ARTICLES
Welcome To The Expo!
Friday Night Forum Schedule Announced
Meditations: Soapbox of the President
Remembering Aztlαn
How It Started
ReConnections: A Look Back
Letters to the Editor of Connections
Peaceful Contributions for the Soul
Homeopathic Help For Companion Animals
Dea's Kitchen: Staying Warm, Inside and Out
Towards An Aquarian Age
An Experience of the Spiritual
Dance At The Grange
Welcome To The Expo!
Whole Life Network Release
What is the Whole Life and Learning Expo? As the sub-title suggests, it is a "Journey into Conscious Living." When visiting the Expo in Delta at Bill Heddles Recreation Center on March 13, come with your eyes and your heart open. Be prepared to see with your eyes and feel with your heart the very best in alternative healing and goods and services for mind, body and spirit connection. Perhaps you are experiencing a physical ailment or an emotional issue. We are certain you will find your source for relief at the Expo.
More likely you are feeling just great - thank you - and you choose to stay that way; you understand how vital it is to honor your mind/body and to take steps to maintain your health. There will be opportunity to collect a wealth of information, resources, products and services. You will be able to experience different types of massage, a reflexology treatment, a chiropractic adjustment, and Reiki energy work. You'll find nutritional supplements, skin care products, books, essential oils, herbs, jewelry or homeopathics as well.
Space does not permit us to describe all of the resources and providers who have already reserved booth space at the Expo, but here are some early highlights. Dr. Alexander Gilmore of Total Family Wellness, 105 S.E. Greenwood Ave., Cedaredge, invites you to come by for a reflexology massage or a Healing Touch Reiki session. Also featured will be the world's first non-invasive body measuring machine to determine the level of antioxidants in your body. Did you know that most commercial candles give off toxic fumes as they burn? Kathie Johnson will be offering pure beeswax candles at her booth. We are proud of Whole Life Network Business Member Debra Findlayson of NativeTouch Holistics in Delta. She will be featuring many bargains from her store and conducting Reiki sessions. Have you ever seen your aura? At the Expo you can have your aura photographed and receive with it a detailed analysis of your aura color as it relates to relationships, finances and health. "Jeff" of Colorado Springs captures your essence and explains the results. Another new Whole Life Network Business Member, Louis Acker, will be on hand to give on-the-spot astrological readings with accurate horoscopes.
A wonderful environment of live music will be provided again by David and Tamara Hauze. We are indebted to these musicians for their loyal support of Whole Life Network events. Nutritious food and drink will be sold by Heidi Hotsenpiller, formerly the owner of The Soul Garden. Do you remember those great chocolate chip cookies that were available last year? To top it off, you will have opportunities to win numerous door prizes provided by our vendors. You won't want to miss a single moment of the Expo.
Vendors and practitioners, not registered yet? Booth space is still available, but going fast. Fill out the registration form on Page 2 and return it as soon as possible. For more information contact Polly Cady, (970) 240-9315 or email pollycady@aol.com
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Friday Night Forum Schedule Announced
Whole Life Network Release
The holiday recess is over and The Whole Life Network is proud to announce a new schedule of Friday Night Forum presentations starting Friday Feb. 13. Friday Night Forum returns to Wind Spirit Gifts, 612 E. Main St. in Montrose, but the starting time is now 6 pm. All presentations are open free of charge and the public is invited to attend. Come early to visit with your friends and fellow members of The Whole Life Network. In this network, you won't be a stranger for long. Do you have a subject on which you want to be heard? We plan to schedule one of these free-to-the-public presentations every other week all year long. To propose your Friday Night Forum call Jody at 240-0234. For a great evening out, come to Wind Spirit Gifts and check out the following, inspired, entertaining, FREE events:
**Feb. 13 @ 6 pm: Megan Grey Wolf Examining Our Lives As Myth
Our lives are a myth filled with archetypes, some of these archetypes represent us and fulfill us as our free and authentic selves, others are definitions that have been overlaid and imposed upon us. This forum will explore the definitions that run us and allow us to release the echoes that represent the definitions that arenot in truth and harmony with our authentic selves. Megan Grey Wolf is a spiritual counselor, teacher, shaman, High Priestess, artist, author, and medicine woman assisting others on their path of self discovery for over 24 years.
**Feb. 20 @ 6 pm: Noalani Terry Exploring Polarity
Polarity promotes well-being and self-awareness, clarity and peace of mind. Benefits include relaxation and revitalization, relief from physical discomfort, and restoration of healthy functioning to body systems. Your instructor will take you through a series of exercises to improve posture.
**March 12 @ 6 pm: Robert Gulick The Matrix: Sacred Geometry and the Principles for the Design of Worlds
In the synthesis of the ancient wisdom and the new physics a sacred science emerges that provides the keys to coding of the multi-dimensional nature of reality, being and consciousness. This fundamental coding, written in a Language of Light of number and geometry, is the Matrix. This presentation will explore aspects of the matrix and the relationship of mind, energy and form in traditions and science, seeking to understand the architecture of multi-dimensional reality and the map of the paths of return.
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DON'T!
Miss out on a great opportunity to put the
network in your Whole Life Network
Saturday, March 13, 10 am - 5 pm
10th Annual Whole Life and Learning Expo
Bill Heddles Recreation Center, Delta, Call 240-9315
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Meditations: Soapbox of the President
by Kim E. Davis
Resolution: The act or process of resolving. Here we are in the second month of the year already. Did you make any resolutions? How's it going? I rarely make them myself. I can't take the pressure. I remember many family New Year's parties when they would all make their resolutions right before midnight. Of course two weeks or so later they had fallen off the Resolution Wagon.
My point? I've spent many years resolving to be better every day. This one is no exception. The only thing is I've added another task; to help make the Whole Life Network become the best it can be. Unlike other resolutions, this one is going to require help from not only the other board members, but the members as well.
So as President, I am asking for everyone's help to make this resolution happen. We are all in this together and together it will be great.
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Remembering Aztlαn
A Column of Poetry, Culture & Spirit by Art Goodtimes
SUNDROP GROCERY
Her arm, tattooed in a bouquet of pastels & arabesques blossoms riotously at the high desert checkout counter, bagging my purple bell peppers & butter lettuce, poblanos & plantains. It's hard work remaining married. Consciously not flirting. And dιjΰ vu I ask myself what is it about piercings & a certain youthful half-aloof nonchalance that captivates this everready longhaired paleohippie heart? Maybe it's the way certain of us New West malcontents are willing to wear our outrage at this stopped up fast lane war zone culture of top 40 pre-packaged great book re-runs & turn it into emblems of ecstacy & relish. Countercultural badges of wild courage. Flaunting our gardens of delight in a millennium of postmodern neo-gothic rotunda portraits of empire. I walk out with the vegetables, sashaying past the glass doors and into the mysterious blue. Smiling.
L.L. NUNN
Revisionist history attempts to relook at past events through new perspectives, often via issues and outlooks not considered in traditional accounts. That has usually meant reinterpretation from the viewpoint of common folk. Or from the social mores of today rather than yesterday
That's why I wasn't surprised recently when, in conversation with Dr. Andrew Gulliford of the Center for Southwest Studies at Ft. Lewis College in Durango, he mentioned quite matter of factly that L.L. Nunn was gay. It had long seemed likely that Telluride's most famous legend had lived in a Victorian closet that he'd never publicly come out of
Nunn, together with his brother, spearheaded the effort to harness hydropower to run the Gold King mine near Telluride - the first long distance commerical use of alternating current in the world. He went on to found Utah Power and eventually to build the power station at Niagara Falls
Nunn never married. He had a male secretary that accompanied him everywhere. He founded a famous school for boys
But until I heard Gulliford make the statement, I had never known anyone to confirm Nunn's sexual orientation. He told me a woman colleague had researched the issue, and had reached that same conclusion, based on facts she'd uncovered. When I asked Gulliford if he would be willing to let me quote him publicly, he said it was fine. And historically, I think that's good. It's important to reflect on how gays survived and even thrived in a past Western Slope society that did not accept their sexuality, but in which they were still upstanding citizens. Here's an account of Lucius L. Nunn as made by L.G. Denison, one of Telluride's early denizens: L.L. Nunn had built his law office and bath house next to my store. He was just considered a little peggy-foggy lawyer, and really seemed quite inferior in mentality. He needed water for his bathhouse so he invited me to go in with him and buy garden hose and bring water from Cornet Falls. It would be protection in case of fire
How I underestimated this man's ability, for a few years later from his fertile brain was conceived one of the greatest contributions to the world
He revolutionized the power and light system when before we had only coal oil lamps and candles, and power was generated by steam.
FINDING NEMO
How come it takes a kid's cartoon movie to allow us the postmodern cinema space to merely imagine death & dismemberment, instead of hyperventilating superrealism in Taxicab detail
And, best of all, to celebrate men as dads, not deadbeats, even to the point of a sappy happy ending, here in the first century of Christianity's second millennium?
Must we be doomed to model the dysfunction of the World Trade Empire with its vast zones of collateral damage, or can we remake Hollywood as Sequoia sempervirens-ville & turn out films of peacelove&happiness instead of cheapthrills & hate?
DISCOVERY
The fascinating magazine of Science, Technology and Medicine started off the year with its 100 Top Science Stories of 2003, from Story Number 1 - the breakup of the Columbia and loss of the shuttle crew in the centennial year for Kitty Hawk - to Number 100 - the simulation by Czech Republic professor of shoe technology, Petr Hlavαcek, of a winter hike made by a 5,300-year-old Stone Age ice man Otzi, using his footwear of bark net, straw-filled, bearskin-soled boots and finding them "better insulated and better cushioned than modern day hiking boots and provid[ing] superior traction."
Wedged in between nanoparticles (37), a bacterium that feeds on toxic wastes (28) and an Indian kin of T. Rex (93), the editors cite the Tenderfoot Mountain dig of Western State College anthropologist Mark Stiger in Gunnison as Number 75. Folsom-era hunters of 10,000 years ago roamed the Great Plains from Nevada to Iowa ambushing and spearing bison and elk and researchers had surmised that they must have lived in ephemeral hide shelters that left no traces. But the crude shelter uncovered on a 8,600 mesa above the Gunnison airport in the process of surveying the proposed site of a communications tower changes that picture. Stiger is quoted as saying, "It could be that we've had blinders on and that the Folsom people were more mountain oriented than we thought. Perhaps they just hunted on the plains but lived up here the rest of the time."
A startling discovery, and right in our own back yard!
UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS
While not a U.U. myself, my sermon to the Glenwood Springs congregation a few months back opened some doors into this interesting faith, a Protestant denomination with a very wide embrace
A holiday letter from a U.U. family up in Port Townsend came into my hands, and I wanted to share some of it with you. It certainly speaks to my heart
The holiday season is upon us and once again the world is so chaotic and frustrating that a peaceful and promising future continues to elude us. Without hesitation our apology our hearts go out to the members of our military and their families who appear to be caught in the confusion and uncertainty of a world torn by weaponry without wisdom - and power without perspective.
KUCINICH
Hey, if you want yard signs, bumperstickers or t-shirts, or just flyers about the candidacy of the one Dem in the national presidential race that resonates with the Green values I hold, then give me a call (327-4767)
I have a small stash of campaign stuff to share
And any donations would be appreciated
Single-payer universal health care. A Department of Peace. This guy's not a Skull&Crossbones Yalie. Nor a Beltway Cowboy. He's the real thing. A leader with vision.
PEACE CALENDAR
Tired of all the slick glossies that pass for calendars and want to be reminded of the most important thing in all our lives right now? Then visit www.syrculturalworkers.com and learn from the dedicated peace and justice folks in that East Coast city how to get their excellent calendar
A local Tellurider shared one with me, and I was very impressed.
THE TRUTH ABOUT THUNDER
That's the name of L.A. refugee Beth Paulson's first chapbook (Ponderosa Press, Ouray, 2001). The truth is, her thunder isn't loud at all. It's a gathering of quiet meditations. Direct transparencies taken from a life. Striking but not unsettled. Things encountered in their lovely simplicity
There are first impressions arrived at by observation, and echoes from the past floating to the surface. Reading her book is like sitting in the rain waiting for someone while traveling back and forth in time. It's like driving to work and cataloguing the things encountered -- laid bare in their stark poignancy
There's a wonderful poem about trying to teach coherence to students traumatized, abused, having been witnesses to unspeakable horrors. And Paulson walking out of the classroom and down to an elevator that doesn't work ("End of Term")
I found an almost Chinese sensibility to many of her best poems. Instead of drawing connections, she puts the image in our mind, and lets it sit there, next to others, allowing us to draw our own connections: "
the smell / of pine campfire on a beach / or how her father looked, / his shirt off, just sitting there."
Available at Cimarron Books in Ridgway
Recommended.
© 2004 Art Goodtimes
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How It Started
by Joan May
In 1988 I was an energetic and idealistic 24-year-old. I was fresh out of grad. school with a masters degree in Health Promotion, and in Telluride for a "season off to be a ski bum" before embarking on the real world of corporate health, or so I thought. While working at a bakery in Telluride that winter, I met a woman named Salli Russell. She sensed my passion for alternative health care and planetary health and pointed me in the direction of a doctor in Montrose named Dick Gingery, who was trying to start a group, organized around similar ideals. I met with Dr. Gingery who excitedly told me about conversations he had with such folks as Becky Lindsay, Andrea Bartlett, Bill Wilson, Bettye Hooley and others. We began meeting, usually at Becky's or someone else's home from whence The Whole Life Network began. We had inspiring weekend retreats to plan our future. As a nascent group, we had a lot of ideas and energy and lots of fun. Does anyone remember the Whole Life Network Triathalon? Or looking into building a WLN center near Orvis Hot Springs?
Kelvin Kent helped boost the Network by acting on his idea to create an annual WLN symposium. We had such incredible speakers as Deepok Chopra and Bernie Seigel in those early years.
My involvement with WLN gradually waned as the frequent drive to Montrose started to seem counterproductive to what we were trying to achieve. Since that time I've gone on from working at KOTO, Telluride's community radio station, to directing Telluride's Western Colorado Congress chapter, Sheep Mountain Alliance. I have a six year old son, Micah. By the way, that "season off to be a ski bum" turned into what seems to be a permanent lifestyle change. My passions for personal and global health from those days have only grown to include spiritual health, as well. I still appreciate the work of The Whole Life Network. It's nice to be in a regional community that shares those values.
(Editor's Note: In 2004, The Whole Life Network celebrates fifteen years of service to our community. This article is the second in a series written by our founders, the original members of the first Board of Directors of The Whole Life Network. We honor Joan May whose career with the Sheep Mountain Alliance has contributed to preserving our local environment.)
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ReConnections: A Look Back
The heritage of The Whole Life Network from the pages of Connections
1 Year Ago "When visiting the Expo, held this year in Delta at Bill Heddles Recreation Center, come with your eyes and heart open. Be prepared to see with your eyes and feel with your heart the very best in alternative healing and all of the goods and services for mind, body and spirit connection."
Laurel Ann explaining medical astrology: "(it) utilizes the astrological horoscope, sometimes referred to as the natal chart, of an individual. This chart is your celestial DNA, the blueprint of you mind, body and soul's purpose; it correlates to your fingerprint because it is unique, individual.
5 Years Ago "Based on attendance at the 5th annual WLN Health and Wellness Fair, Uncompahgre residents are interested in being healthy and well. Each year the fair gets better, and this year was no exception."
Rev. Arlyn Macdonald on the new millennium: "What you take into the new millennium will shape the rest of our lives. Take a little time to think about the spiritual teachings of ancient cultures of the last millennium. What will you take with you?"
10 Years Ago "Special thanks go to our accountant and WLN member, Jane Goldman. She has put her support of WLN into action by providing us guidance in setting up a real accounting system. It makes it much easier to be accountable to our members and to track our own growth and activity."
John Unger describes the Dances of Universal Peace:"What happens when you combine simple folk dance movements with songs and chants of the world's spiritual traditions? When accompanied by live music and led by Timothy Dobson, you get Dances of Universal Peace. Rather than a performance, it is a participatory experience, and it will be happening in Montrose - - -"
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Letters to the Editor of Connections
Finds WLN Roots 'Interesting'
Dear Editor:
I just received my new Connections with the update on what is happening at WLN. It looks like you have a great Board and there is going to be a lot of "happening" things going on this year!
It was really interesting reading on the beginning of WLN. I knew Becky has started it but did not know the details and I found it very interesting to learn about it.
/s/Kathy Penley
Arlington, TX
We Love To Hear From You!
Whole Life Network Connections
PO Box 85
Montrose, CO 81402
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Peaceful Contributions for the Soul
by Kathy Gates
Meditation: Brings a deep sense of self through connecting with our inner wisdom. The wisdom that comes from our Source.
Relax: Find a place where you feel safe. Take a few deep breaths. Each time you breath in, pull the breath deep into your belly. Slowly let the breath back out until you feel your belly tighten. Do this several times, until you feel relaxed. Relax your whole body. From your toes to your head. Releasing any stress in each area.
(Do not meditate while driving) February is a time for Love. Ask yourself this question "How are my relationships"? With my parents, children, husband or friends. Sit in the quiet and listen to what comes up from your inner wisdom.
Love is Divine Power
Raise your attention up to your heart, the center of love.
Envision the people in your life whom you've had relationships with. Each person you envision sharing love with, send them more love.
For each person that you feel a challenge to love say a prayer "I want to learn more about how to love them today."
Think about who you need to forgive today. Releasing hurt feelings from your Divine Heart. Sometimes this is not easy, to forgive. But by forgiving we free ourselves from the bondage that holding on to hurt or pain can bring.
Look at situations through your heart. Find the good that comes from your relationships. Or the lessons you learned from them. Think about who you are today because of them. It's who you are in this moment that truly matters.
Focus your attention on being right, and doing right to others. Walk in this day with a heart filled with Love & Joy, knowing every relationship in your life is there for a reason, and that reason is to teach us truth. Have the courage to change. Have gratitude in knowing that your own Divine wisdom can protect you and help you on your path of relationships of all kinds. Whenever a question comes to surface, ask for Divine guidance. Then quietly wait. Your answers will come at just the right time and in just the right way.
Verse from Corinthians Love is patient and kind, Love is not jealous or boastful, it is not arrogant or rude, Love does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things endures all things. Love never ends.
Enjoy this new day with Love and Light.
More on meditation to come ..
(Kathy Gates may be contacted at Women's Spirit Retreat, 856-7665). Be added to our friends of peace mailing list.)
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Homeopathic Help For Companion Animals
MVC Release by Laura Lee Yates
Venus: The Canine Cure
Healing can arrive when you least expect it, and healers appear in all shapes, sizes-and species.
Before and during our move from Montrose to Northern California to care for my mother, we worried that Venus, our rambunctious, overgrown black puppy, might prove a problem. Mom, who is elderly and ailing from congestive heart failure, kidney disease, and emphysema, had fallen not long before, suffering several compression factors in her back. Her weight plummeted to 90 pounds. On arrival, we found her primarily bedridden, ambulating only with the aid of a metal walker. Seen through the glass of the sliding glass door, the energy and enthusiasm of our 60-pound, 10-month-old half Bernese Mountain Dog/half Golden Retriever frightened her, she had lived alone for many years and was now painful, unsteady and realistically concerned about another fall. It looked like a recipe for disaster.
But we had underestimated Venus. My husband led the pup inside on a leash. Though fascinated by this tiny woman who was clearly a "member of the pack," with her scent spread throughout the environment, Venus perceived my mother's hesitation and moved with matching caution. With Mom safely ensconced in her favorite family room chair, Venus approached in slow motion, tail waving, and gently licked one frail hand.
For the last two decades, extensive laboratory and community-based studies have confirmed what some of us have known for a long time-- animals are good for our health. Here are just a few of their findings.
People with companion animals:
* have lower blood pressure, as well as lower triglyceride and cholesterol levels
* suffer fewer minor health problems and experience higher levels of psychological well-being
* experience less fear of falling victim to crime
Seniors with dogs as companions:
* suffer less deterioration of their ADL (activities of daily living level
* cope better with stressful life events and feel less isolated
* visit their doctors less often
Children who grow up with companion animals:
* display more positive self-esteem
* tend to develop nurturing behavior and show better cognitive development
* adjust better to the serious illness or death of a parent
The benefits don't stop there. AIDS patients suffer less depression; heart attack victims show better survival rates one year later; institutions dispense less medication when animals (and plants) are part of the environment.
The creature need not have fur. For the owner of a king snake, stroking that striped scaly hide produces the greatest reduction in blood pressure.
Now, five months after our arrival in California, Venus is my mother's best buddy. While Mom watches television, a silky black head often rests on her footstool. Who knows which one of them enjoys the petting more? At her most recent physical exam, my mother's blood pressure had dropped thirty points from its former dangerous level. She's also gaining weight and is far more alert. When I hear her laugh, I know Venus the healer is hard at work.
(Call 249-8022 or email morningstar@montrose.net Dr. Bettye Hooley and Dr. Diane Clark)
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Dea's Kitchen: Staying Warm, Inside and Out
by Dea Jacobson
Now that the ritual pies, cakes and cookies have become fond memories of the holidays, we find less temptation around us and perhaps a little incentive to act on that annual resolution for a healthier diet. Ayurveda gives us ways to invigorate our digestive fire, or agni, throughout the cold, and sometimes, sluggish Winter months. Our appetite originates from agni, which completes the cooking process within.
Strong digestion is key to good health, and it begins with the mind. As it anticipates a tasty and nourishing meal, your mind sends signals to begin making and releasing digestive juices and enzymes. Ah, the aromatherapy of cooking! A healthy person has enhanced digestive power in Winter, and so can handle a substantial meal. To be practical, serve and eat warm, well-cooked foods, especially rice, oats, heavier protein foods, beans, hot teas, honey and warm milk. Keep raw foods to a minimum, and avoid cold frosty foods, which suppress that inner fire. That will save energy, too. Seasonal eating says save the ice and ice cream for Summer. And remember that a few extra pounds to insulate against the cold must be balanced with awareness for those who tend to build up more weight than is healthy. More on this can be found in The Ayurvedic Cookbook by Amadea Moringstar.
Agni, like any other cooking fire, needs to be set just so, not too high or too low, so we can digest and assimilate our food and convert it into tissue and energy, not toxins and fat. Inefficient digestion creates what is known in Ayurveda as ama, a toxic by-product that obstructs the flow of nutrients and waste in the body. An example is cholesterol build up in the arteries, or candida, evident in a white coated tongue. Excess ama results in fatigue, lack of resolve, compulsive or irregular eating patterns, mucus, bloating, cravings and obesity. For a more complete explanation of this condition, read The Ayurvedic Guide To Diet and Weight Loss by Scott Gerson, M.D. While perhaps cleansing is in order, it is not advisable to fast in Winter, so prevention is the way to go. We will discuss cleansing in a later column.
Spices and herbs will enhance digestive fire and keep it keen. As always, moderation is key. Cinnamon, ginger, fennel, cumin, mustard, horseradish, hot and black pepper, oregano, basil, all compliment meals in Winter. After a big dinner, try toasting fennel seeds with a little rock salt. Fennel is good for calming and strengthening the stomach's functions and to relieve heartburn. Rock salt enhances agni.
Now for this month's recipe, spicy, hot CHAI, a flavorful Indian tea, from Dr. Vasant and Usha Lad of Albuquerque. Serves 4. For 2 minutes, boil 3 cups of water with 4 whole cloves, 2 pinches each of cinnamon, cardamom, and nutmeg, and a 1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger. Add 1 teaspoon of black tea or 1 tea bag and simmer on low for 2 more minutes. Add 1 cup milk (heavier folks can use soy milk) and heat but don't boil. Strain, sweeten to taste and serve, or put in a thermos and head for the ski trails and our beautiful mountains! CHAI can be enjoyed anytime, as the cardamom helps neutralize the caffeine in the tea.
Remember, keeping warm means more than donning a new sweater and cap over layers of thermal underwear. Warmth is an inside job too! Enjoy!
(Dea Jacobson is the Director of Blue Heron Yoga, Fitness and Wellness of Cedaredge, CO. A Member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists and a licensed Religious Science Practitioner, she is a graduate of Rebecca Wood's Naturally Grand Cooking School and can be reached on the web at www.blueheronyoga.com, P.O. Box 95, Cedaredge, CO 81413, or at 970-856-4905. She offers cooking and yoga classes in Delta, Cedaredge, Grand Junction, Fruita and private, at home yoga sessions throughout Western Colorado)
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Towards An Aquarian Age
by Louis Acker
Uranus in Pisces (Part 2)
Astrological Events: Uranus enters Pisces for the first time on March 10. 2003 and turns retrograde at 2 degrees and 49 minutes of Pisces on June 7, 2003. Uranus reenters Aquarius by retrograde motion on September 17, 2003. Uranus reenters Pisces on December 31st 2003.
Uranus in Pisces could bring important breakthroughs, discoveries and innovations in therapies and treatments for emotional disorders and mental illness. Scientific advances in technologies related to water and oceanography will occur. Many new methods and approaches to developing psychic awareness and remembering past lives will be promoted and experimented with both the genuine and the spurious. Technologies related to archeology, dating and researching historical artifacts, will make important advances accompanied by some shocking discoveries that could discredit official history. It will become increasingly obvious to the general public that much vital information has been withheld, falsified and misrepresented by governments, major corporations, banks, religions, universities, etc.
Uranus in Pisces is in a 2nd house relationship to it's own sign of Aquarius which will fuel public anger and revolutionary sentiment related to economic abuse, theft, and misrepresentation by politicians, government, corporations, stock brokers, and the federal reserve system. Pisces as a sign has much to do with creative imagination, and, therefore, with the arts. Uranus in Pisces could bring some highly inspired, original and innovative genius level creativity both in music and the creative arts. Much of this could make creative use of recent technological advances especially in electronics and ways of electronically combining visual and musical art forms. The arts will become a vehicle for the expression of social revolutionary sentiment even more than is usually the case. Pisces is also associated with religious institutions, monasteries, hospitals, mental institutions, prisons and places of retreat, confinement, seclusion and institutionalization in general. Uranus in Pisces will bring shocking revelations, revolutionary sentiment and sudden changes regarding all such institutions. Currently there are 2 million people in prison in The United States, a higher per capita percentage by far than any other nation on earth. A high percentage of these prisoners are behind bars because of drug related offences that would be better dealt with through therapy and medical treatment. Yet the pharmaceutical industry controlled medical establishment dispenses antidepressants to the public and Ritalin to schoolchildren at the slightest pretext. Most of these so-called psychiatric drugs are more addictive, dangerous and damaging than many of the illegal drugs. It is a know medical fact that brain receptors see Ritalin in the same way as cocaine. As these glaring abuses by the medical establishment become better understood by the public at large, there is likely to be a massive backlash. The entire 7 year transit of Uranus in Pisces is critical and represents an opportunity for humanity to incorporate the most genuinely worthwhile evolutionary accomplishments of the Piscean age, while, at the same time, discarding the corrupt, decadent, elitist, unjust and outmoded aspects of the old dispensation in favor of a new, more enlightened and democratic way of running things. This is a process which will require great wisdom, awareness, discrimination and concern for the long-range greater good of humanity.
(Louis Acker, a Montrose resident, is an internationally recognized authority and author of Astrologers Handbook. You may reach him to schedule consultations at 252-0600)
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An Experience of the Spiritual
by Dr. Jerry Overton
I think I've always known that there was a Power beyond the apparent. There just had to be. There was no other way to explain what I experienced on our little Tennessee farm. How else could a tiny, hard-as-wood watermelon seed spring up from cow manure-rich soil and produce such an abundance of deliciously sweet watermelons. Or how else could a dead-as-winter tree burst forth with such a magnificent flurry come Spring? Or a caterpillar become a butterfly?
All this wonder in a child's mind, to be sure. But this was surely more than wonder or even magic! I was convinced. There was a Power at work here that even science couldn't fully explain. And this Power was no ordinary energy, but rather a positive life force, creating a myriad of majesty and beauty. And deep in my bones I knew this Power was for me, and not against me. Indeed, I was convinced!
After all these years, I still am convinced. But, I can assure you, it's not been without a fight.
Now you'd think that having grown up in the Bible Belt, it would have been fairly easy to have maintained my belief in such a loving Power. I suppose it would have been had I never ventured off that little farm. If I had remained as I was, and never read anything, listened to the radio, or watched T.V. But, obviously, and in this case, regretfully, I did.
Much to my dismay, however, it was church that gave me my first reasons to doubt. It was Brother Thrower, the pastor of the neighborhood Presbyterian church, that put an official name on this Power-God he was to be called. And according to Brother Thrower, God had a fairly hair-trigger temper, and you could royally tick him off if you weren't careful.
It happened in one of the first stories I heard, you know-the one about the snake convincing Eve who then convinced Adam to eat that infamous apple from that off-limits tree. God got wind of it, sentenced them to death, and all sorts of pain and suffering in between, and then kicked them right out of the garden. That's when I began to watch out for snakes, and think twice before I ate an apple. And that's also when I began to be afraid of God.
If the spiritual journey is about intimacy, claiming our Oneness with this Power of the Universe, then how can we ever claim it if we are afraid? Why would any sensible human being even want to be that intimate with a Power who could and would crush them in a heartbeat? And what would be our motivation?
Well, it's been my experience that most thinking individuals wouldn't want to even get close to such a fearful Being. And if they did, it would surely be out of their own fear and guilt-neither of which are very good or helpful reasons. So, perhaps it's time we started telling some different stories- stories that portray this Power beyond the apparent in a different light-as One who sees us to be Precious and loves us without condition, and who wants nothing more than to shower us with an abundance of blessings so that we can claim the happiness that is our birthright.
To be sure, there are stories out there that do paint this more loving and positive picture. They can be found in the Christian Bible as well as in writings from other faith traditions. And it is well worth our time and effort to seek them out-mainly because we need to hear them so that they can help to contradict or at least counter-balance all those others voices that seek to judge us and keep us down. It's only as we are able to hear this loving Voice that we can have a shot at thinking more highly of ourselves-which can then help us to value others more highly, especially those different from ourselves. And it's only as we begin to value them that we can ever hope to live in peace.
And don't rely solely on those stories for your own experience of the spiritual. For this loving Power is as close as your breath, and is yearning for you to get quiet and listen to that still small Voice within you to tell you how dearly you are loved. And that, my friends, can make all the difference in the world!
© 2004 Dr. Jerry D. Overton All Rights Reserved
(Dr. Jerry D. Overton is Director of The Center for Personal and Spiritual Growth. He can be reached at 970-252-9311, by e-mail at jerry@jerryoverton.com, or on the web at www.jerryoverton.com)
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Dance At The Grange
MRL Release
Dance at the Riverside Grange on Friday, February 20 from 8:00 - 10:00 pm to the funky country sound of the County Line Band, the "newest up-and-coming band from our little corner of the world." Everyone is welcome to dance & enjoy the music at this smoke-free and alcohol-free event. Admission is $5; refreshments will be available. Door prizes too! All proceeds will benefit the Montrose Library's "Poetry on a Platter" poetry festival in April. For more information please call the library at 249-9656.
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