SoulTending.com

On the art of happiness.

Out of a false understanding I thought that in order to fit in, be accepted and loveable I had to suffer and be miserable. If I am well and happy, i won’t fit in and I will draw envy and resentment towards myself. It seemed safer to take my share of hurt and misery and dwell in it. Commiserating with others gave a sense of camaraderie. I was proud to do my part in shouldering the heavy cross of humanity.

Looking at my behavior now, I can see that these are notions of a patriarchal theology gone haywire. Leading people by instilling fear so that they are docile. What are saints other than people selfishly persuing the connection with God and the goodness of life? But let’s make it simple and not take on world religions and their doctrines.

I know how to be in this world gracefully. If I look at the different options before making a decision I have the ability to feel where my heart contracts and where it soars. It is my duty to persue happiness. Noone else can do this job for me. Only I have the capability to feel within, to experience the inner knowing and draw conclusions. It is a choice to love myself fully. It is a choice to do those things that open the heart, that make it easier to breathe, that create space within my physicality.

If left to his own devices a human being who has his needs fulfilled, will always want to contribute to the wellbeing of others. Humans are emphatic beings. If someone is hurting the natural response is to help alleviate that pain. There is a goodness inherent in people that wants to come out and shine. It increases self-esteem to do what needs to be done in a way that benefits the whole.

So I am making the shift. Armed with more knowledge I choose to stop suffering and the perpetuation of hurt. I start within, with my thoughts, becoming mindful of how the thoughts create emotions and physical reactions. I become aware of the mechanicalness of thinking, the same old tracks repeating themselves and making deeper grooves.

Older people who have never had the chance to learn to watch their thoughts and realize their insignificance, tend to be grumpier and more unhappy as the days go by. There are those lucky few, who having mastered an independent sense of reality that is not attached to the whimsy of thought, have found the key to youthfullness. They are able to enjoy and even appreciate whatever life dishes out and do their duties with a smile. This is where I am going for.

I am making a radical shift away from the legacy of fear and suffering to a life lived with appreciation and aw. I start by nourishing myself deeply on all levels, mindful of my actions. Radiating abundant health and wellbeing contributes positively to the world.

Absolutely! Welcome to the most extreme attempt to control the sale and use of dietary supplements ever seen. This past December, the FDA put a document on its web site titled “Draft Guidance for Industry on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Products and Their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration.” This document is open to public comments until April 30, 2007 - just a few days from now.

• Do we already have a health care system that is unaffordable and becoming a major social problem for the US?
• Do we need to compound the injury by adding more regulations and restrictions?
• Do we want to enslave people even more to be part of the failing medical system?

Or

• Do we stop the course of dependency?
• Do we stop meddling in areas where the public can be self sufficient and take charge of their own lives if left alone?
• Do we empower our people or do we give power to a select few, who are already lining their pockets?

Modern medicine is still in its infancy compared to the history of the human race. Who needs complementary and alternative medicine to be regulated? The drug company, the doctors and the health care system do, not the people. What the people need, is easy access to complementary and alternative medicine products. So that they can keep taking care of themselves as they have for hundreds of years. Keep big business and government out of self care. Stop meddling and interfering in the health aspects that work and focus instead on regulating the outrageous price margins that the Pharma industry puts on its drugs. Keep medicine affordable and accessible at all cost to avoid a complete collapse of the health care system once and for all.

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Time to act!
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If left undone, supplements might become so tightly regulated that you would have to get a doctor’s prescription to use them.

Of all the times to raise our voices, none is more important than this time.

You can find the full text of the FDA document at this link:

http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/98fr/06d-0480-gld0001.pdf

And you can use this link to submit your comments:

http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/oc/dockets/comments/COMMENTSMain.CFM?EC_DOCUMENT_ID=1451&SUBTYP=CONTINUE&CID=&AGENCY=FDA

In addition, we also need to let our representatives in Washington know that we strongly resist this attack on our healthcare freedom. You can find the names and e-mail addresses for your congressmen at this web site: congress.org.

Your Life, unplugged

All over the house your appliances are using energy even when you’re not using them. There’s even a name for this money-draining phenomenon: Phantom Load.

The Environmental Defense Organization estimates that the power we waste costs Americans $1 billion a year. And it’s fueling the climate-altering greenhouse effect that is wrecking our planet. All those little things, like leaving your cell-phone charger plugged in when not in use, add up. The easy fix: Keep everything from your TV to your toaster connected to a power strip switched to “off” until you are actually using the appliance.

From “Parents” Magazine March 2007

The war on shopping bags
Plastics of evil
San Francisco

San Francisco swaps polyethylene for potato starch

“This day has been long in coming,” declared Ross Mirkarimi on the steps of San Francisco’s City Hall this week, flanked by compost bins and boxes of re-usable cloth bags. “We can take the steps to make our economy just a little more soulful. Karma is with us.” The city he helps govern, in short, is ridding itself of the plastic shopping bag.

And quite right, too. They get caught in trees (hence the epithet “witches’ knickers”), take hundreds of years to decompose and push up demand for oil, used to make plastics. Outlawing plastic bags in San Francisco alone will reduce oil consumption by nearly 800,000 gallons a year, the city reckons. Less than 5% of the 100 billion bags thrown away by Americans each year are recycled.

Jared Blumenfeld, head of the city’s environment department, says the ban will reduce litter and the cost of clearing it: sending a worker out to pull bags from trees costs up to $150 a time. And the recycled-paper and compostable bags that must be used from now on – made from corn starch and potato starch – will help to shift food waste from landfill to compost bins. People would do a lot more composting, he says, if they had biodegradable bags to help them. He expects the move to bring San Francisco’s overall recycling rate – at 69% more than twice New York’s – to close to 80%.

Other cities may now follow suit. Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Oakland and, naturally, Berkeley are exploring similar moves. There is some talk of restrictions or a tax in New York. The plastic-bag lobby fought hard to stop a ban in San Francisco precisely because it feared that defeat there would start a nationwide trend.

This is one area of greenery where California cannot claim to be the global leader. In Taiwan and Ireland, you pay for plastic bags. They have been banned already in Rwanda, Bhutan, Bangladesh (where they cause flooding by blocking drains), South Africa (where distributing them can land you in jail) and Mumbai. Paris will join the list at the end of this year, the rest of France in 2010. But bags are only the start: much more landfill is taken up with packaging. Now that would be some good karma.

Read in “The Economist” March 31st 2007

I read the following paragraph on a bottle of extra virgin organic olive oil and resonated with it. The interconnectedness of everything that exists, is nicely put into these few words. Each sentence could be deliberated upon for a whole chapter. Yet what it all boils down to is, that we, each of us, do matter. The choices we make on a daily and even hourly basis do create ripple effects. We can either choose to work with nature and the planet or against it. We can choose to create a sustainable future or one of extinction. It’s all up to each one of us and the day-to-day choices we make. Here is what that label said:

“When you buy Organic Foods, you help keep the Earth’s air and water free from pesticides and chemical fertilizers. You help preserve a piece of the Earth’s past for future generations. You help support small entrepreneurial farmers who are committed to building the living soils of their farmland and the living souls of their employees. You help lay the groundwork for agricultural diversity that has always been the backbone of cultural individuality. You help make the commitment to renewal that sustains the Earth’s ability to nurture life. And you help others embrace the gratifying taste that can come not only from eating good foods, but also from doing good things. When you buy Organic Foods, you make a conscious choice to eat well and to treat the Earth well. Thank you for making that choice.”

www.napavalleynaturals.com

There is an ad in front of me that says: “The Gift They’ll Treasure This Holiday.” It has an image of the DVD Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man’s Chest. Underneath it says:”Grab it on DVD December 5″.

So today is the day. Run out there fellow bloggers and get that DVD.

Or maybe not so fast…Let’s see here, I am a big fan of Johnny Depp. I was absolutely enthralled by his master work performance, where he brought the amazing character of Captain Jack Sparrow to life. The first time I sat in the Theater and saw Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse of the Black Pearl, I amazed myself, because I had to laugh so many times. I was totally mesmerized whenever Captain Jack Sparrow showed up. He did touch something in my soul and yes I went back to the Theaters for more viewings of The Curse of the Black Pearl.

However, I would not do that for the sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man’s Chest. Naturally, I could not wait to see more of the adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow. Patiently I waited to see him on the big screen again. Johnny Depp as Semi-God for some indigenous people? Well, that certainly works for me. I would say I enjoyed the first quarter of the movie. The rest of it I spent between: “Okay I’ve seen enough. I want to leave now.” and the hope that it will get better and I can be brought to laughter by Johnny Depp’s character again. It did not happen, which wasn’t Johnny’s fault.

The movie makers played a little bit too much in the special effects department for my taste. I believe the huge success of Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse of the Black Pearl has first and foremost to do with the spirited character of Captain Jack Sparrow and the addition of a romantic love story, beautifully embodied by Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom. This first movie had soul. Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man’s Chest by comparison was disappointing and full of gore. My soul did not appreciate the time I spent sitting through the second Pirates of the Caribbean.

So there you have it. If you want to run out and buy me a gift, make it Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse of the Black Pearl. Or better yet, dress up as Captain Black Sparrow or any other pirate of your own making, make a video and send it to me. I would certainly enjoy that and who knows it might even make me laugh. Play and have fun, let your imagination soar.

The following is an excerpt of the book Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach:

“In order to know a semblance of serenity during the days of our lives, we also need to discover Time’s twin nature, which the ancient Greeks called chronos and kairos.

Chronos is clocks, deadlines, watches, calendars, agendas, planners, schedules, beepers. Chronos is time at her worst. Chronos keeps track. Chronos is a delusion of grandeur. Chronos is running the Marine Corps marathon in heels. In chronos we think only of ourselves. Chronos is the world’s time.

Kairos is transcendence, infinity, reverence, joy, passion, love, the Sacred. Kairos is intimacy with the Real. Kairos is time at her best. Kairos lets go. In kairos we escape the dungeon of self. Kairos is a Schubert waltz in nineteenth-century Vienna with your soul mate. Kairos is Soul’s time.

We exist in chronos. We long for kairos. That is our duality. Chronos requires speed so that it won’t be wasted. Kairos requires space so that it might be savored. We do in chronos. In kairos we are allowed to be.

We think we’ve never known kairos, but we have: when making love, when meditating or praying, when lost in music’s rapture or literature’s reverie, when planting bulbs or pulling weeds, when watching over a sleeping child, when reading the Sunday comics together in bed, when delighting in a sunset, when exulting in our passions. We know joy in kairos, glimpse beauty in kairos, remember what it means to be alive in kairos, reconnect with our Divinity in kairos.

So how do we exchange chronos for kairos?
- By slowing down
- By concentrating on one thing at a time
- By going about whatever we are doing as if it were the only thing worth doing at that moment.
- By pretending we have all the time in the world, so that our subconscious will kick in and make it so.
- By making time.
- By taking time.
- It only takes a moment to cross over from chronos into kairos, but it does take a moment.
All that kairos asks is our willingness to stop running long enough to hear the music of the spheres.
Today, be willing to join in the dance.
Now you’re in kairos.”

Hollywood is fueled by money. Let’s show Hollywood what we want to see more of and what we are definitely tired of. This is also a great place to share about movies that are independent and do things outside the box. Please share your insights and comments here.

There are so many books on self-help, religion, spirituality and philosophy out there, that cover aspects of the soul. Let’s create a directory of must-reads if you are serious about understanding and tending the soul. There will be excerpts of books as well which will shed light onto specific topics of soul tending.