I spent some time this weekend whittling down my Facebook friends list.  I removed a lot of business names and names of people who had their occupation listed as part of their name.  I appreciate hearing about what people do for a living, but I don’t care to be solicited.  What interests me most about other people is what they spend their day to day time doing, what things interest them and what they find enjoyable and life enhancing.  I skip over the ones who post political news items or event announcements and I look for the ones where someone reveals some personal something about their life and comments on how it makes them think or feel.  Even if it’s an inspirational quote, don’t just post the quote, post why is means something to you. That’s what I look for on Facebook. Continue reading →

Lunar Cycle Turns Hurricanes Into Beasts by Michael Reilly, Discovery News — Werewolves aren’t the only terrors that follow the lunar cycle; hurricanes strengthen more often under a new moon than at any other time, according to a new study.  The moon’s spooky influence on Earth and its denizens is legendary, and rightly so. From fertility to suicide, most phenomena attributed to Luna are almost exclusively superstition.  But Peter Yaukey of the University of New Orleans has found what he thinks is real evidence that the phases of moon drive hurricane behavior. Storms that occurred in the Atlantic Ocean between 1950 and 2007 were more likely to form right after the new moon. They also intensified 49 percent more often after a new moon than at any other time in the 29.5-day lunar cycle. Continue reading →

Jan Phillips writes in The Huffington Post: I woke up last night to the sound of laughing and realized I’d fallen asleep with the TV on. It was 3 AM and I knew it was Jon Stewart but I had to fumble around for my glasses to see who his guest was. Unbelievable! It was Jesus, in his robe and all. His nose was bigger than I thought, his skin a lot darker, but his eyes were more piercing than I’d ever imagined. It was like light came out instead of going into them.

John was making some joke about both of them being Jews and Jesus, after laughing harder than I thought he would, said quite seriously to Jon, “Yeah, that’s one of the weirdest things, isn’t it? How could they forget that?” Continue reading →

The past couple of weeks I’ve been cleaning my floors repeatedly. Moving furniture to clean the floor beneath it, taking everything away from the wall and away from the corners to get the entire floor’s surface.  My typical m.o. is a quick sweep, vac and swipe with the Swiffer wetjet.  But lately I’ve been cleaning it more often and more thoroughly.  I love how Mop & Glo puts a nice teflon shine on the floor, but I need to clean the floor really well first or it’s going to get that waxy build up.  As a test, I just tried a patch 3 tiles wide by 3 tiles down with a 50% solution of Clorox Kitchen Cleaner and water. I used a scrub brush for one minute and I was shocked at how much it lightened it up. The longer I left the solution on, the lighter it got.  I’m considering renting a floor scrubber or asking a friend to do it for me. I don’t know why it’s suddenly more important now than it’s ever been to get the floor clean, but it is. During meditation this morning, I reflected that so often in the past I’ve made do with a surface clearing of my thoughts and behaviors and beliefs.  I’d make room for something new, but not completely replace the old.  I’d let myself walk between the worlds, so to speak, until I got used to the new ideas and until they ultimately replaced themselves.  Now something is clearly happening, and being reflected in me being obsessed with getting my floor clean.   I have something I want to strip away, to get at the bottom of, to make new and fresh with a clean start, to get in on the ground floor with.  I look forward to the unfolding.  When I get to the bottom of it, I’ll let you know.

RELATED:  My first ever Steam Mop — A Bissell PowerFresh

I was at the market with a friend the other day and there were no ripe bananas.  I told him to put them into a paper bag to ripen quicker.  He was going to just put them in the cabinet but I told him they needed to be in a paper bag.  I knew the paper bag was necessary because when fruit is picked, it releases ethylene gas.  That’s what causes fruit’s chlorophyll to be broken down, causing color changes.  It also causes starches to be converted into sugars, making the fruit sweet.  It causes acids to be broken down, causing it to taste less sour; and pectin to be broken down, making it softer.  Putting the fruit in a loosely closed paper bag traps the ethylene gas inside and accelerates ripening. It made me think of the times I can use some ripening myself, times it would have been better for me to have stayed to myself, sealed up in my own personal atmosphere rather than out in the open where I’d stay green for so much longer.

Tonight for dinner I made aromatic rice with garlic and peppers. Here’s the recipe, it serves two. Into the rice cooker, along with one cup of jasmine rice and 1.75 cups water, add:
1/2 tsp crushed cardamom seeds (buy in Indian market)
1/4 tsp crushed fenugeek seeds (buy in Indian market)
2 star anise * 1/2 tsp turmeric * 1 stick of cinnamon * 1/2 tsp oregano * 1 bay leaf * 1 tsp sea salt * 1/2 tsp coarse ground black pepper Continue reading →

In Trend Alert! ‘Dating Down’ Hits Hollywood, Jo Piazza writes: “In Hollywood, many celebrities have adopted the habit of dating down.  So why are so many famous stars trading in their equally famous spouses for major downgrades?  It’s always easier to date down whether you’re a movie star or a regular person.”  Hmmm.  I don’t know if I’d call that dating down, it sounds like just a change in values.  My mom worked at the V.A. Hospital in Tampa, FL until she died in 1996.  Divorced from my dad, her friends would joke about finding her a doctor to marry. My mom, however, had had enough of being married to the handsome charmer that was the life of the party and that everyone loved and wanted to be around.  Some of her friends were concerned when she began dating Felito, a garage mechanic 16 years her junior, whom she met at a community singles dance.  She needed to be with someone more professional, they thought.  But after I got over all the same jumped-to conclusions, I soon found out that Felito was real and he was a good guy with a fun sense of humor.  Most of all, he clearly adored my mom.   I knew that Mom was tired of all the bullsh*t facade around relationships, and just wanted to cut to the chase and find someone to love and have adventures with and grow old with.  They married and remained sweethearts until Mom passed in 1996. Continue reading →

The fruit of meditation is realizing that your bad habits are simply self imposed burdens that you choose to discard when you are ready.

RELATED: Andrea’s Meditation Process
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Preparing For Relaxation; Preparing For Meditation; Daily Practice
Herbert Benson’s Relaxation Response is Transcendental Meditation minus the ritual
Paving neural pathways to achieve meditation and access elusive inner states
Regulate your body chemistry: meditation as anti-aging medicine
A list of meditation’s positive effect on some of your body’s chemicals

Here is a list of just a few of your body’s chemicals, and the positive effect meditation has on them:

GABA – Are you aware that people who regularly meditate have considerably increased levels of the neurotransmitters GABA? What is GABA and what makes it so good? GABA (gamma aminobutyric acid) is one of the major inhibitory neurotransmitters in the central nervous system and is best known for stabilizing mood disorders. Anxiety, tension, insomnia, and epilepsy are believed to be due to the failure to produce adequate levels of GABA. In a study at Yale, people with panic disorder were found to have 22% less GABA than people without panic disorder. Addicts, including those addicted to alcohol, drugs, tobacco, caffeine, food, gambling, and even shopping, all have one thing in common; not enough of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA. GABA is very important. Continue reading →

Imagine being able to rid yourself of a host of medical or psychological maladies without drugs or psychotherapy. Imagine being able to turn back the clock naturally, without taking drugs and hormones. You can practice anti-aging medicine with non-invasive medical meditation. These are proven effective in one of the most overlooked forms of therapy available today.  With each passing day, you age.  Every morning perhaps you notice a sign-a wrinkle here, a gray hair there, an ache, a pain or a little bulge somewhere.  While you see the visible signs of aging on the surface of your body, beneath the skin there are telltale signs as well. Physiological studies have shown that your cardiac, pulmonary, musculoskeletal and brain functions are also declining as you become older. As time passes, minor damage mounts up and cells, organs and systems begin to wear out.

Continue reading →