Category Archives: Life & Death

October 22, 2014 · 6:53 am

Nancy Kanwisher: A neural portrait of the human mind | Talk Video | TED.com

If anyone had asked me if a TED talk on neural imaging of the brain would make me cry…I probably would have laughed.

But this TED talk by Nancy Kanwisher did just that.  In the last 2 or 3 minutes of this fascinating talk, Kanwisher popped some images on the screen and I cried, instantly, spontaneously.

I won’t spoil it for anyone who wants to watch this talk but, having lost both of my brothers to brain tumors, I found the information and the imaging absolutely brilliant.

And the final images stunned me.  I hope you enjoy it, too.

Nancy Kanwisher: A neural portrait of the human mind | Talk Video | TED.com.

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August 6, 2014 · 6:24 am

4 Tips for Safe, Effective Sunscreen Use

Every August since 1993, my small family has shared a house on the beach in North Carolina.  It’s only for 1 week but it is a wonderful week of boogey boarding, books and board games.

It is also one of the hotter months of the year, a time when the sun beats down on hot sand and warm ocean water, a time when sunburns and skin damage can really take their toll.

I have always loved my time in the sun; I was a beach bunny as a 20 something.  Today, I still ride the waves with my grandchildren and walk the beach with my daughter and husband.  I garden.  I ride horses.  I play Kan Jam.

But all that time in the sun came with a price which I am paying right now.  I was diagnosed with skin cancer – melanoma – in January of this year. I spent Valentine’s Day under a surgeon’s knife having a large portion of my left hip removed due to melanoma.

I’ll admit that this experience has made me a bit crazy about sunscreen, finding the right one, finding one I can afford and using it properly.

I’m not the only one who is confused by manufacturers’ claims about the sunscreens they sell.  But Earth Easy has cut through all the noise to share a short, clearly written article about what products work best and why.  4 Tips for Safe, Effective Sunscreen Use | Eartheasy Blog.

I found two products on Amazon that work for me – Elta MD Skincare makes both; both are broad spectrum and both are free of the chemicals Earth Easy warns against. The general sunscreen is a “sport” sunscreen meaning it doesn’t sweat off into your eyes or mouth.

Enjoy the dog days of August, play in the surf and loll on the sand but make sure you read up and buy the right sunscreen for you and for your family.

 

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June 28, 2014 · 5:29 am

Life After Working in Education

There is life after work.  Actually there is life after teaching for 30 years in our broken down, politically charged education system….and Ms. D proves it.

How I loved this post!

I’m not sure how she survived 30 years in education except it must have been for the kids.  I’m on my 3rd year (out of retirement) and I am stunned by the amount of energy given over to politics and the pettiness with so little time left for the students.

One of Ms. D’s comments just made me laugh out loud.  She is listing things she will NOT miss about her teaching career and this was my favorite – “Endure being told that I am blunt and intimidating because I have decades of experience and am not afraid to say what I think.”

I got that in corporate America with the added insult that my behavior didn’t go down well because, and I quote, “You are a woman.”  A-bloody-mazing.

I read then re-read this post of a woman who has and is reclaiming her life and herself and I was so impressed that I had to share it.  When I finished I sat in front of my laptop with tears in my eyes and a smile on my face knowing that Ms. D probably saved a whole lot of kids from the trash heap of their parents’ and neighborhoods’ lives, that she endured…despite the odds.

I hope you enjoy this.  The Year in Review « FARMHOUSE BY THE FALLS.

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April 2, 2014 · 6:24 am

Defy Gravity with Caroline Myss

I just finished reading Defy Gravity: Healing Beyond the Bounds of Reason  by Caroline Myss but I don’t think I will ever be finished with this book.

Myss is a long-time practitioner of intuitive healing who is, also, well-respected within the traditional medical community.

Myss is also an amazing writer with an extraordinary talent for taking sometimes difficult and obscure teachings on self-healing and translating them into concepts that are clear and concise.

That doesn’t sound like much lot but it is.  In fact, it’s a huge accomplishment because it makes these otherwise arcane approaches and methods readily available to anyone who has 20 minutes a day to read Defy Gravity!

Teresa of Avila, Muhammad, Buddha, and Saint John of the Cross are all woven into this tapestry of intuitive understanding and healing.  Myss doesn’t espouse one spiritual approach over another; she moves through them, finds common ground within them and expands their sometimes parochial meanings into universal truths

Myss may well have found the path that Joseph Campbell spoke of when he said religions in the 20th century would NOT be able to help anyone until all religions found a way to bring their myths into the modern world — the world in which you and I live, work and try to get along.

There was so much to learn and think about and play with while I was reading this book that it’s hard for me to choose what to share but here are some of my favorites:

Forgiveness is NOT releasing the aggressor nor is it telling them that what they did was okay and all is forgiven.  Forgiveness takes place inside where my disappointed, abused, angry ego confronts my soul and releases its hold.  The goal of forgiveness is shattering the myth that maintains that suffering is deserving of recognition, reward and/or righteous vengeance.  Understanding the essence of forgiveness is one of the most deeply healing and liberating gifts you can give yourself.

Working in harmony with the universe influences all life; dominating just one life destroys you.

See clearly. Recognize illusion. You can visit your wounds now and again (like we all do), but you can no longer, mentally or emotionally reside in that place, continually processing wounds that are decades old.

Keep your soul intact at all times.  Look for God or the Universe in the smallest details of your life.

Stay where you belong, in the present moment.

This one is mine – born in the crucible of my own search for joy and peace:

All of the stories of my life – the ones I tell myself, my friends, my loved ones – are ingrained but….when I drop them I can see the beautiful world all around me – right in front of me – in the present moment.  And I can, literally, breathe in joy and peace.

Buy the book; borrow it, read it and just feel yourself opening up to the universe and all the potential for wonder, love and joy that are already inside you!

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February 18, 2014 · 6:27 am

Einstein in the 21st Century

There is a young man living in the Southwest who is too smart for college simply because they cannot teach him anything!

This 19-year-old is in process of changing how we use nuclear fusion. He has a vision of a pure fusion energy but is in process of building small reactors that will not fail and contaminate like the 50’s style currently in use.

Taylor Wilson built his first nuclear reactor at the age of 14 but if his mind finds a way for pure fusion, it may be our path way to the stars and beyond.

He is a prodigy. He’s working with a professor at a school for the exceptionally gifted who said, after working with the student for a while, that he “…has never encountered a smarter person than this kid. yet he is so down to earth.”

In this student, live mathematics and science and the vision to see and understand both.  He may just be our gateway to the unknown.  He may just open up a future where coal, oil, fracking and all the other ecologically destructive practices for grabbing and using energy are no longer needed.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21134540/vp/52207962#52207962

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February 8, 2014 · 6:27 am

Cancer Coming To Your Backyard! Soon!

Please read and if you agree, sign the petition to ban the large scale use of 2-4-D and it’s cousin, Agent Orange in the production of corn and soy beans!  This use is being considered, despite scientific evidence that 2-4-D and cancer and reproductive problems go hand-in-hand.

As a child, my 4 siblings and I were regularly exposed to 2-4-D and 2-4-5-T – two ingredients in Agent Orange.  All of us were charged with killing weeds, every week during the summer – bare feet and bare hands.

Both of my brothers died of brain tumors in their 67th year.  My older sister almost died 2 years ago of complications brought on by a massive ovarian tumor and she is still fighting kidney cancer.  She was 65.  At the age of 65, I have just been diagnosed with Stage 3 melanoma on my hip.

Poisoning weeds means poisoning the soil, the water and, ultimately, the people exposed to the chemicals.  Increasing the sheer volume of poison simply means increasing the numbers of people who will die from the slow, sure and silent intrusion of 2-4-D into their food, into their lives and into their backyards, their families, their children. 

And there is absolutely no way to describe the vast and long-term devastation that the use of this substance will do to the life of all other inhabitants (animals, birds, fish, insects) and the overall ecology of this earth – our home.

Has everyone forgotten Silent Spring ? Rachel Carson?

STOP big business; STOP the use of 2-4-D. START using common sense, common courtesy and some of the inordinate amounts of money currently being poured into chemical and genetic modification of foods to understand how to live and work WITH our fellow inhabitants and WITH the environment, not in spite of them.

Visit the Food Revolution Network blog; click on the link and register your thoughts and feelings with the Federal Government.

Please.

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December 18, 2013 · 5:32 am

Geoffrey Canada Knows How To Save Education

And Geoffrey Canada knows how to save children and parents and communities.

I’ve written about Mr. Canada before – one of my Project 365 heroes.  But I think this man, his Harlem Project and the incredible success he has had with rescuing children, educating them and sending them off to college deserves to be revisited.

Perhaps it’s because I just finished Canada’s book – Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence.

If you want to know how to save our children, how to make our schools better, how to change, grow and heal our communities, read Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence. Then get out of your chair, get in your car or on your bike or even on your skates, go to the nearest school, step inside and volunteer to help change the children’s worlds.

Geoffrey Canada is the man behind the Harlem Project. His mind, his drive, his desire to help children, parents and the community made the Harlem project a reality. And Geoffrey Canada knows his audience; he lived in abject poverty, the son of a single mom in a neighborhood where value was assigned based on how well you fought.

Geoffrey Canada’s approach points the way to saving all the children who live in neighborhoods owned and operated by drug dealers, drug users, robbers, muggers, burglars and rapists — killers of every description. My take on his core thesis is you cannot change children who live in these communities just by working inside the 4 walls of a school; you MUST change the community, reach out to the parents, help them where they are so they can reach out and change their own worlds, one step at a time, one day at a time.

Working in one of these schools in one of these neighborhoods, I see  “throw away” children every day.  On a good day, these kids are raising themselves; on a bad day, they are being turned into mules, snitches and sometimes, enforcers.

I could stay home.  I could turn a blind eye.  I could be one of millions of people who sit at their table every morning and bemoan the ignorance, the violence the destruction being wrought in our communities and schools.

I won’t.  I get up and go to work in one of these schools every day.  I reach out to touch these wonderful middle school and high school children, talk to them. offer them   If I can make a difference in the life of just one child, I have done a good job.

So to everyone who thinks this is someone else’s problem, here’s my advice. This holiday season, give a gift that cannot be bought in any store.  Get up. Go to a troubled school.  See how you can help!

These children did nothing wrong but to have the misfortune of being born poor.  They don’t deserve to die – physically, emotionally or mentally.

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December 8, 2013 · 8:46 am

On the Path To Self Knowledge with Oprah & Deepak Chopra

In Oprah’s 21 day Desire & Destiny meditation series Oprah and Deepak ask us to answer three, simple questions:

Who am I?

What do I want?

How can I serve?

Small, aren’t they?  But I think they are the toughest questions you can ask and answer.

Each question is part of one week’s exploration.  Each builds on the other and helps you to slowly but surely understand who you really are without all the noise that people, life and even you, yourself, have heaped on the small, brave spark that waits for each of us to listen, again.

As I wrote in my previous blog post, one of the biggest things I have learned about myself is that what I really want (Day 8) is to live from my heart in peace and joy.  Today, I learned something I knew, we all know really,  but tend to forget.

In this whole world, teeming with billions of people, there is only one you.

Read that again.  There is only one you, one me, one unique person.  And if we dare to follow our path up the mountain, if we follow our bliss, each of us has within us the power  to change the world.

Don’t believe it?  Nelson Mandela changed the world — from a prison cell where he lived for 27 years, this one beautiful soul reached out and broke the back of apartheid.

How about Geoffrey Canada?  His Harlem Children’s Zone rescued thousands of children and families, rebuilt a neighborhood and reformed education forever in Harlem, New York.

What about Shirley Chisholm?  She  became the first African-American woman elected to Congress.  She fought not just for her constituency but for all people in need of a better life and she won.

Take just a moment, today, to ask yourself those three questions then listen, really listen.  The universe will send you the answer and it might surprise you.

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November 30, 2013 · 6:14 am

Meditating with Oprah & Deepak Chopra

Like hundreds of thousands of other people, I signed up the Oprah’s 21 day Desire & Destiny meditation series.  She introduces each day; Deepak Chopra leads the meditations.

Like hundreds of thousands of people, I am having joyous moments of peace, eye-opening moments of realizing I am the only person holding me back and amazing moments of insight into who I really am and what really makes me smile.

One of the biggest things I have learned about myself is that what I really want (Day 8) is to live from my heart in peace and joy.

Yesterday, I learned that something that happened to me almost 20 years ago was real!

It was Day 12 – Inspired me – the me who steers from her heart.

While meditating a thought shot straight into my brain about an experience I had in 1996, also while meditating. I was deep in meditation when a voice, clear as a bell said, “Rescue me.”

It was so clear that I came up out of a very deep meditation, slipped out the side door of the house and walked the 2 acres we own, trying to find the bird, rabbit, kitten or dog that had called to me to rescue it.

There was no spirit out there in need of help but I took it to mean that I was to write about animal communicators.

I did tons of research but I was just not convinced that this phenomenon was real – that people could hear and talk to animals. And I put the idea away. Until yesterday.

I believe that I am to write a book entitled Rescue Me with an author who I met through her book, “Blessing the Bridge: What Animals Teach Us About Death, Dying and Beyond” a book that helps us ease the transition of our pets from here to the next plain.

I say I “met” the author, Rita Reynolds, but I didn’t really meet her for 6 years. During the first 6 years, we corresponded via email. Our friendship grew out of words flying through the ethernet.

Two years ago I met her and we were so very surprised at how alike we were, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. She ran an animal rescue – saving old dogs, throwaways that people were tired of and didn’t want to support as they aged and died.

And yesterday, more than 15 years after I was called to “rescue”, I believe I discovered why Rita and I met, maybe just one of the many reasons we met. I believe we are to write a book about rescuing living spirits and helping them to finish their lives in comfort, in peace and surrounded by love.

Yesterday, because of Deepak and Oprah’s Desire & Destiny meditations, I didn’t hesitate. I sent her an email about the idea, right away!

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October 26, 2013 · 10:19 am

Russell Brand May Have Started a Revolution Last Night

Who knew that Russell Brand could be so eloquent, so passionate and so on top of the current political, economic and social situation in the UK and the US?

Here is somebody who explicitly calls out the current crop of do nothing politicians in both countries and says to the rest of us, rise up and revolt!

Please listen to him, all the way through.  He is articulate; his positions are based on facts and he is able to walk right around this interviewer who is trying to pillory him because he doesn’t vote.

Brand may not have all the answers but he sure as hell knows what questions to ask, what general direction our nations should be going and what’s stopping us.

Three cheers for Russel Brand!  And thanks to Gawker for making this video available.

Russell Brand May Have Started a Revolution Last Night.

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