Garden and Gratitude


I cleaned the garden today, getting it ready for winter. I’m hoping to get compost and more rock dust on it before Christmas. The freeze is coming soon now and most plants will succumb. If the freeze is hard and long, roots in pots may not survive. The garden and I both miss the longer days and the sun.

I transplanted lettuce into the tomato pots in the greenhouse, that’s the sign of an optimist I suppose. I just like to keep things alive, perhaps you do too. In gardens as in life there is the struggle to keep things going against the odds.

I’m often amazed how we as people don’t see opportunities that present themselves to us, later those opportunities may seem obvious, but at the time we can’t or won’t see them. A sage once said that everything we need to grow in awareness is always right there in front of us.  And, I’m always interested in why we do or do not see , sense, or feel them. Why our actions sometimes seem at odds with our best interests.

Get a PHD in Psychology and discover you don’t have all the answers. We humans are very complex. Often times we are afraid of making mistakes. We surely are going to along the way. But is anything ever without an opportunity? I’d say everything is an opportunity for wisdom and compassion. No matter what, it is better to act, to keep moving, experimenting than to sit paralyzed. A mistake still has momentum and will self correct, and from another point of view, may simply be an experience we really need.

When we are very young there are the terrible twos. I think of that time as a time when we children discover we are not free. We are being told no and we don’t like it. We become oppositional. To a greater degree this fades as we grow up, but not always. Sometimes it continues into adulthood unabated, but arising from the unconscious mind.

This season has been unusual, unusual because many people I know had great stress, and some great physical trauma. I am grateful for my health and I send hope for theirs.

Well, I’m happy, I had a nice garden this year. Something’s grew really well, others didn’t, it’s always like that. A garden is a lot of work. We have a great farmer’s market close to us. I do my best with my garden, not everything gets attended to at just the right moment. But there is more good than not from working in a garden, so I do what I can.

I just dug up the beets. I brought the surviving herb pots into the greenhouse space and now comes the winter.

This beet I am holding is about four pounds and last night we ate some of it and it was good. How we feed the plants though getting nutrition in the soil can yield very nutritious food.

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A tree trunk the size of a man grows from a blade as thin as a hair. A tower nine stories high is built from a small heap of earth.
Lao Tzu

Where Does The Time Go?

It is nearly Thanksgiving again. I have not added anything to this blog for months. And you know you know how that goes. A family member dies, a divorce happens, a job is lost, a big move happens, and the next thing you know your world is out of balance, a top wobbling. And, it is natural, natural to feel out of balance at times. Here is a partial table from Wikipedia with top ten experiences of stress statistically presented.

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So, I have been affected for some time by some stressful situations. Its inevitable. And I know all experiences are an opportunity to gain wisdom, to express compassion, to be love.

Recently I read a scientific study that found that uncertainty is stressful, that it creates anxiety. They could have just asked most of us to know that is true. Given that uncertainty is prevalent in most historic times and places, it seems we have to take responsibility for our own interpretation of events. Shy of creating world peace, we don’t at present have much of a choice but to learn to respond peacefully to events we do not control.

I had lunch with a new friend. We met at a fundraiser and had the best time talking. We went to lunch last week and we both very much appreciate each other. Our overlap or common denominator is metaphysics. She gave me her October issue of Science of Mind magazine and in were these words beginning an article about Sainthood and Mother Teresa.

“Many years ago, a noted psychotherapist asked members of an audience, “If I squeeze an orange, what comes out of it?” After a few seconds someone shouted back an answer: “Orange juice!” The audience laughed. The psychotherapist smiled. “Yes,
he said. “Orange juice. Why? A few moments later another audience member answered, “Because that’s what’s inside the orange.”
“Yes,” said the psychotherapist “You don’t squeeze an orange and get apple juice. You squeeze an orange and you get orange juice because that’s what’s inside it. The juice is the orange’s essence.”
The psychotherapist then asked another question. “So what comes out of you when someone puts the squeeze on you? When someone is mean or disappoints you or slanders you? When you are in a crisis situation? When you see people suffering around you? What comes out of you.”

My new friend is ninety-six years old. She is writing a book about her life. I can’t wait to read it. She has quite a story to tell from what I have learned from her so far.

Free Will versus Fatalism

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Everyone that I see in therapy learns about the polarity between fatalism and free will. Now a scientific study is saying that those who believe in fate, those who don’t understand their innate power of creation are more likely to have increased anxiety, depression and decision dissatisfaction. Those who embrace their free will have greater self-esteem and sense of meaning in their lives.

The study is talked about in Science Daily here.

As the study notes: “When we experience or have low belief in free will and feel ‘out of touch’ with who we are, we may behave without a sense of morality,” says Seto. “This is particularly important if we have a goal to improve the quality of life for individuals and the society at large.”

 

Goodbye Ruby

The unthinkable, the unbearable, the unfathomable, loss, something gone, not to return, a spirit set free of a body. My cat Ruby died today. The vet came. She said it was most likely kidney failure. I will bury her after a while, the vet said its best to wait a while. That makes sense to me, she’ll probably try a few times to get that body moving. I laid next to her as she passed and she summoned up faint purrs at the end. I am so blessed.

So I’m singing her a few songs as she lies in her bed in front of the window in my music room. And in a while, dusk, I will take her out to a spot by the pond that she loved. I am wrapping her in a fine towel and burying her between two large stones. I know she would approve.

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We most all know loss, loss of a pet is different for me than the loss of people. Pets so embody unconditional love, and so, their loss is different.  We usually don’t have grudges with our pets, things we could never forgive because it was so awful. No, we are pulled to be our best selves with our pets. We forgive, offer kindness as best we can, and we might at times wonder how they can be so kind and forgiving.

 

Brains on LSD imaged

LSD is a drug. One that has been banned from research for a long time. Prior to banning LSD, it had shown positive possibilities in many many areas. Research was banned in the 1980’s. Since the 80’s technology for looking at brain activity has advanced immensely. Now it is possible to understand the physical effects of the drug on brain activity and function.

Here is an excerpt from the Guardian article.

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“A dose of the psychedelic substance – injected rather than dropped – unleashed a wave of changes that altered activity and connectivity across the brain. This has led scientists to new theories of visual hallucinations and the sense of oneness with the universe some users report.

The brain scans revealed that trippers experienced images through information drawn from many parts of their brains, and not just the visual cortex at the back of the head that normally processes visual information. Under the drug, regions once segregated spoke to one another.

Further images showed that other brain regions that usually form a network became more separated in a change that accompanied users’ feelings of oneness with the world, a loss of personal identity called “ego dissolution”….

The study could pave the way for LSD or related chemicals to be used to treat psychiatric disorders. Nutt said the drug could pull the brain out of thought patterns seen in depression and addiction through its effects on brain networks.

Amanda Feilding, director of the Beckley Foundation, said: “We are finally unveiling the brain mechanisms underlying the potential of LSD, not only to heal, but also to deepen our understanding of consciousness itself.””

The Guardian Article >

Proper Use of the Mind


Recently I attended a retreat with a delightful presenter. Here name is Maria Manuchehri and she is primarily a energy intuitive. She is very capable of tuning into you, in many ways.

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One of many things I learned from her was the proper use of mind. She suggested our mind primarily be used to hold positive, loving, peaceful thoughts while keeping a focus on the area a few inches below the naval. Now, my explanation is quite simplified and I am sharing this because it correlates with recent scientific research saying that our human minds are often on the future (anxiety) or the past (depression). It is good to look into the future if that future is one you would like to experience and to look into the past of that past memory is a pleasant one.

The Mythology of Science Based Medicine

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Apple Blossoms in my garden.

As a hypnotherapist I see the power of the mind so often. Recently my friend Jim alerted me to something published in the Huffington Post and it confirmed my suspicions about our current medical paradigm. It cites a study from the British Medical Journal and it says this:

The British Medical Journal recently undertook an general analysis of common medical treatments to determine which are supported by sufficient reliable evidence. They evaluated around 2,500 treatments, and the results were as follows:

  • 13 percent were found to be beneficial
  • 23 percent were likely to be beneficial
  • Eight percent were as likely to be harmful as beneficial
  • Six percent were unlikely to be beneficial
  • Four percent were likely to be harmful or ineffective.

“This left the largest category, 46 percent, as unknown in their effectiveness. In other words, when you take your sick child to the hospital or clinic, there is only a 36 percent chance that he will receive a treatment that has been scientifically demonstrated to be either beneficial or likely to be beneficial. This is remarkably similar to the results Dr. Brian Berman found in his analysis of completed Cochrane reviews of conventional medical practices. There, 38 percent of treatments were positive and 62 percent were negative or showed “no evidence of effect.”

A few years back someone I am close to saw seven doctors before getting a diagnosis that was correct. It reminds me of one of my favorite toys of childhood — the magic eight ball.

So what should we take away from this? I think the most important thing to know is how important it is that we discover what is healthy for each of us and what is not healthy. Yes the medical establishment embodied in a doctor has a place. They can do amazing things to repair certain things but they rely often on the same truth I do, that the mind of the patient must be engaged in the healing process.

elmerMy dear friend Elmer Cranton is one of the smartest doctors I have ever known. And he has known more than most of his peers and contemporaries about the misinformation masquerading as medical truth during his career. One of my favorite sayings of Elmer’s is to mostly  “stay away from doctors, they’ll kill you”.

He is an amazing friend and I am so blessed he is part of my life. He pioneered chelation therapy in spite of the opposition of the medical establishment. During his last practicing years he also had two Hyperbaric Chambers helping patients to speedier recoveries.   He also “knew” that the heart bypass industry was incorrect a long time ago and wrote a book “Bypassing Bypass”.

Here is what the British Medical Journal just said about bypass:  “We all marvel at the technological advances in materials and techniques that allow doctors to perform quadruple bypass surgeries and angioplasties without marveling that recent studies indicate that coronary bypass surgery will extend life expectancy in only about three percent of cases. For angioplasty that figure sinks to zero percent. Those numbers might be close to what you could expect from a witch doctor, one difference being that witch doctors don’t submit bills in the tens of thousands of dollars.”

So, exercise, eat well, and stay peaceful and calm.

Depressed by the Manipulation of the Speed of Light

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I have a theory and I am going to share it with you. I theorize that we are recently being depressed by the speed of light. Of course, it is logical to assume that the speed of light has remained constant in the universe for some time. So it isn’t a change in the speed of light that is causing the depression. I think we might be depressed because we have learned to use the speed of light to move information globally.

Just a few hundred years ago, news that occurred in Europe would take months to arrive in the United States. By the time we heard the news the impact on us was muted by the time that had passed — months. Now you can’t escape the bad news, it comes across social media equally fast. Often it is compassion evoking and often fear provoking.

Information/news systems now alert us to many events happening globally. These news events are strongly skewed toward “bad” things just as local news is about every big enough bad thing that happened that day. And, it is unimportant that we assign responsibility for this bias to the demands of viewers or the propagandists of an era. What is important is the ratio of reality presented in information/news systems.

Continuing with my theorizing,  if on average, each person is kind to another person three times a day, then we have 21 billion acts of kindness each day.These acts come from humans, humans that possess freewill, choice.

If our information/news systems represented this ratio of reality, you and I would have a difficult time finding a violent fear inducing show on television. Most everyday, most everybody, does their best to cooperate, get along, be helpful and perhaps someday our institutions, nation, and world will reflect the values of the regular people doing acts of kindness to others.

I received five acts of kindness from others today and that made me think about the speed of light and the ratio of reality in our information/news systems. Most important is the choice to give acts of kindness, as that heals our body and the soul.

There was a woman in France alive and well into her hundred and twenties. Of course, everyone would like to know how to stay well and enjoy life like she was doing. She wasn’t a saint and had a shot of something every night and she had smoked for a hundred of those years. What she had was a ideal. An ideal of staying calm if there was nothing she could do to change something happening in the world. Now isn’t that something?

 

Love Accept and Allow

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I feel the need to write something. I would like it to be something that you would read and then find yourself in complete understanding, peace and bliss. That would be enough of a contribution for me to give the world.

Some people say if you are still alive you have not yet completed what your soul wants you to complete in this life. I am still alive and wondering just what that could be. It is mind boggling to realize we are all here with something to learn and something to do. It’s not like we are all here to begin revolutions or save the world. No, its much simpler and it has something to do with giving, with being of service.

I initially saw my work with hypnosis in lofty terms. I would help people discover their purpose and complete that purpose. I would help them heal and find meaning and purpose. After so many years my aspirations have lessened but not my ideal. I cannot accelerate the growth of a tomato or a person. Everyone has their own timeline and free will, this means that they write the rules of their reality.

So, I love accept and allow

Sometimes the tools we think we are going to use to help others are as much that opportunity as they are the opportunity to change self. In the personal transformation world you hear it is the journey that is most important, not the destination. Perhaps the journey and the destination are important as you are both moving within the illusion of time and space and already one with everything.

The seers say the truth is within each of us, to be found in the little things of kindness, compassion, love, and service.

Blessings,

Rick

The Common Cold

It seemed like the feeling in my head, sinus, and throat could be allergies. But, on the third day there was complete certainty, its a cold. Starve a cold, feed a fever, or so they say. I decided to try a modified version of a remedy that comes from the Edgar Cayce archives. On the hour, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda.  My version is to combine the baking soda with an Airborne as often as I think of doing so. Hour on the hour would be better, I suppose.

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Considering the mental issues with colds is something I must do. Most people believe that a cold lasts about two weeks. In other eras most believed the earth was flat. Truth is an evolving story. The belief in anything has immense power in the life of the believer. (On my News and Studies > page in the medical section, are several interesting articles on placebo studies.)

A belief in a two week recovery period ensures that a two week recovery period will have a much higher probability of extending to two weeks. In essence this is a nocebo effect (opposite of the placebo). When a person believes there is another possibility of rapid recovery, that too has a placebo effect.

The theory that underlies all of this is that our bodies can be between acid or alkaline balance. Alkaline is better because the cold virus does not like alkaline environments. The regular baking soda, combined with a mostly alkaline diet, will change the ph of our body. This is an easy test with ph test paper readily available at most drug stores.
A list of alkaline and acid producing foods here >.
Details behind the science >

It is very helpful to go to bed as soon as you realize you have a cold. Flat on our backs with few distractions some say is the purpose of a cold. To lay there living in our minds for a while between sneezes and blowing of the nose may offer an opportunity for learning something about our lives.

I hope this day finds you well.