"Letter From Dad and Mom"- or how to deal with our old ones

We often lose patience with our aging ones. This touching, 2-box Kleenex video is a wonderful reminder to be more loving with them.

The original "Letter From Dad and Mom" was written by Rev.  Fr. Ariel F. Robles in Tagalog and translated by various people into English. This version is apparently narrated by Darius Gabriel Bugarin.  Robles is the CWL Spiritual Director of St. Augustine Parish in Baliuag, Bulacan, Philippines.

Watch it and weep, and perhaps it will also inspire you to have more patience with your old ones.

The original version "Ang Sulat Ni Tatay at Nanay".

The Health Benefits Of Tart Cherry Juice

I love cherries. They happen to be one of my favorite fruits, but I had no idea they were also chock full of  wonderful health benefits, at least the tart ones. Montmorency cherries (Prunus Cerasus), most notably used for preserves and pies is full of antioxidants, which some in the medical community claim help slow down the aging process, prevent certain diseases and help neutralize 'free radicals'.

Besides being high in fiber, they also are high in beta carotene, potassium and contain calcium, magnesium, iron, folic acid, Vitamins A, B6, C and E.   And besides being rich in antioxidants,  they also happen to contain natural melatonin, and anthocyanins. Not bad for a small, pitted fruit.

What all this means is that besides being tasty little morsels, tart Montmorency cherries can help with sleep problems (melatonin) and the anthocyanins have anti-inflammatory properties which can help with joint pain from arthritis and gout, and can also help with cardiovascular health. 

For those of us with chronic pain, it's a Godsend. For a long while I had my pain under control with various herbs and supplements, until I was given Procrit for a problem with anemia a few years ago.  The Procrit kicked in the pain and I have struggled ever since trying to find something that will help.  It wasn't until I started to add the tart cherry juice to my old regimen (at the recommendation of my acupuncturist) that I started to feel some relief.  I do notice a difference between the cherry juice concentrate and the pill form, but for travel the supplements are the only alternative. 

DIRECTIONS FOR USE:

I use the recommended dosage of 2 tablespoons, which I love to mix with a glass of sparkling water, and drink it a little before bedtime. But I'm not sure the time really matters.  It helps somewhat with my insomnia, but I'm not sure anything would do the trick. It has a yummy sweet/tart taste, so you don't need any sugar.

There are several farms that manufacture the cherry concentrate, but make sure it's the Montmorency juice.  You can order directly from them, or check out the various online resources.  I just ordered two bottles from Amazon because, with the free shipping included, it was cheaper.  A 32 ounce bottle (which should last a month) will run you anywhere from $15.00 to $30.00 depending on where you buy it.   It might sound expensive but when you think you get approximately 30 glasses or so of juice out of one bottle, that's less than a can of soda, and far more beneficial.

Cherokee Indian Youths' Rite of Passage: Or God Watches Over Us No Matter What

Our email inboxes get inundated with mostly garbage these days, but every once in a while you receive a gem like the following alleged American Indian legend.  The message, while using what is claimed to be a Cherokee Rite of Passage as an example,  is actually all about having faith in God.  Whether it is an actual Rite of Passage or not is debatable (according to various Internet searches), but the message is worth embracing, true or not.  I have posted a YouTube version below. The wording is a little different, but the message is the same: even though we cannot see GOD, HE is still there protecting us during turbulent and fear-inducing times.

Do you know the legend of the Cherokee Indian youths' Rite of Passage?


His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone. He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it. He cannot cry out for help to anyone. Once he survives the night, he is a MAN.


He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad must come into manhood on his own.


The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him . Maybe even some human might do him harm.


The wind blew the grass and earth, and shook his stump, but he sat stoically, never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could become a man!


Finally, after a horrific night the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold.


It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him.


He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.


We, too, are never alone. Even when we don't know it, God is watching over us, sitting on the stump beside us.

When trouble comes, all we have to do is reach out to Him.

Moral of the story:

Just because you can't see God, doesn't mean He is not there. "For we walk by faith, not by sight."

To Get The Best Prices For Herbs and Supplements Order Online

As someone who has a hefty regimen of herbs and supplements to take for two chronic conditions (Rheumatoid Arthritis and Ulcerative Colitis), I decided that purchasing them at the local health food store or Whole Foods was prohibitive.

Although I was never fond of ordering over the Internet, I succumbed when I discovered that I could get all of my supplements often for far less than I could at brick and mortar stores. I started by googling the products I take and discovered two online venues that consistently had the lowest prices: http://www.vitacost.com/ and http://www.luckyvitamin.com/. I have used both of these for years, depending on which had the lowest prices for the supplements I needed at the time. When they varied by a few cents I would then factor in shipping costs.  Lucky Vitamin has free shipping for orders over $100.00 (my orders are usually well over $100.00 per order) and Vitacost had a flat rate for all orders, but has had a free shipping for orders over $49.00 for a while, though that might end soon. 

If your monthly needs are low, then it's probably not worth ordering online, after you factor in the shipping costs.  Then again, it still might be worth it.   I have saved a ton of money over the years ordering online, and sometimes there is a huge difference in price between ordering online and purchasing a product at a vitamin or health food store.   

Recently, I started checking http://www.amazon.com/ for some of my items, and have found some great prices on there,  as well.  I have ordered a few things, but still find the two above mentioned websites to have the best prices.

For example, I have started using Kal's Cox-2 Control Body Comfort, as a replacement for Zyflamend for pain. Whole Foods sells it for $21.95 or so.  On amazon.com you can get it anywhere from $13.19 to $18.74. I purchased it for $11.10 on luckyvitamin since I bought 4 of them (they give price breaks for larger quantities) and since I ordered more than $100.00 worth of products I paid no shipping.  That's a 50% discount for the exact same item. Vitacost does not carry it.

Now you might think the herbs and supplements that you order from an online vendor are old and possibly expired, or they're a generic brand-  they're not, at least not from the vendors I have ordered from.  These are the exact same brand items.

There might be some new sites that have cropped up since I did my research five or so years ago that have better prices, and perhaps I will do another search, but for the time being I will continue to order from any of the companies that I have mentioned. I will update if an when I do make any changes.

FINDING THE BEST PRICE:

To get the biggest bang for your buck you need to compare prices.  Find out how much it costs you to purchase a product in your local health food store, vitamin shop etc. Then check the prices on any of the places I have mentioned above (I am not an affiliate of any of them) or google the product name and 'discount'. It will give you a list of websites that sell that product and their prices. Then check what their shipping charges are, if any. If there is a charge,  factor that in to figure out the total cost of the item.  More often than not, you will save  yourself a heap of money.  I know I have. 

You do have to make sure you order well in advance, before you run out, or you will wind up having to pay premium prices at retail stores, as I have, until the shipment arrives, and that can vary greatly.

March 31, 2011 - World Prayer For Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Plant Waters

What happened in Japan is tragic on so many different levels, and the way the people of that country have conducted themselves is so very commendable. But after suffering through an earthquake, then a monumental tsunami, the magnitude of what is happening and could eventually happen at the Fukushima nuclear plant could make those first two disasters seem totally inconsequential. A nuclear catastrophe could adversely affect not just the Japanese people but the whole world.

So Masuro Emoto has asked the world to come together to pray for the waters of Fukushima today, March 31st, 2011, at noon in whatever time zone you happen to live. Since the 'ceremony' is not really religious in nature, those of you who are not spiritually inclined should have no problem participating.

Name of ceremony:

“Let’s send our thoughts of love and gratitude to all water in the nuclear plants in Fukushima”

To All People Around the World

Please send your prayers of love and gratitude to water at the nuclear plants in Fukushima, Japan!

By the massive earthquakes of Magnitude 9 and surreal massive tsunamis, more than 10,000 people are still missing…even now… It has been 16 days already since the disaster happened. What makes it worse is that water at the reactors of Fukushima Nuclear Plants started to leak, and it’s contaminating the ocean, air and water molecule of surrounding areas.

Human wisdom has not been able to do much to solve the problem, but we are only trying to cool down the anger of radioactive materials in the reactors by discharging water to them.

Is there really nothing else to do?

I think there is. During over twenty year research of hado measuring and water crystal photographic technology, I have been witnessing that water can turn positive when it receives pure vibration of human prayer no matter how far away it is.

Energy formula of Albert Einstein, E=MC2 really means that Energy = number of people and the square of people’s consciousness.

Now is the time to understand the true meaning. Let us all join the prayer ceremony as fellow citizens of the planet earth. I would like to ask all people, not just in Japan, but all around the world to please help us to find a way out the crisis of this planet!!

The prayer procedure is as follows.

Name of ceremony:

“Let’s send our thoughts of love and gratitude to all water in the nuclear plants in Fukushima”

Day and Time:

March 31st, 2011 (Thursday)

12:00 noon in each time zone

Please say the following phrase:

“The water of Fukushima Nuclear Plant, we are sorry to make you suffer. Please forgive us. We thank you, and we love you.”

Please say it aloud or in your mind.

Repeat it three times as you put your hands together in a prayer position.

Please offer your sincere prayer.

Thank you very much from my heart.

With love and gratitude,

Masaru Emoto

Messenger of Water

Face Yoga - A Natural Approach To Getting Rid Of Wrinkles

Tired of all those lines and wrinkles that are part and parcel of the aging process? Not willing to have your face sliced and diced, or injected with toxins like Botox that will freeze your face in place, and make you look like one of the Stepford Wives or worse yet, Pinocchio minus the nose? Then 'Face Yoga' might just be the thing for you. The following 2 videos from howdini.com give you some facial yoga exercises to help with those pesky wrinkles.

If nothing else, they're a hoot to watch.

For more Face Yoga facial exercises, click here.

Martin Luther King, Jr's Words Of Wisdom- Building A Creative Temple

Today we honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Cut down in his prime. But his speeches and sermons will live on forever.

Everyone is familiar with his wonderful "I Have A Dream" speech, but some lesser known ones, with a spiritual bent rather than political bent, are just as impressive and inspiring. So, I share this one from his "Building A Creative Temple".

Whenever you set out to build a creative temple, whatever it may be, you must face the fact that there is a tension at the heart of the universe between good and evil. Hinduism refers to this as a struggle between illusion and reality. Platonic philosophy used to refer to it as a tension between body and soul. Zoroastrianism, a religion of old, used to refer to it as a tension between the god of light and the god of darkness. Traditional Judaism and Christianity refer to it as a tension between God and Satan. Whatever you call it, there is a struggle in the universe between good and evil.

Now not only is that struggle structured out somewhere in the external forces of the universe, it’s structured in our own lives. Psychologists have tried to grapple with it in their way, and so they say various things. Sigmund Freud used to say that this tension is a tension between what he called the id and the superego. Some of us feel that it’s a tension between God and man. And in every one of us this morning, there’s a war going on. It’s a civil war. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care where you live, there is a civil war going on in your life. And every time you set out to be good, there’s something pulling on you, telling you to be evil. It’s going on in your life. Every time you set out to love, something keeps pulling on you, trying to get you to hate. Every time you set out to be kind and say nice things about people, something is pulling on you to be jealous and envious and to spread evil gossip about them. There’s a civil war going on. There is a schizophrenia, as the psychologists or the psychiatrists would call it, going on within all of us. And there are times that all of us know somehow that there is a Mr. Hyde and a Dr. Jekyll in us. [...] There’s a tension at the heart of human nature. And whenever we set out to dream our dreams and to build our temples, we must be honest enough to recognize it.

In the final analysis, God does not judge us by the separate incidents or the separate mistakes that we make, but by the total bent of our lives. In the final analysis, God knows that his children are weak and they are frail. In the final analysis, what God requires is that your heart is right. Salvation isn’t reaching the destination of absolute morality, but it’s being in the process and on the right road.

And the question I want to raise this morning with you: is your heart right? If your heart isn’t right, fix it up today. Get somebody to be able to say about you, "He may not have reached the highest height, he may not have realized all of his dreams, but he tried." Isn’t that a wonderful thing for somebody to say about you? "He tried to be a good man. He tried to be a just man. He tried to be an honest man. His heart was in the right place." And I can hear a voice saying, crying out through the eternities, "I accept you. You are a recipient of my grace because it was in your heart. And it is so well that it was within thine heart."

I don’t know this morning about you, but I can make a testimony. You don’t need to go out this morning saying that Martin Luther King is a saint. Oh, no. I want you to know this morning that I’m a sinner like all of God’s children. But I want to be a good man. And I want to hear a voice saying to me one day, "I take you in and I bless you, because you try. It is well that it was within thine heart."

Happy 2011- Start Anew With A Clean Slate

I realize January 1st is just another ordinary day, but for some reason the fact that it's the beginning of a New Year, somehow signals change. It's a little like the feelings we get when the long, dog days of summer turn into the invigorating, crispness of autumn. We feel renewed and invigorated, ready to take on the world.

A New Year brings with it a clean, unwritten slate, ready to be written on. Not that we can't look at each day that we wake up as a chance to change our world- in fact we should-, but for some reason the New Year seems special in that way. It's a time to take stock of our lives and see what we want to hang on to, throw out with the old, or improve. I like to write down, not so much my resolutions for the year, but the things I want to manifest in all areas of my life, from the physical to the spiritual.

The last two years have been challenging on many levels, from the physical to the material, but I am about to list all the things that I want to improve, or change, or manifest in my life for the upcoming year. Writing those things down makes a difference. Don't worry about accomplishing them, just make the effort. And while you're at it, make a gratitude list. That is something we should do on a daily basis. You'll be surprised at how many blessings we actually have.

I wish you all a very blessed, happy and prosperous New Year. You have a new beginning, a clean slate- take advantage and make it the best ever.