Categories
Ayurveda Cleansing

The Dietary Cleanse

Shedding the metal

I’m on day fourteen of a fourteen day heavy metals detoxification dietary cleanse. After this phase of my cleansing ritual I will shift into an Ayurvedic-style digestive cleanse—a Kitchari cleanse. More about that later.

I know many folks out in internet-land are curious about and/or interested in dietary cleanses. Many have, like me, experimented with different approaches to cleansing while others view cleansing as a crazy woo-woo ritual that they would never engage in but about which they have many opinions. Since there is interest in this subject, I thought I’d use my platform to describe and explore my approach to cleansing and to document my experience, with cleansing this time around. Please use the comment area (at the bottom of the page) to ask questions or comment.

The regimen

My cleanse regimen this fall consists of two weeks of heavy metal cleansing and one week of a “digestive” Ayurvedic cleanse. I’ve already written about why I detox in the fall and spring and I can’t stress enough the importance of this seasonal approach. My suggestion is that if you are tempted to start a cleanse in the middle of winter or summer, JUST SAY NO. Detoxing then is totally out of sync with the natural processes and has the potential of doing more harm than good. My first wayward experiment, explained in my last post, is a good example of problems with this approach.

The heavy metal cleanse I follow is a simple do-at-home detoxification routine. I learned about it in the book Radical Healing by Rudolph Ballentine. He is the guy (now a Swami, apparently) who wrote the seminal book on holistic nutrition, Diet and Nutrition back in the 80s. That book is still, in my humble opinion, one of the best nutrition books out there. Rudy was way ahead of his time with that book. Anyhow, this cleanse is for detoxing the day-to-day level of metals we are exposed to. It is not intended for more serious cases of heavy metal poisoning.

  • This is the book from which I got this cleanse. Despite it’s overwhelming size it is a very handy reference book for those interested in integrative health and healing.
  • This is a book by the same author. If you read one nutrition book in your life, I recommend you read this one. I inherited the original one on the left from my mother and I don’t really know why I bought a second copy. Maybe I figured it was so good I needed two. I refer to this book over and over.

The (relatively) easy part

This heavy metal detox involves maintaining a relatively clean diet and adding a quarter of a cup (packed) of cilantro to a meal each day for two weeks. The cilantro can be chopped or not (although you do need to chew it), mixed with a salad, or soup, or smoothie or, if you are into it, can be just eaten plain. I think the cilantro should be eaten all at once, not spread over the day to do its job properly but I’m not sure if that is necessary. That’s the easy part.

A quarter of a cup of cilantro once a day provides chelation.

The not-so-easy part

Now the less-easy part. Twice a day for the entire two weeks consume one tablespoon of bentonite clay suspended into a glass of water, followed by a glass of plain water. I buy my clay at the Seward Coop in Minneapolis and you can purchase it online or probably find it at any number of natural foods stores.

How its supposed to work

Here’s the logic behind this regimen.  Cilantro is a chelator of heavy metals so when we eat the cilantro, heavy metals are drawn out of our cells, which is good. But if we don’t drink the clay solution, the metals hang around in our system and are not fully excreted. Drinking the solution manages the necessary excretion of these toxins. The clay does a good job of cleaning up the metal mess and is a good detoxifier in and of itself. 

The additional glass of water is important. It helps to disperse the clay. Essentially, the cleanse combines several stages into one (often other more complex cleanses do the chelating and elimination processes in several stages). The benefit of this approach is that it is simple and easy.

What it feels like

When undergoing a cleanse, how I feel varies from day to day. Some days I feel very good and others I feel crummy. That’s pretty normal when detoxing metals. The process of removing toxins takes a toll on our bodies but I imagine the burden of living with heavy metals, clinking around in my cells, puts a much larger strain on our bodies, particularly on the nervous system.

Day one of my cleanse was Friday, October 4. On Monday October 7 I awoke feeling super great. My joints felt looser and my mood was high. By that early evening I felt horrible. I was head achy, joint achy, and totally fatigued—exhausted.  I knew the detox was kicking in. By the next morning I felt fine. I guess the toxins were being extracted and flushed.

The following Wednesday afternoon I picked up a cold. Often experts suggest you stop a cleanse if you get sick. However, I don’t think that would have been a good idea for me at this point. Detoxing heavy metals is a process that I think needs to play itself out. Stopping early could leave me feeling crappy since my body has released toxins into my system but not yet had a chance to fully flush them out. Since the cleanse didn’t limit my diet I felt I was getting the proper nutrients to manage a cold. I decided to continue. And now, I’m glad I did. I am still dealing with the detritus of the cold but I’m none the worse for wear.

This past Monday I started the day feeling crummy with headaches and joint aches again but by the end of the day felt fine. This leads me to wonder if the detox and flushing might happen in cycles.

Wednesday I was pretty tired early in the day but felt better by mid-day. I can’t tell if the fatigue was a result of the cleanse or the cold.

Things I’ve noticed this time around

  • If I prepare my clay concoction well in advance of drinking it, it is much easier to get down. Preparing it several hours in advance using hot water and leaving it sit allows many of the creepy lumps to dissolve, or at least become slimy rather that powdery.  Believe it or not, after a day or two the clay just becomes a habit
  • I’ve added cilantro to a variety of foods: homemade chili was a great option,  roasted root vegetables tossed with the cilantro was very tasty, I added the cilantro to a burrito, prepared a baked sweet potato with olive oil and cilantro, and prepared a fried ginger, onions, hot peppers, sesame, cilantro, and millet bowl (super tasty). I don’t drink smoothies (I think eating real solid food is a better idea for me) so I can’t attest to how cilantro would taste in one but I imagine it would be fine.  In the past I’ve added it to salads and liked it. Often the taste of cilantro can be enhanced if you add lime to it.
  • Earlier in the cleanse, in week one, I noticed my teeth subtly hurt a little. It was sort of a rhythmic pulling, achy feeling, especially in my front teeth. It was something I’d never felt before. It went away eventually but occasionally I feel it again.
  • My appetite has decreased significantly. I noticed this by day two. I don’t crave sugar (which is good) and my appetite seems pretty stable. I recall this happening in past cleanses.
  • My joints have gone from feeling super good to very achy at times and back to super good.
  • Doing this cleanse is much easier now that I’m not going to an outside workplace every day (I KNOW the digestive cleanse will be way easier now). It really helps to have the time to pay attention to how I’m feeling as I’m doing this.
  • My sleep quality and quantity has varied but I think that is partially due to the cold. At this point my sleep seems ok but erratic, despite paying attention to sleep hygiene.

I’m considering adding one new step to this cleanse. Today is the last day of this cleanse but I think I’ll continue the clay into tomorrow. Having an extra day of flushing out the toxins seems like a good idea to me.

Next up…

Next time I write, I’ll introduce you to the Ayurvedic Kitchari Digestive Cleanse. It’s more than just a dietary cleanse. It’s designed to cleanse your entire “self”—mind body and spirit. I need to do some preparation for the Kitchari cleanse and have been buoyed by the arrival of two packages of Ayurvedic supplies. I’ll fill you in more on that next time.

Categories
Ayurveda Cleansing Politics of Well-Being

Autumn: The season of cleansing

Fall weather, is in full swing. In Minneapolis, after an unbearably wet start to the season, we’ve been treated to a few classic, clear and colorful days. But we’re not expecting them to last. Snow is forecast for the weekend  (and people just can’t stop talking about it).

As I’ve navigated the season, I’m reminded that September and October are difficult months for me. They elicit sadness and grieving and require my special attention. This is especially challenging because autumn is also the time for putting the gardens to bed, tidying up the yard, and putting away all the yard stuff I spent so much time setting up just a few months ago. At a time when I’m not at what I would call, an “energetic high”, I’m expected to dig and tote to turn the patio and gardens into barren landscapes. It doesn’t do a whole lot for my mood.

Patio fall cleanup. Dragging in the hose is my least favorite task. But it’s put away nicely.

In recent years, I’ve added dietary cleanses to my fall ritual. Fall and spring, considered in many traditions to be transitional seasons, when the weather is wild and the winds are blowing, are the seasons in which to perform these rituals. They are not necessarily easy affairs, but they have become significant and helpful rituals in my physical, spiritual, and creative life. In the same way that Autumn blows away the summer heat, a cleanse clears out the stale energy of summer and creates space for new possibilities.  

The garden it going through it’s own cleansing process. Shedding it’s seeds and leaves.

Cleanses happen at many levels

Meanwhile, back at the universal body, the folks in Washington DC are in the midst of a detoxifying ritual of their own. And, similar to a dietary cleanse, the larger body is resisting the act of detoxifying.

What I’ve learned about cleanses is that persistence and discomfort are the key to a successful dietary cleanse. If you stop your cleanse when things become uncomfortable, the toxins that you’ve finally drawn to the surface will remain in your body and continue to do damage, just closer to the surface.

Comfort can be my enemy

I experienced this effect a number of years ago when I engaged in a heavy metal dietary detox in the winter (the absolute worst time –other than summer—to detox). I did it because I felt like it and just had to do it “now”. Advice be damned.  The detox drew out toxins in the form of a nasty skin condition that, on one hand exposed a situation so I could deal with it, but one which took me years to get under control. It would have been a lot easier to manage, had I performed the detox at the right time of year and extended the elimination (of toxins) piece longer. But I let discomfort get the best of me.

The heavy metals cleanse includes consuming clay (above) suspended in water. It is a bit on the unpalatable side but is absolutely necessary to clear the toxins out of the body. Because of the comfort factor, it’s easy to minimize the importance of this step but one does so at ones peril.

Generally, I find it is too easy to stick with what is comfortable, even though I am fully aware that in many ways “comfort” is the enemy. Ayurveda confirms this, the Enneagram confirms this, and my life experience confirms this.  It is so easy  to just fiddle endlessly with my website or design Instagram posts, rather than doing something a little more challenging, like writing this blog post.  As soon as a dietary cleanse becomes a little uncomfortable, I’m tempted to quit. But, quitting just makes life more difficult.

Pushing the cleanse comfort envelope

It looks like finally, in Washington, people are resisting discomfort and pushing through to clean things up. I admire these people because I know the process is not easy. I think that it’s no coincidence that this process is happening in the fall. It’s the right time.

I learned the wisdom of pushing the comfort envelope last spring during my last cleanse. By fully sticking with both a digestive and heavy metals cleanse I saw—to my astonishment—my endless, almost unbearable skin condition simply disappear. (Sorry, I don’t have any photos of the condition but it was terribly oozy and itchy and gross.) AND I experienced my first summer without seasonal allergies in about fifteen years. I didn’t need to take a single Clariton all summer!

I can’t say for absolute sure that the cleanses were the cause of these nice developments but the relief did come as the cleanses progressed. I’ve lived with the discomfort of not absolutely knowing for sure what caused what for awhile now. Long enough, it seems, to understand that sometimes the best action is just to set an intention, take a few steps forward, observe, sometimes follow the rules, pay attention, listen, trust the process, and see what happens. We may be pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

October community gathering

The October Kindred Spirits gathering will happen Thursday October 24 at St. Peder’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, 4600 E. 42nd St., Minneapolis, MN 55406, from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

In this session, we’ll explore what it means to create space, and reflect on healthy approaches to establishing our own physical, emotional, and spiritual spaces, in which to thrive.

Join us.
Here’s a lovely ode to autumn.
Categories
Ayurveda Mindfulness Self-care The Spirit

Finding Clarity in the Strangest of Situations

I had a nasty bout of insomnia (of my own making?) last night. I found myself still in front of the television at 11 p.m. before I flipped the switch and headed to bed. This is a death knell for my normally good sleep patterns. I generally need to be in bed before 10 p.m. or my brain decides to turn on at just the wrong time.  This, Ayurveda teaches me, is totally to be expected. It’s a reflection of existence. Our pita (fire) elements begin to stoke around 11 a.m. and get in the way of sleep triggers (they are more appropriately inducing deep sleep and dream states). Thus, bedtime between 9 and 10:00 p.m. is a natural way to develop healthy sleep patterns.

The times associated with the doshas indicate when they are most active. Pita, the fire element, was most active as I was trying to induce sleep. My efforts to fall asleep were fruitless due, in part, to the active fire element doing what is supposed to do in my system.

I knew this, but was compelled to complete the show I was watching, a Ken Burns documentary about the history of Country Music in the U.S. It is a subject about which I’m very interested and Ken Burns’ work has a strange way of sucking me into its “we are all in this together” vibe. Was my behavior worth it, given the rather dazed state I’m experiencing now?  My answer is, maybe, just this once, but “let’s not make this a habit.”

My Experience

As I ruminated and ruminated and meditated and ruminated and ruminated and read and tossed and turned and read some more and wandered around the house and ruminated and ruminated and ruminated, read some more, meditated some more, castigated myself, ruminated, ruminated, forced myself to not look at the clock, listened to the crickets, wondered if they were birds, ruminated, ruminated, etc (you know the drill) a strange thing happened.  I fell asleep for a few hours.

This experience disrupted my routine and left me feeling less than stellar today. But, I’m ok, have the freedom to add a few hours of sleep to the morning, and am just trying to go with the flow.

While meditating this morning (considerably later than usual) I noticed an interesting phenomenon. I felt a level of clarity I hadn’t felt for awhile. It was like all the ruminating had purged my mind of a lot of detritus. I was able to gain a glimpse of the sense of being an empty vessel. Much of what I had been ruminating over and rehearsing in my mind through the night just wasn’t there, at least for that moment,. In its place was a sense of clarity, like a calm pool of water.

Clarity comes to me like a gentle pool of rippled water. Unfortunately, clarity never seems to be intrusively “in my face.”

Naming It

So, I felt the need to write my experience down, name it, to make it real. Writing is one tool I use to remember these sort of experiences. Without some method of codifying these experiences my mind fills up quickly and these moments of clarity dissolve into the pool.

Writing a blog is an interesting experience. While I have wanted to post every week, that just hasn’t been possible. It isn’t lack of inspiration (I don’t think writing is necessarily about “inspiration”, at least not exclusively). It isn’t about “will” (whatever that is). It isn’t necessarily about the “doing” either…many days I write, just not things I want to share. Today, I think, my  decision to blog involves naming clarity.

A state of clarity is when my mind is clear of all the things that clutter it up, worry, anxiety, ego, striving, expectation, etc (you know this drill too). In these rare moments of clarity, I am able to use my mind as a vessel for whatever is out there to be shared.

Sometimes the Preamble to Clarity is Arduous

I appreciate the clarity, although, I must say, I often prefer to reach this level of clarity using easier methods. Insomnia is a pretty unpleasant experience. The problem, as I see it, is that those easier methods aren’t always apparent to me. Fortunately these days the unpleasantness is usually short lived. I have a non-pharmaceutical plan for achieving sleep bliss tonight. This plan has worked in the past and I think it will tonight.

This difficult night followed by bright clarity makes me feel like I’ve taken a another brief foray into the underworld. This time to purge myself of my chatter-box demons. Like so many mythic characters before me, maybe I’m now part of a special club. I’m surprised though;  I never expected Ken Burns would be the one to open these gates for me. Goes to show, you never can tell.

Monthly Gathering Next Thursday

I invite you to join me next week, Thurs. September 26 at 7 p.m. for a monthly community gathering at St. Peder’s church, 4600 E 42nd St, Minneapolis, MN 55406 in South Minneapolis’ Longfellow neighborhood. Cost (suggested donation) is $25 per session. I suspect, much of what I’ve been blogging about will emerge in the sessions. But, again, you never can tell. Learn more at Healing-ground.com/events or email me at info@healing-ground.com. It would be helpful if you could let me know if you will be attending but feel free to just drop in. I certainly will not be turning anyone away!

You Never Can Tell

https://youtu.be/Qv8gwgNG5R8
You Never Can Tell. Tru That! Emmy Lou Harris’ version of this classic is joyful and carefree. She hasn’t appeared in the Ken Burns documentary yet but I’m sure she will when we get to the 1970s. I first saw and heard her do this number in 1975 when she was new on the scene. I was totally blown away by her singing, her musicianship, and her incredibly fine band. And, she even has her name on her guitar strap!
https://youtu.be/qjdYBzzWsew
Emmy Lou is still performing, she’s still cool, still has her name on her guitar strap, and I’m still listening.
Categories
Politics of Well-Being Self-care

As seasons change the natural order emerges

Below the Soil-line

My block has been getting a haircut this week. Chain saws and cherry picker trucks are making their way up and down the block, pruning out branches from gangly trees. Trucks, chain saws, cherry pickers, rakes, and new faces are breaking the quiet calm of the neighborhood. There is nothing like the sound of a chainsaw in the morning to get me up and about.

The changing of the season is reflected in the tree trimming.
The tree trimmer machinery was on the block preparing the trees for winter.

Autumn is the season for this sort of activity. Many trees are best pruned in the cooler weather, and it feels natural to see piles of branches on the ground, waiting for pickup. This is, after all, the time of year when things start to fall down. Apples are being picked, tomatoes are making their last hurrah, and generally mother nature is shedding herself of her fruit. So, the tree trimming seems like a natural extension of seasonal rhythms.

Shifting inward as the season changes

Preparing for winter is a thoughtful affair. I’m looking at a long stretch of pulling closer to myself, with introspection, and quiet, but I find it a little confusing that even though winter feels like a more inward time, I am driven to be more productive and focused on outside work during winter than I do other seasons. I wonder if that is because there seems to be little else to do in our dark, cold winter; or maybe it is the natural order of things. Maybe, as the flora sits buried under the mulch during the cold months, more is going on than meets the eye.

The garden is looking a little tired from all the summer activity. The little prairie on the alley, which flourished this summer, is in full bloom but looking a little faded and worn out. I wonder about what is going on down there beneath the soil line to enable this little miracle to reappear in the spring and flourish throughout the summer, despite the brutal winter conditions to which it is subjected.

The seasonal changes are reflected in the parairie garden
The look of the prairie in the spring is very different at summer’s end. The pink puff balls on the right are native Prairie Onions. In the foreground the Prairie Sage has sprawled majestically. The Milkweed in the background is barely visible in the spring picture. The Pussy Toes, the fuzzy flowers on the left, are barely visible by summers end.

The echinacea, which astonished me this year by pretty much taking over its garden space (after a very sparse year the previous summer), is ready for a break. What happened over the winter that enabled a few lonely echinacea plants to turn into an echinacea jungle?

Ehinacea reflects seasonal changes.
The Ehinacea is pretty worn out come summer’s end.

Finding the natural order

These days the world in general is also looking faded and worn out, as we teeter on the edge of the abyss. I find myself hoping, against hope, that things are happening under the soil line, out of my line of sight, that are creating the conditions for our world to somehow make it through what has been very long winter. What I do know is that under the soil line each microorganism, mineral, and animal has a purpose and a function that contributes to spring regeneration. This understanding motivates me to pay attention to the seasonal changes and prompts me to try to put myself in a position to contribute to the natural order of things.

So now I’m preparing and storing food for the winter and planning my fall cleanses. I’m planning my fall plantings and reviewing schedules for winter activities. I’m setting intentions and making commitments. If I wasn’t blogging, Facebooking, and Instagramming these activities, much of what I’d be doing would be below the soil line but I guess social media has changed all that.

Garlic is harvested and cleaned with change of the season.
Garlic went into the ground last fall, was harvested in mid July, cured, then cleaned and trimmed a few days ago.

The bustle of the tree pruning is slowing and the block looks nice and tidy, is a little bit brighter, and is a lot quieter. The trees look lighter and happier and more sun is penetrating the canopy. They appear ready to do their underground winter work.

I wonder if our world couldn’t use a little pruning. Maybe it’s time to pull out our big inner machinery and clear out the energetic forces that are blocking the sunlight so we can begin the real work of allowing our planet to thrive. And we can only do that if we each do our own work below the soil line. If we do that, then maybe there is hope.

Community Gathering

I will be hosting a monthly gathering at St. Peder’s church, 4600 E 42nd St, Minneapolis, MN 55406 in South Minneapolis’ Longfellow neighborhood. Cost is $25 per session. If you are seeking support for thriving, and fully contributing to our broken world, consider attending. You can learn more at Healing-ground.com/

This cool video captures the essence of how I imagine life below the soil line: full of activity, imagination, curiosity, and enlightenment. Thanks to Dan Rather for locating and publishing this video via FaceBook (@thedanrather).
Categories
Mindfulness Self-care

Variations on a theme from Funk

In A Funk?

I’ve been in a funk the last few weeks.  I don’t know exactly why or what precipitated this state but I’ve felt like I’ve been operating under the radar and feeling out of sorts. I know the news of late has been bleak and the weather has been heavy, thick, cloudy, and hot. All that influenced me, but this “funk” felt deeper than all that.

I’ve lived on this planet long enough to recognize when this is happening. The discipline of meditation and contemplative practices have given me the gift of insight to occasionally look at my situation from a neutral position—like I’m observing as a third party. And on mornings like today, when the air is finally clear, sunny, and bright, my clarity often re-emerges. I find myself looking back at the past but also understanding that the present moment is really all there is.

Living in the moment? Really?

This idea of living in the moment is glibly tossed around by people in my profession, myself included. It has become so buzz-wordy that I find myself using the term yet wondering if I actually understand it. Everybody lives “in the moment”—we have no choice, right? The moment is the moment and when else can we live?

My understanding of the intention behind this idea of living in the present moment is that it requires that we marshal all of our senses and then pay attention to them when we experience them. Don’t I always do that?  Today I’m wondering if the answer to that question is “Maybe not”. Observing my time spent over the last few weeks has given me some insight into this question.  

How I experienced my funk

Things I did during my funk: maintained my daily meditation, devotional, and breathing practices, experimented with water color paints each day, observed that the gold finches are back and they, despite their tiny little squeaky voices, can be gloriously loud.  


The point of playing with watercolors was not to create great art but to play with the medium and see what happened (although I wouldn’t have objected had great art actually emerged). It’s easy to get lost in the moment when playing, and that is a great place to inhabit.

I visited the Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists show at the MIA for a second time.

I dug in the dirt. I watched the final season of Orange is the New Black, prepared beet salad, prepared cucumber salad, prepared lots of dal, millet, and chard. I began drying my prairie sage in my front porch,

The scent of drying prairie sage is amazing. It is a lemony, lily-like scent, not unlike that of ylang-ylang oil. (The pink is echinacea purpurea)

I celebrated the birth of a new born baby and I grieved the deaths of too many innocents. I circle-sang and I finally listened to a segment of my friend Joe’s new Concert Climat CD.

I finally listened to the first piece of this set. The music has a fresh and spontaneous feel and and is well worth experiencing. I’m not sure how you can purchase it–I don’t see it on Amazon. I purchased it via the Septet’s Kickstarter campaign awhile back.

I bicycled downtown, walked in the neighborhood, had lunch with friends. I celebrated birthdays, watched debates with friends, and ate cake. And, tah dah, for the first time ever, I successfully completed a Tuesday Sudoku!  

Proof of my victory over the Tuesday Sudoku. My friend Ryan taught me how to approach the Sudoku back in February and I worked at the Monday puzzle for months. Finally, I was able to graduate to Tuesday!

Why did it take a funk for me to experience all that?

The sun is shining today and I’m energized, am as optimistic as can be expected, and am feeling cheerful. Observing what transpired during my funk makes me I wonder if what I thought of as a “funk” wasn’t really my body’s way of ordering me to pay attention to all my senses, ignore the endless “shoulds”, trust my body, and to just “be present.”  I’m wondering if, like a snake shedding its skin, I’m slowly shedding my layers of “shoulds,”  and emerging refreshed and recharged. Could it be that I’m just not really accustomed to feeling the moment, to being present?

I am considering that maybe living in the present is a process of continual regeneration rather than just a thing. Maybe we all suffer (or have funks) and maybe variations on funks is the whole point. Maybe we are not supposed to function at peak happiness all the time, and maybe redemption from this suffering is found in the simple act of shedding our “should” skins and living in the moment.  And maybe it’s not the answers that provide the insight, but the questions.

It all sounds lofty and feels profound, but it really isn’t. It’s just life. And today I, and everyone else on the planet, will go on with our day-to-day lives and maybe catch glimpses of the present moment. But, no matter the questions or answers,  I’m passing on the Sudoku until next Monday. I don’t want to push my luck.

References: Variations on Funk

There are a variety of different manifestations of funk available to us. Here are two of my favorites:

Categories
Politics of Well-Being Research

Here we go again: No quick fixes

Pills

Does this sound familiar? A wonder medical drug treatment protocol sweeps through the medical establishment, is imposed on millions of people, becomes the “go to” method for preventing major diseases and encourages the belief that by simply taking a pill and individual can significantly improve their health. Then, years later, after actual longitudinal (extended over time) research is conducted, the protocol is declared null and void for general use. This time the drug is aspirin and the protocol is the use of an aspirin a day to prevent cardio-vascular disease and stroke.

Anyone who has visited their primary care physician over the last few decades has been asked if they have been taking their aspirin every day (to which, thankfully, I have answered “no”). This aspirin-a-day was supposed to lower our odds of experiencing cardiovascular disease. Now, it turns out, it doesn’t lower our odds, and, in fact, it may be harmful.  

It’s not just “a bottle of aspirin” anymore.

The history and efficacy of aspirin is reviewed in an interesting piece in The Lancet (May 2019) which concludes, “in 2018, three large randomized clinical trials of aspirin for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease showed little or no benefit and have even suggested net harm.”

Sowing distrust of health care

I find the cavalier attitude towards pharmaceutical research and public pronouncements to be maddening. Time and time again, from Thalidomide in the 1950s and 60s to Oxycodone in the 2010s, public health is compromised to the short-term interests of an establishment that has little interest in the actual health and well-being of the public. This attitude sows distrust of all health and well-being modalities, including conventional medicine, and feeds the cynical “oh well, we’re all going to die so who cares” attitude so prevalent today. It also casts dangerous shadows of doubt on the safety of well-proven and tested, public health initiatives.

And it affects people’s lives

My first experience with this phenomenon began in the early 1990s and concluded in the early 2000s. I was told I absolutely needed to take estrogen to counteract my risk for heart disease (after the debacle I described last week). I didn’t think I had a choice so I took it faithfully for about ten years, despite the miserable and debilitating side effects I experienced. One day, on the car radio, I heard a news report that said new studies showed estrogen replacement therapy not only didn’t improve a woman’s risk for heart disease, but it INCREASED her risk. I remember saying out loud: “Oh #$%^!” I went home and disposed of the hormones and, surprise, over a short period, after ten years, I started feeling happy and healthy again.

This happens how?

This cycle has deep roots and can be traced to our economic system, which dictates the parameters of our health care and pharmaceutical systems, which directs the behavior of individual practitioners, which influences the behavior of individual patients and clients, which then effects the broader public. The system under which we live is optimized for short-term results and short-term gain. Unfortunately, well-being, healing, and public health don’t work that way. Healing takes time and health and well-being develop over a lifetime. The problem also lies in the research establishment. The same economic system incentivizes publication of research that shows narrow short-term results but ignores the bigger picture.

Since changing the economic system that underlies the problem is difficult for any one individual, I suggest we each wage a guerrilla war against the narrow perspective that enables these practices.

Again, with the universal body

First, we can individually widen our perspective, remember the universal body, and engage with it on an ongoing basis. By engaging with the world at large, the big-picture view becomes clearer and the silliness of believing any single pill or food will solve our problems becomes obvious.

Educate

Second, we can educate ourselves, be more thoughtful, and stop worshiping the holy grail of clinical research: the randomized control trial. Randomized control trials, while sometimes helpful, are not the only approach to research. They are especially touted by, and are useful for, the pharmaceutical companies and large research institutions that have the financial resources to perform this style of research. And, often these trials are a snapshot of a very short period of time of a very small sample of participants. They become expensive and cumbersome when carried out over a significant length of time. And, today, we are beginning to understand that information that doesn’t conform to the research funder’s required results is often suppressed.

To this end, I suggest we start paying more attention to case reports. This approach has a long, insightful, history in the annals of medicine. No single case report explains everything or even anything. But collections of well indexed case reports can illuminate patterns and trends over time and enlighten our research.

Pay attention

And, of course, it’s essential to pay attention to our own experience and learn to trust our insights and when necessary to speak them out loud. This knowledge can be invaluable when communicating with our selves and our practitioners, providing information that will never be reveled in clinical control studies.

Trust your experience and share it with your well-being practitioners.

Finally, we can remember that research reports are human constructs, created and written by human beings, and subject to human error. No one study is last word on anything. It is simply a tiny piece of a giant puzzle–not unlike life. It is the collection of all sorts of investigations and experiences that best forms the basis of our well-being choices.

Any given research study is simply a piece of a very large puzzle.

Epilogue

As I was working on this post, I saw a NEW STUDY!!!! announcement on Facebook. It indicated that supplementation of several vitamins/minerals are helpful in the management of anxiety. They very well be helpful in the management of anxiety, I don’t know. But I’m not running out to purchase them any time soon.

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Ayurveda Mindfulness Self-care Social Connection

An Anniversary

Celebrate?

Twenty-eight years ago, this week, I thought I had six months left to live.

I learned the startling news on a grueling hot day, not unlike today. I was told by physicians that I had a serious health condition that was probably terminal and that I’d “be awfully lucky” if it was a different condition (as I suggested to the physician it might be). My most vivid memory of that time is riding the clinic elevator, alone, in semi-hysterical tears, medical records in hand, heading out to have my various body parts scanned and prodded. People in the elevator looked at me, sobbing uncontrollably, like they just wished they weren’t there.  I can’t blame them for that.

A few weeks later, after extensive surgery, I discovered I was, in fact, “awfully lucky.” I wasn’t dead, nor was I intact, but I was alive. I was shaken to my core, but I was alive.

Thinking I was going to die, only to discover that, oops, I was right about the “different condition” and I would live on, was a surreal experience. I felt a combination of terror and relief at the idea that I had diagnosed myself more accurately than had those with years of medical training. Later, as I was struggling with what this all meant, I felt guilty that, after being given a death sentence, I didn’t suddenly have a revelation that all things in life were wonderful, nor was I inclined to run down the street proclaiming “I’m alive”, like in the movies. Despite the kindness of friends and loved ones, all I felt for a long time was alone in a confusing trauma. And, I was pissed-off …all the time.

I was confused, alone, conflicted and pissed.

Recovery from that experience took at least a decade and required a great deal of self-examination and reflection. I ruminated over how I ended up in such a difficult situation. I reviewed my past and I how I had approached my health. As I struggled to feel better, I found little support from the conventional medical system. But I persisted—I felt I had no choice. Over time, several key observations became apparent:

Buck Up!

  • I’d been raised in the “buck up” school of health.
  • This “buck up” attitude taught me to not pay attention to my body, mind, or spirit (whatever that was), and, it taught me to not talk about my health with anyone–these things were private matters.
  • The conventional western approach to health did of good job of eliminating the physical manifestation of my issue, once it was out of control,  but had hindered any chance I may have had of dealing with the situation years earlier, when it was not life threatening.
I’d been raised in the “buck up” school of health.

A difficult journey

Since then, I’ve embarked on a journey of discovery that has taken many wild twists and turns and seen setbacks and advances. When I look around now, I feel like I have ascended from the depths and am living a full, exciting, and happy life.  For this life, I can thank traditional Chinese medicine, conventional western medicine, ayurvedic medicine, energy work, body work, Pilates, yoga, reiki, music, painting, many other practices, friends, colleagues, family, strangers, and my own internal resources for supporting me in this turnaround. 

Ascent from the underworld

I haven’t thought about this anniversary in quite a few years and have never acknowledged it out loud (or in print) before. But like all anniversaries, it deserves to be acknowledged and named. And so, I’ll name it Persephone, in celebration of my descent to the underworld and return to the world of the living.

I’ll name it Persephone, in celebration of my descent to the underworld and return to the world of the living.

Categories
Mindfulness Self-care The Spirit

Taking time

Lavender blooms

This morning I discovered that my lavender plant was blooming – just a few little blooms, but blooming nonetheless. Witnessing this filled me with joy: joy of accomplishment, joy of beauty, and joy of the recognition that things take time.

So, why the big deal about two tiny little flowers on a lavender plant? Well, first, lavender is a plant that seems to thrive in all gardens but mine. I’ve been trying to grow lavender since the inception of my current gardens—that would be fourteen years, which feels like a long time.

When I first planted lavender in the ground,  I had visions of the fields of French lavender we see in photos on the web.  Most years I would put a plant in the ground and it would just sit there in the garden; if I was lucky, getting green, if unlucky, turning brown and wasting away. One year, when I was not particularly aware of the lavender, I accidentally dug it out, thinking it was a weed.  So, I was about to give up my dreams of fields of French lavender.

Pretty, but NOT my garden.

Last year I tried growing lavender in a container, where the soil was warmer. I tried it, just, because. To my amazement it survived the summer, but with no blooms. That was ok. I took what I could get.  I brought the pot indoors to my porch over the winter where it was the sole survivor of a suite of plants that couldn’t manage the rather “cool” winter we experienced. I put it back outside in the spring, watered it, fed it, and generally delighted in its mere existence. At one point, I absent-mindedly clipped out some of the lavender leaves for my rosemary potatoes—only to discover I’d clipped the wrong plant!  (I don’t think lavender potatoes are actually a thing).

Just two little bloom on a fourteen year lavender quest.

Then, this morning, after fourteen years of  hitting and missing, I saw two tiny lavender blooms! I nearly fell over. I thought of my mother who loved flowers and reluctantly acknowledged that maybe she was right (yet again) when she suggested I “be patient.”

These days I find patience to be a difficult quality to cultivate. Living in a world that rewards instantaneous results and dismisses patient resolve as “old school” can make me feel like a square peg in a round hole. It can be frustrating to be treated like a relic by simply suggesting  that we “wait and see” what happens.

Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee by John Hambrock, Minneapolis Star Tribune, 6/9/19

But, for a brief moment, the pretty purple flowers reaffirmed my belief in the value to myself and the world of staying present and living in and loving the moment.

In the end, when I look at the lavender,  I understand that we human beings live in a world of which we are a very small piece. And anyone who takes the time to observe this world knows that destruction can happen quickly but growth takes time. And with this observation I can choose to be part of the destruction or part of the growth. For now, I am choosing growth, one tiny bloom at a time.

Anyone who takes the time to observe this world knows that destruction can happen quickly but growth takes time. And with this observation I can choose to be part of the destruction or part of the growth. For now, I am choosing growth, one tiny bloom at a time.

Healing Ground Health Coaching
Categories
Mindfulness Politics of Well-Being Self-care Social Connection The Spirit

Politics: Yes, I’m going there

I’m feeling uplifted today. After watching two extended conversations between potential presidential candidates I am pleased that the counterforces to the current hateful political ideology have chosen to step up and speak out. Finally, people are speaking the truth, out loud and in public, and naming the horrors happening around us every day.

People in my profession, apparently, are not supposed to talk publicly about politics. I guess politics is considered unsavory in a spiritual and mindful profession. This makes no sense to me. If we are all made up a physical body, a subtle (energetic, spiritual) body, and a universal body (as I believe we are, at minimum), then how can we justify ignoring such a significant portion our universal body?  

The Universal Body

The “universe” isn’t just the sky, stars, eternal space, and ethereal energetic forces. The “universe” is also material. It’s our neighbors and the parent searching for their child at the border. The universe is the people sleeping in tents along Hiawatha Avenue and those wandering the earth looking for a place to reestablish their roots. The universe is also the pharma executive, the farmer in the fields, and person serving us our lattes. The universe is the person who rations their insulin. The universe is the trees, water, air, birds, turtles, and even rabbits. The universe includes the men who call themselves President of the United States, Prime Minister of India, and President of Russia. Everything, including ourselves, makes up the universal and we ignore it at our peril.

Gratitude

While watching the debates I felt an upsurge of energy that I hadn’t felt in a long time. The United States has been so laden with hate and anxiety over the last few years that I had begun to wonder if that was all there was left in the material political world. Was the answer to simply ignore the universal and retreat from the material into the spiritual?

Seeing the wide variety of individuals stating their philosophies, visions, and ideas I felt a sense of gratitude for these twenty real people who were willing to take on this huge challenge. I was pleased to see at least one candidate stick her neck out and approach issues from an energetic point of view—love versus hate. I nearly jumped up and kissed the TV when one candidate took on an establishment candidate with ferocity—when she made it personal. Hearing a candidate frame the ultimate universal issue of the climate crisis in honest existential terms made my heart sing. And hearing the words “piss” (“should piss us all off and spur us to action”) and asses (Russia has been laughing their asses off”) in a nationally televised debate made me laugh and reminded me that energetic forces may be realigning but I think they have a sense of humor, and I can still laugh.

Insight

This morning, during my meditation I received a helpful insight. Paul Wellstone, the no-longer-with us, beloved, former senator from Minnesota and political mentor and hero to many of us, showed up (as he does on occasion).  He smiled his honest, crooked smile and reminded me that while politics is a material action, it also embodies the spiritual action of creation, dreaming, and imagination: “In the last analysis, politics is not predictions and politics is not observations. Politics is what we do. Politics is what we do, politics is what we create, by what we work for, by what we hope for and what we dare to imagine.”  

“In the last analysis, politics is not predictions and politics is not observations. Politics is what we do. Politics is what we do, politics is what we create, by what we work for, by what we hope for and what we dare to imagine.”  

Paul Wellstone

Paul reminded me that as much as we want to deny and demonize politics, as something engaged in by the evil “them,” the truth is that ultimately, politics is us. It’s how we choose to organize ourselves at a universal level in this material world and it requires the spiritual self to even start the work.  

Let’s engage in some politics.

Categories
Mindfulness Self-care The Spirit

Recognizing the Sacred

My beloved native prairie garden is thriving. I planted this experiment in the most inhospitable of locations a number of years ago. It occupies a strip about 17 feet long by 2 feet deep between my garage and the city alley. That spot takes a beating every winter, facing snow, salt, snow blowers, snow plows, garbage bins, and shovels. In the summer it only receives afternoon sun and contends with vehicles, dogs, and, people who don’t even notice there is a prairie in their midst.

Little Prairie on the Alley.

I became enamored with prairies a number of years ago when I visited Blue Mounds Minnesota State Park in the south western corner of the state while on a pilgrimage to the family South Dakota grave site. I managed to visit in spring when the park’s prairie was in full bloom. I was so mesmerized by the variety and beauty of flora in the prairie that I never even noticed the bison for which the park is known. I couldn’t walk the relatively small prairie without wondering what it must have been like to see the vast mid North American continent before domestic agriculture turned the land into a chemical waste dump.

  • Prairie smoke, one of the original plantings, is an early bloomer.
  • I saw cacti in the Blue Mounds prairie and was inspired.

Leave it alone

I’ve learned that the trick for helping a native prairie thrive (once it’s established) is to just leave it alone. Fertilizer will kill it. So, I try to follow directions and just let it be (although I do some weeding of random invaders, pick up the trash that appears, and add plants periodically). This year, the two newcomer plants (planted last year) are thriving: the sacred prairie sage is glorious and the life-giving milkweed is doing just fine, thank you.

  • This milkweed is a newcomer. I bought it at the Bloomington Garden Club plant sale last year. Once they get established, milkweeds are pretty self-sufficient members of the prairie community.
  • Prairie Sage is considered sacred by the native peoples of this continent. This was the first plant entrusted to the care of humans by the creator.

Once, a few years ago, when I was cleaning out the prairie, a distant neighbor asked me “why bother?” to work on a garden on the alley in a city. I was stunned. All I could sputter out was “because it’s beautiful!” He just glared at me and walked away. I felt sad for that guy.  

The world is an ugly place these days, there is no doubt about it. I cannot ignore the ugliness or suffering will increase astronomically and I will be complicit. At the same time, I cannot ignore the sacred and beautiful or I will lose my sense of purpose. And without purpose, the question, “Why bother?” becomes a valid question with no answer.

I cannot not ignore the sacred and beautiful or I will lose my sense of purpose. And without purpose, the question, “Why bother?” becomes a valid question with no answer.