Great Blue Heron Nourished from the Depths
Note: as I update today this post on WATER, the government has ended all protections and the EPA is basically destroyed. I cannot even keep up with the news.
Water as medicine? I hope I have simply explained the leading edge science of epigenetics earlier. No geneticist worth their salt would not use this new title. I have mentioned authors and videos elsewhere. At its simplest, epigenetics believes it offers an answer to the nature vs. nurture question and found it epigenetics to be both/and. That is, nature gives us chromosomes and thousands of genes and these genes can express for good or ill, depending on nature, the environment that cells (each a little self or consciousness to some scientists) as we live. This has huge implications on every part of our lives. As John Muir said:
Bottom line, as many spiritual teachings offer, everything connects to everything else, seen and unseen. How we act and interact with ourselves and all of nature literally, as quantum reality would attest, creates matter. So you, dear ones, have the power to create wellness or illness. It is your choice. About that free will thing…
We are all aware of the spoiling of water worldwide and as the video, I will post testifies and I learned from Canadian indigenous people, known as Bands, water, not oil will be our next wars. And we know of surpluses of water, toxic, of Flint, of hurricanes and how corporations like the Nestle corporation take and bottle water for free and even sit with other companies on the water boards of states. And we know the Dakota Pipeline and pipelines everywhere are being fought to protect water and that these pipelines often break, spoiling water for innumerable beings.
We are all taught to drink enough water but how many of us have really known it as sacred with the ability to create negative calming ions and oxytocin, the hormone of Motherlove?
Here is a lovely video I received recently and just had to share.
A quote from the film: “Nature is medicine – a walk on the beach; a surfing session; a stroll through the woods heals us. It fixes what broken inside of us. Nature can reduce our stress, it can make us more creative and bring us together.”
Upwellings is a natural occurrence in the ocean when the currents are just right, and many fish come to feed due to rich nutrients
Here is a post by a friend, Reverend Deborah Streeter, who has Upwellings Ministry as her life’s mission.
Reverend Streeter and kids at Monterey Bay Aquarium 2016
V for Peace
“We come in peace,” said the teacher, making her fingers into a V for her young students as they approached the Touch Pool. “Use just two fingers to touch the animals.”
This week during my guide shift at the Monterey Bay Aquarium I got a brief reprieve from my post-election despair. For my half hour at the Touch Pool, I could set aside my fear for our nation and instead help little kids touch sea stars and decorator crabs. Good therapy, to see so much hope and smiles and curiosity. “Are they real? Are they alive?” the kids asked. Happy proud parent chaperones shared in the delight and the touching. (MBA welcomes 80,000 school kids free each year, building a new generation of ocean stewards.)
How should we touch other real live animals? If you’ve seen the terrifying touch pool scene in “Finding Dory” you know that touching with one finger encourages dangerous poking and that using your whole hand can quickly do even more damage; detaching or lifting the critter out of its life-giving water home. No, the best way is with the gentle V, two fingers and let them be where they are.
A life lesson? A touch pool gospel? Touch others only gently, where they are, no poking, no grabbing.
And touch others in peace.
(I heard that teacher’s words, “We come in peace,” years ago, and I use the phrase with kids every Thursday. Only today did I research the phrase and the V sign. Nixon used Churchill’s V for Victory sign during Vietnam, and at his resignation, but 60’s peace activists (like me) successfully co-opted it into a peace sign. Is it also related to the Vulcan double V “Live long and prosper” – which we know from Nimoy, is a religious gesture? How about the phrase “We come in peace?” That’s usually said by movie aliens who are anything but peaceful. Are kids like aliens to the touch pool critters? Perhaps. Was the teacher an old hippie, or maybe a Trekkie? Whatever, the sentiment and the sign work – peace to all creation.)
Over the years the Aquarium has built lower exhibits to encourage interaction and to help “tactile learners” make more connections. Instead of distant objectification, we can touch, relate, engage.
But only if we do so gently, in peace, with respect. I’m hoping these kids grow up to build that kind of world. And vote for it. That would be a big V victory.”
I hope this has helped remind us all the inter-connectedness of all. Pay attention and take your water as a sacrament. Share water; love each other.
Read this post and consider your relationships to water and how we know that it is beyond precious: it is essential medicine. Lastly, I post a meme based on the words of Freeman House who was able to inspire his community to save the salmon in N. CA.
Comments are invited. Much to learn here. Think I will go drink some water, water a plant and take a swim.
my best investment of time and a little money; a meditation cushion
Note: this is being updated in the wake of another school shooting. As we now know the young man was on psychiatric drugs, I dare to say here, that if he had learned some of the things I report, he may not have acted out. Some believe brain chemistry begins to change within 6 weeks of regular mediation and non-GMO food. And of course a lot of love and support. I believe youth will not be living the driven lifestyles of especially their absent fathers. I recently introduced a Native youth to some of this and he was excited to have a way to deal with what he called his “upsets.” He was open to MEDITATION. Social justice and the high cost of all medical care upsets me greatly. Many naturopaths and functional doctors are millionaires now and out of reach for most of us. I was made genetically ill probably by black mold and by the psych drugs I naively accepted psychiatric medications to “deal with” cancer first by a private oncologist, and then by a poor people’s clinic.
I did not respond; we tried more and more and I was getting more depressed and had serious reactions that I eventually researched myself and stopped some.
It was not until I got to our wonderful local hospital with Obamacare on its first day. I was offered a new psychiatrist who I was told uses food. As a highly educated researcher, I said sign me up. Within three sessions, hearing of my declining health, he had me tested for MTHFR, which causes cancer, mental illness, and heart disease. I have the most sensitive form and we have, some say a 70% reduced ability to detox so all the meds and the fillers were literally lethal for me.
My epigenetic list of no Rx is huge. And as a doctor’s daughter, I grew up on antibiotics, some of which are now labeled black box by the FDA, largely through the testimony of the severely disabled as they cause muscle wasting. Some have died and I am privileged to know many in that community that testified.
I easily got off all meds, inherited a little money and was able to hire a genetic nutritionist who also has MTHFR. With a lot of work and dedication, I got in great shape and felt better than I had in the 7 years since cancer. I will always be grateful for my doctor at the Community Hospital of Monterey Peninsula. He literally saved my life. They have recently become MONTAGE and as always, appears to be doing great things. It is a privilege to be treated there.
Now genetics has become epigenetics and so I became somewhat of an expert in that and have advised many. We know that STRESS and INFLAMMATION are two of the main causes of disease. This means that much of what we suffer can be handled via lifestyle. I am blessed to have generally the will and now a worldwide community to keep me relatively healthy. And much of natural health is being used in traditional medicine, such as with diabetes. Time Magazine made a cover issue in 2010 about how our DNA is not our destiny. Our quality of life is what matters.
The big news now in epigenetics, which I now call native wisdom, is that more and more are being healed via energy medicine, especially meditation and frequencies. Books are being written and doctors who started as neurologists and biologists are now millionaire meditation teachers. Back to my complaint about the social justice issues in wellness. Everyone could and should have a meditation practice. And this is now all extensively evidence-based.
Here is a paper on DNA changes due to meditation:
I am a long time meditator, over 30 years in many schools, mostly Buddhist and specifically Zen so I feel well able to report here to you. You are welcome to email me for more guidance. I will share several here.
Several months ago in a time of high stress, after I had lost my home and my many meditation cushions were put in storage, I took a risk and invested in the organic Buckwheat Hull Zafu you see above. And I began a trauma workshop thinking I had an illness that needed therapy but a couple of things made me change my mind, I left the trauma group and re-committed to meditation. I made sure I had the Insight Timer app on my phone.
Using the app, I let my intuition lead me to a meditation by Shakti Sutriasa, for prosperity and soon found myself looking up her blog and trying some of her processes. I fell upon a process to try 40 days of mantra, a chanted meditation, and I dove in. At the same time, I found very positive and uplifting meditations of Abraham Hicks, a channeled entity who has over 1k videos, all free, on YouTube and teaches that JOY is our natural inheritance. Only Thich Naht Hahn who I got to spend off-season time in France, told us to only mediate if we can smile.
Many meditation teachers all assume we feel and know our true natural goodness. But especially in the West where severe trauma is rampant, students often absolutely feel no sense of self nor sense of right to live. This is no joke. An old story that made the rounds tells of the Dali Lama being amazed that there might be such a thing as low self-esteem. I decided I would allow myself to move towards life-affirming teachers and I am totally pleased I have. Since my 40 days of mantras, I wrote a book and began this blog after feeling all my life I was not an artist I now feel I am. I feel I have found my calling and that is to inspire. So let’s go.
You can find many videos on YouTube about this phenomenon. I like this one as it speaks to skeptics about it being a method of control. GET THIS CLEARLY: Meditation and the mindfulness that emerges are about self-control and mind training, not religion nor control by others although corrupt teachers have taken advantage of students (and I have true stories I can tell). Enjoy this very well done video, great for naysayers.
There are a great many meditations that quiet the mind through movement. We are all aware of yoga. Whirling is one I have done and it is amazing. It is from the Sufi Tradition of Islam.
I developed my mantra practice based on a combination of several traditions, and doing the mantra 108 times as is traditional in several religions. Lest Christians feel left out here, realize that many Christians practice especially Buddhist meditation, which often includes chanting. Thomas Merton was probably one of the most famous Catholics to explore meditation. It is common to meet nuns at retreats and my last Zen group had an Episcopal minister as a member; we met in his church. I say all this because I am about to post one of my most favorite chants, by Epic Choir. I can find no information on them but they look Christian to me! Enjoy!
As I have mentioned, almost all geneticists are now epigeneticists as it is verifiable that cellular healing and harm impact DNA. When we choose non-gmo, dairy free, folic acid-free, fresh foods, low or no carbohydrate, and meditate to reduce stress we are epigenetically impacting our cells. Two leaders in the field are both MDs of high standing: Bruce Lipton and Joe Dispenza. You can meet with both on FaceBook. Here is a brief Lipton talk:
I cannot end this post without mentioning the practice of sacred dialogue. The author of The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram, told me personally to always speak as if in prayer. Whenever any of nature catches your awe, you are being contacted by the greater field of consciousness in my view. My mentor, John Heron, and his partner Peter Reason developed practices based on a Participatory Paradigm.
I am devoted to John Heron’s process of Co-operative Inquiry. Heron’s Feeling and Personhood: Psychology in Another Key has face to face practices in each chapter. And perhaps the originator of the concept of sacred dialogue is Martin Buber. His I and Thou changed my life and I suggest it is one of the best natural anti-depressants you will find.
I hope that this has demonstrated two things: that healing can occur through meditation and that much of what you have learned here is free or inexpensive.
Namaste and Gassho
(a deep bow to the Spirit in Us)
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