Why Camping In the Rain and Cold is the Greatest

1. The ice in the cooler lasts for many days.

2. You never get a sunburn and you don’t have to use sunscreen.

3. The campground is virtually empty so you have lots of peace and quiet.

4. You can stay in the hot springs for hours and never get too hot.

5. While food cooked and eaten outside always tastes better, food cooked and eaten in the rain tastes like a miracle.

6. You are filled with gratitude when it stops raining - never mind when the sun comes out.

7. The sound of the rain on the tent is loud, therefore, it is futile to spend the night listening for bears - so you sleep really well.

8. Your skin looks great.

9. The dishes wash themselves.

10. You look forward to camping in the desert even more.

Your Insomnia Survival Guide

I recently came out of a four month period of extreme insomnia. I learned a lot about myself during this time. In the end, no one thing brought it to an end. It was a slow crawl out of what quickly became a habit of being awake at night. I got so used to being present during the wee hours, that on the few occasions I had ‘normal’ sleep, I felt like I had missed something. The thing I know for sure is that my body was releasing fear that had been stored in my cells, unexpressed, for many decades. Other contributing factors include: unexpressed anxiety about major life changes, increased levels of electromagnetic radiation at home and at work and burnout from intensely draining energies at work.

Below is an article I wrote that was recently published in Living Positive Magazine.

********************************************************************************************

You’ve been tossing and turning in bed for weeks. Worried about the loss of sleep affecting your already stressed immune system, just the thought of approaching night fills you with dread. You don’t want to take more pills, but what other options are there? Plenty. A mix of alternative therapies, self-care, and self-knowledge may be your ticket to a good night’s sleep.

Let’s face it, if you go to your doctor, you’ll likely get another prescription added to your regime. Just what you need. North Americans spend over $4.5 billion a year for sleep medications. Yet research shows that sleeping pills don’t greatly improve the quality or length or quality of sleep—on average, they’ll give you only 11.4 additional minutes of sleep.

Effectiveness may be the least of your problems when it comes to sleeping pills. Daniel Kripke, a medical doctor and sleep researcher at the University of California in San Diego, has found that regular use of sleeping pills significantly impacts mortality rates. He compares taking sleeping pills 30 times or more a month to the risk of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Sleeping pills appear unsafe in any amount, he writes in his online book, The Dark Side of Sleeping Pills.

Kripke believes we’re being misled about the existence of a sleep disorder epidemic and the amount of sleep we actually need, thus causing unnecessary anxiety and overmedication. He led a six-year study involving a million people in the U.S. age 30 to 102 and found that people who slept only six to seven hours a night lived longer than those who got eight hours of sleep.

Of course, the need for sleep varies from person to person, and you may require more sleep in times of deep healing. Whether you prefer six or eight hours, a deep, restful sleep is key to maintaining health. A full night’s rest can give you everything from a bounce in your step to a good hair day.

Coping to minimize the effect of sleep loss

If pills aren’t the answer, what can you do to achieve that deep sleep? First, find ways to cope with your insomnia. That means doing whatever you can do to minimize the effect of sleep loss. To maintain health and sanity during a period of chronic insomnia, intensify all efforts at self-care. Help your body and mind by being as good to yourself as you can. Whatever you normally need for balance—water, fresh air, peace and quiet, meditation—now you need more. Resist the temptation to use stimulants such as coffee to get you through the day or alcohol to help you relax at night.

Don’t let your mind psyche you out! Use affirmations to tell yourself that you’re okay. You may be getting more sleep than you realize. Even small amounts of micro-sleep are beneficial to your body. Resist the temptation to work or watch television when you can’t sleep. Lying quietly, resting the body in a dark room, and keeping the mind calm with deep breathing can leave you feeling quite rested for days, even weeks in a row without a full night’s sleep.

Alternative therapies

In addition to self-care strategies, there are countless alternative and natural healing approaches to insomnia. Educate yourself, but use the Internet wisely. What’s the conventional approach? Does it work? Who stands to benefit the most—you or the manufacturer? What alternative therapies are being used successfully?

Let’s be truthful. Wellness can be a lot of work. A naturopathic doctor isn’t going to give you the latest magic bullet. Alternative medicine requires active participation in your own health and taking responsibility for your choices. It usually requires giving up some of your favourite habits.

On the bright side, alternative medicine offers long-term change and doesn’t require enduring a lifetime of horrible side effects. Better yet, there are positive spin-offs. If you start meditating to address insomnia, you’ll likely increase your immune function and be more relaxed and productive during waking hours.

Among natural remedies, the most common supplements taken for sleep disorders include melatonin, valerian, and lemon balm. There’s very little research on natural and herbal remedies and even less on herb-drug interactions. Kava is the most hotly debated natural supplement used to promote relaxation. It may be toxic to the liver, although some research has shown that it’s still less toxic than most prescription sleep aids.

Taking sleep aids, herbal or prescription, for the rest of your life isn’t the answer. Herbs and supplements can be used to help you through short periods of sleeplessness.

Curing your insomnia

While sleep aids are a short-term remedy, ultimately you want to get to the root cause of the insomnia and restore restful sleep.

It’s generally accepted in both conventional and alternative medicine that the most common physiological cause of insomnia is a hormone imbalance resulting in decreased sleep hormones (melatonin and serotonin) and increased stress hormones (cortisol and ACTH). But the root cause of this is stress. Needless to say, people living with a life-threatening illness generally experience higher levels of stress for countless reasons—from the shock of diagnosis to the loss of income, relationships, and health.

The first step in curing insomnia is to take an honest look at your lifestyle and environment to assess it for stressors and sleep disruptors. Explore your relationship to stress. Are you prone to excessive worry? Do you overreact to life’s challenges? Do you work too much—including volunteer work and/or caregiving? Enhance your self-care and seek out activities that help you relax.

Direct sleep disruptors include caffeine, recreational drugs, alcohol, and excessive television and computer use. Get outside during the day to feed your body fresh air and expose your eyes to natural light. Spending eight to 16 hours a day looking at the artificial light of your computer or television can disrupt the production of melatonin. Your body needs to sense darkness to start producing sleep hormones. Unplug and turn down the lights earlier in the evening and rediscover books and the fine art of conversation.

That artificial light of your monitor isn’t the only problem with your computer. Eelectromagnetic radiation (EMR) from your wireless connection in your (and your neighbour’s) computer, cell phone, and other electronic equipment has been shown to decrease melatonin levels and thus create sleep disorders in both animals and people. This isn’t good news, because no matter how much chamomile tea you drink, without good levels of melatonin, your sleep will be disturbed. There’s a burgeoning range of new products, available mostly on the Internet, that act as personal EMR protective devices. As always, thoroughly research the effectiveness of these products before purchasing one.

As with any illness or life challenge, insomnia can be an opportunity for learning. Let it show you what you no longer have energy for. The experience could end up helping you say goodbye to some unhealthy habits, roles, and relationships. It might also inspire you to get more involved in your community. The EMR and insomnia connection is a potent reminder that electronically accessed community can’t replace human contact; we’re all connected in our pursuit of wellness. At the end of the day, a good night’s sleep can’t be created in isolation from the world you live in.

Evin Jones, Evin Jones

Sing to the tune of Mrs. Jones…

Evin Jones, Evin Jones. We’ve got a thing goin’ on. Not that kind of thing, the other thing. This is my friend Evin Jones. If any one out there is upset that we moved to the Okanagan you can direct all complaints and dirty looks to her. It’s her fault. You see Evin has this amazing power to cause me and mine to move here, there and everywhere.

Seriously, now. She is my oldest friend (sorry Melissa, she beat you by at least a year - maybe more) and we’ve known each other since forever. Evin is connected in some way to most major events in my life. When HB and I were considering our flight from the Matrix (Vancouver), it was Evin’s idea that we come ‘check out’ the Okanagan. We loved it and here we are.

gutted

gutted
hollowed out
emptied of all content

the history, the old story
gone

open to the light, the wind, the rain
there are no windows and doors anymore
just enter

no thoughts, no mind
only the bird’s song lays claim
mine, mine, mine

and the form’s inevitable letting go
piece by piece

becoming more radiant, more alive
more light
savouring the blue sky and sun
fearlessly awaiting the final letting go

*dedicated to my friend Jocelyn Porter who is letting go, at this moment

Soft Landing in OK

So we’ve arrived. After weeks and months of things to do, letting go, saying good-bye, giving away and packing up – we’re here. My days became an accelerating list of lasts: last day at work, last sleep in our home, last piece of pie at Aphrodite, last shop at our favourite grocery store. At times it felt like we would never find the end of the goodbyes – would the last of the last ever arrive.

One of the first things my husband noticed about me when we worked together, even before we were dating, was that I’m not great with good-byes. I have a way of slipping out the door unnoticed. That was not an option with our move out of Vancouver. In fact, I set an intention to be as present with the leaving as I possibly could.

This meant being open to receiving a lot of gifts, encouragement, love and just a few tears. I consciously opened my heart to feel the love I have for those around me and to fully receive the expressions of gratitude that came my way. For once, I did not look away in discomfort as people expressed how I had touched their lives. And, in one case, I found myself on the receiving end of an extreme projection of fear and doubt from an unexpected source. The experience brought to mind Carolyn Myss’ teaching “people will get angry when you change their plans for your life”. I realized too that even as our angry friend tried to shoot out our tires (energetically speaking, of course) as we drove out of town, that her reaction was a reflection of the fear and doubt that I was just too busy to express.

There is something so incredible about allowing the form of your life to die. I recommend it as a regular spiritual practice. In a way it was like getting to be at my own funeral – except that I don’t have to go to all the bother of being born again to start a new life.

Movin’ To the Country - So It Begins

We’re here in Vernon having survived an April blizzard on the Coquihalla.  Let me assure you, an April blizzard is just as fierce as those in true winter.  HB and I chanted mantras of protection for an hour without pause while following the dim red glow of the taillights of the guardian angel in front of us.  He was either going to lead us to our new home or over a cliff.  It was so beautiful and surreal with the full moon poking out now and again, and the sound of us chanting - with the windshielf wipers offering percusion - we forgot to be scared.

Everything we own is tucked away in tiny, windowless room patiently awaiting the manifestation of our next home. 

Tonight, in Vernon, we can choose from a Buddhist meditation, crop circle film Art or Aliens (supper included for$20) or the Elks Mega Meat Draw with a chance to take home a meat basket.  Everything is listed together under Community Events in the local paper. There is no tidy seperation of us and them we find in Vancouver. For the moment, I find it sweetly refreshing.

 

Oprah is the Most Dangerous Woman in The World

Well, well, well….if you need a laugh, a wake up call or a chilling reminder of what’s going on in ‘other realities’ take a look at this video footage of an Evangelist explaining why Oprah (and her minion Eckhart Tolle) is leading the world to hell. Take heed fair people, this evil has walked on the earth before and goes by many names:  Joan of Arc, Mirabai, Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen, Marie Curie, Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks.

The Danger with Certainty

In his recent on-line column Trend Watching, Brad Allenby shines a harsh, yet necessary, light on humanities insatiable desire for ‘the perfect solution’. He focuses on renewable energy sources such as bio-fuel and plug-in cars, but his warning label would prove just as useful on any new drug (or ‘super food’ for that matter) or any old religious doctrine. Whenever we think we’ve discovered the one thing that’s going to solve all our problems (be they environmental, dietary or spiritual) we’re heading into dangerous territory.

We’re in love with the illusion that we’ve got it all figured out. “Eureka. I’ve got it.” Vaccines and antibiotics, the combustion engine, hell – even slavery – were all at one time hailed as brilliant solutions to the problem of the day.

Allenby reminds us to not “fall in love with anything — not an ideology, not a buzzword (like renewables), not a technology”.

The truth is that our ‘solutions’ don’t need to be perfect – they just need to be moving us in the right direction. Uncertainty is a safer and certainly more creative space to operate from. Or, as some really smart guy said “Don’t be in the know – be in the mystery.

To read Brad Allendy’s complete article

Transport Canada - Crash Test Dummies

Just when we thought it looked like smooth sailing for the electric car, Transport Canada decided to rewrite legislation in a way that blocks low-speed vehicles from roads with 50km speed limits. They say it’s about safety. Hmmmm. There are more than 200,000 of these vehicles on the road in Europe and they are sold in 40 states in the US. Are we Canadians the scardy cats of the global transportation playground? Are we the kids that have to wear a helmet on the monkey bars because our Mom is neurotic.

Transport Canada says low-speed vehicles aren’t safe on roads so we have to wait for six years for a study to be completed. I wonder if Transport Canada thinks global warming is safe? How do you crash test a planet? Or maybe it’s safer to send your son to fight an oil war?

For the complete story go to: http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/306200

Express yourself by sending an email to Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Transport

In Search of A Little Death

If I were French, the title of this entry would reveal my search for ‘petit mort’ or orgasm.

Well, I’m sorry to say I’m not French. These days I wish I were. Maybe if I drank more, had more sex and ate more fatty food I’d sleep better. Sleep is good for us. If we sleep well, we live longer. I bet Jeanne Calment slept well. I bet she had all kinds of little deaths until the big one came along at the age of 122. In 1997, she was the world’s oldest woman. And, where did she live? France! That’s right. The land of wine, adultery, smoking, butter and staying up late on school nights.

But, I tangent. This is just one of the side-effects of a sleepless life. My mind wanders off before I can……..

What was I saying? Oh yes, the origin of the term ‘little death’ is Tibetan and refers to sleep as our daily dress rehearsal for eternal rest.

When there’s something ‘wrong’ with me I start researching. Why? Because knowing stuff makes me feel in control, which makes me, feel hopeful. I may be exhausted, clumsy, a bit crazy and have dark circles under my eyes but at least I’m smart and hopeful.

On the physical level, I have learned that I have adrenal fatigue. The cause? In a word: life. Adrenal fatigue causes insomnia. Sleeping well is critical to healing adrenal fatigue.

Emotionally speaking, I’m an even bigger mess. I now know something called Emotional Freedom Technique. If you find me sitting up in bed late at night talking to myself while poking myself in the eye don’t be alarmed.

Then there’s the mental component of insomnia. I now understand that I have subconscious programming that is keeping me up at night even though my conscious mind would by thrilled with six winks, never mind forty. I made a recording of my own voice stating affirmations to restore healthy sleep. It only works when your brain is in Theta. Your brain is only in Theta during deep sleep.

Astrologically, Mars is in retrograde from mid-November until the end of January. Mars retrograde wreaks havoc with sleep. I’m particularly fond of this bit of information because, unlike all my other lessons, the only thing I can really do about this one is lie around and wait and I’ve gotten quite good at that.

Last but not least is the spirit. Apparently, from a spiritual perspective, insomnia indicates fear of death. The trouble with fear of death is that it’s not like fear of heights or spiders. How can you ever really know you’re over it without being, well, over.

The most disturbing part of this little exploration is that if this were a multiple-choice quiz, the correct answer would be F) all of the above………..F is for France, right?