When I was an intern learning to be the doctor in a Code Blue situation, one of my mentors gave me this valuable piece of advice: “Feel your own pulse first.” I thought to myself: In a Code Blue, the patient may be turning blue. The patient is the one that may not have a …Read More
Category: Newsletter
Eat Your Greens
Eat your greens! Yuck! It’s pond scum. It’s dark blue-green spiral-shaped algae, harvested from lakes in warm climates, and a nutrient-dense superfood! Yuck! It’s pond scum. It’s good for you. It’s spirulina. Yuck! When I was growing up, one of my cousins (who shall remain nameless, but you know who you are!) … she …Read More
Book – Byron Katie: Loving What Is
What’s your story? Are you suffering because of your thoughts? Your thinking? Your opinions? Your judgments? Your story? The story that we tell ourselves has the power to change how we experience the present moment. In this context, “storytelling” is the story playing in our head over and over and over. What is the story …Read More
Love Your Microbiome
When I began studying alternative medicine more than a decade ago, the word “probiotics” was on the fringe. Probiotics are good bacteria that live in a normal gut. They can help re-populate the gut after an illness or when antibiotic disrupts the normal balance of bacteria. There was controversy about whether they were more than …Read More
Understanding the Four Elements as Metaphor
The classical Greeks and many ancient cultures divided the world into four elements: fire, earth, water, air. Everything was thought to be composed of some combination of these four elements. The intersection of these four elements creates life. Today, we have other scientific models for the makeup of the universe. From molecules to atoms to …Read More
Storytelling in Southwest Florida: New Year, New Stories
What is a storyteller? Someone who tells a story? “Storytelling” is a word used in many different contexts, and hence confusion. We remember books read to us as a child, and often storytelling as “story-reading” is the only definition some have encountered. Sometimes, it is also applied to novelists, essayists, playwrights, and movie directors. In …Read More
Transmitting Food Culture
My childhood memories are filled with Jamaican Jerk Pork fresh from the barbecue pit on the beach, fried sweet plantains in the mornings, “mannish water” (a hot pepper soup served at weddings and gatherings), fresh coconuts from the roadside stall – chopped open right there so we can drink the cool refreshing water and then …Read More
Eckhart Tolle “The Power of Now”
“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.” ― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment On the path to a more conscious life of living the present moment, Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment” …Read More
The Medicine Wheel, Upcoming Workshop
Scattered across North America are stones arranged in a circle like spokes on a wheel. These sacred sites were built long ago by the Native American peoples, and continue to be sacred to those that build them today. Big Horn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming is one of the most well-known. At nearly 10,000 feet elevation …Read More