GETTING RID OF A COLD

PREVENT A COLD THE EASY WAY

This is from a Victorian Order of Nurses

1. Drink plenty of water. (eight glasses a day) Keep the 'plumbing'
clean and flowing.

2. Eat raw fruits and vegetables every day. Keeps the bowels clean and
rolling on. Eat raw carrots, raw celery and lettuce daily, and support
the immune system, and it will support you. It's your best friend.
3. Avoid sugars and starches.

4. Get outside in fresh air (hopefully with sunshine). Skin and retina need
it to do their preventive jobs.
5. Laugh and smile often. A l0 minute belly laugh elevates T-cell (immune
system's fighter cells) for 72 hours.
6. Avoid cold drafts and stay dry.
7. Lovingly and sincerely pray for others.

l. Avoid sugar
2. Drink plenty of water (ten glasses a day).
3. No starches, None! (always consult your doctor to confirm).
4. No juices. Drink water instead.
5. Have a nice soak in a steamy tub with epsom salts and sea salt.
6. Sip a cup of red clover tea.
7. Put on a funny movie or read the comics and have lots of laughs!
(If you start this regime at the beginning of a cold, and have a day
of fresh fruits and vegetables with plenty of water (organic black
coffee is okay) the cold will not be supported and be gone in a day.

VALENTINE LOVE GREETINGS

Day after tomorrow is Valentine Day and a great opportunity to tune into one of the most pleasurable aspects of living, sharing extra happiness. Every culture explores new ways of expanding love to our spouse, family, friends and all who are part of our sphere of living. The airwaves are full of suggestions of still one more way of doing this and here is one from a child to his grandmother, Dr. Gladys Taylor McGarey. They were chatting together about things that interest a six year old when he abruptly changed the subject, looked into the loving understanding eyes of his namesake. "Nanni," he said, "I think the meanest thing that anybody could do would be to kill the teddy bears and blankies."

"I gave him an understanding hug," she writes, and later thought about how much wisdom children share with us and how easy it is for us to think that our thoughts are more important than their insights. Taylor's statement was telling me that we need to be very aware of the nurturing aspect of divine energy, that we cannot live life fully without letting tenderness and compassion enter into our everyday lives. We have done so much harm taking away the arts and nurturing programs from our school children in our attempt to have them fit into certain proscribed patterns. I wonder what the children in war-torn countries are doing for blankies and teddy bears. No wonder the world is angry. We may not be able to give them the material blankies and teddy bears, but we can all pray for them and hold them in our hearts with loving concern.

Thinking further on this, I realized that not just children need this kind of concern, but the child in each one of us needs and wants to share love and compassion with each other. I know a young person who just started medical school last fall and has taken his blankie with him to his apartment. Pretty much of a rag by now, but it continues to be a comfort to him because of awareness of such needs and will be a truly good doctor.

When we cut back our interest and concern from the finer things in life and concentrate on the power of the mind, money and material things, our souls are injured. The use of creative energy for nurturing has always been important to the human soul. As we look for opportunities to be kind and gentle with the hurt parts of ourselves, we will find tenderness, and softness that will bring laughter and humor into the most difficult situations and healing when nothing else can. There is no receiving without giving, for he that would have joy must make joy in the lives of others, for peace and harmony creates peace in self and in relationships with others." I could not possibly add anything more to the words of Taylor and his grandmother, Dr.Gladys Taylor McGarey. She is coauthor of "The Physician Within You" and the lead physician at the Scottsdale Holistic Medical Group in Scottsdale, Arizona.

ENVIRONMENTALIST WINS PRIZE

The Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities has been awarded to Rev. Holmes Rolston, Ill. He established the field of environmental ethics. He focused beyond humans to show how plants, animals, and ecosystems have established goodness and needed to be considered in the total equation of creation. He demonstrated that ethics need to be based on a broader foundation than merely human concerns.

In a news conference following the announcement of the prize, Rev. Rolston said, "Our planetary crisis is one of spiritual information; not so much sustainable development, certainly not escalating consumption, but using the Earth with justice and charity. Science cannot take us there, religion perhaps can. After we learn altruism for each other, we need to become altruists toward our fellow creatures. We must encounter nature with grace, with an Earth ethics, because our ultimate Environment is God - in whom we live, move, and have our being."

The Templeton prize, worth l.2 million dollars, is the largest prize offered to an individual, more than the Nobel prize, because he believed that spiritual discoveries would be the most important and wanted to highlight their significance. Rev. Rolston is donating the prize money to his alma mater, Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina, to endow a chair in religion and science.

RESEARCH ON TRANSFORMATION

What brings on transformation and what happens during and after the transformation process? These and several other questions are the focus for an enormous research program, with more than two million dollars in funding. Initially sponsored by the Templeton Foundation and administered by Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science, the program has launched research endeavors at several universities and other organizations.

Research projects include looking at the brain during mystical experiences, the transformation experiences of cancer patients, how spiritual transformation affects involvement in crime, the role of the experience of awe in spiritual transformation, the language of transformation, how spiritual transformation interacts with the maturational process, its role in alcoholism rehabilitation, its connection to religious conversion, and its effects with a marriage, and our day to day working life, to name a few topics.

Now with our present depression, it appears that many will be facing making changes in every aspect of life. There will be urgent demands upon both employer and employee. Step one finds both at a crossroads, whether it is a business itself that must close down or the worker that must be laid off. When employment insurance has run its course, every phase of life faces change for survival itself. One of the most urgent is the job search which could lead to a different type of work and a different occupation. Preparing a new resume is a first step, detailing interests, subjects taken in school in which you excelled and further study in it. Church friendships as well as well as volunteering can result in offers that open up a new opportunity doing the work you love as well as helping others as a side benefit.

FIVE SERVINGS OF FRUIT CONTAIN MANY BLESSINGS

We've heard it often: "eat plenty of fruit." Three studies have demonstrated additional reasons for doing so. In a report published in the British medical journal Lancet, past studies involving over 200,000 patients revealed that those who ate at least three servings of fruit daily had significantly fewer strokes than those who ate less fruit.

In another study, high intake of fruits and vegetables was associated with less risk of Alzheimer's, and less evidence of cognitive decline in the elderly years. Finally, a study conducted at the University of Montreal and published in the International Journal of Cancer, demonstrated that a diet rich in fruits was associated with significantly less cancer of the pancreas.

Eating more fruit seems to help in many ways in addition to stimulating the mind. This leads to the thoughts of many this 10th day of February, 2009 when job losses can cause individual depression as well. The CBC radio this morning interviewed a man who helps people looking for a new job and how to expand the possibility of a change of careers that could lead to an even more suitable job. The website given was: www.careerjoy.com. I am not looking for a job myself but checked out this website and found it very interesting. It never hurts look into it.

AROMATHERAPY CAN HELP DEMENTIA

Geriatric patients with dementia suffer from agitation, depression, and delusions, and show troublesome behaviors such as wandering, aggressiveness, and sleep disturbance. Smelling lemon balm and lavender oil seems to help, report a team of British researchers. In their study reported in the British Medical Journal, they compared aroma therapy with a control placebo and found that the lemon/lavender treatment was significantly effective in reducing agitation and generally improving quality-of-life variables. Additionally, there were no side effects such as usually observed with sedatives.

DOCTORS DECLARE TABLE SALT UNSAFE

The American Medical Association "AMA" is urging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to revoke the "generally recognized as safe" status of salt with the aim of reducing sodium intake throughout America in an effort to reduce cardiovascular disease - the number one killer in America. Most salt intake occurs through dining outside the home and the AMA hopes that an FDA pronouncement will encourage restaurants to significantly lower the use of salt in their menus. Their aim is to reduce overall salt intake by one-half within 10 years.