The Greatest Gift

     Do you make enough time in your life for the ones that you love? Do you let them know how you really feel about them in a way that they can understand?

     We are so busy; eating and texting while driving, adding endless errands to our to-do lists, ignoring the beauty of nature around us...can we set a little time aside each day to love? It is so healthy and so important.

The greatest gift you can give a loved one this holiday season is not an ipad, a sparkly piece of jewelry,  nor is it even a massage gift certificate...
it is your TRUE PRESENCE.


Take a couple minutes, breathe in and out peacefully several times, approach them and with a smile, look into their eyes, say, 


"My dear, I am here for you." 


If you say this with your mind and your body united, you will witness a transformation.

--Thich Nhat Hahn

Hepadna & Old Lace

Just stumbled across a unique artist doing some new stuff with an old art form.

Brooklyn-based Laura Splan programed the geometric shapes of different virion into a computerized embroidery machine to come up with some beautiful doilies. 

Herpes never looked so elegant...

Herpes

Influenza

Hepadna

HIV

SARS

We Are Healed

The Common Cold Magnified

      I write this to you, dear Reader, curled in bed, living day three of a cold. My throat burns, my bones ache, and my nose vacillates between being completely blocked and slowly leaking hot air. To top it all off, I've got a 2 lb baby inside me, squirming and kicking from my ribs down to my bladder. It is easy to feel sorry for myself.

     Being pregnant, I can't do my usual remedies.

Good-bye, Oregano Oil ! So long, Echinacea!

Instead, I've been doing the following:

1) multiple himalayan salt water gargles each day
2) neti pot 4-5 x per day with homemade saline (I still finish this with a squirt of colloidal silver to each nostril--hoping baby doesn't come out a Smurf ).

3) tea with Manuka Honey/Constant Fluids
4) freshly squeezed grapefruit juice--which to be honest, sent me hugging the porcelain this morning
5) no sugar! eating healing whole foods.
6) parking my butt in bed all day.

AND Most Importantly -->
I am picturing myself healed. 
Focusing and deeply imagining how it would feel to be already healed. 
Cold FREE. 
Unstuffed. 
Like myself.


Practicing this powerful technique can 
CURE CANCER. 
Seriously.
Please watch this video in which Gregg Braden describes the science behind this process and see a video clip in which bladder cancer disappears from a woman's body, without any drugs, without any knives... Are you a believer? Is this a miracle? Or, is it a technology that we are fully equipped to perform? 


You are this powerful, too, you know.



"What we choose to experience in our lives, 
we must first feel in our hearts, as if it has already happened."

Thanks, Gregg Braden!!

You Hold The Key

"We must bring about a revolution in our way of living our everyday lives, because our happiness, our lives, are within ourselves."

--Thich Nhat Hahn, True Love

Cosmically Gorgeous flowers in San Francisco,
noticed on the way to a day of dissection.

Runners: Tart Cherries = Less Pain!

Some Cherry Juice A Day Keeps the NSAIDs Away!

     I am so excited to hear about all of the races that many of you will be running this season! This morning, I came across some great info that I know you all can use...

Instead of  relying on Ibuprofen, Advil, or Tylenol this season for recovery and pain relief, swig some 

TART CHERRY JUICE!

Click HERE to read the Research Article, Efficacy of tart cherry juice in reducing muscle pain during running: a randomized controlled trial, published by 

JISSN (Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition)

in 2010.

This is the most beneficial way to consume fruit juice:
*Room Temperature
*Diluted with clean, spring water

 A study was conducted by the Departments of Orthopedics and Medicine at the Oregon Health and Science University, and it was discovered that, 

"Ingesting tart cherry juice for 7 days prior to and during a strenuous running event can minimize post-run muscle pain."

Long distance runners were the participants in this randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trial. The experimental group drank o.355 Liters of Tart Cherry Juice 2x per day for the week leading up to a race and on the day of the race.  The cherry juice group reported a significantly smaller increase in post-activity pain  compared to the placebo group.

Participants in the cherry juice group were more willing to use the drink in the future and reported higher satisfaction with the pain reduction they attributed to the drink. 
The antioxidants in cherry juice are so powerful that they stop inflammation in its tracks.

Need more reasons to drink tart cherry juice? 

*Reduces Joint Pain (classic treatment for Gouty Arthritis)

*Supports Healthy Sleep Patterns (contains Melatonin)

*Supports Healthy Cardiovascular System

*Contains TONS of Beta Carotene, Vit. C, E, 

Magnesium, Iron, Folate

* Tart cherry juice concentrate scores highest of all fruits and vegetables for antioxidants (particularly anthocyanins).

Here's the kind the baby and I've been chugging:

Remember: please drink Organic UNSWEETENED Tart Cherry Juice, as cherries have thin skins (easy for pesticides to seep through) and are on the dreaded dirty dozen list.

Doulananada Shout-out

     Check out the article I wrote for Jacksonville's Doulananda Birth Services blog.  In it, I discuss how Maternity Reflexology is an effective tool in easing all aspects of carrying, birthing, and recovering.

Click HERE for the article

Doulananada is an extremely helpful company that provides doula services, birthing and breastfeeding classes, as well as hypnobirthing courses. If you or someone you know in the Jacksonville area is planning a pregnancy or expecting, check them out for some beneficial information.

Snap out of It

Pst...

 Wanna know a trick I figured out so that I don't go nuts sitting in front of my computer?

1) Go to: Peter Russell's World Clock

2) Check out the world statistics -- ever-changing, 

they are mind-blowing

3) Click on "Meditations" at the top of the page and scroll down to "mindful reminders"

4) Customize the reminders to be simple chimes

verbal, or written cues.

5) Wake up and snap out of your technological trance when the peaceful reminders come up. You can set the timer to get them hourly or more frequently.

The Hampster Wheel / Life

Do you feel that you are enough, just as you are at this moment? 

Do future goals or expectations that you set for yourself keep you from being content and at peace with your current situation?

Stress and worry about what is coming up next perpetuate fear in our minds, drawing our shoulders up around our necks and tightening our backs into a rigid turtle shell of protection.

We want things to go a certain way and we easily become attached to outcomes; we want to win the race, to get our lover's full attention, to have perfect skin or a flat stomach, to get this or that degree in school, to have everything turn out the way we think we needs it to be so that all can be well... or else...


Our stranglehold on life is doing us in.

One spring day in Ojai, California, the enlightened teacher, Jiddu Krishnamurti gave a spiritual talk under the shade of an oak grove. Every year, hundreds would gather here to hear Krishnamurti speak.  He was a man who always seemed bathed in a glow peace and contentment. His students hoped to glean insight into his mastery of life challenges and stress. On this day, Krishnamurti paused during his lecture and asked,


"Do you want to know what my secret is?"

Krishnamurti, (12 May 1895 – 17 February 1986)

The group hushed and leaned forward.
He softly replied, 


"I don't mind what happens."


He went on to say, "When you live with this awareness, this sensitivity, life has an astonishing way of taking care of you. Then there is no problem of security, of what people say or do not say, and that is the beauty of life."

Loosen your grip on life and who you think you need to be. Let your vulnerability emerge and know that you are safe.

And on a final note, I found this interesting 3 minute clip regarding goals and what happens when we share them out-loud with others.

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Chrysaora Quinquecirrha, 500 million years old

Vesalius, De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem, 1543.

PET-rissage! Animals Know What's Up

 

I still have the pleasure of working with Campy, whose mom, Marni

is a dear friend, awesome triathlete, and author of an amazing blog

(click here to see her blog)

Before I had my current office, back when my practice was strictly house-calls, I had the pleasure of working alongside many of my clients' pets. Some would sleep under or beside the massage table (usually the dogs would do this) and some would jump onto the table, hungry for attention or to get a closer look at what I was doing (typically a feline move).  Once, a big orange cat named Leroy got on the table and proceeded to petrissage (I'm not making this up, it's a legitimate massage stroke) his owner's glutes. He was helping me! It was awesome and made me wish I always had a furry little assistant. This video reminds me of that day and is so damn cute. These cats definitely know what's good for them. 

Learn from the natural world!--

get your knead on.