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. 
Smiling and breathing easily.

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 there 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.

Template

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.

 

Tree Hugging & Brain Tides

"Within that cerebrospinal fluid 

there is an invisible element

 that I refer to as the ‘Breath of Life...’ 

You will have observed its potency and also its Intelligence,' spelled with a capital 'I'.

It is something that you can depend upon 

to do the work for you.

 In other words, don't try to drive the (body) through any 

external force. 

Rely upon the tide."                       

                                                                                                                                              William Garner Sutherland, D.O.

     My last post was about water. This one is, too, only it deals with learning to feel the tidal waves that exist within other people and within myself.

In May, I took a Biodynamic Craniosacral course in Manhattan at The Open Center. It was taught by Michael Shea. 

Our Class (minus Mark--photographer)

Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy began with Osteopath, Dr. William Garner Sutherland (1873-1954). "William, a student of Andrew Still, the founder of Osteopathy, made an unusual discovery during medical school. Upon closely studying the bones of the cranium, the thought, 'beveled like the gills of a fish, for primary respiration,' came to him. Eureka.

This powerful insight began 50 years of exploring and developing skills in relation to the human body and health.  Through his continued research and practice, he observed subtle rhythmic pulsations that would ebb and flow in and around the body that caused all the tissues of the body to respond with functional changes. 


He called this motion the “Tide”.  

The brain and spinal cord are enclosed in a sac of water. The sac is called the Dura. Here is an illustration by the one and only, Dr. Netter :

Here we can see the fluid that surrounds and 

flows through the brain:

Check out these two amazing videos showing 

the tidal movement of the cerebrospinal fluid:

Let The Trees Be Your Teachers

Different tides can be palpated or sensed not only in the human system, but also in other living systems such as animals and plants. As practitioners, we are trained to sense different levels of stillness and thus palpate the expression/movement of the system as the treatment unfolds--according to its own innate intelligence.

This work is about deep listening through stillness
and letting go of resistance...

We were told to practice on trees, houseplants, and pets. 

I caught my kitten, Barnaby, doing a Craniosacral hold on Arthur.

     Through the practicing I have done, I have noticed the powerful potential within stillness and its paradoxical ability to move tissue that has long been hardened. Through becoming familiar with this work, I am reminded that it's in quiet patience that health is able to spontaneously arise. To open up and know thyself requires the release of expectations, mental chatter, and any resistance to the flow of life.

"Know Thyself", as inscripted above the entrance of the Oracle at Delphi.

Be The Water That You Are

 The best way to live

                    is to be like water

 For water benefits all things

                    and goes against none of them

 It provides for all people

                    and even cleanses those places

                    a man is loath to go

 In this way it is just like Tao.

 Live in accordance with the nature of things:

 Build your house on solid ground

 Keep your mind still

 When giving, be kind

 When speaking, be truthful

 When ruling, be just

 When working, be one-pointed

 When acting, remember--timing is everything.

 One who lives in accordance with nature

             does not go against the way of things

 He moves in harmony with the present moment

              always knowing the truth of just what to do

-Verse 8, Tao Te Ching

  Lao Tzu, translation by Jonathan Star