water wisdom

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waterworks...

woah, it's hot! 103 boiling hot degrees in NYC..
i have found my weather, now where's my water?

 it's the high tide of the water debate not that i am an authority mind you but i am dabbling in all the confusion swirling around this essential liquid life that most of us including myself, don't drink nearly enough of.

i have had to surrender to the toilette as an hourly ritual while drowning in the prescribed 8 -10 glasses of water a day not to mention my nocturnal habit of sleep interruptus to manage the tank levels. this alone has dampened my efforts countless times but now, i must simply acquiesce.

the dehydrated person, like a dry plant will lose water faster until they begin to hydrate on a cellular level, not an overnight sensation unfortunately.. but gradually over time, i am told and am steeped in believing that i will have time for other rooms in my house and other more worldly pursuits. and on another positive note, my bathrooms are taking on a more decorated appeal as i increase the time that i spend there.. it is also terrific that i keep my toilets so squeaky clean. who knew that with a little ( ok, alot ) of elbow grease those calcified water lines wash away! excuse the pun but like the rest of my family, i am becoming terribly anal!

those of us with our own wells have one set of problems and those of you with city/town water have another.. that is where you begin. a water test is important to assess your well water and i think we all know what our local governments do to the water supply.. whatever your issue, ingesting chlorine, flouride, too many minerals, not enough, fecal matter, pharmaceuticals and pesticides is NOT acceptable.
unless you live in pristine parts of the world like the alaskan tundra or isbre, norway, some say the world's purest glacial water, you need to filter your water! the alternative, of course, is bottled water and we also know how counter intuitive that is from a ecological standpoint and poisoning ourselves with bisphenol aka BPA, an endocrine disrupter, is none too wise.

so what is a dehydrated planet to do?

water softeners, water conditioners, water filters, ultra violet water purifiers, reverse osmosis, distillers, ionizers.. the water industry is teeming with choices!

it's much too hot and much too deep a subject to wade through so feel free to become fluent yourselves. this is a highly personal voyage that we each have to embark on based on our individual living situations.

immersed in pure water and an affusion of super foods, you are likely to be baptized brand new so irrigate your mind in this aquatic subject and take the plunge! i am adding an addendum called water wisdom which is forthcoming but in the meantime,  helpful articles to dive into and part 2: super foods below..

http://www.ionizersreviewed.com/seeing_believing.php
http://waterfilters.mercola.com/products/drinkingwaterfilters.aspx
http://www.aliveraw.com/articles/the-truth-about-water.aspx

the unexamined life

 "the unexamined life is not worth living"  socrates

sounds terribly serious for a short post on the first day of summer..

i for one am delirious with joy today for it is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, weather and light to really live by!  mother nature is beckoning us to rejoice in her beauty and rising mercury. our gardens are brimming with ripening fruits and vegetables and we are wearing comfortable summer clothes! whatever you are or aren't doing, get outdoors, take off your shoes and/or your summer clothes, gaze up at the warm sun, breathe deeply and be happy to be alive.

'tis but a brief examination of the surface of things.. a DUH kind of approach to what might make some of us brim with excitement but that supposes that all else is in good order. what difference does it make what the weather is doing if we are stressed out or infirm, worrying about the war(s), the oil spill, the economy?

i propose that a wee dose of "self"ishness once in awhile is

mandatory.. especially today.. so whatever it is that you really want to do, start planning it today.. take time for pleasure, what a tonic! life is short! summer is even shorter but today is long!

the embedded reading material is the first of eight, this one is called lifestyle.. what is yours? it just might be worth examining! (click on image to enlarge)

springing into summer, dash out to your nearest asian market or well stocked health food store and pick up some spring roll skins and gift wrap your favorite greens and veges in an exquisitely, transparent and edible light meal or appetizer. here is my version:

follow package directions for the skins.. don't let them get too wet or they will be difficult to handle.        

and depending on how many you want to make, increase your ingredients to accommodate the amount.

SPRING ROLLS 

                                                           

arugula

napa cabbage                                                            

shredded carrot                                                             

peeled cucumber in strips                                                              

red bell pepper strips                                                           

avocado slices                                                               

sprouts                                                            

                                                           

assemble ingredients in the center of spring roll. fold in sides and roll up being careful not to break through the delicate rice membrane as you roll. it will self seal. they should be about 2 1/2 to 3 inches in diameter.

DIPPING SAUCE                         

1/4 cup maple syrup                                                           

2 t dijon style mustard

2 t rice vinegar                                                          

2 T olive oil

1 T  sesame oil                                                             

1 T minced ginger                                                            

juice from 1/2 juice orange                                                            

1/4 cup fresh lime juice                                                             

1 T braggs amino acids or nama shoyu                                                           

                                                                                                                               

combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl, whisk and serve.

the missing manual

what if when we were born, we came with an instructional manual for optimal performance just like a flat screen TV or a juicer.. has anyone written this important how to guide? do we target children or their parents? yes, both!

since my "rebirth", i have read many excellent books by doctors, scientists, health care professionals,  and assorted gurus on proper nutrition,  exercise and spirituality but mostly, they target the mature, already flagging audience that is fed up or sick and looking for a different approach to wellness. no matter how we have erred at the art of living, we are all born with an innate inner guidance system that, provided we are not insane or on life support, is always poised to be heard and implemented. we just have to learn to listen to it before we are in the grip of disease, depression or debt. this is a very tall order given how most of us come into the world and cycle through our lives. small children are fearless and wise, intuitive and playful.  in most cases they have excellent health and their bodies are not yet traumatized by poor eating habits and psychological damage. they are too immature to actively seek to perpetuate this stream of wellness and then life happens. we want to believe what we are taught, we begin to lose ourselves to the collective wisdom which i propose is down right hazardous to our health.

there is a glut of books on baby care, nutrition,  techniques for insuring well behaved children and even yoga for kids but no where that i can see do we have the "de facto" guide on exactly how the body works and why whole organic living foods are the only way to optimum health well into our twilight years, how to be of service to others instead of self serving, how to manage your money, when to work and when not to, how to be in relationships from sharing your toys to sharing your bed and maybe most importantly, how not to accept blithely, information from authority figures, our government, the medical establishment, the educational system, organized religion and anyone else who is lording over our minds and our futures. yes indeed we need to learn to read and write but all of the aforementioned, essential and practical knowledge is in my opinion, equally significant, no.. critical to the eventual adult that we all, like it or not, become.  if someone really taught this to me when i was a child, i may not have veered off into drug and alcohol use thinking it my right of passage. like drilling for oil, there can be a point of no return and then combustion! ( a blatant barb directed at BP and transocean.. ) our sugar culture is another early childhood trap that together with the advent of baby formula, insures we all become addicted to it the minute the breast is tucked back into it's reinforcements if used at all. our parents unwittingly pass on their fears and learned behaviors. we all know now that our text books are written with selective memory and omission and somehow, despite having brothers and sisters and living among our human family, we grow up thinking only about me, me, me! we are not very skilled in the art of love and relationship. we baby boomers were raised during the advent of epic global divorce .. some of you are probably saying harumph! i am a shining example of brotherly love, charity and wisdom and i have no doubt that some of you are.. thankfully, we have many great and heroic models to exalt and hold up as a testament to humanity but let's face it, most of us need help! do you remember wavy gravy, the 60's clown prince of counter culture.. some say the love child of harpo marx and mother teresa? i am reminded of one of his most revered quips, " we are all bozos on this bus so we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride" this suggests we couldn't possibly take a different approach to our lives so wait out your fate with a smile... hmmm, let's think way outside of this box, shall we? there could be a systematic approach to creating whole, healthy, happy and brilliant little beings one after the other. imagine how our world could change and how long we could live in healthy minds and bodies, a real utopia! i know i am flaunting an idealist view but if we can imagine it, we can manifest it.

so will someone please cull together all the principles of love, life, peace, health, nutrition, service, sacrifice, faith, wisdom and honor and write the damn book already?? if we start now, we could have it ready in time for our children's children. i am willing to tackle the children's book if someone out there can take on the grown ups.. wavy gravy, if your listening,  i know we would pay very close attention to a chapter devoted to your unique and now ripe with age philosophy. everybody's got to get on board the new bus!

this post inspired by my friend, joy gross, an ageless 80 something model of health and wellness currently writing her own chapter for this tome of truth.

heavenly highs

what's a wine swilling, meat eating, sugar addicted, fifty something, single girl to do when she can't play with her best friends any more? this has perhaps been the most challenging part of operation "clean up". who has this kind of discipline? i wasn't raised with discipline after my strict naval father passed away. i was only twelve when he set sail and he scared me so much that it took at least a year to find my stride again.


i got started early with the usual line up of gateway essentials.. cigarettes from france with fancy gold filters, i thought they would get me high if i rerolled them in groovy tatooed rolling papers.. coming of age in the 60's and 70's, this was a perfectly normal assumption. i even tried oregano and dill, spices from mother's kitchen that had that "look alike" quality.  dissatisfied, i moved swiftly on to the real thing. i found myself in woodstock at the tender age of eleven with my best friends gettin' high with their hippie mother, she was my idol! drinking followed shortly thereafter, a natural segue since all of our parents were alcoholics and booz was more plentiful than tap water. in fact at our house, i am pretty sure it did come out of the tap. i liked mine good and sweet, daiquiris were my specialty. i even brought my blender to boarding school and found plenty of occasions to use it. ahh, the good ol' days..

needless to say, my bad habits continued through my teens, into motherhood and beyond. it only took 39 years for my body to devolve into a vortex of system failure. lyme disease didn't do me any favors but if i had taken better care of the temple, the termites may not have gotten a foothold. and i didn't have the best attitude either if you must know.. that mind body connection was severed early on, a birth defect i guess.. i was hard wired for fun first and for me and my tribe, pleasure seeking was a serious way of life.

imagine the indignation of having to part company with my bad habits? by now, i really only had one. SUGAR, which of course included high end oaky chardonnay and big luscious reds, Mmmm. i still salivate when i recall the mouth feel and the heady high but it is now my work, with a vastly improved body, to find more wholesome highs. to my delight and surprise, they are in abundance.

in case any of you need a refresher, here's a partial list:

1. getting up in the am clear headed and refreshed.
2. exercise. i almost forgot how but thankfully, my body did not.
3. life giving and healing food, it's so much better than D.O.A
4. chewing your food. really chewing.
5. performing "hurricane katrina like" evacuations daily
6. having the time and energy to play with your pets.
7. downloading new music from itunes, i have been living in the musical dark ages

8. cleaning my windows..  amazing view, dim visibility
9. SPRINGTIME!
10. barefoot. take off your shoes people! they are cutting us off from earth's energy. if you want a quick jolt of life force, don't delay!
11. discovering that you are a woman still ( or a man ) having sex, more sex, glorious sex!!
12. young thai coconuts
13. divine chocolate mousse, see recipe below...

2 ripe avocados
1/4 cup maple syrup
 a few chopped dates or 1-2 tbls raw sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tbls raw cacao powder
1-2 teas vanilla
1/3 cup water
2 tbls coconut butter optional ( makes it richer and thicker )
all ingredients can be altered to your preferences

put all ingredients except the cacao into a vita mix or food processor
add cacao when blended
set in fridge or freeze for a really good time!

to be or not to be

is that really the question?

dear hamlet,

to be or not to be is a moot, existential point if your "kool aid" is causing this vexing psychological inquisition. you, kind sir, have enough problems on your hands with murder, ghostly apparitions and madness, real and imagined to be seeking proof of your existence. at least in your century, your poisons were distinctly separate from your balms.. in ours, were told that poison will heal us..

if you grew up anything like me in the 20th century, your parents, through no fault of their own, taught you that doctors and pharmacies are the places we go when we are sick. and like our parents, i passed this along to my own children who thankfully have had little in the way of illness or madness. i would however, characterize it madness to inject their tender hydes with vaccine after vaccine to allegedly protect them from the virulent diseases that hardly exist anymore (hello immune system!) and so begins a lifelong dependency on the good doctor who belies the hippocratic oath with each scribbled scrip and the all important health insurance whose premiums are tantamount to your mortgage payment. but unlike your castle, your monthly offering to the health insurance industry, leaves you out in the cold. peace of mind is an illusion here and the piece of my mind that i would like to share with the medical establishment is that they have just lost another customer. the irony is, that aside from drinking poison or being blindsided by a city bus, i no longer have any use for the soon to be mandated health care system. it doesn't cover my chosen health care program. the drug industry absolutely does not want you to know that healing foods, herbs and whole food supplements would make their pharmaceuticals obsolete. think of the fallen heroes and fortunes lost, it makes me giddy with delight! sucker turned seeker, i crossed over to the other side and the street ( looked both ways ) and found everything an over treated and under nourished person could want at my local health food store.



as is evident in this cartoon,  there are two very different sorts of people who inhabit these places. now that my food is my medicine, i never go to the drug store anymore. which group would you rather belong to? it certainly is telling that we have to spell out the h-e-a-l-t-h  f-o-o-d store to distinguish it from the other variety. remember when the pharmacy was known as the d-r-u-g  s-t-o-r-e? but to make it sound more ambiguous, they renamed it the pharmacy. another salient question might be.. why are chemicals assumed safe until proven dangerous while nutrients and healthy lifestyle choices are assumed useless until proven effective? like hamlet and his ilk, we have really lost our minds but the really, really good news is that one by one, we are awakening to the natural order, healing plants and age old wisdom. we have managed to survive the shakespearian era, the industrial age and so far, global warming and unlike the tragic heroes of literature, our own human failings, greed, ego, power and deception have not yet done us in so let's beg the question before it is too late.. to see or not to see then we can talk about being, our well being that is!

check out this article titled:  "good health is no accident"

http:/www.naturalnews.com/028647_health_literacy.html

grazing in the grass

one third of the earth's surface is grass. it's a global obsession for many. we grow it, mow it, admire it but not too many of us eat it. history tells us grass has been around long before mankind. there are over 9,000 different species of it. countless animals survive on it yet it wasn't until 1940 that we figured out just how nutritious it was and developed it for human consumption. i must admit, i have always wondered how blades of ordinary grass could possibly sustain so many of the enormous muscle bound animals who graze on it.

i never had a single good reason to try wheatgrass despite knowing about it's long reported health benefits.. i "was" healthy and planned on staying that way and besides, i had heard, in whisper tones, about the way it tasted so it was never going to be on my to do list, ever! i laugh now at how this promise to myself has backfired. and yes, the reports were correct, wheatgrass is cloyingly sweet and can cause the gag reflex. it is not ever going to taste good no matter how you disguise it but since the prescribed daily amount is only 2 oz twice a day, i have yielded to the old adage that medicine is not supposed to taste good and that it's benefits far outweigh it's palatability. don't be fooled by the attractive glass and pretty color!

i can credit wheatgrass, above all else, for returning a homeostasis in my body. it took all of three weeks to notice changes especially to my skin. i unwittingly conducted an experiment that proved wheatgrass was, in fact, a miracle cure. before i started growing it, wheatgrass was often difficult to find and in a short while i would have a return of symptoms. this happened three times until i figured out that it always came on the heels of missing my daily shots.



i have still not mastered the growing process but believe me, i will. i am highly motivated due to the expensive price per oz. at the local health food stores. i am including a rather self aggrandizing photo of one of my more successful batches of grass to impress you. when i can do this with my eyes closed, i will be quite smitten with myself!

i tell you this so that you will consider discarding the panoply of store bought and doctor prescribed cures in your medicine cabinet. wheatgrass is a cure for everything, one size fits all. realistically, i don't expect too many of you to actually take my advice but if i can plant the seed, you might allow it to grow into a healthy solution when next you need one!