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angela stokes at bonobo’s restaurant

Want to learn more about the raw food movement? I thought so.

On Monday, 14 May, Accent on Wellness is presenting Angela Stokes at Bonobo’s Restaurant at 18 East 23rd Street @ Madison Avenue, Manhattan, from 7-9pm. Donation $5.00.

Angela Stokes is “a British author and raw lifestyle consultant who lost over 150 lbs with raw foods.” Anyone who has lost over 150 lbs eating only raw foods is a person in the know. Her website is rawreform.com

And should you want more information about raw food event listings in the NYC area, check out Live-Food.com .

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another kind of mother’s day

There are many mothers who are feeling empty on this Mother’s Day. They are mothers who have lost a child from sickness, accident, war, killing, and for them it’s a day of sadness. Some mothers have many children and they all live to call themselves old, and other mothers have few children and one or two die before she does. In my heart of hearts I know there are reasons why these things happen. And we have to trust the reasons. I can’t comprehend what it means to lose a child, to feel that kind of sadness, and how it affects a woman. I’ve no way of knowing how a mother continues, only that many do.

The pain, the suffering, the forgiving, and finally the healing take time. A mother goes through it in her own way.  We’re all too aware that children die every day. And every day women find a way to recover from the shock, and somehow  continue to heal and live a happy life. Their belief in Life makes it possible, and the pain and suffering they experience eventually bring them to a different understanding of themselves and of Life. They don’t forget, they never forget the child who died. That memory stays intact.

And even though their child is no longer in this world; that child is most likely in a better place for having spent time on earth with them. Indeed, the relationship with that particular mother in this lifetime was a very, very important one for both of them.

Happy Mother’s Day.

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mother’s day

Will my daughter Sumi become a mother by Mother’s Day or not? Baby is due on 13 May, Mother’s Day, and she and my son-in-law Toshi are relaxed and waiting. Will the baby choose to come early, on time, or late? It’s been said that-early, on time, late-gives an inkling to the baby’s personality. When I heard this I started to think back and, with the little thinking I did on this, I’d say perhaps that’s true. I bought a card yesterday for Alicia my daughter-in-law as it’s her first Mother’s Day, Sebastian was born on 25 May last year. She, Michael and Sebastian are spending time in Aruba, attending a wedding, putting Sebastian’s feet on sand and in ocean water for the first time, and I trust having fun and laughing the whole time they’re there. Nice! And daughter Emi is busy having just finished another year at Columbia and arranging a summer of travel, work and fun.

From one Mother’s Day year to the next a mother strives for maturity, insights, developments, understanding, and all the other intangibles that enrich her relationship with her children. She knows that everything doesn’t have to be in perfect order for her to appreciate and enjoy Mother’s Day. Trying to comprehend what being a mother is extends to every fiber of a woman’s being, and it’s impossible to know what this means until you’re living that experience. One day I realized that motherhood isn’t a popularity contest that there are those times when, if you’re being the kind of mother necessary in the world of today, you won’t always be the “popular” one in the family. That’s okay, because the good part is that eventually there will come a time when all that will change. Mother’s need to trust, and that’s something they tend to learn quickly.

I’ve noticed many fathers out, sometimes alone, with baby. Keep it up guys. Ah, yes, fathers – that’s for another writing. But then again they’re so much a part of Mother’s Day that they have to be mentioned.

Happy Happy Mother’s Day! – to all the mothers in the world.

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at the dentist

Today I went to the dentist. I wasn’t looking forward to that experience, but I’ve got to say it was a good session. Everyone smiles and talks easily in that office, and even when you’re sitting in the chair scheduled for the worst of the worst, it’s somehow okay because they take excellent care from beginning to end.

Good news! Did you hear that people with a heart murmur no longer need to take an antiobiotic before a visit to the dentist? This in the April issue of Circulation from the American Heart Association effective 19 April 2007. It seems many people have a heart murmur.

Fluoride – what to do about the fluoride question. Dentists promote it; I’ve read many articles that say don’t. I used to get Dr. William Campbell Douglass’ newsletters. They were always informative, and some of the things he wrote about on health, treatments, products, foods, advice from the “experts”, etcetera, were big surprises. Right or wrong, I didn’t always agree with him. But he puts himself out there trying to get information to us so that we’re aware and thinking about what’s happening in all the ways that can affect us. And as Dr. Douglass warns, we have to stop accepting things because an “expert” in the field says it’s so. Therefore, the fluoride question has to be examined carefully before someone’s word becomes our guideline. And we need to keep in mind that a balanced viewpoint is not always found in mainstream publications.

Thank you, I feel blessed, said first thing in the morning and last thing at night works wonders to relax us so that we remember to trust the Energy of the Universe for guidance.

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international living

Do you ever entertain thoughts about living abroad? Are those thoughts ready to become a reality for you? I’ve been reading eletters from International Living for awhile, and highly recommend that anyone wanting to live abroad, or anyone who enjoys traveling on a broad scale, get a subscription to IL. Kathleen Peddicord is the publisher. Once upon a time she and her husband Lief and their two children moved from the States to live in Ireland, five years later they moved to Paris, and now there’s talk of Panama. This family travels the world and that makes Kathleen Peddicord very competent to write all the many eletters that go out to subscribers. Also, the group of people working at IL are constantly traveling to bring us their experiences in foreign lands. we readers reap the benefits from the IL staff and their explorations for they guide us every step of the way into a new lifestyle in a foreign country. Along with the wealth of information they provide to readers, the eletters are interesting, and fun to read. And not only that, there are conferences held throughout the year in different areas of the world. Attending a conference gives you a chance to gather information pertaining to your needs, and meeting and talking with people, could speed up the time it takes to arrive at a new lifestyle in a country that is calling to you. It’s happened. At the conferences, you’ll get detailed accounts of what it takes to live in a foreign country-real estate, cost of living, culture, work, etcetera-the IL staff is always ready to answer any question about the countries they explore, and write about.

So, if you’re considering living abroad or have the travel bug big time, internationalliving.com could greatly assist you along the way. Also, you might want to learn about the country Lief is writing about now.

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east west books

East West Books at 78 Fifth Avenue @ 14th Street in New York City was closed for about one year for renovations. They’ve finally opened their doors, and waiting for us are “30,000 books in over 40 sections.” On their website you’ll find a wonderful array of events listed on their calendar. www.eastwestnyc.com The following is an idea of what’s happening this week-

Wednesday, 2 May, 6-8pm legendary Brazilian Elder-Clara Shinobu Iura “. . . in the heart of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and one of the Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers featured on Grandmothers Counsel the World: Women Elders Offer Their Vision for Our Planet.” talk and book signing East West Cafe, $-0-

Thursday, 3 May, 6:30-8:30pm Sacred Medicine “We welcome you to join us for an interactive exploration of Harmonic Resonance, facilitated by Sonic Alchemist and Metaphysical Channel Maryanne Savino who will take us on a guided Sonic Journey . . . ” East West Yoga Studio, $25

Friday, 4 May, 6:30-9:30pm The Laws of Vibration Via Kundalini Yoga with Grace Kim – “Kundalini Yoga was once a secret ancient science but now it is open to all who want to manifest prosperity and have the experience of an infinite horizon on a regular basis.” Yoga Studio, $60 per drop-in, $300 for all 6 classes

Saturday, 5 May, 7-9pm Make Music Kirtan (Call and Response Chanting) “Enjoy an evening of true bliss and communion with the Divine within all of us. Swami Ramakrishananda Yoga Vedanta Mission will lead an uplifting and healing kirtan for all.” Yoga Studio, $15

Sunday, 6 May, 10-2pm, A professioanal workshop with Mark Seltzman on Your Life Is In Your Hands The Art and Science of Reading Hands Yoga Studio, $70 with pre-registration, $90 drop-in

In the future, they’re planning on having workshops on using pendulums, wands and singing bowls.

Are you smiling yet?

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the right family

Have you ever thought of what it would be like had you been born into a different family? Actually I know people who feel that the family they now have is definitely not the family they want, but somewhere out there is the right family for them. And had they had an opportunity to be in that family with a different mother, another father, a perfect sibling their life would have been wonderful. Certainly much more so than now. But is that true? We see people who are born into families that from all indications look as though they’re the right families for anybody to have been born into. They appear to have “it all.” But wait – look more closely.

Yes, look more closely at everything. Maybe we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be in this lifetime. From all indications, it seems that we’re here to work things out in our life, and the family we find ourselves with is the right family in this particular lifetime. The challenges, the pains, the sufferings are part of life here, and it’s doubtful whether we humans would accomplish anything without them. There’s no escaping them-no matter the family we’re part of-because those challenges, those pains, those sufferings are what we need for our greater growth. And ultimately will make life sweeter, richer, happier, and give us a better understanding of ourselves and our world-if we allow it.

And if we believe in a higher power, and the evolution of a soul, and the orderliness underneath the chaos, then it makes sense to believe that we’re right where we’re supposed to be. That if we would accept where we are, and use our energy to make our life a work of art, if we do that, and not focus on what we think we should have had, we’ll soon see the bigger picture. We’re the one who makes that happen for ourselves, no one else can. It would seem that human beings are on a quest. And the quest is to evolve. To appreciate and enjoy what is before us serves our quest beautifully, yearning for what wasn’t and isn’t, wastes our precious energy.

“Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.” -Leo Tolstoy

“You could not discover the frontiers of the soul, even if you traveled every road to do so; such is the depth of its meaning” -Heraclitus of Ephesus

“To know how to live is my trade and my art.” -Michel De Montaigne

Physicist Roger Penrose has said that the chance of an ordered univese happening at random is 10 to the 10 to the 30th against-a number so large that if you programmed a compjuter to write a million zeros per second, it would take a million times the age of the universe just to write the number down.

“Ultimately, one has to wonder how scientists who assume the profound presence of patterns in nature in order to practice their very art can also assume that those patterns developed randomly, from nothingness. Patterns imply intelligence, and an ordered creation implies an orderer.” – Andy Fletcher, Letter to the Editor, Harper’s (from The Road Within)

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ms. early bird

I’m a night owl and late night phone calls are perfect for me. But when a late night call comes from an early bird, it’s necessary to carefully listen as they usually have something they want to say and can’t fall asleep til they talk it out. Ms. Early Bird was very tired when she called, and that in itself suggests the importance of paying attention to her by carefully listening. She was so tired that the number of yawns coming from the other end of the phone nearly put me to sleep. Ms. Early Bird wears her heart on her sleeve and helps anyone in need. In the process she wears herself to a frazzle and needs to recoup. There should be a beautiful spa for people who always seem to put themselves last in the game of life. They can talk with people who will understand them and at the same time renew themselves in luxurious surroundings. And it should be mandatory for them to go at least once a year. That’s the only way their own selves will be taken care of.

There are times when I’m a wee bit concerned about Ms. Early Bird. The reason is that in putting everyone’s needs before her own. it’s very easy for people to take advantage of her. She’s modest and doesn’t appreciate her own worth, When you recognize the goodness in her, you want to protect her. That’s an impossible task because this gentle one doesn’t see that she’s doing too much at the expense of herself. Trying to convince her that care of self is a good thing makes you look like a cad, and you sense that the thought is occuring to her that maybe she’s called the wrong person. So what is there to do for Ms. Early Bird? Simply listen to her.

But maintaining ourselves in a state of balance is vital. Otherwise we’ll become a doormat and basically we’re telling the Universe that that’s the role we intend to play in life. This could mean that we’ll be the one skipped over when it comes to receiving the things that bring happiness (“your kind of happy.” – Shadowlands), harmony, beauty, freedom, etcetera, into our life. Helping others is a good thing, of course, but being a doormat is not. Giving and receiving-a balance-is important. And now perhaps you’re thinking of someone such as Mother Teresa who, we have read, gave of herself many times over. Possibly her spiritual life gave her the balance she needed. And it’s doubtful that she would neglect that part of her life, so she was assured of balance. Mother Teresa’s story would seem like a category reserved for an entirely different way of life, an evening’s worth of discussion.

I found out that Ms. Early Bird was simply exhausted from a grueling week of commitments. Of course, she worked a few additional shifts because colleagues needed time off – she was spent into fatigue. It would be nice if simply listening helped put things into perspective for her.

“If you are losing your leisure, look out; you may be losing your soul.” -Logan Pearsall Smith

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heavy baggage

Some people are easily ruffled when anything happens that they don’t like. They’re “very sensitive” beings. They can rattle off a list of things people have done to them, or now do to them, and, at the same time, are completely oblivious of the part they play in the events of their life. They interpret perceived slights as monstrous acts against them, and, along with that, have a fierce determination to not make peace with their past which can result in an unforgiving heart. Most recently we’ve seen this in so-called celebrities.

Refusal to leave behind that kind of heavy baggage, along with the added burden of lugging around a big ego, can bring awful consequences. Have you noticed that big egos, or those who see themselves as frail or powerless, are easily flustered and quick to anger? They tend to blame others instead of themselves for just about everything they don’t like about their life? To them it’s always the other guy who has wronged them because big egos don’t see beyond their own selves. And when they’re angry they lash out 100 times more furiously than whatever perceived action set them off in the first place. And after their burst of anger has subsided they tend to behave as though nothing has happened. It’s all so very interesting, and it’s all so very sad because it could be all so very different when we just let go of the heavy baggage.

Life experiences are a powerful way of learning, and many of us have had lots of them. However, there’s a time when we need to wake up and get to a clearer understanding of the way we’re behaving toward Life. We need to realize that we’ve been sabatoging what could be a life filled with joy, love, success, strength, great adventures, beauty, and harmony. We need to remember that other people don’t make or break us; we make or break our own selves.

Choosing to drop the heavy stuff and taking total responsibility for what happens in our own life is a enormous step in itself. After that comes the desire and belief that there’s a more powerful, stronger and better way to live. There are people who can guide us, and books that can show us, and they’ll come a time when something within us will teach us. But sometimes when we begin this change there’s a tendency to look back, and, more or less, go back, because we think change is not forthcoming, or we don’t want to do what’s necessary to allow change to occur, so we become wishy-washy and nothing happens. How can it? We’ve confused the whole situation and until we decide once and for all that there’s no turning back-ever-until that time comes, we’ll stay in a state of being neither here nor there-still carrying all that baggage.

How do we know when we’ve really let go? There are lots of ways we know; life becomes sweeter, those little things we spent so much time and effort defending, we no longer care about. Instead of causing problems, we want to find a way to solve them. The bigger picture is clearer. We’re open and ready to understand Life on a grand scale. And we gladly welcome the adventure, it’s something we desire so much that the time and effort to arrive at this state is no longer seen as a chore, but something more precious than we could have ever imagined.

Oh, yes, It’s our choice. Imagine that!

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about nursery rhymes and fairy tales

Other than the charming song Alouette which my mother enjoyed singing, and which is firmly anchored in my mind, no one sang nursery rhymes, or told those famous fairy tales to me when I was very young. I guess you’re either in a nursery rhyme family or you’re not. And I don’t recall seeing any nursery rhyme books around the homes of children I babysat for either. So, it could have been a location thing as to who got nursery rhymes sung to them at an early age and who didn’t. Did you? if your answer is “no”, remember, it’s never too late, or if you never quite got the hang of the words, or if you only know part of those rhymes and fairy tales, or some of them, here’s your chance. Actually, I think you’re going to enjoy this site because it’s absolutely delightful. And if there’s a night when you can’t seem to fall asleep, well, you can go to www.nurseryrhymes4u.com and return to a time when life was perhaps a little less stressful for you.

At dictionary.com I got an inkling of the beginnings of nursery rhymes and fairy tales, and went from not having thought much about them to finding the subject vast and interesting as they have their own kind of history as Mother Goose, The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments or a Thousand and One Nights, and Brothers Grimm, etcetera, suggests. www.dictionary.com

Then I got to thinking about a wonderful gift shop I was in some time ago, and about the book I wish I’d purchased. It was a different kind of book having to do with the history of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. It was one of those occasions when, for a split second, you say, “Nah, what am I going to do with this book?” And I overruled that gut feeling and am now bookless about a subject that suddenly seems quite fascinating. Hmm! The book’s essence was that some of those nursery rhymes (not all) sung to children are downright scary or creepy, and if they weren’t sung in such a whimsical fashion, they could easily produce nightmares. Then it went on to suggest that the writers found their, shall we say, inspiration in the period in which they lived – the culture and hardships that went along with that time – influencing the writers of those “endearing” nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Perhaps I’ll spend more time filling in the gaps of what little knowledge I have of this interesting subject. It’s never too late. Right?