It has been said that nothing is good or bad it is thinking that makes it so.  Instead of wallowing in pain over the breakup of his marriage he found healing in humor.  His life has changed and he as a new family, career and successful blog.

I find this story inspiring because of course he had challenges, but the greater story is that when you flow with what is instead of wanting what you do not have, there is a genuine opportunity to create anew; and come up smiling.

However if one chooses to instead walk the road less traveled and listen to their heart guidance – that road which initially seems most challenging may indeed be the best option to choose.

In the movie Himalaya, which I loved…beautiful scenery and exquisite depiction of leadership, the old leader asks his son who is a Buddhist monk why did he choose to leave the monastery to come and assist him.

The monk answers, my teacher once told me, “if two paths open up before you, choose the most difficult.”

This is not an ultimate answer, but worth considering.
Where in your life can you take the seemingly difficult route…to fulfilling your dreams?

Music and Life by Alan Watts

For more information on Susan click here.

Gayatri Mantra Meditation (Deva Premal)

The Calistoga, Calif., couple seem to reflect a trend. With many Americans putting off routine doctor visits and self-medicating to save money, use of alternative treatments is on the rise — even though evidence is often lacking on their safety and effectiveness.

Climbing sales of herbal medicines have paralleled the tanking economy, according to an Associated Press review of recent data from market-watchers and retailers.

One prominent example: Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods Market Inc. says its stores nationwide have seen an increase in sales of nutritional supplements and herbal products in the past several weeks. That’s “noteworthy” given the retail industry’s financial slump, said Whole Foods spokesman Jeremiah C. McElwee.

While winter is usually a busy time for herbal medicine sales because it’s the season for colds and flu, “more people are value shopping” now because of the economy, McElwee said.

Cathy Birleffi says she’s among them.

“The doctors are so much higher (in cost), the insurance isn’t paying as much,” said the 61-year-old self-employed bookkeeper and notary. Her husband, a retired dispatcher, has high blood pressure and seizures. Recent changes in their health insurance coverage resulted in $1,300 in monthly premiums, double what they used to be.

Until they tried herbal alternatives, including valerian for insomnia, “every time I turned around, it was $50 here, $75 there” for prescriptions, Cathy Birleffi said.

Among data reflecting the trend:

For the three months that ended Dec. 28, nationwide retail sales of vitamins and supplements totaled nearly $639 million, up almost 10 percent from the same period in 2007. That includes a nearly 6 percent increase in sales of herbal supplements alone, according to Information Resources Inc., a Chicago-based market research firm. Its numbers do not include Wal-Mart or club stores.
Nationwide herbal and botanical supplement sales totaled $4.8 billion in 2007, when the recession began, up 4.3 percent over 2006. That was a marginally higher increase compared with the previous year, according to Jason Phillips of the Nutrition Business Journal, an industry-tracking publication. Sales of animal oil supplements — mostly fish oils — were up 29 percent from 2006. While that was a decline from the previous year, both categories continued to show strong growth in a faltering economy.
A government survey released in December said concerns about the cost of conventional medicine influenced Americans’ decisions to try alternative remedies. “Nonvitamin, nonmineral natural products,” including fish oil and herbal medicines, were the most commonly used alternatives, taken by almost 18 percent of Americans in 2007, the report said. Among those users, roughly a quarter said they delayed or didn’t get conventional medical care because of the cost.
Report co-author Richard Nahin of the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine offered cautionary advice on the topic.

People taking herbal and other supplements should let their doctor know what they’re using, said Nahin, acting director of the center’s branch that oversees outside research the agency funds.

Copyright AP

What I love about this article below is that it captures succinctly a number of key points of homeopathic philosophy.  For example, that you are not your illness.  That the origins of a ‘disease’ that you are experiencing *today* may have ancestral roots.  But whatever the cause of the problem it has something to do with inter-relationships of things in your world, your life and how it effected you.  I don’t have the name of the author, but the article appeared in “The Daily Mirror” 12/25/08, an Indian paper.  And read the Arsenicum case in the article, so cool.

A person is not simply a disease. Instead they are the totality of their physical and psychological characteristics. This totality is a dynamic and evolving system. In Homeopathy we recognize that our whole entire being is influenced not only by infections and day to day stresses but also our environment and our emotions and that of those around us.

In the case of children we can clearly see a link in the stresses surrounding their births and even conception going onto having a bearing in their “total health.”  In some cases this will be revealed by the child’s inability to gain weight, to sleep well or a recurring ear infection, craving certain foods and so on. Instead of looking within ourselves and the shadow side of our behavior and emotions we look for the quick fix to patch our children back to “health” with antibiotics and vitamins. This is not a true cure. We need to always consider the root cause. And more often than not it has its roots in the realm of emotions. Sometimes it is an emotion of an ancestor that we carry with us and keep reliving it.   Remember that all experiences we have leave an energetic imprint on us.

This brings me to a case I read of when a mother came to visit a Homeopath with her son who always woke up at 3 am. The mother had frontal sinusitis. The child seemed very agitated and in contrast the mother was calm and dressed all in black. Of course like most modern mothers she claimed her pregnancy was problem free and how much she had achieved during her pregnancy, but her child was presenting with much agitation and sleep issues. So the homeopath has to dig a little deeper to find out what had been going on during her pregnancy. Many months later the mother recalled that she watched the assassination of President Sadat on the television when she was pregnant. This apparently really shocked her and she was also able to recall that ever since then the baby moved around so much in her stomach. She put it down to him just being active and all boy! But through the Homeopathic lens of understanding we are able to see that this negative image was transferred to the unborn baby while in utero. The Homeopath prescribed a few doses of Arsenicum Albumen for the indication of the fear of death. The boy began to sleep through the night and became much calmer.

In today’s world a pregnant woman is exposed to so much negativity on a daily basis. For example, take the 24 hour news channels that allow us to relive disturbing and traumatic events on demand. We absorb these images and emotions and make it part of our psyche.  We have moved very far away from the days when pregnant women were revered and placed in calming and beautiful surroundings in order to imbibe feelings of harmony and joy to their children. Today even a child’ birth is scheduled in most parts of the developed world. Very little is left to the natural rhythms of the Universe. We have to find a middle path, a path on which we can enjoy the benefits of the modern world but not let it destroy our spirit.

In our busy world we seem to have forgotten that our physical body and our emotions are inextricably linked. In order to truly put our lives back in balance we need to look a little deeper than the superficial symptoms. We need to truly look at the dis-ease in our being.  In order to ascertain the fundamental cause of disease and then treat what needs to be cured it takes some self reflection. All the stresses of our day to day life impact our vital force.  In treating children we see how strong their vital force is and through Homeopathy you can maintain this vitality and enhance it.

Microsoft wants to get under your skin

HealthVault links up with VeriMed RFID chips

Bill Ray / The Register | December 15, 2008

Microsoft’s HealthVault, the medical records database, is to be integrated with VeriMed’s human-embedded RFID tags, allowing doctors to access the medical records of unconscious patients with a quick scan of the arm.

VeriMed consists of an RFID tag that is embedded in the arm of a hopefully willing participant, and responds with a 16-digital identity code when queried at 134KHz. This code can then be used to identify the person through VeriChip’s website, and will soon be able to link to their medical records as stored on Microsoft’s HealthVault system.

“VeriMed adds an exciting RFID-based option for HealthVault users trying to keep themselves and their families safe,” says Sean Nolan, the chief architect for HealthVault, quoted in RFID Journal. If you’re excited about the idea of being electronically indexed then this is probably the technology for you.

Not that the future of VeriMed is in any way certain, despite the Microsoft link. The company’s parent, VeriChip, has already tried to sell off the human-implanting part of the business as punters prove remarkably reluctant to be serial-numbered. Should the business fail entirely, a connection to HealthVault could be the best hope for the poor souls who’ve already succumbed to having chips embedded in their arms.