blessing my home

So last Wednesday we had parent teacher confs. It didn't go too great, and when we got home there was a big fight. I have been feeling stressed at home too,  and thought 'I am gonna bless my house'.  Luckily I had the incense already. So the next nite after work I had the house to myself (this made it even better 4 me).  I put on a spiritual CD, opened all the windows & lit candles in every room. 

Anyone can bless their home & the benefit can be felt right after - ahhhhhh.  Blessings get rid of any negativity & replace bad energy with good energy.  It adds peace to your home & can be used to clear the air after an argument, etc.  You will need: sage weed (insence), a bowl of water & candles.  Start at 1 end of the home & work down...take a bowl of water into the room & open the window.  Light the insence, hold it high in the air (the bowl is to catch any ashes) & state your intention - ie: "I would like this house to be blessed in the name of (insert your fave God, Buddah, Mary, Rabbi)"  Walk in a circle, guiding the smoke wall to wall.  Do this in each room...and at the end thank your spiritual person.  

Blessing to you and Happy Thanksgiving!

this is NICE.

OK, haven't posted in awhile, but I found

something so great, I am putting it out there to share. 

It is a simple lesson that I want to 'practice' and a choice I want to make to be 'happier'. It's by my friend Elise, who is my feng sui girl, and has a great website www.inspiredbalance.net. The photo is by my son, and reminds me of fall-my fave month.

"I am sitting near my kitchen window looking outside at the beautiful carpet of fallen leaves on the grass.  Sure, I could suck the joy out of this moment by thinking about how I should probably rake them up.  Or, I could just enjoy their beauty.  It's up to me how I want to think about these leaves outside.  Should I categorize this as an incomplete to-do list item causing stress or as a carpet of leaves to walk on and enjoy just like when I got married and walked on rose-petals?  It is up to me, and I bet you know how I am going to think about them!

The same is true of things that have happened in the past.  How we choose to think about them is up to us, and we can change it if we don't like it.  I was fired from my job while pregnant with my son, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.  I have completely re-written how I think about that event and changed it into on of the defining and empowering moments of my life".  -ER

meditation

So it’s Sat and pouring outside.  I had signed up for a FREE ‘yoga/meditation’ class at the library. As always with me, I get there 5-10 min. late.  I rush into the little meeting room and there is the Indian teacher and 1 older lady (Luanne).  My  first thought is “oh man, this is gonna be weird”  So the lady is dressed in reg clothes and I’m standing there wet with my yoga mat and say “ oh, is there a yoga class?”  Nope, the library had the flyer wrong…it’s just gonna be a breathing and meditation lecture.   Again, I am thinking…oyyyyyyyyyy.  Partly because it is just me and the 1 lady, and it’s very quiet in there…..

But, I loved it (so did Luanne).  This guy was a such a simple speaker, very easy to understand and just mesmerizing to listen to.  Then he taught us an amazing breathing technique & we did 20 minutes of meditation (with a CD) The only thing I didn’t like was there was no backgrd music.  You know, that relaxing yoga music,  but that was minor!  My fave parts of the class were simple & basic:

Yoga + meditation = a lifestyle

The present moment is the only truth

We have so much guilt for past events & so much fear and anxiety for future events. This = STRESS…our minds are constantly going between the past and future. We must calm our minds by meditation and breath to balance these fears and live  more happily in the present.

Discover YOU are peace.

What is Acupuncture?

Acupuncture is an ancient practice where very fine needles are inserted into the skin at specific points on your body to relieve pain & treat disease. The Chinese developed acupuncture centuries ago according to the theory that energy flows through channels between your bodys surface and your internal organs.  Pain and disease are the result of these channels becoming blocked.  By placing needles at one end of the channel or the other, healthy energy can be restored.  This stimulates chi, your body’s energy flow (pronounced “chee”). By balancing and redirecting your chi, an acupuncture practitioner encourages the body’s natural capacity for self-healing. In turn, this improves the way the body functions. 

An acupuncturist views health and sickness on these concepts: 

• Vital Energy 

• Energetic Balance

• Energetic Imbalance  

Just as the Western medical doctor monitors the blood flowing through blood vessels and the messages traveling via the nervous system, the acupuncturist assesses the flow and distribution of this "Vital Energy" within its pathways, known as "meridians and channels".

In 1995, the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) classified acupuncture needles as medical instruments and assured their safety and effectiveness. The medical community for the most part now accepts acupuncture and a growing number of medical schools include acupuncture training in their curriculum. 

Acupuncture treatment is included in many Insurance plans. It is a sure sign of acupuncture's acceptance into the mainstream. It is also an indicator of its success.

Acupuncture is also completely safe and effective for children.  

BOOK- Many Lives, Many Masters

A good friend whose baby died gave me this to read, it was an amazing book.  Very encouraging to see a serious scientist open his mind to faith without proof. He was never previously religious or into psychic stuff (nor was the patient). He recorded everything & his wife (also a Dr) came into many of the visits, too. The things this girl talked about in her 'past lives' she NEVER could have known.  He risked his career writing this book, as he could have been looked at as 'crazy'

In 1980, Brian Weiss, head of the psychiatry department at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, began treating Catherine, a 

27-year-old woman plagued by anxiety, depression and phobias. When Weiss turned to hypnosis to help Catherine remember repressed childhood traumas, what emerged were the patient's descriptions of a dozen or so of her unknown 86 past lives, as well as philosophical messages channeled from "Master Spirits." (*these spirits gave specific messages about Weiss' dead son as well as Weiss's mission in life-that Catehrine would NEVER had known*) Catherine's anxieties and phobias soon disappeared, says Weiss, and she was able to end therapy. The previously nonspiritual, scientific Weiss, awed by Catherine's and the masters' revelations, has written this book to share his new-found knowledge about "immortality and the true meaning of life." 

SMILE (and floss!)

WOW, getting healthy thru our feet, our hands, our ears and now our TEETH!

I luv my dentist’s philosophy: “imagine washing your hair WITHOUT shampoo - you wet it, but don’t use shampoo...that is how brushing w/out flossing is.”   ohhhhhh

My FAVE place to floss is - in the CAR!  yep...sitting in traffic, or at a light.  You DON’’T have to be standing in front of the mirror .... so, get creative cause studies have shown that flossing ‘helps’ prevent cancer, heart disease, strokes and diabetes!  Another bonus is the obvious...less cavities and less time & money spent at the dentist!   I’ll take that!

The culprit is the bacteria.  Read a bit more below, and if you want more info, dial up the infamous GOOGLE.

Plaque builds up on your teeth. The plaque forms tartar, which can only be removed by a dentist or dental hygienist. The plaque and tartar provide a nice home to BACTERIA which can cause gums to become infected. Infected gums release pro-inflammatory agents into the bloodstream which can carry them to other organs of the body.

Inflammation can give rise to cancer. They're still working on the links there, but researchers are sure that the link exists. A fairly solid link to pancreatic cancer in men has already been established. As far as heart disease is concerned, the bacteria related to periodontal (gum) disease, being inflammatory in nature, can stimulate the immune system. A result is atherosclerosis, i.e. a formation of deposits within the body, which can lead to heart attacks, strokes, and similar damaging episodes in other organs.

Ahhh, Religion. What a spiritual yet contraversial subject - all based on what your personal faith is (or isn’t).   Me, I am a believer in God and a Catholic who adores the blessed Virgin Mary.  *NOT worships Mary ABOVE God - as many non-Catholics untruly ‘claim’ that we do*  (sorry just clarifying here, since this particular comment hits home with me!)   I also love the whole principal of Buddism, a very peaceful and NON judgemental way of spirituality.  Their belief is simple - lead a moral life, be mindful and aware of your thoughts and actions,  develop wisdom and understanding.  Now how lovely is THAT!!  They are also tolerant of all other beliefs & religions, and they don’t try to covert people...like some of those religous zealots who “know it all” and think ‘their way is the ONLY way.’  I believe in faith (as well as past lives) & beleive that not everything can be explained by science....there are mysteries in this world & some things just don’t have an answer.  Anyway, the following is a great article on GOD by mind-body-consciousness expert Deepok Chopra, who debates the book “The God Delusion” 

by Richard Dawkins, an athiest.  

Peace, Love & Namaste.  Lisa

Recently there has been alot of books about God from scientists responding to the debate over intelligent design. These books raise a chorus of skepticism that God exists, most in no uncertain terms. SCIENCE stands for rational thought - FAITH for superstition & unreason. 

Dawkins has written extensively on evolution, holds a chair at Oxford, and speaks out loudly against any possibility that God is real. He makes many points to support his claim that religion is nonsense and that there isn't the slightest shred of rational proof for God, miracles, the soul, etc. Since this is such an important issue, I (DC) want to argue against in some detail. 

"Science is the only valid way to gain knowledge. Nothing about God is needed to explain the world. Eventually science will uncover all mysteries;  those that it can't explain don't exist. "

This is the bedrock of Dawkins' argument, as it is of most skeptics and scientific atheists. In his new book Dawkins expresses his position with deep disdain for those who disagree, and his poisonous tone weakens his argument. Yet there's no doubt that with current advances in genetics and brain research, scientists have more confidence than ever that mysteries are being unraveled as never before. By the same token, something as primitive as faith in God looks more and more pointless and misguided. At best God is a matter of personal belief, at worst a superstition that blocks progress. 

The unfairness of this argument is that it squeezes God into a corner. Dawkins makes it an us VS them issue. Either you are FOR science (reason, progress, modernism, optimism about the future) OR you are FOR religion (unreason, reactionary resistance to progress, clinging to mysteries that only God can solve). He goes so far as to tar ANYONE who believes in God with the same brush as extreme religious fanatics.  Sadly, the media often follow his lead, erasing the truth....which is that many scientists ARE religious and many of the greatest scientists (including Newton and Einstein) probed deep into the existence of God. Not to mention the obvious fact that you don't have to go to church, or even belong to a religion, to find God plausible. 

But let's leave Dawkins' heated and unfair rhetoric aside. Is science the ONLY route to knowledge? Obviously NOT. I know that my mother loved me all her life, as I love my own children. I feel genius in great works of art. I have seen medical cures that science CAN’T explain, some seemingly triggered by faith. The same is true of millions of other people. I know that I am conscious and have a self, even though Dawkins (along with many arch materialists) doesn't believe that consciousness is real or that the self is anything but a chemical ‘illusion’

created in the brain. 

A materialist could analyze the brain functions of a Mozart or Beethoven down 

to the last synaptic firing, but that would tell us nothing about why music exists, why it is beautiful, where great symphonies come from, why inspiration uplifts the listener, or in fact any relevant thing about the meaning of music. The world in general has meaning, deep meaning at times. This cannot be dismissed as a delusion, or an artifact of chemicals. The same analogy comes to mind whenever one hears that brain research will eventually explain ALL human thought and behavior. If a scientist could map every molecule in a radio as it was playing Beethoven Fifth, there would be a complete diagram of the symphony at the level of matter. But the radio isn't Beethoven. It isn't his mind or a diagram of Beethoven's brain.

For thousands of years human beings have been obsessed with beauty, truth, love, honor, altruism, courage, social relationships, art and God. They all go together as subjective experiences, and it's a straw man to set God up as the delusion. IF HE IS, then so is truth itself or beauty itself. God stands for the perfection of BOTH, and even if you think truth and beauty (along with love, justice, forgiveness, compassion, and other divine qualities) can never be perfect, to say that they are ‘fantasies’ makes NO sense. 

Science knows about objective reality, the mask of matter that our five senses detect. But the mind goes beyond the five senses, and it does Dawkins no good to lump the two worlds of inner & outer together. In fact, insofar as brain research can locate centers of activity that light up whenever a person feels love or pleasure or sexual arousal, these subjective states leave objective traces behind. That makes them more real, not less. In the same way, the brain lights up when a person feels inspired or close to God; therefore, we may be getting closer to the connection between inner and outer states, not further away. 

Deepak Chopra, MD is a speaker and best-selling author of more than 35 books, including Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, which has sold more than 2 million copies. Chopra’s books have been translated into more than 30 languages, with more than 20 million copies sold worldwide. In 1999 Time magazine selected Dr. Chopra as one of the Top 100 Icons and Heroes of the Century, describing him as “the poet prophet of alternative medicine.”