Monday, November 17, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
Uh Yeah...
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Happy Diwali!
The Philosophy
Whatever the story, Divali is a very special occasion for Hindus throughout the world. The many ceremonies signify one's journey and the qualities that should be fostered for Self-enlightenment. One is reminded to wake up from the slumber of ignorance and to pursue knowledge. As light dispels darkness, so should knowledge dispel ignorance. Through learning, man is expected to advance to the stage of enlightenment in which he realizes that God is the Light of lights, and that God brings warmth, love and illumination to all beings and therefore there can be no light greater than God.
The aim of Divali celebrations is to get man moving on the spiritual path and ultimately attain illumination by becoming one with God. As they light the lamps in their houses, those celebrating Divali are reminded to light the lamps of wisdom, goodness and God-consciousness in themselves. It is through this, that they can attain the “Light of Lights” - God.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Why
Looking for you by and by
Seeking the love that was already within me
I saw it in the wing of the hawk
I heard it in the song of the dove
I felt it in the sweep of the lash
I knew it completely as love
Why be lost in that searching when
The finding is in the heart always and always?
So my heart flowered and sweet perfumes came forth Shadowed like the midnight sun of north werelongings and heartfelt songs,
As unto dreams that go on and on
into the forest, Into the waves,
along the mountain tops, swept into storms. The journey is the way, we are one.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
4, 3, 2, 1...
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Simplicity
Friday, August 29, 2008
Give Up?
Canadian's beat Bill C-51 — but watch the back door!
ANH, 24 June 2008
Bye-bye C-51
Around a million Canadians made their feelings known about Bill C-51, an amendment introduced by the Harper government to the Canadian Food & Drugs Act. The mass opposition to this Bill forced the Canadian Parliament to call off the second reading last Friday. The Bill, having been successfully through first reading on 8 April 2008, is now dead. Hooray for mass protest!
The Bill was going to create a new category called 'therapeutic products' which would throw natural health products—or ‘therapeutic foods’—into the same category as drugs. It would also have given Canadian authorities obscene powers to raid premises, confiscate products—with no reasons given. It would scare the small, somewhat fragile and fragmented natural products industry into submission—an industry that is the life line for millions of consumers who prefer to take natural products rather than drugs to manage their health.
To find out more about what Bill C-51 was going to mean to Canadian citizens, click here [1].
If there is one true hero—and of course there are many—in the C-51 battle, it is none other than Shawn Buckley, President of the Natural Health Products Protection Association [2]. Shawn, we fully recognize and appreciate your fantastic work and capability.
However, many will realize that in the minds of those steering the government-corporate machine that is hell-bent on removing our ability to freely access unpatented, natural products and ‘therapeutic foods’ (aren’t all wholesome foods therapeutic?) used in healthcare, this is a chess game. A chess game on which Canadian citizens’ lives depend.
Enter: Bill C-52
The backdoor the authorities are planning to use is Bill C-52. This Bill is designed for something entirely different. It’s meant to be about protecting consumers from unsafe products and chemicals, such as pesticides. It is not directly concerned with natural health products.
But, Shawn Buckley has identified that by slipping in one simple amendment to Schedule 1 of Bill C-52, the Bill could be applied to natural health products overnight. It could—put simply—be used to take away their rights in the name of safety.
And the clock is ticking. The Bill made it though second reading on 1 May 2008! One more reading [3] and it’s through!
To find out more about Bill C-52, click here [4].
If you consider that the Canadian government has been an active party supporting the entire direction of the Codex Alimentarius Commission’s nutrition committee [5], which is developing international guidelines and standards on ‘safe’ nutrient levels—that are pitifully low because of a misapplication of scientific risk assessment [6]—you’ll understand that Canadians cannot afford to let this one slip through.
These ludicrously low global levels, sanctioned by the Canadian government, will become the stick with which it can beat its citizens!
What to do
If you are a Canadian citizen, please don't rest on your laurels for a second. If you aren't a Canadian citizen but have friends or relatives there—you have a duty to let them know if you care about their futures and you know they care about their natural health.
The chess game is still running. The backdoor is open—don’t let them make that move as it’s not only your lives at risk—it’s future generations that could have it so much worse if these sorts of legislative proposals are allowed to emerge as law.
More and more people are joining the dots.
Also—make sure you keep a close eye on the National Health Products Protection Association website. [2]
Links:
[1] http://www.stopc51.com/
[2] http://www.nhppa.org
[3] http://www.parl.gc.ca/compendium/web-content/c_g_legislativeprocess-e.htm
[4] http://nhppa.org/?page_id=24
[5] http://www.anhcampaign.org/campaigns/codex
[6] http://www.anhcampaign.org/campaigns/risk-assessment
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Truth Telling is risky
Trace Arsenic in Water May Be Linked With Diabetes
By Carla K. Johnson
The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 20, 2008; 1:23 AM
CHICAGO -- A new analysis of government data is the first to link low-level arsenic exposure, possibly from drinking water, with Type 2 diabetes, researchers say. The study's limitations make more research necessary. And public water systems were on their way to meeting tougher U.S. arsenic standards as the data were collected.
Still, the analysis of 788 adults' medical tests found a nearly fourfold increase in the risk of diabetes in people with low arsenic concentrations in their urine compared to people with even lower levels.
Previous research outside the United States has linked high levels of arsenic in drinking water with diabetes. It's the link at low levels that's new. The findings appear in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
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"The good news is, this is preventable," said lead author Dr. Ana Navas-Acien of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
New safe drinking water standards may be needed if the findings are duplicated in future studies, Navas-Acien said. She said they've begun a new study of 4,000 people.
Arsenic can get into drinking water naturally when minerals dissolve. It is also an industrial pollutant from coal burning and copper smelting. Utilities use filtration systems to get it out of drinking water.
Seafood also contains nontoxic organic arsenic. The researchers adjusted their analysis for signs of seafood intake and found that people with Type 2 diabetes had 26 percent higher inorganic arsenic levels than people without Type 2 diabetes.
How arsenic could contribute to diabetes is unknown, but prior studies have found impaired insulin secretion in pancreas cells treated with an arsenic compound.
The policy implications of the new findings are unclear, said Molly Kile, an environmental health research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health. Kile wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal.
"Urinary arsenic reflects exposures from all routes _ air, water and food _ which makes it difficult to track the actual source of arsenic exposure let alone use the results from this study to establish drinking water standards," Kile said.
Also, the findings raise a chicken-and-egg problem, she said, since it's unknown whether diabetes changes the way people metabolize arsenic. It's possible that people with diabetes excrete more arsenic.
The United States lowered arsenic standards for public water systems to 10 parts per billion in 2001 because of known cancer risks. Compliance was required by 2006, years after the study data were collected in 2003 and 2004.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Like this Like That
I left a message for the birds to see, the only passengers of that distant country.
A red petal fallen gently, a blue jewel in the rain, a green leaf on a branch of elm, a yellow umber crystal falling through the air never touching ground, magenta and violet stones tumbling in the ocean's waves onto the sand where my poem painted and written by hand lay, waiting, for you the reader of the signs to see it.
In a dream a long and elegant hand gives me a white white rose, it opens up to reveal a crystal liquid, I drink long and deep from the cup, the nectar fills me up and I am no more. Thus do I travel...between the veils of worlds to reach you.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Map Quest
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
With You
Thursday, July 31, 2008
I'm really going to miss it
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Lady in White
White TaraShe is distinguished by "her body ... white, as an autumn moon; clear as a stainless crystal gem, radiating light. She has one face, two hands, three eyes. She is described in manuals as having "the youth of 16 years" but is often depicted as more full-bodied than Green Tara. Her right hand makes the gift-bestowing gesture, and with the thumb and ring finger of her left hand she holds a branch of white utpala, its petals on the level of her ear.
There are three flowers in various stages of growth symbolizing the three times (past, present and future.) The first bloom that is in seed, usually on the right, stands for Buddha Kashyapa who lived in a past eon; the second in first bloom stands for the historical Buddha Shakyamuni, whose activity has brought you here today, and the bud on the left symbolizes future buddhas -- the expected one is Maitreya Buddha.
Her hair is dark blue, bound up at the back of her neck at the back with long tresses hanging down; her breasts are full; she is adorned with divers precious ornaments, her blouse is of vari-colored silk, and her robes are of red silk, the palms of her hand and the soles of her feet each have an eye, making up the seven eyes of knowledge; she sits straight and firm upon the circle of the moon, her legs crossed in the diamond posture."
[This description (Beyer 379) from the beginning of her sadhana is included as characteristic of the details in texts used as a basis for tantric visualizations. We remind the reader that in a Buddhist sadhana, the practitioner is not really worshipping a goddess since the image is his or her own self imagined as a deity.]
White Tara is referred to as "Mother of all the Buddhas." This is because she embodies the motivation that is compassion. Her whiteness "Radiant as the eternal snows in all their glory" is indicative of the selflessness -- the purity -- of this compassion but especially the undifferentiated Truth of the Dharma.
Her seven eyes stand for her perception of suffering that is apparent (the two we normally have,) that is psychological/spiritual (the one in her forehead,) and that is inherent in activity (in her palms,) and in what is usually considered as progress (in her soles.)
The mantra for White Tara is
OM. TARE TUTARE TURE. MAMA AYUR PUNYE JNANA PUSHTIM KURU, SWAHA
