Don’t forget: Tomorrow is Earth Day (it is also my husband’s birthday! And about a year ago, I wrote my first blog here!).
Do something to help our burdened old Earth:
• Take recycling more serious
• Stop buying bottled water
• Compost your kitchen scraps
• Buy less plastic, more renewable energy items (as in wooden toys as opposed to plastic toys)
• Use less detergents, etc. in the household. Often we can get away with half of the amount we use
• For birthday presents, think less over the top, more homemade
• This summer, plan to use the air conditioner only if you are elderly or sick
Today, I met wonderful people at the UMass Medical School Worcester Alternative/Complementary Health Fair. I am too tired tonight; send me in one of YOUR ideas for a happy Earth Day! Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
The Means And The Goals
February 23, 2011
For me, the Five Health Essentials have one advantage over all the fad diets and exercise programs: The fifth Health Essential.
Remember, in European Natural Medicine, there are five Health Essentials:
1. Water (note that I didn’t say: bottled)
2. Movement (note that I didn’t say: exercise)
3. Food (note that I didn’t say: superfoods)
4. Herbs (note that I didn’t say: vitamins)
5. Order.
Number five – order - is the one I want to talk about today. Number one to four are only the means; number five tells you that there are goals in life beyond living for the perfect diet or the perfectly sculpted body. We live to enjoy life to the fullest: to love, to learn, to share, to explore, to nurture, to care, to create.
Number five tells you that you are part of the natural order: You are born, and you will die. In between are your days and nights, which you can fill with garbage, or can fill with purpose and meaning.
Nothing in nature comes in round numbers (think 80-10-10! – one of the current fad diets) and nothing in nature comes in a square (think tofu!). Natural order makes you laugh and weep, sleep and wake, work and rest.
You know those over-exercised zealots – those narcissistic bores. Or those food faddists whose brains seem build from tofu with Swiss cheese holes. It is not about how you look or how many push-ups you can do (actually, being able to do one would be swell) – it is about leaving the world a better, happier, more just and more beautiful place for all its inhabitants.
Order – think what it could do for you. Read More