amazing foods from all over the world we can get at any supermarket, and so much more.

Let’s get with the times and try to shift, one mind at a time, to a modern mindset of cooperation, appreciation, wonderment, sustainability, mindfulness, and equality so we can all enjoy the tremendous gains we have made, and heal and appreciate our beautiful planet earth together.

living with ease

Years ago, I learned in martial arts how to avoid a direct confrontation by redirecting the attacker’s punch and thereby neutralizing it.  Last week someone stopped short right in front of me in their car.  The right lane was open, I slalomed smoothly into it, avoiding the obstacle that came out of nowhere, and swiftly back into my original lane, elegantly, easily and in the blink of an eye.  

Learning to circumvent obstacles - potential problems or confrontations – with skill and flexibility, awareness, ease and spontaneity is an acquired life skill.  You need to be ready, always.  We learned that too in taekwondo, how to react quickly without knowing where and in what form a punch or attack would come from.  It requires a split-second reaction and good judgement, backed by years of training the mind.  

The many bullies out there who navigate life with confrontation, force, and muscle power expend a lot of energy and create negativity, frustration and resentment all around them along the way. The Tao Te Ching already stated that “A tree that is unbending is easily broken.”  Kindness, cooperation, flexibility, and good judgement garner respect and are skills for living life with ease and elegance - muscle power and force not required.

good morning!

We have so many opportunities for new beginnings, for reboots, for starting over, for rethinking the way we have been doing and feeling things.  As a matter of fact, every morning, just like this fine morning, is a chance to say to yourself, “Today, I’m going to do it differently.” 

Whether you want to be more courageous, more grounded and calm, more compassionate, more creative, more proactive, more social, more loving, more focused, more creative – every morning presents a new chance to shift.

Make it good morning today!