Tending the Soul of the Earth

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Recently I’ve become fascinated by a notion I’d like to explore much more in 2013 — our critical role in tending the soul of the Earth. The idea was brought to my attention at the 2012 Science and Nonduality (SAND) conference in San Rafael in October. In several of his talks, Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee stressed something I had never really fully understood before: that the challenge of climate change is something that must be tackled not only on a physical level, but on a spiritual level as well.

It seems to me that December 2012 — the month that so many of us have been anticipating, with the end of the current Mayan calendar and the beginning of the next occurring on December 21, 2012 — is also a perfect time to consider this deep question of tending the soul of the Earth. It brings together several key points that I make in Active Consciousness :

  • All things possess an energy body, at least on the etheric level, and many living things have energy bodies on even higher levels.
  • The Earth can be viewed as a living organism (sometimes called Gaia).
  • As beings who have evolved as part of Earth, we are all elements of and in many ways inseparable from the larger “holon” of the Earth.
  • As above, so below; and as below, so above. What is happening on the physical level to planet Earth is also occurring on all levels.

At the SAND conference, Vaughn-Lee stressed that environmentalists have been missing this very key element in their battles to stem the tide of climate change: the role of the soul of the Earth. While it is clear that the body of the Earth is suffering and changing around us, and that we humans are a part of and even probably the primary cause of this change on a physical level, the soul of the Earth has also been crying and suffering as well. Indeed, what is cause and what is effect?

There was a time when humanity was exquisitely tuned into the magic and soul of the Earth. Every tree, every storm, every sowing and reaping of the harvest, was imbued with spiritual meaning. Native people understood their spiritual relationship with the animals and plants around them. We blessed, thanked, and asked forgiveness for our interactions with and intrusions upon our fellow Earthers, both animate and inanimate. We understood that a balance had to be kept.

With the coming of the enlightenment and the rise of science came materialism and the complete disenchantment of the Earth. Many of us may not have forgotten our own souls, but we have definitely forgotten about the souls of the Earth and our fellow creatures. We ‘thing’ed them. And as we know from the fields of war and humanity’s holocausts, when we ‘thing’ someone or something, we feel free to destroy it. It is soulless to us. It is no more than a machine. It is merely matter, not soul.

But just because we do this ‘thinging’ in our minds does not make it true. The Earth and everything in it does possess a soul. To help our Earth, we must not only heal its body, we must also heal it on an energetic or soul level. Just as energy medicines like homeopathy and acupuncture and Reiki tell us, it is actually on this energy level that true disease originates and where true healing must occur. In fact, after healing the energy level, physical healing usually follows. While healing the Earth on a physical level now seems almost insurmountable to us, leaving us in a state of despair and hopelessness, perhaps there is still hope for healing the soul of the Earth.

That’s where each of us comes in. Each of us is part of the Earth holon. By healing ourselves we may be able to heal the Earth. By re-enchanting the pieces, we can begin to re-enchant the whole. You can start today in your own home, in your own backyard, in your own neighborhood. Bless your food. Talk to your plant. Thank your tree and hug it. Feel the energy of your flower garden and commune with it. Sense the soul of your street and send healing energy throughout your neighborhood. Sense the stresses and joys within your dwelling. Create a ceremony for the healing of your home energy. Tune into any intuitions about changes that may help ease tension or contraction.

If each of us heals the soul of the small space around us, the healing of the whole can begin. And who knows? If we tend to the healing of the soul of the Earth, the body of the Earth may begin to respond as well. As the Mayans predicted, a transformation for the better may be just around the corner.

Instead of Counting Off the Days, Make Every Day Count

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Do you ever feel like you’re approaching each day as just another list of things to get done? As you go through your calendar, do you ever feel like you’re counting off the days like a prisoner in a cell, making a mark on the wall for each day that goes by? Tick. Tick. Tick. I know that I sometimes feel this way. I bet you do too.

I’m a lap swimmer and I often approach my swim in the same way. I love swimming — the way my body feels in the pool and especially how invigorated I feel afterwards. Sometimes, though, I just spend my swim thinking about how many laps I’ve swum and how many are left to go. Other times, I distract myself by doing math in my head while swimming. Let me explain.

I’m what they call a “winter swimmer” at a beautiful country club only five minutes from my home. Instead of paying the exorbitant membership fee of this club, I pay a much lower fixed fee to swim in their gorgeous outdoor pool September through April. On some glorious days, I have the whole pool all to myself. My favorite “swim-math” is to divide the number of swims I’ve swum into the total cost of the winter swim fee. I find that this exercise motivates me to swim more often — the more I swim, the lower the cost per swim (OK, I guess I like a good deal!) Sometimes I also calculate how many miles I’ve swum so far this season. You get the idea.

But there are consequences to my “counting” in this way. Often, I’m so in my head and mathematical thoughts that I lose track of where I am in my swim program. Even worse, I’m not even noticing my body, the pool, or the process of swimming at all. Doing division in my head is certainly a way to distract myself from counting laps, but it is not a way to enjoy my swim! I used to be a mathematician and I can certainly attest to the fact that mathematics is probably one the most “head-y” of subjects, transporting you completely into your mind and out of your body sensations. It’s no wonder that mathematicians are perhaps the most rumpled of absent-minded professors.

While I was swimming yesterday, I completely lost track of where I was in my program — twice! — while doing my swim-math. It was then that I realized it was time to get out of my head, stop counting, and be in my body. To really enjoy my swim. To feel the water gliding across my body, to see the sun’s shimmering reflections and my shadow on the bottom of the pool, to enjoy the pleasant sensation of stretching my body out and the vigorous feeling of exercising my muscles. Suddenly I found that I was swimming more effortlessly too. I had no problem with keeping track of where I was in my program and I was truly enjoying every moment of my swim. Ahhhh. I was living my life, being aware of and making every moment count, rather than counting out the past and enumerating the future.

As I mention in my book Active Consciousness, it is really those rare moments when we are truly in the Now that we remember best in life. They might be cherished memories of one-ness with nature or peak moments of experience in our lives — a graduation, a birth, a death. The true experience of the Now is also a reason why people are drawn to extreme sports. You can’t think about the past or the future when you are flinging your body off a bridge or hanging on to a rock face for dear life. As Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner said about his recent record-breaking jump to Earth from a helium balloon hovering at the edge of space, “When I was standing there on top of the world, you become so humble, you do not think about breaking records anymore, you do not think about gaining scientific data. The only thing you want is to come back alive.”

Of course, you don’t need to go to such extremes to be in the Now. You can do it right now as you’re sitting in your chair reading this newsletter. You can make this moment count, instead of counting off your moments. Just settle into your body and feel the sensation of being alive!

The Dangers of GMO Foods: A Likely Cause of Many of Today’s Health Problems

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In addition to his homeopathic teachings, the founder of homeopathy, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) taught about the importance of food and environment in maintaining good health. If a person is eating poorly, living in damp quarters, etc., these maintaining causes, as he called them, severely limit the good that even excellent homeopathic treatment can achieve. Thus, even if you are under the care of a homeopath and are receiving a remedy that matches you, if you are constantly subjecting to yourself to maintaining causes of disease, you will likely not escape their impact. In my view, the increasingly pervasive presence of GMO foods in our diets is likely a leading cause for many of our current health problems, from the obesity epidemic to the rising tide of sensitivity to gluten, and possibly much more.

A neighbor of mine commented to me a while back — “What’s the big deal about genetically modified foods? We’ve been genetically modifying our foods through breeding forever.” Well, that is true, we have been breeding our foods and animals naturally as long as humans have been farmers and kept domesticated animals.

What my neighbor failed to understand, however, is that today’s GMO foods are not the result of natural breeding. They are the result of combining genetic elements between species — even between animal and plant species — that would never combine in nature. Thus we get:

  • Plants bred to unnaturally resist specific pesticides and herbicides (naturally, the pesticides and herbicides sold by the company developing the GMO plants).
  • Plants bred to form their own internal pesticides within them.
  • Tomatoes combined with fish genes so that they won’t freeze as easily.
  • Plants crossed with bacteria, human blood proteins, vaccines and other drugs.

As you might guess, the primary motivation behind doing this is usually financial — for example, to sell more pesticides and herbicides. GMO plants can be sprayed with much more pesticide and herbicide than most plants, killing the pests and weeds but not the plants. The result, of course, is that our food has much more pesticides and herbicides in it. And what is the result of eating foods that incorporate pesticides within their very internal structure? It is scary to contemplate.

The testing of the safety of GMO foods has been very limited, usually lasting only three months, and conducted only by the manufacturers of these “frankenfoods” — most notably Monsanto. As a result, we humans end up being the real “guinea pigs”. Consider the rising tide of ill health in North America — where GMO foods are most prevalently found — and you begin to get the picture.

For the first time, an independent long-term study has recently been conducted on one of the most prevalent of GMO foods — GMO corn. This corn is now the dominant form of corn in the USA and is part of almost every prepared food we eat, because of the pervasive use of corn syrup as a sweetener. It is also in the feed of most farm animals. The test was conducted in France and the corn was found to cause an increase in death in the test rats, and most notably, breast cancer. Interestingly, these toxic effects only showed up after three months. I encourage all of you to watch this YouTube to learn more about this recently released study. In fact, its results have caused Russia to ban this corn for import.

For those trying to eat a gluten-free diet, the pervasiveness of GMO corn is particularly disconcerting because corn is one of the most easily available gluten-free grains. However, it is emerging that GMO corn itself might be at the root of the increasing tide of gluten-sensitivity, because of the way it affects the gut. I encourage you to read more about this and other dangers of GMO foods on mercola.com.

While most countries around the world require labeling of GMO foods (even China, Russia, and India), the USA and Canada does not. As a result, the only way we can protect ourselves from their potentially toxic effects is by eating only organic foods. On November 5, Californians will vote on Proposition 37, which requires GMO food labeling. Monsanto and other food-related businesses are spending millions to try and defeat it. If you live in California, I encourage you to vigorously support Prop 37. If California foods must be labeled, then it is likely that labeling will spread across North America. As those who oppose Prop 37 know, this labeling will likely amount to a death knell for GMOs. I truly pray that happens! It may cause some pain for these businesses in the short run, but they will quickly learn to adapt to the fact that people do not want to eat genetically modified foods. For the sake of the health of our nation (and to stem the rising tide of health care), support GMO food labeling!

Finally, did you know that Aspartame (Nutrasweet) is also a GMO product? Noted for its toxic neurological effects, this artificial sweetener is also pervasive in our food supply. This YouTube video might be interesting for you to watch. There have also been research studies that showed that aspartame increases the risk of obesity, not decreases it. I know many people who chug-a-lug diet soda all day long. They would probably be better off drinking regular soda. But they would be best off simply drinking water.

The Aka Meditation

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(This post appeared in the October 2012 Active Consciousness newsletter).

Earlier this year, I had an appointment with an energy healer who also sometimes transmits helpful verbal messages she ‘receives’ for her clients. In one healing session, she uttered the following message for me: Individual cells need to be connected to all the cells. In other words, somehow, I needed to create interconnectivity between my cells.

That night as I lay in bed in a somewhat meditative state, I came up with the following method for creating this interconnectivity. Over time, I have tried to modify it by eliminating or reordering some of the steps. All attempts at modification have failed to yield the same result.

When I follow the simple procedure described below, I can achieve a most amazing state of internal vibration and interconnectivity. Usually I can only hold it for a minute or so — sometimes even less. Even in such small doses, I feel this vibration has important healing properties. Afterwards, my body feels super energized — sometimes nearly orgasmic. I can feel positive effects for at least a day. I usually perform this meditation in bed at night. Even when I fail to achieve the full state of vibratory interconnectivity, I find that I often fall asleep in the process of performing it — so it is useful for that purpose as well.

I have decided to call this meditation the Aka Meditation. I did so after I learned this word — used by Hawaiian kahunas (shamans) — and its meaning from the book Spiritwalker by Hank Wesselman. Aka “threads” are considered to interconnect everything to each other on the etheric level.

“…[E]verything in the universe is connected to everything else through a vast net or web formed by these aka threads… These connections can be brought into being both by thoughts and intentions– they are ‘activated’ by attention. Sustained concentration, such as that practiced during meditation, theoretically increases the strength or volume of the contact.” — Hank Wesselman, Spiritwalker

It is my sense that my Aka Meditation, described below, is extremely powerful — so I wanted to share it with all of you. Please forward it to all your friends and also let them know about Active Consciousness.

The Aka Meditation

This meditation can be performed sitting, lying, or standing. I personally prefer lying.

1) Lie on your back with your hands at your side.

2) Visualize energy accumulating at the top of your head. When you feel the ‘energy ball’ at the top of your head, bring it down your spine and to the bottom of your feet. Then bring it back up to the top of your head. Perform this sweep 2-4 times.

3) Energetically visualize and feel the following interconnections within your body, in the following order. Do not move on to the next interconnection until you feel each one solidly:
* Between one shoulder and the opposite foot. (For example, L shoulder and R foot)
* Between the other shoulder and opposite foot.
* Between your two feet.
* Between your two knees.
* Between your two hips.
* Between your two hands.
* Between your two elbows.
* Between your two shoulders.

4) Now comes the critical final step. Visualize the inside of your head as an interconnected web of energy — kind of a like three-dimensional spider web. Maintain a slight sense of pressure in your head while doing so.

At this point, if you are successful, the feeling of interconnection within your head will instantly spread throughout your body. This is the “Aka” state of vibration. Try to maintain it as long as you can. Focusing on the sense of pressure and interconnectivity in your head helps. You should feel a sensation of tingling and interconnectivity throughout your body. You may also experience the following sensations:
* A kind of stiffness or paralysis in your body.
* A sensation that it is a bit hard to breathe (but you will be able to breathe).

Please feel free to write to me and let me know your experiences with the Aka Meditation (lansky@activeconsciousness.com). I will have more things to report about it in future newsletters. I believe it is highly significant, so please try it out!

Our Watery Minds

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(This post appeared in my September 2012 Active Consciousness Newsletter).

When water or the ocean appears in one’s dream, it is usually considered symbolic of the emotions or the unconscious mind. But if you think about it, our “every day” mind and emotions have a lot in common with a body of water too.

My husband Steve and I have just returned from our yearly summer vacation in Canada. While here, I usually sit for hours each day — resting, reading, meditating, or canoeing — looking at a body of water: the Moon River near Bala, Ontario. Although it is technically a river, the Moon is dammed downstream by a power generation plant, making it somewhat more like a meandering lake with many small bays. And because I spend so much time at the Moon’s edge, I also spend a lot of time contemplating the nature and behavior of water, especially its surface.

Imagine yourself looking at a medium-size lake before you. Just like our own minds, the great majority of the essence of a lake lies below its surface. The “real” lake is comprised of its inhabitants — the fish and flora that largely remain unseen unless we make the fairly strenuous effort required to suit up in scuba gear and explore it. Even so, much will remain unexplored and only vaguely understood. As a result, our usual focus and understanding of a lake pertains to its surface — the ripples and waves and other turbulence caused by factors that exists outside the lake: wind, boats, birds, dragonflies and other insects, and us humans splashing about. In fact, sometimes a wave can arrive at the shore that was generated quite a while ago by a passing boat.

And so it is with our minds. Our true selves are comprised of a vast universe that largely remains unseen unless we actively investigate below the surface. Our more typical conceptions of our “minds” and of our “selves” are merely surface features that are formed and pertain to things outside ourselves — our interactions with other people and things. These surface features are our every day thoughts and feelings — our reactions, the ripples on the surface. In fact, just like a wave that was generated by a distant boat, the things that shape this surface are often things that occurred in the distant past.

Just like a lake surface, our thoughts are rarely completely calm. Interestingly, the most calm times of day for a body of water (at least for our Moon River) are at dawn and at dusk. For some reason, the wind settles and human activity becomes quieter too. So too are our minds, which tend to be quieter when we are just waking and when we go to sleep. For this reason, these transitions into and out of sleep are also perfect times when we can more easily peer in and see beneath our surface. Just as I can see fish and reeds in the Moon at dawn and dusk, we can more easily catch a glimpse of our vast inner selves at transition points between wake and sleep.

If you look out at a lake, you will often see some areas that are calm and others that are ripply or turbulent. In fact, our eyes naturally gravitate toward the turbulent areas, just as we are naturally drawn to our most turbulent thoughts. It often takes more effort to appreciate the calm and to create it within ourselves.

Indeed, when things get too calm, most of us insist on splashing about! Too much calm makes most of us nervous. Quick! Turn on the TV! Start talking! Or how about eating something? Quiet can be unsettling. Distraction can be so much easier.

I see the same thing on the Moon. Just when the water becomes calm, everyone runs out for some boating and water fun. In fact, the more active one’s life tends to be, the more turbulent that fun must be. The old folk are satisfied with just sitting on the dock. The older adults get in their pontoon boats that glide about calmly and relatively noiselessly. The more contemplative types like me and my husband Steve get in our quiet canoes and paddle about. The teenagers and young adults create the most disturbance of all with their noisy sea-doos (an awful noise!), wakeboarding, tubing, and a motorboating style that tries to create the biggest possible wakes and turbulence. The little kids are satisfied with just jumping into the water and playing.

This graduated phenomenon of what’s “fun” or considered to be stimulating water activity has made me realize that it all depends on the amount of background noise in one’s life. The more busy and noisy our lives and our minds are, the more busy and noisy our distractions must be. With our fast-paced lives, constant movement, and non-stop bombardment by media and conversation, it takes a noisy sea-doo to get “out of our heads” and shut off the chatter of our surface minds. When our lives and minds are a bit quieter, a gliding pontoon boat or a canoe will do. When our minds are very young or our lives are more simple like a child’s or an elderly person’s, just feeling the water on our bodies or the gentle undulation of a dock is enough.

Back in the “old days”, when the world was less populated and our minds were less full of distraction, just having a guest over to one’s home for an evening of conversation was cause for much preparation and excitement. Playing piano and singing together in the parlor was every bit as stimulating as an iMax theater or a monster rave is today. It took a lot less. And it took a lot less of our Earth’s resources too.

As we move into the Fall and a new school year — often one of our busiest and most active times of year — let’s contemplate the lessons of water. To be happy with less, try to become more quiet inside. Focus more on the calm spots and try to delve below the surface of the mind. The quieter you become, the more you will appreciate the simple pleasures of the Earth, use less of its resources, and enjoy simply being with your selves and the ones you love.

Relax Into Nature

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This post appeared in my Active Consciousness Newsletter — August 2012

Every summer my husband Steve and I spend some time up in Canada — in a land of lakes, granite rock, and forests called Muskoka — about two hours north of Toronto, Ontario. And that’s where I’m sitting right now as I write this — looking out my window onto the expansive Moon River. That’s our dock in the photo. It’s windy and overcast today. We’re hoping for some much needed rain.

Despite the fact that I try to meditate daily back in California and that I now lead a relatively peaceful life (especially compared to my hectic days working in Silicon Valley), I find that I’m still pretty stressed when I come up to Canada each summer. Life can be SO busy. Normally it takes several days — even a week — for me to relax into the rhythm of life in Muskoka. Things just move slower here, running on “Muskoka time,” as Steve and I like to say. When a workman says he’ll come over Tuesday afternoon — well, maybe he will. Maybe it will be Wednesday morning.

Actually, for various reasons, I felt particularly stressed when I came up to Canada this summer. The world around us is going through a lot of changes right now, which is creating stress in all of our lives. Instead of a few days, it has taken a couple of weeks for me to really relax this year. In fact, in my experience, the tension we all carry around within us isn’t even perceptible until we have a chance to drop it. You can’t hear the noise until you experience silence.

Some of my most important spiritual or meditative experiences this summer have been through animal contacts. In fact, as I mention in Active Consciousness, one interesting active consciousness experiment is to try calling animals to you — that is, making an interesting animal contact one of your PURE GOALs. This summer, these kinds of contacts seem to be constantly knocking at my door.

On one of our first days here, I was sitting in my little chair on one of my favorite perches — with essentially the view you see in the photo. At one point, when I looked on the ground next to me, I was startled to see a long greenish-brown snake with longitudinal yellow stripes just about a foot away from my feet. I have never seen a snake here before, and this is our ninth summer at this cottage. Startled, I moved suddenly and the snake slithered away into the bushes.

After doing some research online, I found that my friend was a non-poisonous garter snake. I resolved that if he visited me again, I wouldn’t startle. And just yesterday it happened. I was reading a book up on my perch when I looked down and there was my friend again, coiled up in the sun with his head raised looking at me. I said hello gently and told him that I would feel a little more relaxed if he left. He immediately responded by slithering off slowly into the bushes.

Amazingly, in late June, I had selected seven “medicine cards” for my summer solstice quarter. This is a practice I perform quarterly as part of my journaling process using the book The Sacred Journey (which I highly recommend). My primary card for this summer quarter was the Snake, which symbolizes transmutation. My two visits (so far!) with the garter snake have been reminders to me to meditate more deeply on this principle and its importance for me at this time.

Another important facet of my time up in Muskoka this summer has been reading the book Spiritwalker by Hank Wesselman. I highly recommend it. Among many other fascinating ideas, the book emphasizes our human connection to the animal, plant, and mineral kingdoms and the power and insight we can gain by communing intentionally with these realms. Somehow, this summer seems to be providing me with a direct linkage to animals, requiring very little effort on my part at all. Here is an amazing event that happened to me spontaneously about a week ago.

I was sitting on the upper deck pictured above, in one of the green chairs next to the little green table. To my left in the water, a lone male duck was swimming by — a common occurrence. I was in a light meditative state and in a very openhearted and happy mood. On a whim, I just started talking happily to the duck. “Hello there!” I said. “Would you like to come up here and visit with me?” Almost immediately — within five seconds — the duck suddenly jumped onto the paddleboat that you can also see in the photo, with a tannish cover over it.

I then said to my feathered friend, “That’s great! But how about walking up the ramp to sit with me up here? You can do it!” The duck responded by jumping back into the water and swimming around for a few seconds. Then, suddenly, it jumped onto the lower part of the ramp, walked up, and waddled directly over to my chair. It looked me in the eye and sat down — about two feet away. We both looked out over the water. I talked to the duck about the beautiful day, and about how nice it was for him to visit me. I apologized that I didn’t have any food for him — and that I hoped he wasn’t expecting that. He sat with me for a while longer. Then he got up, looked at me again, walked around a bit, and then jumped off the deck into the water. After swimming around for a few seconds, he did a ducky take-off — running rapidly atop the water and then taking off for a flight across the bay, loudly squawking his farewell to me all the way.

Wow. I knew that something really amazing had occurred. I ran up to the cottage and told Steve about my duck encounter. But slowly, it recessed into my memory until I met with the snake for the second time yesterday. I decided then to write it all up and tell you about these amazing encounters.

Friends, we need to pay attention to our connections to Nature — in all its forms — and to the important messages we are receiving. As my teacher Gary Sherman is constantly stressing to his students, information and teaching is coming to us daily. We only need to expect it, notice it, acknowledge it, listen to it, and be grateful for it. Your life will change in miraculous ways if you do.

Recent Media Appearances…

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I’ve been intending to use this forum to let you know about my various media posts and appearances… Here is a recent sampling:

Impossible Cure Newsletters — May and June  (for a list of all of them, see http://www.impossiblecure.com/newsletter.php).

  • June 2012
    Frequently asked questions (FAQ); Take action! Petitions to sign that support the continued availability of homeopathic remedies.
  • May 2012
    Much to the dismay of the “skeptics,” homeopathy is boosted in many countries around the world (includes a link to information about the landmark Swiss government report); Homeopathic creams.

Active Consciousness Newsletters — May and June (for a list of all of them, see http://www.activeconsciousness/newsletter.php).

  • June 2012
    Facing your fear; Four-dimensional space on YouTube.
  • May 2012
    A personal ‘tzitzit’ — reminding yourself to be in the Now through a wearable object; Interview of Amy on Superconsciousness.com.

Other articles and appearances:

Less Medicine Is Best Medicine — in Alternative Medicine (May 2012).

Much to the Dismay of the ‘Skeptics’, Homeopathy Is Boosted in Many Countries Around the World — in Mothering Blog Forum (All Things Mothering) (May 17, 2012).

Understanding Remedy Reactions in Homeopathy — in Mothering Blog Forum (All Things Mothering) (April 13, 2012).

Interview of Amy Lansky about her new book, Active Consciousness — in Superconsciousness.com Magazine (April 2, 2012).

There Is Plenty of Scientific Evidence for Homeopathy — in Mothering Blog Forum (All Things Mothering) (March 12, 2012).

The Homeopathic Approach to Epidemics — in Mothering Blog Forum (All Things Mothering) (February 2, 2012).

When You Have the Right Vibe, It’s Not a Coincidence: Synchronicities, Energy Healing, and Other Strangeness in the Field — in Reality Sandwich, online journal, January 2012.

20 Homeopathic Remedies That Every Home Should Not Be Without — in Mothering Blog Forum (All Things Mothering) (January 12, 2012). This blog post is the first in a series by Amy on homeopathy for Mothering.

ENJOY!

 

Costa Rica — Pura Vida!

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Hanging on the jungle bridge

In Australia, they always say — “No worries, mate.” In Costa Rica, people greet each other with “Pura Vida” — pure life. I believe that when a saying pervades a nation’s speech pattern in that way, it says something very intrinsic about their consciousness. Although the Australians are in many ways similar to Americans, at base they have a much more relaxed attitude towards life.  No worries, mate.  Much more relaxing. In Costa Rica, it’s all about the teeming life that swarms around them. It’s mesmerizing, calmly invigorating, and very in tune with nature. Pura vida.

(What would the saying be for Americans? “Lifestyles of the rich and famous”? “Live free or die”? “Shop till you drop”?)

When I looked up the accepted meaning of Pura Vida online, I found this on Wikipedia:  “Pura Vida literally means Pura = pure and vida = life, but “Pure life” in Spanish would be “Vida pura” instead, so the real meaning is closer to “plenty of life”, “full of life”, “this is living!”, “going great”, “real living”, “Awesome!” or “cool!”.”  From May 2-9, my husband Steve and I had a short but amazing vacation in Costa Rica. (First time we’ve left the USA or Canada since 2005!) And  I definitely agree that being there was a Pura Vida experience.

A rare glimpse at a baby toucan being fed by his parent

I think that what struck me most about my time in Costa Rica was a pervasive feeling of being embedded in nature. The sounds of  birds were everywhere — day and night. They peeped and trilled you awake and sung you to sleep.  The sounds of frogs and monkeys were there too — especially at sunset. The plants were amazing, literally gushing over.  The mangoes are strewn on the side of the road.

Our lives here in the USA are so pruned and regulated, so boxed and impersonal.  Thank God, Americans are an inherently friendly people, but we’ve generally lost complete touch with the natural world. We are totally in our heads and in our entertainment and in our physical objects. We barely notice our natural Earth world anymore. No wonder we abuse it so blithely. In Costa Rica, the Earth asserts herself. You cannot ignore her. Her top is spread open wide and her breasts are pouring out before you. You cannot help but notice. You are enveloped within her.  You can’t box her up.

Don't worry.. the snakes mostly just sit there

Another interesting thing about Costa Rica is that it is the only country in Central America that isn’t plagued by military shenanigans and warfare. Aside from problems with theft, you are safe. In the mid 1900s the Costa Ricans did something almost unheard of — they abolished their military. Granted, it was done with the understanding that the USA would be their guardians. I guess everything has its price. The result, though, is that Costa Rica went forward and utilized its natural resources for its own development. The main industries are agriculture and tourism. The country is devoted to tourism. They love their tourists and baby them. The roads are slowly becoming more and more developed, people have their cars, their internet, their schools, their universities, and their peace.

It’s a simple life though — a small life. It’s a pretty small country and the ability and money to travel is limited. For the most part, most Costa Ricans never travel outside of Costa Rica —  at most to other Central American countries or the Caribbean. They seem pretty happy with that though.  Their foods are basic and repetitive and healthy. They don’t eat out of a packaged box. Costa Ricans aren’t fat. It seems like a simple life in tune with the outer natural world. It kind of reminds me of my days on an Israeli kibbutz in my early 20’s. You live simply, eat simply, work outside, spend a lot of time with people doing simple human things, and enjoy being alive. Pura vida.

Just monkeyin around...

Naturally, most of the things Steve and I did in Costa Rica had to do with nature. We were guided through the jungle over hanging bridges or in kayaks through coastal mangrove estuaries, seeing toucans, macaws, crocodiles, howler and squirrel and capuchin monkeys, sloths, anteaters, vipers, iguanas, tarantulas, agoutis, and leaves that curled up when you touched them with your toe. We soaked in hot springs at night, fed by the nearby volcanic heat and lit up by distant lightning storms.

Heading up toward the ziplines

 

 

And I faced my own personal fear of heights and of danger in general by zipping across a zipline a half-mile long at 40 miles per hour, disappearing like a spec into a fog that hung over a rainforest valley 600 feet below. I didn’t sleep a wink the night before, but I did feel quite alive. Pura vida.  Not bad for a 56 year-old lady!

Enjoy  the video links below…

Hanging out on the Hanging Bridges near Arenal

Leafcutter ants go about their business

Pura Vida after a soak at the Eco Termales Hot Springs

Facing Your Fear — Amy’s first long zip (after 2 short practice runs)

Monkey shines at the Manuel Antonio National Park

The sounds of the evening near Manuel Antonio National Park

 

 

An eggy treat! Matza Brei

AmyLansky.com Posted on by

While it’s still Passover (which is not officially over until Saturday the 14th), I thought I’d share a simple recipe for a yummy treat that you can try all year, but is especially good during “matza week” — MATZA BREI. It’s basically fried matza and eggs.

Ingredients:
4 slabs of matza (plain is best, as far as I’m concerned)
About 1/4 cup boiled water
3 eggs
About 1/4 cup milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Crush up the matza in a bowl so that it’s in small pieces — about 1/2 inch in size. Pour in the boiled water and mix up — just enough to moisten and soften the matza, but not so much that it becomes gluey. Add in the eggs and milk and salt and pepper and stir up well. Heat a frying pan with olive oil or butter. When it’s nice and hot, pour in the mixture and spread out in the pan.  Let it fry up so that the bottom is done and starting to brown.  Then flip it and break up into smaller pieces. Keep frying and stirring up a bit so that it’s all brownish but not too dry.  (Some people like their Matza Brei dry, others like it moist. I like it medium dry.)

Serve up with jam on the side.  (Makes enough for 2 people.) Enjoy!