Holistic Living

 “We sit by the fire and speak softly,

While the wind blows, and the rain
Lashes against the windows
The lights flicker and are gone,
The storm grows worse….
We sit quietly watching the fire,
It hisses as the rain comes down the chimney,
The lights come back,
The storm grows worse.
The wind whirls around the roof….
Daylight comes, the clouds are gone.
The sun is shining.”
Hurricane Bob, by Mary Hoxie Jones, 1991; in
Tracing the Rainbow, Manchester Ctr, VT, 1995.

Adding fiber- and flavor-rich fresh veggies lets you enjoy favorite foods, while educating your family's palates and habits towards healthier fare.

This month, families are encouraged to implement healthier eating habits. "Eat more fresh vegetables," has become an organizing focus for me to keep upgrading my nutrition. Eating more vegetables will unequivocally boost your family's nutrition. Here are some ideas to inspire your journey towards a healthier lifestyle and a more attractive physique.

Rubbing, scrubbing, scratching, brushing, petting, patting your dog, cat, hamster, horse, sheep, parakeet, cockatiel, chicken, iguana, snake or turtle is a feel good time for both of you. Beyond that, much has been researched and published about therapeutic benefits interacting with a "companion animal."

I've felt exhilarated swimming with a dolphin holding its dorsal fin at a Key Largo rescue center, observed the deLIGHTING of nursing home residents and staff when pets visited, and have seen physically challenged children transform astride a gentle horse.

Winter dehydration has greater consequences than just dry skin. It may also be the source of your seasonal blues and flues.   

“Drink at least one quart of pure water a day” was one of the first self-health assignments for students in my holistic practitioner classes.  Over 30 years and more than 12,000 reports from 600 students, along with my professional observations, and I can say quite confidently that drinking pure water has miraculous healing effect.

Our month of May gleams with renewal.  Fluorescent green continues to sprout from rich, dark earth after a restful winter and chilly spring.   Flowers blossom little and large, brilliant and aromatic to seduce pollinating insects—an ingenious strategy to enhance a future for all of us.  What a spectacle.   Do you ever marvel at Nature’s seasonal cycles of soughing off the old for the new to emerge?  I’ve witnessed this spring rebirth 64 times, and continue to be delighted with surprises brand new to my awareness.

Spring into joyful celebration of change.

What an exciting season.  Mother Nature dazzles every one of my senses in Her spectacular performance of rebirth and renewal.  Last month’s little green nubs are today’s kaleidoscopic tulips and golden daffodils.  The delicious aroma of freshly mowed grass inspires me to pause for some really deep breaths.  Barefoot stepping over lush, cool moss not only delights my feet, but also brightens my already good mood.  Songbirds serenade me into wakefulness each morning like those endearing opening scenes of Walt Disney’s Cinderella.  The exquisite taste and crunchy texture of the first fresh-picked asparagus from the garden is irresistible.   

Whether you’re among the 86% of polled Americans who favor retaining “In God We Trust” on currency, or the 14% that want it deleted, here’s some down to earth encouragement to get help for living well from a powerful higher resource.  Whether you are religious, agnostic or atheist, believing in and utilizing some power greater than one’s mortal self is a topic worth exploration during these challenging times.  It’s an enduring investment with guaranteed dividends.

      Celebrate! Maintaining Health and Weight
 
      Balancing feasting with fasting is my secret for ebulliently enjoying holiday festivities to the max.  (I’ve heard, however, there are more restrained levels of holiday enjoyment.  Choose what suits you.) Yes, I can party hearty with a free conscience and keep my svelte physique.  And you can, too.  Here are the details for you to emulate or adapt respecting your personal physical condition to boost your holiday pleasure without diminishing your health or adding inches to your waistline.

Touch + Intention + Attention = Healing

You have used your hands for a myriad of tasks today, but most likely none of them have involved healing.  That’s about to change.  It is both simple and easy to transmit healing energy using the very hands that zip up your jacket, open doors, hold a phone or hand over a credit card.  

Touch is a powerful catalyst for healing energy. 

Put this magazine down for a minute, and place your palms and fingers lightly together in the classic prayer position ~ not to pray, but just to feel.  Focus on their temperature for a moment.  Relax a bit.  Maybe take a satisfyingly full breath.  Be present with your experience.  Is there even the slightest shift in temperature?  Now concentrate on sensations shared by those hands.  A slight pulsation perhaps.  Any buzzing, humming or prickles?  Be patient.  Pay attention.

“We urgently need to find practical ways of reestablishing our conscious sense of connection with living nature.”  RUPERT SHELDRAKE, one of the world’s foremost biologists

Tending a simple little plant can be a doorway to enchantment in your everyday life.  Nature’s rhythmical entrance into the season of rebirth is a perfect time to align with the physical and mystical energies of rejuvenation.  Whatever state you may perceive your life to be in right now, you can experience the thrill of a new beginning just by tending a new, simple little plant.  Synchronize with natural forces and proceed without doing any research.  Just follow your intuition.