Issue 29
fAce the current TRAVEL
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CULTURE
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MUSIC
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SPORTS & FITNESS
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HEALTH
DREAMING WITH EYES WIDE OPEN
An Inspired World With Artist Marcel Van Luit Survive & Thrive with Dr. Nicole Apelian
Recovering Lost Herbal Remedies
Breaking Ground with Fernanda Maciel Ultra-Running & Adventure Racing
EDM Sensation Jay Hardway
Carving a Life-Path On & Off the Stage
Fuel for an inspired life.
Journey to a More Sustainable Inner & Outer World with Jerry Yudelson
Editorial
fAce the current Issue 29 · May/June 2020
Connect With Us... @facethecurrent www.facethecurrent.com ADVERTISEMENT AND SPONSOR INQUIRIES
partnerships@facethecurrent.com www.facethecurrent.com/advertise/ Sasha Frate, Founder & Editor in Chief sasha@facethecurrent.com
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Face the Current is an awardwinning aspirational and inspirational magazine and fast-growing digital destination for all those seeking purposeful, conscious, and connected living. With a double meaning, Face the Current is about living in the now (in the current moment) while also facing life and all it brings as we aspire to be our potential and live with purpose. Launched with a simple yet powerful mission, Face the Current strives to be more than just a magazine as we work to create a ripple-effect of positive change. Why? Face the Current believes that media can be purpose-driven and inspiring, so we committed to fostering a sense of interconnectedness in the world. We showcase the very best in people while building connections between family, friends, ourselves, the environment, food, places and to life itself. Cover Image Credits: • Front cover: Marcel van Luit • Back cover: Gabriel Tarso
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All Rights Reserved DISCLAIMER The information provided in this magazine is intended for your general knowledge only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice or treatment for specific medical conditions. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem or disease without consulting with a qualified healthcare provider. Opinions and other statements expressed by the kind souls sharing their viewpoint, users and third parties are theirs alone, not opinions of Face the Current. Content created by third parties is the sole responsibility of the third parties and its accuracy and completeness are not endorsed or guaranteed. Face the Current Website and third parties may provide links to web pages, web sites, and various resources or locations on the web. Face the Current has no control over the information you access via such links, does not endorse that information, and shall not be responsible for it or for the consequences of your use of that information. All products and services featured are selected by our editors. Face the Current may receive compensation for some links to products and services in this magazine.
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FtC TEAM We are a growing team of UpStanders whose intention is to create positive change in the world through networking, connecting, supporting, and developing our global thought-community at both an individual and a collective level. We are passionate about building our crew of experts and industry leaders to deliver cutting-edge information that is created “by our global community, for our global community.” This issue’s FtC team and contributing crew are based in the U.S, Spain, and Canada.
Sasha Frate Founder & Editor-in-Chief Sasha is a perspective seeker, adventurer, and explorer. She received her Master’s Degree in Liberal Arts and continues to study a variety of subjects within and outside of the academic setting. Sasha brings her personal moonshot approach to life to FtC, aiming to provide an experience for our global community where we inspire one another to stay curious, never stop exploring, and to live with purpose and to our potential.
sasha@facethecurrent.com
Ainsley Schoppel Co-Editor-in-Chief
Ainsley is a classical pianist, former figure skater, and loves summers at the lake in northern Ontario. She holds an honors BA in Psychology and Arts & Business, and also earned a graduate degree in Hospitality and Business Management while working at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. After working in Toronto on published women-focused research, she moved outside the city to raise her family. While home with her son, she indulges her love of the written word with freelance editing.
ainsley@facethecurrent.com
Sema Garay Executive Designer Sema is the graphic designer behind the development of the image and magazine of Face the Current. He has developed a multitude of projects, including his previous job leading the Creative Department of BG Life Magazine, in Marbella, Spain. Sema graduated with a Masters Degree in Architecture at ETSA of Sevilla and is proficient in a wide range of design software. He is passionate about all kinds of artistic expressions, and when not active behind the scenes of Face the Current design, you’re likely to find him playing music for Beach Grooves Global Radio or local venues along the Costa del Sol.
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Victoria Wagner Marketing Director
Victoria (Tory) is a marketing professional who thrives on helping companies get where they need to go. Tory uses her love of storytelling, and obsession with organizing, to help small businesses and nonprofits grow, so they can focus on impacting their communities. Tory graduated with a degree in Marketing from Washington State University and currently lives in Portland, Oregon. When not on the job, she can be found with her nose in a book, baking bread, and going on big adventures with her little dog, Piglet.
victoria@facethecurrent.com
Issue 29 CONTRIBUTORS
Lisa Guy
is a well-respected Australian naturopath, author and passionate foodie, with over 18 years clinical experience. Lisa runs a naturopathic clinic called ‘Art of Healing’ and is an avid health writer and recipe developer for leading publications. Lisa is also the founder of Bodhi Organic Tea, an award winning herbal tea company who makes beautiful unique tea blends all naturopathically blended to enhance health and wellbeing. artofhealing.com.au
Kai Karrel
is writer, a poet, a mystic, and a practicing medium. In the last few years, Kai has dedicated his attention and focus to the Afro-Brazilian Shamanic teachings and the wisdom of the forest. He is a mystical traveler devoted to the exploration of the unknowable. He travels among native traditions and ancient cultures. In a way he considers himself a traditional light warrior, using the lighter side of his teaching to inspire spiritual growth and self-love. In recent years Kai has been devoting his time to the study of plant medicine and the shamanic modalities of healing and awakening, studying with master teachers in Brazil and honing his skill as a medium and healer. www.kaikarrel.com
Dr. Shamini Jain
is the Founder and CEO of the Consciousness and Healing Initiative (CHI), a collaborative accelerator of scientists, healers, artists, educators and social entrepreneurs to help lead humanity to heal ourselves. She is also an Assistant Professor at UC San Diego and is known for her research and teaching in biofield healing practices. www.shaminijain.com http://www.chi.is
Anita Sanchez, PhD
Aztec and Mexican American, is a transformational leadership consultant, trainer, speaker, coach, and author of the international bestselling and award-winning book, The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times (Simon & Schuster). She bridges indigenous teachings with the latest science to inspire and equip women and men to enjoy meaningful, empowered lives and careers. For more information and to download the free song that is based on the book, visit www. FourSacredGifts.com. For information on Anita’s leadership, diversity, inclusion, and unconscious bias training, see consulting website www.SanchezTennis.com.
Dr. Jim Bentz, D.PSc. DC
is a Chiropractor, Speaker, Health Coach & Educator, Trainer & the US Leading Practitioner in Neurological Integration System (NIS), a method of restoring communication between the brain and body based on the principle that the brain monitors every cell in the body. He has been in clinical Chiropractic practice since 1985, and has been using NIS as his primary modality since 1997. NIS is a system that incorporates ancient eastern medicine practices with current neuroscience and promotes self- healing through detection and correction of signaling disruption in the nervous system. https://nisusaseminars.com www.facebook.com/drjimbentz
Santina Murin
is a young spirit and old soul eager to travel, explore and expand. After graduating from college in 2015, she spent time learning more about herself through new experiences in California, Oregon, and New York. After recently moving back to her native city of Pittsburgh, Santina is intent on finding a newfound love for “home.” Santina loves expressing her creative side through writing her own poetry, but there’s nothing that makes her feel more alive than being in the presence of live music. More than anything, her soul shines brightest from the flow of connection through conversation with artists she’s so passionate about. www.borntovibe.net www.instagram.com/borntovibe
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MAY/JUNE CONTENT
08 Dreaming With Eyes Wide Open:
An Inspired World With the Contemporary Work of Artist Marcel van Luit
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Journey to a More Sustainable Inner & Outer World with Jerry Yudelson
travel 08. Dreaming With Eyes Wide Open: An Inspired World With the Contemporary Work of Artist Marcel van Luit 18. FtC Travel Connection : Alex and James Lock
culture 46
Modern-Day Troubadour and Spiritual Guitar Master: The Meditative
Classical Sounds of Estas Tonne 6 FACE the CURRENT MAGAZINE
24. Embracing the New Normal: Opening Our Hearts to Internal Change and Connected Consciousness 30. The Journey to a More Sustainable Inner and Outer World with Jerry Yudelson 40. “Relate-In-ship”: The Journey Inward to Self-Acceptance and Beautiful Relationships
music
46. Modern-Day Troubadour and Spiritual Guitar Master: The Meditative Classical Sounds of Estas Tonne
FtC Issue 29
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Survive & Thrive with Dr. Nicole Apelian Recovering Lost Herbal Remedies
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Breaking Ground with Fernanda Maciel: Ultra-Running & Adventure Racing
50. Laying Tracks: Carving a Life-Path On and Off the Stage with EDM Sensation Jay Hardway
sports & fitness
56. World Athlete Feats to Inspire Your Next Outdoor Adventures 62. The Highs and Lows of Ultra-marathoning and Adventure Racing: Breaking Ground with Red Bull Athlete Fernanda Maciel
health
68. Survive and Thrive with Dr. Nicole Apelian: Recovering ‘Lost’ Herbal Remedies 74. Harnessing and Strengthening Our Physical and Spiritual Interconnections: Finding Peace and Health During Isolation with Dr. Shamini Jain and Dr. Jim Bentz 80. Eating for Longevity
50 EDM Sensation Jay Hardway
Carving a Life-Path On & Off the Stage
www.facethecurrent.com
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FtC travel
Dreaming With Eyes Wide Open: An Inspired World With
the Contemporary Work of Artist Marcel van Luit By Sasha Frate A successful, transcendent, and in-demand career in fine art is most often the result of meticulous studies, innumerable studio hours, popular exhibitions, lucrative commissions, and—perhaps—even a little bit of kismet. It is not the side-effect of a debilitating and rare nerve disorder that causes paralysis and requires intense physical therapy— that is, not unless your name is Marcel van Luit. Following a teaching and social work career, Netherlands-born van Luit was diagnosed with Guillan-Barré syndrome. After experiencing complete paralysis, van Luit was transferred to a rehabilitation facility where he took up photography and editing as a form of physiotherapy and mental escapism. His first subject, his baby son, offered him the perfect inspiration to create pieces that captured the spirit of adventure and highlighted the beauty of tonal juxtaposition.
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Caroun
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When we use our ability to dream and imagine, we focus on positive thinking and discovering new possibilities. There is always beauty in life and beauty can be easily found in connections between people, nature, and animals. I want to show that through my work because I think it’s comforting to know that, even when everything falls apart, there will always be love, hope, and trust as long you have your ability to dream and imagine.
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Marcel’s work quickly garnered a following on social media and ignited the European art scene, and after several exhibitions in France, Belgium, the U.S.A., Brazil, and the Netherlands, van Luit solidified his spot as one of the most captivating modern photographic artists of our time. His pieces provocatively combine all aspects of the natural world including, plants, animals, humans, and the elements, and are infused with van Luit’s signature style
of light and dark interplay. Familiar subjects presented in unfamiliar and intriguing ways spark the embers of imagination while also serving as inspiration to find such beauty and adventure for ourselves in this breathtaking world of ours. Marcel lives, breathes, and is fuel for an inspired life. And so, Face the Current was thrilled and honored to share in discussion with van Luit; someone whose life’s work is the living embodiment of
catalytic inspiration and contagious positive change. We delved into the ideas behind art as a balm for troubled times, what it means to be a dreamer, understanding and appreciating our interconnectedness, and the influential and timeless beauty of nature. Marcel van Luit’s work is both a feast for the eyes and nourishment for the imagination. Enjoy the view and revel in the journey. www.facethecurrent.com
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Sasha Frate: You describe your work as being about hope, dreams, imagination, and the dichotomy of darkness and light. As life always ebbs and flows through joy and sorrow, light and darkness, hope and despair, confidence and fear, etc., how do you see our ability to use dreams and imagination to
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inspire a greater sense of hope, love, and trust? Marcel van Luit: When we use our ability to dream and imagine, we focus on positive thinking and discovering new possibilities. When life gets rough, it’s especially important to find ways to take your mind off the negative.Your mindset
is a very strong tool! There is always beauty in life and beauty can be easily found in connections between people, nature, and animals. I want to show that through my work because I think it’s comforting to know that, even when everything falls apart, there will always be love, hope, and trust as long you have your ability to dream and imagine.
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SF: You personally experienced what could be considered a tragic period in your life when you were diagnosed with a rare disease that left you paralyzed. However, this happened at the same time in your life as the miraculous birth of your baby boy.This essentially led you onto a new career path
as you discovered a passion for photography and creating completely new worlds with your art. While the dream worlds appear to have brought light and hope into your own life, how have you witnessed your art doing the same for others around the world?
MVL: I’m always honored to hear that people have been impacted by my work. I receive so many comments and messages from people about how my work resonates with them. For me, it’s always special to hear how my work helped someone through a difficult time or when one of my pieces warms their heart. I also receive many photos of people who www.facethecurrent.com
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I don’t want people to just look at a beautiful artwork, I want them to really feel something when they look at it. I want to warm their hearts when they need it, to calm them down, to give them hope, and inspire them to see the beauty in nature. I always try to leave enough room for people’s own interpretation. Art can be really valuable if you can relate to it and have the freedom to make it part of your own journey in life.
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The Pearl
tattooed my art on their arms. I’m still shocked every time I see this, but it’s a great compliment. SF: Where the Dreamers Go was your first exhibition—a solo exhibition at Corrado Bortone Gallery in Paris—and it was published as a limited-edition hardcover photobook of more than 200 museum-quality fine artwork prints. At the time of your book publishing, the intention was to provide people with the opportunity to have your art in their homes and to be able to open the book when they need to go where the dreamers go. From terror attacks to climate change, this
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happened at a fearful time in our recent history, and just a couple of years later, humanity again finds itself facing fears and in need of all that you set out to offer with this book: hope when we feel lost, inspiration for those looking for their life’s purpose, consolation in our griefs, guidance towards wisdom, opening up to self-knowledge, and calm for our anxieties. How might you advise people to look to art like yours—and perhaps their own dreams and imagination, as well—to navigate difficult times? MVL: For me, as an artist, it’s important to touch people with my
work. I don’t want people to just look at a beautiful artwork, I want them to really feel something when they look at it. I want to warm their hearts when they need it, to calm them down, to give them hope, and inspire them to see the beauty in nature. In fact, I see my art pieces as life lessons to my sons; something they can look back on when they are older and hopefully help them navigate through life. I always try to leave enough room for people’s own interpretation. Art can be really valuable if you can relate to it and have the freedom to make it part of your own journey in life. There’s this saying that’s also on the cover of my art catalog: “When you change the way
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For me, the dreamers are the ones who have the ability to see the beauty in everything. They are the ones who need an escape from the rush of their lives now and then, and to stand still and see what really matters in life. Dreamers are the ones who want to be inspired, to think outside the box, and are those who are longing for connection with our planet and with other people.
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Juno
you look at things, the things you look at change.” That’s exactly what I’m trying to do with my art. SF: What are some techniques/ practices that you use to look at life through the eyes of a child, as you view things with wonder and an unlimited amount of fantasy? MVL: I go out to nature with my two boys a lot. We go fishing, hiking, and searching for all kinds of treasures in the forest, and we also build tree houses. It helps me to really see all that’s around me when I’m with my children. Sometimes we’re so locked up in our routines and our digital worlds that we lose the ability to see
all that’s already around us to enjoy. There is so much to wonder about, but you have to open up to it to notice it. SF: Who are the dreamers? MVL: For me, the dreamers are the ones who have the ability to see the beauty in everything. They are the ones who need an escape from the rush of their lives now and then, and to stand still and see what really matters in life. Dreamers are the ones who want to be inspired, to think outside the box, and are those who are longing for connection with our planet and with other people SF: Where the Dreamers Go is not just any book—it is a piece of
art in itself with “special effects” that had never before been implemented.The front cover is made from thermal ink, so upon touching it, the “real” cover is magically revealed. What has gone into this one-of-a-kind book, and do you have plans to create another book in the future? MVL: Creating this book was a dream come true and I got to work with an incredibly talented team. The publisher of my book also published the (limited edition) RIJKS, Masters of the Golden Age book and the Vincent van Gogh sketchbooks, so I’m very honored that they wanted to work with me. We wanted to create an art www.facethecurrent.com
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piece, and an exclusive fine art print is included with every book. We are currently working on a coffee table book. SF: What has been one of your most surprising, unusual, and/or exciting commissioned pieces? MVL: Every commissioned piece has a story of its own. It’s always very exciting if people want you to create something that is so personal and important to them. I love to create pieces where all of the important elements of someone’s life come together in one artwork. For example, a combination of different countries, landscapes, symbols, and colors that melt into one art piece and explain a person. I also did a commissioned piece for a woman who always looked at one bird when
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she was having chemotherapy. The bird really calmed her down as it was always there when she was in the hospital. She wanted me to create something beautiful with this specific bird in it and it turned out to be one of the best art pieces I’ve created so far. SF: Nature is one of the primary constants appearing in your art. Why do you love to work with elements of nature? MVL: Nature is an inexhaustible source of inspiration and it’s not subject to any trends; it has timeless beauty. The moments in my life where I was impressed by the beauty of nature are uncountable. The elements of nature have so much meaning that you can immediately set the mood with it. I also want to show people
The flower series - Lion
the beauty of nature to inspire them to look after our planet. SF: You do photography, but do you source all of your imagery from your own images? If not, what is your criteria or process like for selecting who or what type of images to use in your art? MVL: I use a mix of my own images and photos of befriended colleagues as well as occasional stock images. When I search for an image to use in my art, light is always the numberone criterion. The lighting has to be perfect within the whole artwork. SF: So much of your art is an invitation to dream and imagine—a visual “what if?” You often also nudge your fans further with questions like, “If
Liborio
you could open a door and enter your imaginary world, what would it look like?” Do you get a lot of fun responses from people sharing their “dreams”? MVL: Yes, so many! It’s cool to have a glimpse inside the imagination of others. Sometimes it gives me inspiration for a new work, as well SF: You once said, “The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.” How do you envision art and your work as helping people recognize and appreciate this “unity in variety”, even when society tends to have us focus on disparity? MVL: I think with showing the connections between people, animals, and nature, you cannot miss the message that we are all just a really
tiny part of this universe and that we all have the same value. It doesn’t matter where you come from, what you have accomplished, or how much money you make when it comes down to what really matters in life. I hope to touch the emotions we can all relate to. In the end, the important things in life are universal: we feel the same emotions, we are all longing for love, and we share the same planet with the same animals. We should appreciate every human being as we are all in this together. SF: Adventure is another theme in your work and it was something that fueled your passion in the very beginning to create the types of adventures you wanted to be in with your son. Much like the notion that we should embrace change and
Lost in dreams
venture “outside the box” or “off the beaten path” to really experience life and our place in it, you’ve said, “We must take adventures in order to know where we truly belong.” What do you mean by “adventures”— is it something that requires people to go on safari, can it simply be dreaming and imagining, or is it both? And why is it so important? MVL: With adventures, I mean to not blindly follow where everyone else goes. There is not one path you have to follow in life to become happy and successful. Dare to dream and to really follow your dreams. When I was younger, I tried to follow the path everyone around me was taking. It was all about not deviating too much and making study and job www.facethecurrent.com
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Kolibri
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The important things in life are universal: we feel the same emotions, we are all longing for love, and we share the same planet with the same animals. We should appreciate every human being as we are all in this together.
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choices that give you a certain level of security in life. When I got diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, I quickly learned that life doesn’t always go according to plan; not at all. Sometimes you have to take risks to follow your dreams to go where you belong. When you go off the beaten path and really connect to your inner self, the most beautiful things can happen. SF: Your work has quickly led you to travel the world and meet many extraordinary people, including other talented artists and even His Holiness Pope Francis at the Vatican City. What was this special gathering for (with Pope Francis), and what have been your biggest takeaways reflecting on the unique experiences that have come with your work? MVL: I had the great opportunity to meet His Holiness Pope Francis at the Vatican City with a small group of amazing artists. I was asked to donate an art piece for auction to raise money for the non-religious foundation of the Pope. These pieces were auctioned in Miami and the artists and buyers were invited to the Vatican City to have a personal meeting with Pope Francis. This was really an extraordinary experience. I’m
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very grateful for all these unique experiences that come with my work and it’s very cool to realize that following my passion has brought me all of this. It also made me realize even more that experiences are so much more important to me than any material matters. I’m truly grateful to be able to make so many great memories while traveling together with my wife and kids. SF: You share many beautiful and inspirational sayings along with your art on social media, such as: “You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself.The storm will pass.” And, “It’s the Circle of Life and it moves us all, through despair and hope, through faith and love.” What is the saying or greatest inspiration that you’ve
personally been sitting with or focusing on lately? What is the one that keeps you uplifted and flowing with hope, love, and trust? MVL: There’s this Rumi quote that stuck with me the last couple of weeks: “The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are.” Especially in times like this, as we have to stay home due to the pandemic, this is something to think about. I can’t travel anymore at this moment; a lot of my shows are cancelled. But, I’m still happy and grateful because all that I want, I already am.
ymore info: www.marcelvanluit.com Instagram: @marcel_van_luit www.facethecurrent.com
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FtC travel
FtC Travel Connection wanderlust & adventure stories
ftc travel connection
Alex and James PLACE I Call Home: Wherever we lay our hat! Instagram: @twosometravellers www.twosometravellers.com
Alex and James Lock are the creators of Twosome Travellers, a travel-based content platform backed by big brands and brimming with stunning images and helpful recommendations based on adventurous first-hand experience. Both hailing from the United Kingdom, Alex and James began their wanderlust with a five-month sojourn across Asia that prompted their desire to never return home. Now using Australia as their base, Alex and James travel the world and do what they do best—sample exotic cuisines, capture visually stunning explorations and hikes, review all manner of accommodations, and generally and most importantly, show us the road less travelled.
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As you explored the beauty and “furry inhabitants” of Australia, what were the most memorable and recommended stops that you experienced along your cross-country road trip? Australia is one of the best countries in the world to road trip! There is still so much we haven’t discovered in Oz and we plan to see more one day! But, of the stops we made that gave us that “jaw-dropping” moment, many were in South and Western Australia. •
Lucky Bay, southwest coast of Australia. We had been driving for five hours that day and took a chance that the Lucky Bay campsite would have space for the evening. Despite seeing multiple signs saying it was completely full, we rolled the dice and drove an hour from the town to the coast just to “double check”. Driving through the national park, we saw at least ten vans driving away from the campsite, and we assumed they must have been turned away. We arrived at the entrance gate and noticed there was a booking website and a wifi hotspot! We managed to book the LAST spot for the evening on one bar of patchy signal! We couldn’t believe our luck. The sun was setting but we could still see how sensational the water was; it was some of the bluest hues we had ever seen with white sands and lots of furry, local kangaroos roaming around on the beach and in the campsite— just perfection!
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Lake Macdonnell. When travelling across the Nullarbor, this was our first stop on the way. The lake is bright pink on one side and bright blue on the other—it’s mind boggling! What a sight to behold upon approach. We found the best campsite just past the lake where we could park our RV for the night. We woke up and were right on top of the ocean, and watching the sunrise in such a beautiful setting was such an amazing way to start the day!
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travel connection
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Indijup. We climbed down over the rocks an hour after sunrise to find the natural jacuzzi spa awaiting our entry. We enjoyed the relaxing rhythm of the waves as they slowly crashed through the surrounding rocks. We had the place entirely to ourselves, and soaked up every ray of the summer sun! Port Willunga. This locale was home to the most incredible sunset we have ever witnessed in Australia. We had our own little cave where we sat and watched the sun turn the sky into oranges, reds, and purples before it faded into complete darkness. Barossa Valley. Give us a bottle of good wine and a sunset and we’re happy for hours! The Barossa region has the most extraordinary feel; the vineyards are cozy and intimate and talking with the winemakers is like chatting with old friends. When it was finally time to leave this region, we all felt the pang of not wanting to leave at all! To console our melancholy, we took a number of wines to keep the Barossa feeling alive for many months (weeks?) to come! Blue Mountains. It was Alex’s birthday and we had organized a glamping pop up tent on the edge of the mountain ridge within the Blue Mountains national park. The view was beyond dramatic with millions of trees within view and chirping crickets melodically calling for attention, and it was literally just the two of us for miles and miles.
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What was one of your initial experiences with mountainscapes that really hooked you into wanting to chase mountain views around New Zealand for the year? We wanted to visit New Zealand for a while before we finally made the three-hour trip across from Sydney. We had read a few blogs and seen some photos that made us want to take the trip, and we decided very quickly that we would like to drive a campervan through the country to see as much of it as possible. In travelling in this manner, we gained the flexibility to stay in some more remote areas. New Zealand is undeniably one of the most breathtaking countries into the world; the landscape is incredibly dramatic and had us chasing mountains throughout the entire island. The only way to describe the feeling in New Zealand is “magicat-every-turn”! There was never a shortage of “pinch me” moments that truly seemed too beautiful and inspiring to not be from a dream. When you’re in nature, you’re either focused on the setting around you or on what you are doing, such as climbing a mountain. Time slows down and nature gifts you with the opportunity to experience your own quiet. It’s such a unique feeling of tranquility when you can truly power down and appreciate the calmness. When a challenging hike is involved, there is a sense of accomplishment, too! It’s an amazing feeling to reach a viewpoint and look out at the world spreading its beauty before you—it only enhances the physical accomplishment. Travel blogs, magazines, and social media are our go-to sources for inspiration and they usually help us whittle down our options to the final mountains or locations that we visit. www.facethecurrent.com
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When you’re not able to hit the road traveling, what are some ways you get inspired with wanderlust and ideas for your next destinations? We interact with other creatives in the travel industry and social media is also an amazing tool for us! Although we can be the ones serving up wanderlust inspiration, we use social media for that exact reason too, and it acts as a tool for researching trips and destinations. We also read travel books, travel blogs, and travel magazines, and we love watching travel documentaries such as Race Across the World, and David Attenborough’s Blue Planet! What is your favorite thing about traveling as a couple? Do you have any special travel rituals or routines you do on all your trips together? Every new experience, landscape, food, sunset, and road trip is shared with our favourite person! We luckily share the same passion to travel and we both love being on the open road and in nature, so it feels natural to be doing this together every day. We have been so fortunate to have spent time in beautiful places over the past couple of years, and we now have so many beautiful memories that we are able to reminisce about through our photos, videos, and journals—that is a wonderful gift! We often talk about the future when we have a family (if we’re fortunate enough) and hopefully we’ll have some fun stories to share with the little ones. We always travel with lots of camera gear and so our biggest routine is doing a double and triple check of our gear to ensure we have everything! It is always our number one rule to back up our photos and videos to two separate hard drives at the end of every day. Of all the places you’ve visited, where have you experienced the most incredible baths and/or showers? One of our most memorable stops on our New Zealand road trip was Omarama Hot Tubs for a sunset soak in the wooden hot spas. The view of the mountain ranges under the MacKenzie sky was unbelievable! We were lucky enough to enjoy an outdoor bath in our villa during our stay at Fushifaru Maldives. The outdoor bathroom itself was huge: we had a double vanity, an outdoor bath, and two showers. The tub was immense and we could hear the waves crashing on the shore as we enjoyed a memorable bath! The best salty spa we have ever experienced was at Injidup in West Australia. The ocean waves come crashing through the rocks of the hot spa and create the perfect natural bathtub in the ocean!
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What makes for the perfect picnic in paradise? A view is always wonderful, but it doesn’t have to be tropical! Although we love to picnic by the sea, we have experienced some really beautiful meals in woodlands amongst greenery and mountains. Fresh fruit is a picnic essential, but no al fresco meal is complete without a cheeky glass of bubbly, too! In a dreamy Koh Samui sunset scene, you reflect on the notion of leaving stability, sharing, “Don’t be afraid of what could go wrong...Just think of what could go right.” What helped you to carry through with this perspective and stay present? When we chat with friends or followers on social media about what we do, many of them tell us what they would “love to do for a living”. They also share that they wish they could do something different in their lives but are often held back by the fear of the unknown and apprehension around all the things that could go wrong. We totally felt the same before we decided to make the jump, sell everything, and change our lifestyle, too. Some people might think we are avoiding responsibility or running away from life, but we feel like we are doing the complete opposite! There is honestly something so liberating and empowering about this lifestyle that we have never experienced when we’re at home or working a traditional nine-to-five job. We get to wake up every day and decide where we want to be and what we would like to achieve, and we get to explore that together. The best and most extraordinary part of this entire experience is being able to enjoy our relationship on a deeper level. There is a reason the saying goes, “Travelling long term will either make or break your relationship.” There is no way to hide who you really are, and while there can be trying times, we love spending every day together and sharing in the same experiences. With the many roads and paths traveled, what are the things that affirm to you that you’re “on the right path”? There are so many different ways in which people measure whether or not they are on the right path. We think it all comes down to the manner in which you measure success. For us, success is feeling motivated and passionate about what we are spending our day doing, and above all else, success is being happy! Of course, we need money to survive and ensuring we have enough to look after ourselves is important, but it isn’t the driving factor or force behind our lifestyle choice. If we are waking up feeling good and feeling happy, we know we must be doing something right. www.facethecurrent.com
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FtC culture
Embracing the New Normal
Opening Our Hearts to Internal Change and Connected Consciousness By Anita Sanchez, PhD My clients, colleagues, friends, and family members seem to be trying—with great courage—to achieve a sense of normalcy with Zoom meeting after Zoom meeting, work reports, homework, and tightly manufactured schedules. I own that I have fallen into the trap of taking on more writing with the assumption that now, without work travel, I have more time to get things done. WHOA—pause and take a breath! As someone who has experienced crises in both my work and personal life, and who has listened in support to others in crisis, it is a slippery slope to think that just buckling down and being productive will be your answer until things get back to normal. Are you one of the millions around the world, from the C-suite executives to elementary school teachers, asking the big question: “When will this be over?” The answer is never.
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Some posit that we are in a VUCA world:Volatile, Uncertain, Chaotic, and Ambiguous. Our brains are not set up to thrive in an environment like this. Our reactive brain, centered in the amygdala, wants to keep us safe. So, with any sense of fear or threat, it sounds the alarm and ignites
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a fight, flight, or freeze response. This is our default reaction, but it isn’t a good match to what is going on now. Throwing our entire selves into lots of activity or obsessing about our endless “to-do” lists for work and home can be a form of denial, delusion, and avoidance. Action is often a defense mechanism against letting difficult information into our personal world. Alternatively, there are other ways to respond that are better matched to our current situation. These responses require self-compassion, silence, reflection, and time to be in the best possible service to ourselves, other people, and the earth that supports all life.
Perhaps the best spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical response is finding ways to prepare to be forever changed. “….What we’re experiencing now is a new pathway to awaken us to our new narrative. Light is coming to open our hearts. Our heart is the whole universe.This is Taku Wakan Skan Skan, our Lakota concept for the Universe….Mitakuye Oyasin is the principle that everything is related and connected. We are moving away from a cerebral, intellectual concept of the Divine, and moving toward consciousness.” -Basil Braveheart, Lakota Elder
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History shows us that global catastrophes change the world; witness the Spanish flu, the Great Depression, and other historical moments in the last 100 years alone. This pandemic is no different. Whether the COVID-19 crisis is over in a few more months, a year, or even longer, our lives will never be the same.
Perhaps the best spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical response is finding ways to prepare to be forever changed.
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I am a human being, too, with strengths and weaknesses, and I find myself bumping into parts of my being as I live my days. As an indigenous woman, mother, and wife with decades of consulting and leadership training around the world—and as someone who endured nine years of childhood abuse, economic poverty, and race and gender inequality—I know that individually and collectively we cannot only survive this, we can also end up with new muscle, awareness, and an ability to thrive. Whether you are the leader of your life, family, or business I offer these thoughts as a starting point for you and for those in your family and teams at work: • Security. Consider yourself
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fortunate that you are experiencing anxiety as a result of the crisis, as opposed to being in denial about this global pandemic for weeks or possibly months. This is a good time to focus on the basic needs that keep you well. Listen to the World Health Organization and local state health professionals about the best ways to keep yourself and those around you healthy. Remember that all human beings need breath/oxygen, rest, water, good nutrition, and community to thrive. More meaningful than a frantic productivity plan, this is the core of a personal self-care plan and can serve as a model for your family and work colleagues. Allow yourself to be aware of all the other “I shoulds” that are spinning in your brain and let go of what “I should” be doing right now.
Provide for your own care, family care, and care of your workers. Talk with them about your emergency preparedness plan because they need to be included in your thinking and to have insight into what may happen. This will also impart a sense of belonging because they are acknowledged as an important member of the community. Social distancing and virtual work should not mean social isolation! We are choosing to adhere to social distancing to actually be in solidarity with others; every day you are choosing life for yourself and for others. It is also a good time to remember that you are not alone; this virus is attacking everyone and scientists around the world are collaborating to find a cure.
• Acknowledge That You Are a Whole, Authentic Human Being who has all kinds of skills and abilities to perform at higher than
survival levels.You can congratulate yourself for getting some virtual work accomplished, finishing a good day in home schooling, and accomplishing your self-care goals. And, you can also slow down to observe your thoughts and your behavior, laughing at yourself when you exercise and then eat a huge piece of chocolate cake, feeling both skillful and inept when you support a colleague in completing a report only to find that you can’t locate the form to fill out your taxes, flowing into both industriously scrubbing your kitchen and then crashing on the couch for a nap.You can give yourself major credits of self-love and competency as you try to figure out the process and forms to get unemployment insurance or support to keep workers employed, even
when it doesn’t easily flow or you are frustrated. You are now focusing on considerable internal change—allow yourself to ease into this important spiritual, mental, and emotional shift as it’s one that requires humility, patience, and self-love. Human transformations are not pretense or performance; real human transformation will be off-course as much or more than it is on-course; it will be honest, raw, clumsy, childlike, hopeful, beautiful and divine. There is also the realization in this process that you never do anything alone; there are loved ones, co-workers, strangers, scientists, nature, pets, and family members that are right there with you. People will be slower or faster than you, experiencing different versions of the journey—let go of that comparison.
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You are now focusing on considerable internal change—allow yourself to ease into this important spiritual, mental, and emotional shift as it’s one that requires humility, patience, and self-love. Human transformations are not pretense or performance; real human transformation will be off-course as much or more than it is on-course; it will be honest, raw, clumsy, childlike, hopeful, beautiful and divine. There is also the realization in this process that you never do anything alone; there are loved ones, co-workers, strangers, scientists, nature, pets, and family members that are right there with you. People will be slower or faster than you, experiencing different versions of the journey—let go of that comparison.
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Also, remember that those who are most vulnerable due to economic, social, education, and health inequities, along with first responders (fire, ambulance, grocery workers, truck drivers, nurses, doctors and more), need our support and care, too. Find what calls to you. In my neighborhood, people are delivering lunches to hospital workers and supporting community organizations that provide food security and housing. Also, every night at 8:00 P.M., people go outside and howl to send the message of love to all of those who are serving us and those whose lives are most disrupted in their vulnerable situations.
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This pause in our busyness, in our routine patterns, in what home-andbusiness-as-usual means, can be an opportunity for real growth and realignment to what you are and who you are inside. Let this time change how you think about your relationship to yourself, to other
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people, to pets, and to nature. In the indigenous world view, there is a term in Lakota, “Mitakue Oyasin”, which means “All My Relations”, that recognizes that everything—people, nature, the earth, and the spirit—is related. Everything is part of one intimately interconnected family. As
all of our ancestors learned from the crises they endured, we can allow this global pandemic to guide us in shedding patterns that no longer serve us, to build strength and courage, and to fuel bold new ideas for a thriving, life-giving world for all humanity.
All of our ancestors learned from the crises they endured, we can allow this global pandemic to guide us in shedding patterns that no longer serve us, to build strength and courage, and to fuel bold new ideas for a thriving, life-giving world for all humanity.
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• Embrace a New Normal. This means leaning into our ability and openness to learning and growing every day. As leaders of our lives and of our communities, we can choose to both acknowledge the real suffering and loss that is being experienced and at the same time, we can allow that we have created some new resilience. We are training our brain to deal with change, to not insist that comfort have such a high value, and to realize we are alive and truly capable of learning and becoming. Regardless of how long this or new struggles remain, we can choose to live with hope in our individual and collective ability to
rise. Our future will be different, but we will be ready. We will have different family connections and ways of caring, and we will take on new models of business and new ways of working that we may not even imagine at this time. We are realizing the power of “we” in this pandemic and remembering that “we” are part of the Hoop of Life. In the process, we will help each other and step up to fulfill our awakened purpose and serve this beautiful world we call home. The his/her story we are writing right now will be a gift to ourselves, each other, our children’s children, and the children of other species.
ymore info: Anita Sanchez, Ph.D., Aztec and Mexican American, is a transformational leadership consultant, trainer, speaker, coach, and author of the international bestselling and award-winning book, The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times (Simon & Schuster). She bridges indigenous teachings with the latest science to inspire and equip women and men to enjoy meaningful, empowered lives and careers. For more information and to download the free song that is based on the book, visit www.FourSacredGifts.com. For information on Anita’s leadership, diversity, inclusion, and unconscious bias training, see consulting website www. SanchezTennis.com. www.facethecurrent.com
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FtC culture
The Journey to a More Sustainable Inner
and Outer World with Jerry Yudelson By Sasha Frate Jerry Yudelson is a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Fellow—the highest achievement for a LEED professional in the green building industry—a Federal GSA (General Services Administration) National Peer Professional, a registered professional engineer with more than twenty-five years’ experience, and the author of fourteen books on green buildings, water conservation, green homes, green marketing, and sustainable development. Yudelson’s work is focused on the long-term environmental impact of urban developments on climate change, specifically greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the operations of homes and buildings. With a B.S. in engineering from Caltech, an A.M. in water resources engineering from Harvard, and a M.B.A. from the University of Oregon, Jerry is an irrefutable expert on green living. A pioneer in organizing Earth Day activities in 1970 on the Caltech campus,Yudelson also taught some of the first university courses in the U.S. in the new field of environmental studies at the University of California Santa Cruz. Jerry has been a driving force in the green building movement since 1997 and co-founded the first U.S. Green Building Council chapter in 1998. He also served a six-year term as chair of the steering committee for Greenbuild, helping to develop it into the largest green building conference and trade show in the U.S. In The World’s Greenest Buildings: Promise vs. Performance in Sustainable Design,Yudelson was the first author to address building performance. In his latest book, The Godfather of Green: An Eco-Spiritual Memoir, Jerry shares his unique journey through three major environmental movements while simultaneously pursuing an ancient spiritual path. Jerry connected with Face the Current and graciously shared his insights into the benefits of meditation, the ways in which we can relate to and live in harmony with our planet, the need for the reinvention of the green building movement, and his recommended green-living action-steps that we can incorporate into our daily lives.
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Sasha Frate: You’ve done significant work for the “outer world” of humanity with your sustainability efforts for the planet, and green building and living. In your latest book The Godfather of Green: An EcoSpiritual Memoir, you delve deep into the “inner world”. Why did you decide to go “there” next?
As a younger teen, I used to spend many evenings stargazing, but I gave up that passion in high school for sports, studies, and social life. Like most people, it took a big challenge— an abrupt change in circumstances— to force me to reconsider my life’s direction. For me, the catalyst was
dropping out of a high-level PhD program and going to live by myself in the woods of Northern California in a Thoreau-like experience of povertyof-means while opening myself to the riches of the imagination and a growing knowledge of the workings and wonders of the natural world.
Jerry Yudelson: The inner world is always part of us. Nothing happens without us first thinking about it. And for many, as it was for me, it’s our thinking patterns and habits that keep us stuck. What happened for me is that when I turned thirty, I was blessed to encounter a spiritual master and find a path that I have followed ever since. In the book, I describe how I struggled for a decade to reconcile these two seemingly different worlds, until discovering from within the ways in which I could integrate my personal mission of protecting the earth and my desire for inner realizations and put them into service for each other. SF: In the beginning of your memoir you point out that, “Children intuitively know and love the earth. From the time their mother puts them on the ground to crawl, the earth is a constant companion.” What have you identified as the biggest contributors to our separation from this childhood intuitive connection when we enter adulthood?
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For me, the catalyst was dropping out of a high-level PhD program and going to live by myself in the woods of Northern California in a Thoreau-like experience of poverty-of-means while opening myself to the riches of the imagination and a growing knowledge of the workings and wonders of the natural world.
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JY: For many of us, it’s when we as teenagers begin to focus more on academic studies and respond to peer group pressure that we start to lose our intuitive guidance and begin to let the “culture” lead us. We start living in our heads, looking only to satisfy the senses, and in doing so, forsake our sense of wonder. Today, social media, Instagram influencers, and incessant screen time amplify this effect.
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I have found that living disharmoniously is incredibly stressful, because when you’re out of balance, you’re always oscillating between positive and negative emotions and you only occasionally find your center between pendulum swings from one extreme to the other. I find the best way to get back into balance is to focus on seemingly insignificant things that you can control, however unimportant they may seem to others.
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SF: In your book The Godfather of Green, you tell of part of a Sufi qawwali recorded by Gurumayi that recognized how, “The world instructs me: become this, become that; become this, become that; become this, become that… (But) by becoming no one, I have found my Self in ALL.” You elaborate on this, sharing a summary: “To find your (great) Self, you first must lose your (small) self.” What a beautiful recognition! What are a few ways you’ve found and can recommend helping this process of losing one’s “small” self and find his or her “great” Self? JY: Every great being has given the same message—turn within. Meditation is the easiest means for self-discovery and the royal road to Self-knowledge. But we need a guide—someone who’s traveled the entire road—to keep at it.You must want this experience, recognize its value, and find someone to give you instruction. Every true seeker finds a way to get a practice going. The teacher is the catalyst, but you alone must make the effort to establish a regular practice of turning within, resting in the peacefulness of the Self, spending time there for a while each day, and then letting that spirit of love and kindness guide you as you move through the outer world. SF: You describe balance as “a life art” in your book. How would you describe the impact and repercussions on the individual level when we are out of harmony in living with our planet, and a few simple changes to bring back one’s life into better balance and harmony? JY: I have found that living disharmoniously is incredibly stressful, because when you’re out of balance, you’re always oscillating between positive and negative emotions and you only occasionally find your center between pendulum swings
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from one extreme to the other. I find the best way to get back into balance is to focus on seemingly insignificant things that you can control, however unimportant they may seem to others. These days on my daily walk, I take time to pick up a few pieces of trash along the road and put them in a nearby container. In a store, I always smile at the cashier and say something uplifting. Once someone
asked my teacher a deeply spiritual question and he offered only this simple advice: “Do something kind for someone today.” The person wanted a more “profound” teaching, but that simple direction was what they needed at the time. If you bring your “A game” to each encounter with others, they’ll notice; human beings are incredibly intuitive and can easily recognize the intention behind the smile or kind words.
Sometimes, I’ll pause while walking my dog in the early morning and just look at the sky. An ancient technique for expanding consciousness is just allowing your awareness to lose itself, to merge in the vastness of the sky. If I hear birds singing, I’ll pause to find where they are in the trees or on the roofs and listen for a moment, waiting until I can see the bird. There are so many simple things you can do, but the essence of spiritual practice is to pause and reconnect; pause and reset; pause until you feel the inner bliss arising, and then take that awareness into your day’s activities. If you feel disconnected during the day, pause and let the blissful feeling arise, then begin again.
prediction on whether we can indeed become “as heliotropic as sunflowers” in our society?
SF: You stated that, “As a society, we [have] to become as heliotropic as sunflowers.” Solar technology has come a long way in moving us in this direction. Can you explain a bit about how it has evolved, where you currently see us, and your
Einstein discovered and described the photoelectric effect in 1905, but it took researchers more than 50 years to create the first working photovoltaic cells. By the 1960s, solar cells powered our satellites and ocean buoys. In the mid 1970s, I led efforts for the state of California
JY: Every camper knows that if you want a hot shower, all you must do is hang a water-filled black plastic bag in the sun for a few hours. Everyone notices how a brick wall gets warm when the sun shines on it and retains that warmth well into the evening. It’s common knowledge that food plants thrive in the sun and die in the shade. More than 100 years ago, homeowners used simple solar technology for making hot water in Los Angeles, but by the 1920s, cheap fossil fuels began to displace wood and sun for this purpose.
to develop a solar power industry based on solar water heating. But again, in the 1980s, cheap oil and gas, along with the ending of solar tax credits, stopped that effort. Finally, about twenty years ago, we began to use cheap solar panels to create electric powerplants. Since then, solar use has quickly grown into a global movement and now represents the best long-term solution to decarbonizing our economy and power sources. A hundred years from now, living on a much hotter and far less hospitable planet, people will look back on the fossil-fuel era and wonder why human societies waited so long to deploy solar and wind power in far greater amounts. If we are to avoid the worst consequences of global climate change, we must move quickly to base our entire economy on renewable energy, the power of sun, wind, growing plants, and falling water. www.facethecurrent.com
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JY: Stop listening to other people and listen instead to your own heart. Many people keep a “gratitude journal” and each day recall something for which they are grateful. Others practice positive thinking, looking for the lemonade in every lemon of life experience. Ultimately, we learn the same truth that’s been known since ancient times and fully explained in Indian scriptures such as the Yoga Vasistha, which is “the world is as you see it.” We have incredible power to shape
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our own perceptions, memories, and attitudes. All we must do is turn our back on what one famous sales trainer called “stinkin’ thinkin’.” But it takes lots of inner work to give up that sense of victimhood that we love to recall and relive—much as a pig likes to roll in mud—and realize the truth of our own nature; we are and always have been beings of bliss, no matter what has happened to “us” in mind, body, and emotions. SF: You speak of dropping self-importance to “live more honestly” and with a “sincere spirit”. Why do you believe this is typically such a difficult challenge for most people to achieve, and how would you describe the result of living our lives more honestly and with more sincerity and empathy? JY: Dropping self-importance is the work of a lifetime for most people, including me! As children, we come to believe we live only because we put ourselves first, and of course my parents also encouraged that sense of “specialness” even as they showed by example how one also could offer service to others in the community. There’s this constant struggle between egotism and altruism that we all deal with. Over time, inner
work begins to bridge that gap and to reveal to us our common humanity. Great beings have gone through the same struggle to give up their egoattachment and realize their essential oneness with everyone and with God, so it’s no wonder that we too must make a similar effort! Ultimately, if we are fortunate in our practices and diligent in giving ourselves to this great love, we naturally begin to live honestly, sincerely, and empathetically. In the end, it becomes who we are, simply because we have identified not with ourselves as a lone individual but with the higher-Self that lives in everyone and everything. SF: What did you discover as some of the differences between the USA and Europe in terms of green building? JY: From a technical standpoint, there isn’t much difference. It’s more cultural and in some cases, legal. For example, in Germany you can’t have anyone sitting more than seven meters (about twenty-two feet) from a window. So, for example, every office building must be less than forty-four feet wide. A German would consider placing anyone farther from a window immoral and unethical because it’s human nature to want to see what’s going on outside. We also know it’s healthier.
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SF: Tools such as daily meditation and mantra repetition are attributed to bringing one back to the state of peace, love, and steadiness, a state in which you describe as having been a back and forth process to get to. But, you go on to share that, “Bliss is our very nature,” and that, “Most of us love to talk about our suffering, our victimhood, our troubles and grievances; but we fail to seek out, experience, and live in our innermost nature, which is nothing but a body of bliss.” What do you advise as the greatest steps away from the suffering and victimhood and towards a body of bliss?
There’s this constant struggle between egotism and altruism that we all deal with. Over time, inner work begins to bridge that gap and to reveal to us our common humanity.
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The lesson for me was simple: it was as if you designed software without ever valuing the user experience or creating a functional user interface, like in the early days of “apps” for the web. Technical experts create eco-labels, not those who own or operate buildings. Until that approach changes and building owners feel more engaged with the process of creating the eco-labels, we will never move en masse to zero carbon buildings which are essential to confront global warming.
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In the U.S., by contrast, real estate developers want to cram as many people as possible inside a building footprint, so the emphasis has been on much wider building floors, where some people might sit fifty or 100 feet from a window, or even be entirely closed off from a view outdoors by tall partitions. Also, in Germany, for example, the architect is legally in charge of construction and completely responsible for the final product. In the U.S., the architect is just another player on the design team, and the contractor has responsibility for delivering the building as a finished product. As a result, sustainable design ideas often get tossed as the contractor (and subcontractor) tries to maximize profit by throwing out “extras” that may make a building healthier or cheaper to operate, but which add initial cost. SF: One of your encouraging core rationales for green building has been that. “Green buildings are about people. We shouldn’t see buildings only as
consuming energy and generating carbon emissions that we must reduce. Buildings are there for people to live, work, play, and study in.They should aim to make people healthy and productive. That’s where we can create real and lasting benefits.” But, despite the surge in green building from the 2000s to approximately 2012, it came to a virtual standstill. Can you summarize what happened that essentially halted everything and how you foresee us reinventing the green building movement? JY: Well, I wrote a whole book four years ago called Reinventing Green Building, so if anyone is really interested, they can read the full argument in that book. What essentially happened around 2012 was that growth in the use of “ecolabels” for buildings essentially plateaued. If you were developing a “Class A” office building in a large metro area, you were going to build it green and get it certified because tenants were
willing to pay a little extra rent to be in it. If you were a large university or major corporation, you built green and paid for the certification because your students and employees were asking for it. But for almost everyone else, the extra cost, time, and hassle to get a certification just weren’t worth it. That didn’t mean that architects and building owners stopped using or valuing sustainable design measures, but they no longer saw the formal “eco-label” as essential. The lesson for me was simple: it was as if you designed software without ever valuing the user experience or creating a functional user interface, like in the early days of “apps” for the web. Technical experts create ecolabels, not those who own or operate buildings. Until that approach changes and building owners feel more engaged with the process of creating the eco-labels, we will never move en masse to zero carbon buildings which are essential to confront global warming.
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One principle in the Indian approach called Vastu Shastra is to make sure that everyone gets morning sun since they need that energy boost in the morning. In the Chinese Feng Shui approach, one considers the entire energetic feel of the building and how earth energies affect emotional well-being.
JY: The essence of traditional building design is to use local materials; take sun, wind, and water into account during design and keep things simple. Until the advent of the modern sustainable design movement, building design had lost touch with these principles, with perhaps Frank Lloyd Wright’s “organic architecture” as a lone exception.
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SF: In one of your previous books, Green Building A to Z: Understanding the Language of Green Building, you cover an array of topics on sustainable building from Renewable Energy and Passive Solar Design to Native American and Native Canadian ways of living, and Zen and Vastu Shastra.These are some incredible concepts that not only apply to sustainability, but also to our overall wellbeing. Can you share a few examples from Native ways of living, Zen, and Vastu Shastra that you believe to be ideal for us to incorporate more into our building and lifestyle?
Buildings adapt to many different uses over a lifetime of 100 or 200 years. Stewart Brand wrote a wonderful book about this, called How Buildings Learn:What Happens After They’re Built. One of the key phrases I learned from early thinking about sustainability is that the best approach to designing buildings is to make them “long life, loose fit, and low energy.” That phrase summarizes the essence of green design and is where building design needs to go. For example, there’s a huge movement now to build massive timber buildings. They’re going to be twenty, thirty, or forty-story buildings, but with a much lower “carbon footprint” than the conventional steel, glass, and concrete high-rise building. About forty years ago, I built a passive solar adobe house in the San Francisco Bay Area with my wife, which was primarily earth, wood, and glass and it was oriented to get maximum solar heating in winter, yet still be cool in summer. It had a deeply spiritual feeling to it and an
emotional resonance that’s hard to describe. Today, people are beginning to adopt a similar standard called Passive House that works with many building materials. Most people aren’t going to want to live that way, but traditional designs offer insights into orienting buildings toward the sun and turning their backs on prevailing winds. For example, one principle in the Indian approach called Vastu Shastra is to make sure that everyone gets morning sun since they need that energy boost in the morning. In the Chinese Feng Shui approach, one considers the entire energetic feel of the building and how earth energies affect emotional well-being. Feng Shui works—I once changed the entire feeling of my home’s entrance in Portland just by hanging a metal sculpture outside the front door after doing a formal Feng Shui assessment. SF: It’s fascinating how many of the sustainable techniques that you share are ancient practices from various cultures around
the world. In a world that often prides itself on our modern advancements, it seems that we need to reflect on which of these advancements are destructive while also returning to an integration of many ancient techniques and practices that can better serve us and our planet. What are some of your favorite references (or examples) of ancient techniques and practices in this sense? JY: Most of the issue is, once again, cultural and not technical. We know a lot about “the timeless way of building”, but traditional cultures didn’t mind sweating in summer and putting on a sweater in winter. In our modern Western culture, we want constant comfort year-round. That’s hard to do without using a lot of energy to keep temperature and humidity always within a comfortable range. The issue is that people vary tremendously in their needs: my wife is always cold and I’m always a
little on the warm side. In Tucson, it was easy—we had a house with two zones and two A/C and heating systems. There was a “her” side and a “his” side in terms of thermal comfort. In summer, her zone was always ten degrees Fahrenheit warmer than mine. To help things out in that desert climate, we put in highly efficient windows and planted trees to shade the east and west windows with movable shading on the south side where we had no room for trees. In the desert, the rule is to keep direct sunlight out of the house, because sunlight equals heat. In cooler climates, you’d want to do just the opposite! There are about eight distinct climate zones in the U.S., maybe a few more in Canada, and you need a different approach for each one. We can study techniques from ancient cultures, but we need to adapt them to modern living and cultural preferences.
and out of range for many people’s budgets. Can you shed some light on this and share some of the ways in which green building, conversions, and lifestyle implementations can be affordable and maybe even save money?
SF: There is a connotation with green and sustainable living, even health food store shopping, as being expensive
So, the key issue is having excess funds to make the investment and that’s where issues of income inequality come in. Right now we’re
JY: On energy use, it’s always “pay me now or pay me later.” To the extent possible, we should all be tightening our homes with better windows and insulation and supplying most of our electricity (for home and auto) with rooftop solar or purchased green energy. We all know that we’ll eventually save lots of money, but we realize we’ll have to invest money to get there. For example, solar power has a high “return on investment” but if you must spend $20,000 or more up front to get that return, many people don’t have the resources to do that.
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testing how millions of people can get along without a regular paycheck for even two or three months. We will find out how few people have any savings at all, let alone enough to last for several months of essential spending. The real issue with green or sustainable living is to reduce demand first before you start investing in exotic ways to increase supply, for example, of solar electricity. My wife and I have always grown some of our own food. We’re basically vegetarians, almost vegans, and we don’t drink alcohol, so we can economize on food. Lifestyle choices are more important than most people realize, and they are the best way to cut food costs, allowing us to eat organic foods and stay healthy without busting our food budget. SF: The “larger issue” of climate change has moved to the forefront for you since the green building movement slowed down. What have been some of your primary advocacies with climate change?
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JY: I began writing about climate change issues about ten years ago when I called out the lack of interest by green building NGOs in documenting the energy performance of buildings they certified. In 2013, with a German journalist friend, I published The World’s Greenest Buildings, presenting real-world performance data on dozens of green buildings from eighteen countries. In that book, I presented metrics for evaluating “best in class” performance in Asia-Pacific, North America, and Europe. In 2016, my book Reinventing Green Building argued that the lack of independent performance data made any claims about the climate benefits of green buildings suspect and open to challenge. In writing my memoir, The Godfather of Green: An Eco-Spiritual Memoir, I added an Epilogue in the form of a “Letter to a Young Climate Striker” as I wanted to share a few things I had learned. It’s never technical issues that matter most, as many solutions are well researched and presented in books such as Paul Hawken’s
Drawdown. It’s about attitude and preparing for a long struggle to get beyond our fossil-fuel-based economy. In the Letter, I point out that the biggest political successes of the last century were based on love and nonviolence: Gandhi in India, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in the United States, and Nelson Mandela in South Africa. Climate change is an existential crisis to be sure, and the current system has massive inequities, but the path toward lasting change must be rooted in getting people to come over to your side through the power of your ideas and the passion of your love. SF: With regards to climate change and green living, if everyone did these seven things, it would have significant positive impact: JY: Talk to someone now, while we are all open to hearing what might happen with the coronavirus pandemic, about what will happen as climate change begins to raise the
Earth’s average temperature first 1.5C and then 2.0C beyond preindustrial averages. We’re at about 1.0C now and are beginning to see the effects in increased droughts and floods, forest fires and freak storms, heat waves, and disease outbreaks. Most surveys show that up to ninety percent of all people in the U.S. are willing to discuss and learn more about the climate crisis. Effective political action won’t happen until a significant majority favors it. 1. Support student climate strikes and other climate crisis actions. When it’s safe again to have mass demonstrations, attend if you can to show young activists that their parents and grandparents “have their back.” 2. Check your own energy use habits and see where you can cut down ten percent or more. 3. Support local farmers’ markets and grow some of your own food so that it doesn’t have to be trucked in from somewhere far away.
4. Eat lower on the food chain, vegan if you can manage it. 5. Recycling makes less sense now that China has stopped taking most of our trash, but it’s still something everyone can do. Urban recycling is stuck at around forty percent, but it still has a prominent role to play. If you own a home (and you can afford it), put solar panels on your home and/or buy an electric vehicle. 6. Cut back unnecessary travel. Because we’re all now learning how to work remotely and that we can more easily “visit” so many exotic locations remotely, doesn’t it make more sense to explore the small piece of the planet that’s right at your feet, to learn the names of native plants and birds, identify the watersheds in your bioregion, and become a true “inhabitant” of where you live? 7. Take a walk in an old-growth or national forest, on a local nature trail, or simply along the beach. Identify and count the birds flying overhead. Clear your mind, reconnect with
nature, and stay engaged with the real purpose of green living, which is to leave the Earth just as we found it, maybe even better, for the benefit of succeeding generations.
ymore info: www.reinventinggreenbuilding.com Books: The Godfather of Green: An EcoSpiritual Memoir Green Building A to Z: Understanding the Language of Green Building Reinventing Green Building The World’s Greenest Buildings How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built www.facethecurrent.com
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FtC culture
“Relate-In-ship”: The Journey
Inward to Self-Acceptance and Beautiful Relationships By Kai Karrel As far as the materialization of relationships, sometimes we just find ourselves in one. It can feel so unplanned— so natural—because falling in love isn’t something we do; it’s something that happens. With an unexpected spark, something stirs within our core. This can happen with someone we just met or with someone who has always been in our lives but with whom we suddenly see in a new light. However, the exact details of the lead-up to this new miraculous feeling are mysterious, unknown, and indescribable.
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When the feeling takes hold, a powerful pull seems to exist that draws us to that one person, and we want to be in their presence and to be filled with their enchantment. It’s almost as if we are under their spell and life becomes more magical; we smile more, we sing in the shower, and we enjoy a dance when no one is looking. There’s an oomph that boosts our stride—some type of explicit energy that we gladly follow. If the unseen matchmaker sees fit, and if it aligns with the cards in our hand, we find ourselves connecting to and relating with one another—with one another, because we are both sovereign beings at this state. At this beginning stage, we haven’t yet fallen into codependency and we maintain our sense of self, our hobbies, our friends, and our unique focus. What attracted us to each other in the first place is our separateness, our polarity, and our charming sense of individuality. But even more so, attraction is steeped in an intriguing sense of mystery. Early on, we know so little about the other person. We haven’t yet deciphered their likes and dislikes, the sensation of their body with ours, or their ways of expression and style. All we know is that we are excited to go on a joint journey of discovery as we unveil the answers to our hearts’ greatest delight. We happily choose to spend as much time together as we can and go on a treasure hunt of positive feelings, feeding our love and exploring our pleasure. A month passes, maybe two or three, and more and more of those revealing questions are slowly answered. We discover the intersections of our compatibilities and become very aware of our points of disagreement. Even still, we find great peace and rest in the knowledge of our connection. We feel seen and loved, but more than anything—and perhaps most importantly— we feel safe. Here at this mile marker on the relationship road, an unseen timer begins to tick and the strength of the relationship is put to the test. If we entered the relationship from a place of need and loneliness, it is likely that codependency is about to rear its ugly head. www.facethecurrent.com
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In any relationship, the illusion of safety can guide us toward a status quo of taking each other for granted. It is also capable of allowing our personal form of attachment to influence the relationship. (It might seem a bit gloomy to look at relating in this way, but in doing so, we are analyzing the bond from a place of sincerity and the inner workings of our heart. As humans, we share the commonality of the natural currents of life and the foundational fundamentals of the mind.) At this juncture in the relationship, our sense of sovereignty fades away like early morning fog in the sun, and begins to mesh into an illusory sense of “we”. The joint unity is illusory not because our connection isn’t real, but because it is based on a loss of our individual center and because of our various and unique wounds. At
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some point in every relationship we get triggered, hurt, and disappointed and subsequently have the choice to either leave the relationship or do the work and fight for it. (This can be accomplished with a relationship coach or another form of external support.) Whether it’s the same relationship or a new one, we rinse and repeat the process. If we do come to a new relationship, we do so with the hope that the one we just left was just not right. Our hearts may be a bit more closed off as we cautiously turn to a new love, but the unrelenting urge to connect will overpower us and lead us further. If we haven’t done anything to change our inner world and our sense of center, this cyclical relationship pattern will repeat. As Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same
thing over and over again while expecting different results.” But, within this madness lies a method; within this maze of emotion, a way out. To find the way out, you need only to look back at the journey in. We all must realize that our relationships are nothing but a reflection of our inner landscape. Instead of fruitlessly trying to change external elements, observe and study the inner world of thought and feeling. Ask yourself what caused you, within your core, to choose the partner before you. Why did you call them in? What light did they shed on your own process of evolution? In doing this, we begin to understand both the shallow and profound aspects of attraction, and we can better identify our desires and needs as we study our past and contemplate our present.
It has been said many times that you can only love others if you first you love yourself. This ubiquitous saying is typically seen as nothing more than a cliché, but it holds immense power to this day; it is the doorway to relating with sovereignty. Positioning all relationships with this in mind helps you to remain centered in who you are and allows you to offer your positive overflow and not your wounds and needs. In his wonderful book Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse shares how Siddhartha has only three skills: he knows how to think, how to wait, and how to fast. These three skills are vital for our own journeys
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of relating! When we fall in love, we often don’t think very much and instead follow our hearts. Thinking in relation to relating is about having the sincerity and choice to evaluate. For example, “Yes, I am attracted. Yes, I desire this person.Yes, it seems that we match.” Even so, let me contemplate the following: First and foremost, where am I? Am I in a place to start a relationship? Where am I in relation to my own inner journey? Am I in overflow? Do I have the time and space to bring another in? After this, wait; wait and don’t rush. Let life open its doors to you in its
own graceful and organic way. Trust that if this relationship is meant to happen, so it shall, and so it will. But you must be willing to patiently wait. Allow the grass to grow by itself and let the flames of love consume you out of choice and consciousness. Be aware of who you are and who you are choosing to become as a result of opening yourself up to someone else. When we don’t wait, we add fuel to the fire of our triggers. When you rush, you allow your stale and unproductive patterns to play out, and they will play out in the exact same way they did the last time you hastily jumped in.
In his wonderful book Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse shares how Siddhartha has only three skills: he knows how to think, how to wait, and how to fast. These three skills are vital for our own journeys of relating! When we fall in love, we often don’t think very much and instead follow our hearts. Thinking in relation to relating is about having the sincerity and choice to evaluate.
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Let life open its doors to you in its own graceful and organic way. Trust that if this relationship is meant to happen, so it shall, and so it will. But you must be willing to patiently wait. Allow the grass to grow by itself and let the flames of love consume you out of choice and consciousness. Be aware of who you are and who you are choosing to become as a result of opening yourself up to someone else. When we don’t wait, we add fuel to the fire of our triggers.
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Fasting requires discipline, but in our context, it means choosing not to compromise.You must choose not to follow a fleeting gust of wind and fall into a relationship simply because no other choices were before you. We must not choose to be in a relationship because we feel lonely or because there are no better partners on the horizon. The perception that there is a dearth of choice will influence your emotional maturity
and ability to attract the person with whom your soul will genuinely resonate.
expand, to share more of yourself, and to join someone else in your connected purpose while letting the world bask in the warmth of And so, when choosing a relationship, your bond. However, this choice is our first step must be to shift a direct reflection of a dedicated our perspective. We must see our inner journey.You must determinedly relationships as opportunities for choose to heal, to evolve, to mature, inner work and spiritual development, and to understand that you truly— and not as battlegrounds or places to above all else—are the love of your slip into comfort and complacency. life. Relationships are opportunities to
The journey of relating starts when we choose to fall in love with ourselves, and this means nothing more than fully accepting who we are. We must embrace our vices and our virtues, our shallow shoals and our deep trenches. We must do so with a profound sense of sincerity and the willingness to face all that we are while loving all of our pieces. When this journey inward takes centerstage, you will find that the perfect actors will come along and assist you in the production of what you call your life.
ymore info: www.kaikarrel.com
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FtC music
Modern-Day Troubadour and Spiritual Guitar Master:
The Meditative Classical Sounds of Estas Tonne By Ainsley Schoppel The history of troubadours dates back to 1100 in Southern France where composers and performers of lyric poetry entertained the masses. Though some troubadours remained in one location for lengthy periods of time performing under the patronage of wealthy noblemen or women, many troubadours consistently traveled and performed at one court after another. The lyrics of troubadour songs were mainly centered around the concepts of chivalry and courtly love, and most followed a formulaic pattern of composition and were metaphysical and thought-provoking in nature.
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Credit: Leon Louie Blankleyder
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Music isn’t a career to me, it’s life. When I started to play on the streets, I just lived my life and I keep doing so today. Life includes it all: pain and healing, sorry and joy. Within the polarities there is a great guide that keeps it all together and it’s in all of us; just feel.
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As history knows them, troubadours all but vanished with the Black Death in 1348. However, though courtly performances now look more like viral music videos, contemporary versions can still be found. Self-expressing spiritual guitarist Estas Tonne considers himself to be one such modern-day troubadour. Stanislav “Estas” Tonne was born in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and began playing the guitar at the age of eight. After showing a talent and passion for the instrument, Estas began studying classical music
at a local music school. When his family moved to Israel in 1990, Estas disconnected from the guitar and stopped playing altogether for eleven years. In 2001, he moved to New York City and reignited his love of music by playing a six-stringed classical guitar, and he joined violinist street musician Michael Shulman in a duo. After reestablishing his connection to music, Estas began traveling around the world as a solo musician and performed in concerts and at street, yoga, and art festivals. True to his troubadour connection, Estas has rarely lived in the same location for
more than a year and continues to travel the world and share his sound. Just like the troubadours of old, Estas doesn’t view his life in music as a job. “Music isn’t a career to me,” he said, “it’s life. When I started to play on the streets, I just lived my life and I keep doing so today.” Life isn’t always uplifting and inspirational, and Estas is open to the experience and influence of all states of being. “Life includes it all: pain and healing, sorry and joy,” he explained. “Within the polarities there is a great guide that keeps it all together and it’s in all of us; just feel.” www.facethecurrent.com
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Through the help of Spotify, YouTube, and social media, Estas has amplified the reach of his mesmerizing guitar-work to the tune of millions of listeners. His song, “The Song of the Golden Dragon” has been viewed over seventy-five million times on YouTube, and after watching and listening to the music unfold, it’s clear to see why so many feel a connection to the hypnotic and moving sound-story. “It took years of experiments to feel the right sound that works for me,” Estas noted. It’s his combination of all the elements of composition and performance that lends to an enchanting sound. “If a chosen sound works for you, stay with it; feel it.” Once a musician has captured his or her sound, the next step is usually to compose and record pieces of music to grow a catalogue and use for performances. This, however, is not how Estas works. “I don’t have an interest in capturing something that could never be the same. An individual is changing each day and so does music,” he explained. “We could truthfully play the ‘same’ song every time only if we also express that true feeling we feel every time. In this case it would never be that
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Credit: Geridagys Photography
‘same’ song because we aren’t the same but rather are different in every moment.” His most recent project, Cuban Heart, was inspired by a song entitled “Cuban Dance” that he, along with most children in the former USSR, learned in music school. This song instilled in Estas a passion to explore cultural dances and flavors of the world. In 2017, Estas traveled to Havana, Cuba to experience the culture behind his beloved childhood song and he became enveloped in the nuanced and multi-dimensional lifestyle and heritage of the country. “For us, going to Cuba was a significant move as somehow, we were
teleported in time to the childhood we still had a memory of,” Estas confessed. “By the way,” he added, “this is the only place on Earth where old cars from the United States and the Soviet Union are living, driving, co-existing side by side as a symbolic expression of what is possible on Earth: to be, share, and have a place for all the colors.” Following his inner guide, Estas experienced life in Cuba as it unfolded, including unexpected encounters and connections. The resulting visual-sound journey, Cuban Heart, is a tribute to Cuba and its people and is brimming with warmth, color, nightlife, breath-taking natural vistas, and the spirit of many hearts. Estas’ stirring Latin guitar sounds accompany the video along with
the trumpet, bass, and hand drums played by Cuban musicians. The video and music are also heightened with the stirring vocal performances of Miriamne Martinez Ramos and Jose Antonio Santos Isers, and the featured drum circle was a spontaneous addition that captured and showcased the AfroCuban energy of the entire experience. As Estas likes to make clear, the enchanting result of Cuban Heart is because of the direction of Life itself; “Literally every meeting, every recording, every shot wasn’t planned,” he said. Because the recordings in Havana were captured in their natural state, it has taken almost three years to polish and finalize the project. “If one could hear the original files we had and the way it was recorded, and then compare it with what it became, it could serve as a stunning example of what patience, persistence, dedication, mastery, and quality are about,” noted Estas. “What glues all these particles together is love in its all-including essence.” “The evolution of a human heart is like a million-year-old diamond shaped by nature—what matters most is not how many songs we play, but how the Song of the Heart has evolved throughout lifetimes!” Estas expressed. For him, Cuban Heart, Golden Dragon, and any other song or project is just a title. “They are just a moment that is always changing, always evolving as Life itself,” he stated. Keeping that perspective in mind, Estas likes to encourage the musicians, searchers, and free-livers of this world to look to Life itself for lessons and learning opportunities.
Credit: Geridagys Photography
Credit: Geridagys Photography
“Your only purpose here is to be yourself,” he said, “and Life teaches it very well.”
ymore info: www.estastonne.com Insta: @estastonne FB: @estastonnemusicpage
Credit: Leon Louie Blankleyder
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FtC music
Laying Tracks: Carving a Life-Path On and Off the Stage with EDM Sensation Jay Hardway By Santina Murin | PHOTOS BY Darryl Adelaar Electronic Dance Music producer Jay Hardway hails from Drunen in the southern Netherlands and has been DJing since the age of fourteen. Influenced by the producers of his youth, Jay used his natural love of music to harness his talents and establish an impressive career. After relocating to Amsterdam, Jay teamed up with Martin Garrix for his first professional release, which catapulted the duo into a successful partnership that continues to this day. Their song, “Wizard”, racked up 3.6 million views on YouTube in its first week, and “Spotless”, their 2016 smash, garnered over forty million. With a very large and dedicated social media following, it’s no wonder that Jay has 1.2 million monthly listeners on Spotify alone. In fact, his top songs have twenty to thirty million plays each which helped him earn the sixtyfourth spot on DJ Mag Top 100 DJs poll in 2018. Face the Current and Jay discussed many facets of his life and career including the balance he strikes between life on and off the road, the ways in which he gives back to the music production community, and the benefits of his fruitful remix collaboration contest.
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Santina Murin: From the inspiration to the title and the artwork, your single, “Operation Unicorn” is such a unique and fun song! From where was it all born? Jay Hardway: The track itself was born a couple of years ago, but back then it was only a melody with kind of a classical music vibe to it. I thought I couldn’t really use it in a Jay Hardway track, but when I reconnected with the melody a couple months ago, I had the inspiration to finish it! As for the name, I always try to come up with unique names for my tracks. I think there are enough boring track names out there, so I always try to come up with something fun. The artwork is the amazing work of Bart van Haren. He works for Spinnin’ Records and I
always go straight to him when I need any artwork! SM: Your first release was a collaboration with the then unknown Martin Garrix, so it’s no wonder that joining forces again with your fellow Dutch DJ legend would result in more beat-dropping magic. Can you tell us what went into your collaboration for the song “Wizard”? JH: Martin and I became friends before we released any music. We enjoyed making a lot of music, posting it on forums, and playing small, local shows. We decided to meet up in the studio because we liked each other’s music and it turned out to be a great creative collaboration. We made countless songs and started many projects in a relatively short
period of time. “Wizard” was a combination of elements from songs Martin and I made. That was usually how we worked—just combining melodies and sounds of each other’s projects. “Animals”—Martin’s number one hit—came out and “Wizard” was the first single after that; it was an amazing boost for my career. SM: You’ve shared your appreciation for a normal routine when you’re not touring, including the importance of getting enough sleep and having time for music, family, and friends. However, you also have an addictive love for touring, as well. What are some of the ways that you stay balanced, happy, and healthy (both mentally and physically) as you fluctuate from life on and off the road? www.facethecurrent.com
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On and off the road, staying perfectly balanced mentally and physically is impossible, and I think realizing that is the most important thing. You can’t make everything perfect; you can’t really blame yourself —or anyone else for that matter—for that, either, so that gives me some peace mentally.
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‘Electric Elephants’ is still my favorite track name because it’s funny and yet it still sounds cool. If you listen to the track, you can hear a cool sound in the buildup and second break, and if you use your imagination, you can hear those sounds as giant electric elephants walking around.
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JH: On and off the road, staying perfectly balanced mentally and physically is impossible, and I think realizing that is the most important thing.You can’t make everything perfect; you can’t really blame yourself —or anyone else for that matter—for that, either, so that gives me some peace mentally. I’m trying to stay fit as much as I can; working out, eating healthy, and not drinking too much alcohol. It’s all pretty standard stuff, but sometimes it’s harder to maintain than it sounds. But, if you try your hardest, you can be proud no matter what. SM: Do you have any fun stories behind any of the names of your tracks?
JH: “Electric Elephants” is still my favorite track name because it’s funny and yet it still sounds cool. If you listen to the track, you can hear a cool sound in the buildup and second break, and if you use your imagination, you can hear those sounds as giant electric elephants walking around. SM: You creatively do a lot to give back to the EDM community, whether it’s with your YouTube Studio Time Session, or offering remix contests for your songs. Do you feel this aids in helping to inspire and encourage those looking to pursue music production as a career?
JH: When I started making music, there weren’t as many tutorials online as there are now, and those that were out there were difficult to understand and very technical. I want to show producers who are just starting out that it’s not all about what software you use or how everything works technically, but rather, it’s that creativity comes from the mind. It’s important for starting producers—or any artist—not to feel constrained when it comes to creation. So, by breaking down my projects, I’m hoping to show that it’s not that difficult to create the music as long as you have a good idea.
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Creativity comes from the mind. It’s important for starting producers—or any artist—not to feel constrained when it comes to creation.
JH: Spinnin’ has a great team who went through the first remixes and gave me a selection. I then had to choose a winner from that grouping and it was VERY difficult. The production level was very high and, in the end, it was MLSTRM’s originality that made me choose him as the winner. His remix was his own
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SM: When you held the remix contest for your song “Wild Mind”, roughly how many songs did you have to choose from and how long did it take you to make a decision? What was it about MLSTRM that solidified his win, and will there be future contests/opportunities like that again?
style and he incorporated the original melodies of the song in a very cool way—he didn’t just put my vocal on an existing project. It’s very cool to see what other producers can do with my melodies, so I hope to do more contests like this, for sure. SM: What have been some of your “sweetest escapes” from your typically nonstop touring and producing schedule? JH: Traveling to Namibia was amazing! It’s a big country, the natural landscape is so beautiful, and the people are very warm and welcoming. It was an amazing three weeks without using my phone, too. I would recommend it to anyone who truly wants to “switch off”.
SM: You’ve shared that one of your 2020 hopes was for everyone to slow down a bit and take some time to think about what matters. In the midst of the current state of the world, do you think that we are not only encouraged but forced to take that step back? JH: Wow, I hadn’t thought about it in that way! I think this situation definitely forces a lot of people, especially artists, to stop and think about what they are doing. We don’t have a lot of distractions right now and to be in the DJing business right now without making any money for the foreseeable future, you really have to want it/be in it for the right
reasons. So, it’s a crazy situation that includes a lot of bad things happening to a lot of people, but a lot of good will come out of it as well, I think. SM: When things go back to “normal”, how do you feel your own music and the industry as a whole will flourish after so many isolated artists have had the chance to simply create? JH: I think everything will be different. The industry had become more and more about business, and perhaps that will change for the better. SM: From your start in DJing at age fourteen up to the present day, what is one of your most
vivid and treasured stories/memories? JH: It sounds weird, but the best time creatively was probably those first years in my parents’ house when I just started out. I wasn’t making music for anyone but myself—it was true creativity with no pressure of business and/or time. SM: With the debut of your newest track, “Rollercoaster”, could you ever have predicted that the world would coincidentally and collectively be on a rollercoaster ride right now? What are you most excited about with this track, and what was the idea behind the name?
JH: I’m super excited about this track, especially because it’s my first release with Musical Freedom, the label of legend Tiesto who has been an inspiration to me for as long as I can remember. The idea behind the name was that my life has been a rollercoaster the last couple of years, with crazy highs and lows. But overall, it’s been a thrilling and mostly positive ride. But no, I definitely didn’t expect the world to be on a rollercoaster the way it is today.
ymore info: www.jayhardway.com Twitter & Instagram: @jayhardway www.facethecurrent.com
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World Athlete Feats to Inspire Your Next Outdoor Adventures By Ainsley Schoppel It’s that time of year again when, after a winter-long hibernation of sorts, the weather beckons and nature offers up Her beautiful playgrounds. Whether it’s a trail-walk, hike, bicycle ride, canoe voyage, or lake-swim, outdoor adventures abound and serve as platforms for healthy and fun ways to explore and enjoy our planet while also moving our bodies. While most of us experience our outdoor adventures at a leisurely pace and level, there are those athletes who search for the most extreme locations and circumstances to test their limits and stake their claims to shocking achievements. Red Bull athletes Kilian Fischhuber, Dominic Di Tommaso, Dane Jackson, and Rob Warner show us what it means to excel at a sport, take it to new heights, and push the boundaries of human capability.
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Dominic Di Tommaso | Credit: Dan Vojtech. Red Bull
CLIMBING Climbing—or bouldering—isn’t for the faint of heart. Performed on small rock formations or rock walls without the comforting aid of ropes or harnesses, climbing can be both an exhilarating and a nervewracking sport. Austrian climber, Kilian Fischhuber, is a professional sport climber and rock climber. From 2005 to 2011, Kilian claimed five Bouldering World Cup titles and no other male climber has come close to challenging his record. He was awarded the La Sportiva Competition Award in 2009 in honor of his spectacular career. In 2018, Kilian led an expedition to one of the world’s most remote Siberian locations to
tackle the Sundrun Pillars (aka the “Granite Cities”) of Ulakhan-Sis. Similar in appearance to the idols of Easter Island, the Sundrun Pillars are believed to be the sculptural result of the relentless and severe freeze-thaw cycle of the granite and surrounding sandstone. After a few photographic expeditions to this unexplored corner of the world, professional climbers journeyed to the Granite Cities to see what climbing adventures awaited them on the twenty to thirty metres-high vertical cliffs. Kilian joined Russian photographer Sergey Karpukhin and two fellow climbers through three days of punishing tundra hiking before they arrived at the
pillars. “My education gives me a clear understanding of how exactly this natural landscape appeared, yet even this did not stop me feeling as if this wonder was made by mysterious ancient civilizations. This part of Ulakhan-Sis should become a UNESCO World Heritage site, just like (Turkey’s) Cappadocia,” Karpukhin declared. After donning his minimalistic gear, Kilian began his climbs and noted that, “The actual climbing was always very demanding as the rock quality worsened the higher we got; at times it seemed really soft!” All told, over the course of ten days on the tundra, Kilian achieved twelve new routes on twelve unique pillars.
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Kilian Fischhuber | Credit: Corey Rich. Red Bull
FREERUNNING Founded by Sebastien Foucan, freerunning is an athletic expression of interactions with various obstacles and the environment. Movements can include spinning, flipping, and other maneuvers adopted from gymnastics and breakdancing, but freerunners can also create their own moves and patterns as they flow between different landscapes. Creativity is a must in freerunning as it shares fundamental similarities with parkour yet is amped up by acrobatics that showcase the stylish athletic art of movement. Twenty-seven-year-old Australian freerunner Dominic Di Tommaso grew up figure skating
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and practicing ballet and honed his body’s ability to perform strengthreliant high-impact moves. In 2007, Dominic began freerunning and has since been a regular at Red Bull Art of Motion. Over three days, Dominic journeyed across Egypt in a magnificent video chronicle that saw him endure challenging weather and logistical conditions. Dominic stretched the limits of his freerunning skills as he vaulted past the pyramids, Khan el Khalili “Old Market”, The Sphinx, The Nile, Salah El-Din Citadel, and the urban area of Nazlet el Semman. “Egypt was a mindblowing experience and the shoot was everything I could expect and
more,” he said. “The hardest move, surprisingly, was dive-rolling over camels. It took a lot of coordination to place them in the right positions and then to place the cameras in the right angles—not to mention the sand beneath them was quite soft.” As exhausting as freerunning can be, Dominic conceded that freerunning in Egypt was particularly tiring. “The thing I learned the most from this shoot was to learn my physical and exhaustion limits. Being able to shoot these long days in this heat was a really good test to find out how much I could actually put out, while maintaining my performance over three days.”
Egypt was a mind-blowing experience.. The hardest move, surprisingly, was diverolling over camels. It took a lot of coordination to place them in the right positions and then to place the cameras in the right angles—not to mention the sand beneath them was quite soft.
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Dominic Di Tommaso | Credit: Dan Vojtech. Red Bull
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Dominic Di Tommaso | Credit: Dan Vojtech. Red Bull
KAYAKING Kayaking, whether double or single, is a favorite and relaxing way to leisurely enjoy rivers, lakes, and oceans. However, once that kayak is intentionally plummeting over waterfalls and descents of mammoth proportions, kayaking instantly becomes an extreme sport. Twenty-six-year-old American kayaker, Dane Jackson, is the reigning ICF (International Canoe Federation) freestyle world champion. Jackson traveled the U.S. in an RV with his family and was home-schooled by his mother as they logged kayak competitions with his father, Eric Jackson, Olympic paddler and founder of Jackson Kayaks. After winning the Whitewater Grand Prix in 2011, Dane has since dominated freestyle kayak competitions and has completed six waterfalls measuring at least 100 feet in height. Over the last decade, Dane has traveled the world in search of new and extreme descents, and most recently achieved the awe-inspiring 134foot descent down Chile’s Salto del Maule waterfall. “Whenever there’s a moment where you get shown a waterfall that hasn’t been done, or you come across a photo, it always sparks something that makes you have to answer the question; is it possible?” recalled Dane. “I’ve been shown drops before, but when I was shown Salto del Maule four years ago, it’s the most obsessed I’ve been with a waterfall—constantly looking at photos and videos trying to make up my mind on it.” After intense preparation including contingency plans and identified safety retreats, Dane decided to go for his dream and face Maule’s drop—a distance he didn’t measure beforehand. “I wanted to wait until after because, by looking at it, I felt it looked a similar height to what I have done before. Everything made me really confident in doing the line right, which allowed me to do exactly what I needed to do,” he explained. “If I had measured it beforehand and realised it was the tallest drop I had done, maybe I would have been more nervous or hesitant. I would have still had a great line, but I might not have had the same confidence.”
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Dane Jackson | Credit: Corey Rich. Red Bull
Olly Wilkins and Rob Warner | Credit: Bartek Wolinski. Red Bull
MOUNTAIN BIKING The sport of mountain biking is exactly what it sounds like: riding bicycles off-road on graded rough terrain. Because technically difficult descents and high incline climbs can be woven into the same mountain biking competition, riders need to have excellent core strength, balance, and long-distance endurance. Nowretired British downhill mountain biker, Rob Warner, was a threetime UK champion and claimed an
historic victory at the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup championship in 1996. Now, Rob presents with UCI Mountain Bike World Cup coverage on Red Bull TV and has ventured out on a stunning trip across four continents entitled Wild Rides. Joined on the trip by current mountain bike and downhill stars, Rob and his crew venture to discover the world’s most beautiful and hidden bike trails. As Rob explains, part of the joy of mountain biking lies in the adventure and exploration of a trail: “That sense
of exploring has always been a big part of it, for me. Thankfully I got to ride on some epic trails for this TV series with some of them downhill for nearly thirty kilometers. It was the best mountain biking I have ever done.” Rob experienced breathtaking rides from trails in the Himalayas to Mount Kenya. “I have seen places that I never dreamt that I would see,” he exclaimed. “It is only just now, six months on, that it is sinking in a little bit.” www.facethecurrent.com
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The Highs and Lows of Ultra-RUNNING and Adventure Racing
Breaking Ground with Red Bull Athlete Fernanda Maciel By Sasha Frate
Fernanda Maciel is a renowned athlete in a demanding, beautiful, lonely, empowering, and grueling sport— ultramarathoning. An ultramarathon is any footrace that is longer than a marathon and is categorized as either a timed or a distance run. Some timed ultramarathons can take up to a week to complete and see runners camping, hiking, and navigating through wild terrain and a range of altitudes. At the age of eight, Fernanda was a competitive gymnast and traveled the world through Olympic Gymnastics. She moved to the U.S. to train two years later and became a capoeira fighter and a jiu-jitsu champion and found herself running trail races. Brazilian born and currently living in France, Fernanda is now an ultramarathoner and an adventure racer, and has participated in international 600-kilometer adventure racing since the age of twenty-three. To complete these complex endurance races, Fernanda has kayaked, mountain biked, run trails, snowboarded, and summited and descended mountains. Through her hard work, determination, and resilience, Fernanda became the first woman to run the Camino de Santiago Compostela, in which she ran 860-kilometers in ten days. She also placed second on the Ultra Trail Mount Fuji, which was a run of 169-kilometers. When not running mountains, Fernanda worked as an environmental lawyer and has also been an environmental instructor with Outward Bound International. Her love for nature is clearly not something she pursues only for herself; Fernanda also encourages others to discover and protect our collective natural environment. Face the Current was excited to learn more about this extreme, intense, and arduous sport, and Fernanda Maciel was the perfect person to show us the path. Fernanda discussed her upbringing; her project, White Flow, that provides aid to communities in which she races; and the way she harnesses the meditative qualities of running in flow-state to achieve success. While humans might not be able to actually move mountains, Fernanda has shown us that it is indeed possible to run them.
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Photo Credit: Jordi Saragossa
Sasha Frate: You grew up participating at high levels in a variety of sports including Olympic gymnastics from the age of eight, and capoeira and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.You then started to hit the trails as a runner and multi-sport endurance athlete. What have been some of the greatest factors throughout your life that have kept you competitively involved? Fernanda Maciel: My family is a fighting family and I like to keep that fighting spirit in my daily life. My grandad was a jiu-jitsu champion and my dad is a capoeira master, and we fought at my grandad’s house in a ring when I was a kid. I have learned some strong values through fighting that help me during my sporting career today.
SF: While most athletes have one or two sports for which they focus and intensely train, you’ve chosen to pursue multiple paths in parallel. Why multi-sporting? FM: I started to run as a means to get to school. When it came to jiu-jitsu fighting, I began running road races because I didn’t have too much time to train for jiu-jitsu. I then realized that running was a great sport for me because I had good endurance and I had been running my whole life. When I had the opportunity to try other sports I liked them, but running was always my main sport—even when I was training in gymnastics. SF: As a “non-stop” adventure racer, do you have any particular facets that you favor over
others? FM: Comparing all other sports, running was always my strongest skill. SF: How do you maintain a high level of performance in so many different sports? Can you share what a typical “week-in-the-lifeof-Fernanda” looks like, in terms of your training for the variety of sports? FM: I was an adventure racer fifteen years ago, but at that time, my coach was a triathlon coach. My trainings were based on triathlon training which included running six times a week, biking five times a week, kayaking two days a week, and swimming one or two days a week. I did no gym training and all my trainings involved volume, intervals, and rhythm. www.facethecurrent.com
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Photo Credit: Mathis Dumas
SF: What is the idea behind the project name “White Flow” and what does it encompass? FM: White Flow is a personal project that has a running challenge and a social action. In 2012 I worked for a Conflict Resolution project with politicians from Israel and Palestine. At the end of this work, I figured out a way to combine a personal running project that could also have a positive impact on society. I created White Flow as a result to help the community in which I am running the project. To date I’ve completed six White Flow projects. The first one, White Flow Camino de Compostela,
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I ran 860-kilometers in ten days to help children with cancer in Spain and Brazil. The latest one, White Flow Elbrus, I ran up and down the highest mountain in Europe (the Elbrus, 5620 meters) in seven hours to help women who have experienced violence in their lives and are in the recovery process. SF: Of your three World Records, which was the greatest feat (most challenging and rewarding) for you to accomplish? FM: I was born in Brazil and I remember hearing about Aconcagua mountain in Argentina when I was a
teenager. It is the highest mountain in the Americas and I knew that many female ultra runners and mountain guides had been trying to run up and down that mountain without any success. In 2015, I attempted the run but I failed at 6000 meters elevation when altitude sickness issues struck. I tried again the next year and failed again. However, after resting for ten days and waiting for better mountain conditions, I returned to Aconcagua mountain and was able to accomplish the run. I became the first woman in the world to run up and down Aconcagua (6962 meters high/22.837 feet) in twenty-two hours and fiftytwo minutes.
SF: You attribute nature to not only calling you to run long distance trails, but also to your professional life as an environmental lawyer and instructor as you work to protect our natural environment. What type of environmental projects are you (or have you been) involved in professionally?
I was also linked to a recycling project implemented in the buildings of the state departments. I later worked for Outward Bound, the international NGO that also works for the betterment of the world’s environment. I no longer work for them today, but I continue my environmental efforts with NEEF, the National Environmental Education Foundation of the U.S.
FM: I was a lawyer in Brazil working for FEAM (Minas Gerais state environment foundation). It is the public organization that protects the environment in my Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. In parallel with my work as a lawyer,
SF: When doing endurance trail runs on the mountains, what keeps you going for such great distances?
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FM: I love the freedom that comes with the movement of running, and because it is in nature, it is not boring
and therefore easier for me. It is a form of meditation for me where I can turn off my brain and enjoy the flow of easy terrain. It’s also interesting when the terrain is hard and dangerous because I have to be alert and focused on each step of my run. I listen to music during my long run trainings, but not during the night because I can get lost if I lose concentration on the track marks. (I always run alone so becoming lost is a real concern!) Nature keeps my energy high, and observing the details of the tracks, the beauty of the landscapes, and glowing sunrises gives me so much energy that I am able to run for days.
I love the freedom that comes with the movement of running, and because it is in nature, it is not boring and therefore easier for me. It is a form of meditation for me where I can turn off my brain and enjoy the flow of easy terrain. Nature keeps my energy high, and observing the details of the tracks, the beauty of the landscapes, and glowing sunrises gives me so much energy that I am able to run for days.
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Photo Credit: Jordi Saragossa
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SF: Ultra-running and endurance training are very time consuming! How do you balance everything and make time for other professional projects, friends and family, and non-sport fun? FM: The endurance training consumes a lot of my time and I don’t have much left over to spend with my loved ones, but my family and friends understand my passion and my mountain lifestyle. I usually spend one month a year in Brazil to be with my family and visit my old friends. SF: As a Red Bull Athlete, you’re quoted as saying: “When I’m
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running on top of mountains or paddling in the ocean, I feel so small and yet I feel the most intense feelings of freedom and peace.” Your sports have enabled you to access and experience freedom in many unique places and ways, from running inside the most dangerous favela in Brazil, to the Sahara Desert for Marathon des Sables (Marathon of the Sands), also known as “the world’s hardest race”. Can you share any lessons learned and perhaps new perspectives gained from these rare experiences you’ve had? FM: I usually try to go to extreme
locations to be out of my comfort zone; only then can I can expand my limits and improve. I ran in Aconcagua, a high and cold mountain, and then one month later I was in the Sahara Desert at forty-eight degrees to race 250-kilometers on flat and sandy terrain. As an athlete and runner, I like to explore different terrains and conditions because they teach me many lessons. I’ve learned to be humble, to be a fighter, to be in the present, and to give value to the basic life elements such as food, water, sleep, a hot shower, and a coffee with my friends or parents. I suffer on extreme runs, but I also learn and feel the personal growth.
I usually try to go to extreme locations to be out of my comfort zone; only then can I can expand my limits and improve. As an athlete and runner, I like to explore different terrains and conditions because they teach me many lessons. I’ve learned to be humble, to be a fighter, to be in the present, and to give value to the basic life elements such as food, water, sleep, a hot shower, and a coffee with my friends or parents.
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Photo Credit: Roger Caballe
SF: In your talks you describe the mountain as a metaphor for what we face daily in our professional and personal lives. As someone who takes on mountains in the literal sense for your sport, does tackling daily challenges in life feel easier to manage? Does it feel like there are no limits in terms of the obstacles we can overcome and the accomplishments we can attain? FM: Yes, I feel very fortunate to have discovered outdoor sport in my life; it teaches me to observe my pure self and to see both my defects and my potentials.
SF: In addition to ultra-running, you also run your own company called Run Sport Nutrition that creates customized diet plans produced by yourself and your extended team of Sports Nutritionists. Can you tell us about this company? How was it conceived and does it specifically tailor to runners’ nutrition? FM: I created Run Sport Nutrition with Jaume Gimenez. Jaume is a Spanish sport nutritionist and the Sport Nutrition Director of Barcelona University. We work together in Run Sport Nutrition to help runners that have struggled to follow a training diet and race diet.
SF: Your philosophy is “move positive”. What does this mean to you? FM: It means compassion. I try to do positive things in my life and in the lives of others. I observe my mind and I try to leave it with only the positive thoughts that come into my brain. In this way, I know that I can move positive and share good things with the universe.
ymore info: www.fernandamaciel.com www.redbull.com/us-en/athlete/ fernanda-maciel www.facethecurrent.com
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Survive and Thrive with Dr. Nicole Apelian:
Recovering ‘Lost’ Herbal Remedies By Sasha Frate Nicole Apelian, Ph.D. is a biologist, anthropologist, mother, educator, researcher, author, expeditionary leader, safari guide, herbalist, and traditional skills instructor. A leader in the field of transformative nature education, Nicole shares with the world her expertise in nature connection, indigenous knowledge, natural wellness, and survival skills. A native of Massachusetts, Nicole’s first exposure to true wilderness living began while working as a field biologist in Botswana. Following a job as a game warden with the US Peace Corps, she began tracking and researching lions in southern Africa. Nicole immediately fell in love with the African landscapes and the San Bushmen’s way of life, and later, while working with the San Bushmen, Nicole completed her doctorate in Cultural Anthropology within the field of Sustainability Education.Years of visiting the San Bushmen and developing strong relationships within the tribe allowed Nicole to learn many of the primitive skills and ways she practices and teaches today. Nicole continues her work with the San Bushmen to help them find strategies to preserve their traditions and is currently cataloging indigenous plant uses with a community of Naro Bushmen who regard her as family. She is the co-founder of “The Origins Project“, a 501c3 set
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up as a joint venture with a community of San Bushmen to help create a legacy of ancestral connection for future generations. A passionate educator for many years, Nicole has also worked as an adjunct professor at Prescott College and as an instructor at various schools, universities, and leading conservation education programs. Nicole was also a challenger on the second season of History Channel’s TV series, Alone, where she thrived solo in the wilderness for fifty-seven days. In 2000, a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis led Nicole to apply her research skills towards her own personal wellness. She developed a healthy living
strategy that focuses on health and wholeness, and formed her own Herbal Apothecary. At her home in the Pacific Northwest, Nicole makes her own herbal medicines from local plants and through simple changes in her lifestyle and eating habits, she restored her vitality. She has since become a founder and primary guide for her wildlife safari company, Eco Tours International. Nicole chatted with Face the Current and shared her thoughts on transformative nature education, the benefits of wildcrafting and foraging, the best approach to selecting selftreatments, and tips for learning about and incorporating plant medicine into our daily lives.
Sasha Frate: You are quite multifaceted with your background as a biologist, anthropologist, educator, researcher, author, expeditionary leader, safari guide, herbalist, traditional skills instructor, and a leader in the field of transformative nature education. How has your work in these fields combined to help you bring natural wellness and survival skills to the world? Nicole Apelian: My multi-faceted background is mostly due to my love of learning new things, and my fields of interest shift as I ask new questions. When I became ill with multiple sclerosis twenty years ago, my questions shifted to holistic wellness and herbalism. My background in research and science allows me to approach new questions with scientific rigor. This has been
extremely helpful in the field of herbal medicine in analyzing peerreviewed research to help steer my herbal product line. I turned to natural ways of healing to help me get from bed-bound with MS to the active person I am today, and my intensive study of herbal medicine has not only helped me but many others as well. I feel it is my mission to bring holistic wellness into the mainstream. SF: Can you explain what “transformative nature education” encompasses? NA: It’s really about our connection to nature and passing it on to the next generation. Intergenerational knowledge transmission is how knowledge has been passed for thousands of years and I believe that it is our responsibility to continue
this mode of learning. Plus, with the modern construct of social media and the internet, time spent outside practicing traditional skills and nature connection is what helps us be happy, joyful, and healthy people. The importance of these skills cannot be underestimated in our journey to holistic wellness. SF: Your book, The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies:The Healing Power of Plant Medicine, is incredibly rich with information on an extensive variety of plants, their medicinal actions, and their applications for a wide scope of treatments. I’d love to see this as a household staple in everyone’s home! Can you share what went into the preparation of this book? NA: I would love to see The Lost www.facethecurrent.com
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Wildcrafting and foraging are important in four main ways. First, they give you a reason to be outside and to connect with nature. Second, when you use nature as your pharmacy and grocery store you are accessing nutrients that we have been utilizing for thousands of years, and I believe this helps us live the healthiest possible lives. Third, by forming a relationship with the plants you harvest you can actually “tend the wild” by spreading seeds and planting new plants as you harvest. Finally, it is comfortable on your pocketbook as foraging is free.
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Photo Credit: Claude Davis
Book of Herbal Remedies:The Healing Power of Plant Medicine as a household staple in every home. I spent a lot of time reviewing academic research on medicinal uses of plants, lichens, and mushrooms. I then distilled this information to make it palatable for anyone wanting to learn about plant uses. I love that there are color photos, identification tips for each species, recipes, and an introductory chapter on how to make these herbal remedies in your own home. My goal was to empower people to take charge of their own health and utilize what nature has offered us for thousands of years. SF: In addition to creating this book, you’ve also established an Herbal Apothecary as a great extension and resource
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for people to source what they need. How do you source the plants, and what do you typically advise as important to know when purchasing any plants for medicinal purposes? NA: My online Herbal Tinctures are indeed available for purchase. I have put my many years of expertise into these blends and source only high-quality ingredients that are organic and/or wild-harvested. It is very important to purchase herbal extracts from a trusted source. For example, my mushroom tinctures are all dual extracted so as to access the entire spectrum of herbal compounds. Many places don’t use this method, so again, always read the fine print! When purchasing herbs please make sure that they have been
ethically harvested. Some things like lichens are extremely slow-growing and should only be harvested after a windstorm and from clean areas. SF: What do you see as the greatest benefits of wildcrafting and foraging, and what are the hindrances? NA: Wildcrafting and foraging are important in four main ways. First, they give you a reason to be outside and to connect with nature. Second, when you use nature as your pharmacy and grocery store you are accessing nutrients that we have been utilizing for thousands of years, and I believe this helps us live the healthiest possible lives. Third, by forming a relationship with the plants you harvest you can actually “tend
Photo Credit: Quinn Apelian Rasmussen
the wild” by spreading seeds and planting new plants as you harvest. Finally, it is comfortable on your pocketbook as foraging is free. SF: From tracking lions to extensively working with the African San Bushmen tribe, to completing a fifty-seven day solo journey into the wilderness with little more than a knife for the History Channel series, Alone, what have been some of the biggest lessons you’ve gained from all of your experiences in the wild? NA: Two of my biggest life lessons are to live in the present moment and to be grateful every day. Even when we are in periods of grief, gratitude can get us through. Living
in the present means making sure to make time for yourself and your family—choose to be with them rather than having your head buried in your computer. Unplug and get outside, play games, and enjoy your life. When I was on Alone, I never felt “alone” thanks to my connection to the natural world around me. SF: In terms of the healing ancestral skills that you’ve experienced with the San Bushmen tribe, what are some that you see as valuable for people to learn from? Where can people experience these and expand their ancestral skills learning through your programs? NA: I lived in a tent in the bush
in Botswana in the 1990s studying African lions. Living in the territory of lions, black mambas, cape buffalos and more really tuned me in to bird language, sensory awareness, and tracking. These are often considered the “soft skills” but, in my opinion, they are some of the most important. I have had a few close calls and have changed a flat truck tire next to lions many times. That said, bird language and awareness were my closest friends out there and are what continue to keep me alive while living in places in which I’m a part of the food web. I use these skills often both at home in the Pacific Northwest and when I guide in Africa today. People can learn these skills by taking a class or by going to a traditional skills gathering (there are many offered across the country). www.facethecurrent.com
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Photo Credit: Leah Nash
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Ancestral skills are deeply ingrained in us. The San community I work with look at their landscape as their grocery store and their pharmacy, and this is how I now look at my landscape thanks to them. Photo Credit: Rich Plantinga
The San community I work with look at their landscape as their grocery store and their pharmacy, and this is how I now look at my landscape thanks to them. For more about what I offer, please see www.nicoleapelian. com. SF: How do you envision the nature connection as a key component in “total health”, and do you see the incorporation and use of plant medicine as part of this nature connection? NA: We’re all still hunter-gatherers at a genetic level. We haven’t grown out of that or caught up to our modern lifestyles—evolution doesn’t
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work that quickly. We’re meant to live in community and in nature; we’re meant to live outside, not inside walls. Of course, it doesn’t necessarily work for everybody to live this way. I’m not suggesting we all go live in the woods, but I am suggesting we look for ways to reconnect to nature and use that connection as a lifeline to holistic health. SF: What are three of your favorite or most frequently used go-to herbs? NA: I love medicinal mushrooms and they are a huge part of my strategy for managing multiple sclerosis. My three go-tos are: Reishi, Turkey Tail, and Lion’s Mane Mushrooms. I take all three of these tinctures daily. SF: Considering how few people seem to be aware of them and their applications, can you share
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Also, these skills help reconnect us to our primal selves and bring joy. I have never witnessed someone weaving a basket or shooting a bow who was unhappy in that moment. Ancestral skills are deeply ingrained in us.
some of the most impactful herbs (or the ones that have the broadest variety of uses) that truly feel “lost” in today’s world? NA: Some impactful herbs are Usnea Lichen (one of my daily go-tos!), which is known to be antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal, and antimicrobial. It really packs a punch! Elderberry is also a well-known antiviral that is finally getting more recognition. I combine these in my “Travel Pack” that I use whenever I am around groups of people or exposed to illness. Lungwort Lichen is another that isn’t well known, but I use it for any type of bronchial infection with great success. SF: Through your apothecary you offer a variety of ways to administer several plant medicine treatments with extracts, tinctures, and salves.
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We’re all still huntergatherers at a genetic level. We haven’t grown out of that or caught up to our modern lifestyles—evolution doesn’t work that quickly. We’re meant to live in community and in nature; we’re meant to live outside, not inside walls. Of course, it doesn’t necessarily work for everybody to live this way. I’m not suggesting we all go live in the woods, but I am suggesting we look for ways to reconnect to nature and use that connection as a lifeline to holistic health.
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With lemon balm for example, can you explain the difference between using the tincture versus drinking the herb as a tea? NA: I find tinctures the most convenient and impactful way to take herbs.You can take a tincture (which is an herbal extraction, often in alcohol) with you anywhere, rather than having to stop and make a tea. Also, many herbs extract much better in a solvent such as alcohol versus water, so you tend to get more of the medicinal compounds in a tincture. Lastly, when taken in the mouth a tincture very quickly gets into your bloodstream without having to go through the digestive process. It is my favorite method for ingesting herbs. SF: When working with your book to select treatments, what is the best approach for “self-
Photo Credit: Shanna Gillette
treatment” when there are numerous plant medicines listed as effective for treating the same ailment? NA: Great question! I always think using plant species that grow where you live is preferable. For me, I use plants from the Pacific Northwest that I feel are the most effective across the board. People can also try different herbs and see how they work with their body. I also recommend looking up current research. SF: What are some tips you might have for someone wanting to take steps towards incorporating more plant medicine into their daily life? NA: People often get overwhelmed by plants. Start by learning about three plants and form a relationship with them. Add one plant to your repertoire every month and after one
year you’ll have fifteen plants under your belt. Familiarize yourself with a few that are easy to identify and forage (like dandelion and plantain), then branch out.
ymore info: Facebook @nicoleapeliansurvival Twitter @nicoleapelian Instagram @nicole_apelian www.nicoleapelian.com Nicole’s Herbal Medicine Book: https://www.thelostremedies.com/ nicole-apelian/ Herbal Apothecary: https://www.nicoleapelian.com/drnicoles-apothecary/ The Origins Project: http://8shields. org/origins-project/ www.facethecurrent.com
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Harnessing and Strengthening Our Physical and
Spiritual Interconnections: Finding Peace and Health During Isolation with Dr. Shamini Jain and Dr. Jim Bentz By Ainsley Schoppel Today’s world is one that is somewhat unrecognizable to most individuals, businesses, families, and societies. In the blink of an eye, our predictable stability shifted, and we have all had to adapt in unique and varying ways to this new and separate way of living. We know that well-being builds and boosts immunity, so how are we to cope with this sudden influx of stress? How can we shift our mindset, and in turn, our biology, to avoid the short-term pitfalls of selfish actions and reactions? How are we supposed to continue or adopt a mind-body-spirit practice when our daily responsibilities constantly surround us? Dr. Shamini Jain and Dr. Jim Bentz answer the call for help and give us concrete explanations as to what is happening inside and outside of our beings and offer ways that we can help ourselves and others to strengthen health and bolster happiness. Dr. Jim Bentz is the top practitioner and trainer for Neurological Integration System (NIS) in the United States, teaching healthcare practitioners the principles of Functional Neurology. Dr. Bentz has utilized NIS—a system that incorporates ancient eastern medicine practices with current neuroscience to promote self-healing through the detection and correction of signaling disruption in the nervous system—as his primary modality since 1997. And as a clinical psychologist, scientist, and founder and CEO of the Consciousness and Healing Initiative (CHI)—a non-profit collaborative accelerator that connects scientists, health practitioners, innovators, and social entrepreneurs to advance the science and practice of healing—Dr. Shamini Jain is on the forefront of a necessary revolution in science, medicine, and healing. She also serves as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, and was trained in neuroscience at Columbia University and in clinical psychology and psychoneuroimmunology at UC San Diego.
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Photo Credit: Roberto Nickson
Trying to grapple with and understand what is happening to us on an individual and collective level as we live through the daily consequences of the COVID-19 crisis is not an uncomplicated mission. In terms of viewing the scenario through the lens of holistic medicine, the interconnections of systems— including our connection to the earth—is crucial for overall health. Fear is an extremely detrimental emotion that can be experienced individually but transmitted through the collective with very real physical and mental consequences. “What we’re seeing out there is a lot of fear right now, and understandably so as this is a scary thing,” Dr. Bentz began. “However, we know that fear activates a part of the brain called the amygdala, also known as the limbic cortex of the limbic area of the brain.
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The amygdala is also what triggers the fight-flight response. What we know is that when the amygdala is activated, it inhibits a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex and this is where our executive decisionmaking happens.” In essence, we don’t make sound or wise decisions when we’re afraid. Dr. Jain asserted that, “When we’re in fear, we tend not to think as clearly and rationally as we might otherwise. It also leads us to be more self-referential; in other words, we become more selfish. We act in our own self-interest rather than considering the interests of others.” No one is immune to fear; it’s an innate and natural human emotion and thinking we can simply turn off this response to danger is impractical and false. “There’s no way that we’re
not going to feel a little panicked right now; it’s a serious situation. The media is not making light of it and they shouldn’t, but when newscasters have to share all this to the world, I see their faces and I feel their energy. How are they supposed to transmit anything peaceful when they’ve got all this terrible news they’re constantly sharing, and then what does that do to us?” Dr. Jain questioned. The result is a form of emotional contagion that ignites a fear response. We start to look around us and wonder why everyone is hoarding toilet paper and other essential items, which makes us feel as if we need to do the same. And as Dr. Jain reminded us, this happens because the fear-center of our brain is activated through intense media converge and the unknown aspects of the future before us.
We know that fear activates a part of the brain called the amygdala, also known as the limbic cortex of the limbic area of the brain. The amygdala is also what triggers the fight-flight response. When we’re in fear, we tend not to think as clearly and rationally as we might otherwise. It also leads us to be more self-referential; in other words, we become more selfish. We act in our own selfinterest rather than considering the interests of others.
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Not only are people feeling stir-crazy, but they’re lonely; they miss their friends, they miss their social gatherings—we’re social creatures.
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So, what can we do to help boost our health? “It might be good to remind ourselves that we have all of these internal capacities that we can redevelop or pay attention to during these times,” Dr. Jain stated. While following current events and staying as informed as possible is important and a daily ritual for most people, we have to be conscious of the fact that we can control the amygdala response. For help in doing just that, we can look to research in
mind-body wellness. “We know that we can engage in positive emotions when we sleep, when we eat decently, when we’re taking care of our mental wellbeing, when we have a very simple mind-body practice every day, and when we really notice what’s happening and working with interpersonal relationships, including resentments,” Dr. Jain noted. There is no doubt that with the seemingly unpredictable nature of COVID-19 and the mortality data constantly presented in the media, our own mortality can be top of mind. Dr. Jain
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We know that we can engage in positive emotions when we sleep, when we eat decently, when we’re taking care of our mental wellbeing, when we have a very simple mind-body practice every day, and when we really notice what’s happening and working with interpersonal relationships, including resentments.
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In a time where the typical methods of connecting with others have been restricted, exploring the nature and importance of connections has proven to be a meaningful exercise. “I think everyone is feeling lonely,” Dr. Jain offered. “Not only are people feeling stir-crazy, but they’re lonely; they miss their friends, they miss their social gatherings—we’re social creatures.” As much as we can use technology to ease the isolation and offer a virtual bridge to temporarily connect us to our work and those we love, the effects of missing out on physical interactions cannot be underestimated. Tuning in to the interconnections between organ systems and understanding the impact of isolation, fear, and uncertainty on our bodies is important, but we also need to be aware of the interconnections between each other.
plainly pointed out that, “We’re all going to die, and spirituality reminds us that death could come for us and our loved ones at any time. It’s an uncomfortable thing and yet this is what fear and anxiety is about in terms of the amygdala response. It’s all because of the thought that I’m going to die or someone I love is going to die, so we can actually meet that head on.” However, the good news is that research has shown that implementing prayer, meditation, yoga, and creative outlets into your life can calm the nervous system. Additionally, when we’re able to express emotions—even negative ones—we strengthen our immune system. These are daily mindful practices and communication techniques that are at our disposal and can be seen as an independent and internal wealth just waiting to be drawn upon. Dr. Bentz elaborated on the biological aspects of mindful practices by pointing out that they activate the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic response in the body that counters the effects of the activation of the amygdala. “The sympathetic
nervous system is like a teetertotter: if our amygdala is activated, it suppresses our parasympathetic system which decreases the reaction of the amygdala.” Dr. Bentz further explained that the vagus nerve also sends information back to the brain about the gut. “We now know how important gut health is to brain health,” Dr. Bentz noted, “and immunity truly starts in the gut. If we can do these things, they will make our immune system so much more resilient and stronger.” Another very powerful component of immune health is sleep. Because we live in an overly sympathetic nervous system world, adequate sleep is critical. “Sleep allows the parasympathetic nervous system to foster immunity— it’s the restorative time for us; it’s so key and it’s such a simple thing to do,” stated Dr. Bentz. Dr. Jain added that a healthy diet free from processed foods also aids in boosting immune health. Aside from the physical effects of fear and isolation, our current times are also highlighting the importance
of compassion. “When we can think about others more than we think about ourselves, it actually activates that parasympathetic nervous system,” Dr. Bentz explained. “What I’ve noticed with a lot of research on love and kindness meditation is that it’s focused on what happens when you train in giving love and kindness. To do that, you get into a beautiful economist state first, and then say some specific things like: ‘May you be safe, may you be happy, may you be at ease, may you know peace.’ Those are some of the simple statements involved with love and kindness meditation. So, we’ve tended to study the meditator; the focus is on the person who’s learning the training and who’s outwardly practicing it,” added Dr. Jain. Since many people are now coming together to pray for the health and safety of the planet, Dr. Jain’s exploration of interconnection through the Consciousness and Healing Initiative is very timely. “We’re trying to take meditation out of what meditation can do for me and my stress level in my brain, but what does meditation do for www.facethecurrent.com
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What does meditation do for us at the field level? We did some research on this in Pondicherry, India with the Sri Aurobindo Ashram,” Dr. Jain revealed. “We went there and measured frontal EEG in everyone over a number of different conditions. What we found is that when they all went internal together—when they used their specific practice to go into an internal state—we found evidence of EEG coherence between people, not just within the brain. This is ground-breaking! To my knowledge, nobody has really published this.
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us at the field level? We did some research on this in Pondicherry, India with the Sri Aurobindo Ashram,” Dr. Jain revealed. “We went there and measured frontal EEG in everyone over a number of different conditions. What we found is that when they all went internal together—when they used their specific practice to go into an internal state—we found evidence of EEG coherence between people, not just within the brain. This is ground-breaking! To my knowledge, nobody has really published this.” An encouraging and empowering takeaway is that when we use our individual and collective meditative powers, we truly have the potential to connect. “What happens to people when they get in these states of compassion, love, and caring is that not only is it good for us, but it’s good for everybody else, too. I think it’s brilliant. Prayer will take us to that place, and I don’t think it matters what your religion is. To me, prayer is reaching out and having a concern about somebody that you want to
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help. Or, you have a concern about yourself that you want help with,” Dr. Bentz agreed. In terms of ancient traditions, science and spirituality were never separate. “They’re simply different perspectives of trying to explore and get some understanding of the same truth. There are many different layers of our being, and so there are different ways that we can work with these layers,” he continued. “There is the physical, yes, and in today’s word, physical distancing is important. But you can still pray and that can actually have an effect as well. It’s not one or the other.” Having some form of self-care to tone down the effects of the sympathetic brain-state is immensely important to achieve balance when so much time is spent alone or with our immediate family. “It’s a wonderful time right now to inwardly explore because people have the time to try it. I think rather than bingeing on Netflix, take an hour a day and just slow down, do some introspection, prayer, or meditation—
whatever you want to call it. It’s more important than ever that we connect in that way internally and externally,” Dr. Jain offered. However, these forms of introspection do not have to be formal endeavours that you must undertake at a specific time of day and for an allotted amount of time, because quarantined life can be extremely labour intensive and stressful. “Work can get more intense when you’re quarantined, and on top of it, you’ve got three meals a day to make, dishes to do, you’ve got to make sure everyone is fed, ensure you’ve got food in the house, take care of children, take care of elders, etc. There’s an interpersonal dynamic and I want to honor that and understand that while some of us might have more time to go inwards and reflect, for others— especially if they’re in busy families—it feels as if they don’t have any time,” she continued. There is no perfect way to fit self-care practices into your day, so it truly is about discovering what works for you. “I think even if we can get fifteen minutes a day it’s fantastic—whatever we can get.
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Having some form of self-care to tone down the effects of the sympathetic brain-state is immensely important to achieve balance when so much time is spent alone or with our immediate family.
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Grace is always with us, regardless; that’s what’s so beautiful. It doesn’t even take two minutes to just tune in to yourself in the middle of your busy day while you’re washing dishes,” noted Dr. Jain. “There’s been some interesting research around gratitude and gratitude practices,” Dr. Bentz expanded, “for instance journaling what you’re grateful for. The research is showing some neurological changes happen just by doing that.” With uncertainty underlining every day and a foggy future ahead of us with no clear path forward, what can we do to feel calm when nervous sadness threatens to overwhelm? Dr. Bentz says to breathe. “Do some meditation with breath, because that’s really been proven to keep the vagal pathway healthy,” he explained. “It’s probably one of the premier things that people can do for their health, because it takes care of so many things. It deactivates the sympathetic system in our brain connection and improves gut health.” And because it’s now known that the vagus nerve regulates inflammation, a simple practice of focusing on your
breath and following it in and out for even five, ten, or fifteen minutes is beneficial. Dr. Jain’s Conscious and Healing Initiative’s Facebook page hosts a daily twelve-minute meditation practice that is open to anyone who is looking to focus on their breath and calm their body. “Every day at 07:45 Pacific, 10:45 Eastern, and 04:45 European time we have a training mindfulness meditation facilitator that leads us through twelve minutes of guided practice,” she offered. Even though there tends to be an illusion of duality between traditional medicine and alternative medicine to achieve healing, the reality is that we’re an interconnected system and we need to view ourselves as such. “My message to people has been that there are things that we can do that may seem ‘out of the box’ from a scientific or medical point of view, but they’re really not—it’s just an expansion of what we already know from science,” Dr. Bentz noted. However, if we’re lucky enough to be at home caring for loved ones and practicing our self-care routines, we
have the medical community to thank. “Look at how medical professionals are responding; where would we be without them?” Dr. Jain questioned. “All of these doctors, nurses, and so many different folks are just putting themselves at risk to help others. That’s the heart of the healer; that’s who doctors are.” So, rest in the knowledge that all of our brains are struggling to make decisions free from fear, and the resulting feelings are unequivocally normal. As best you can, quash stress and boost immunity with mind-body self-care, and search for interconnections wherever they can be found. Breathe in, breathe out, and be well.
ymore info: facebook: @consciousnessandhealing www.chi.is www.shaminijain.com www.fidalgoislandhealthcenter.com facebook: @drjimbentz www.facethecurrent.com
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Eating for Longevity By Lisa Guy, Naturopath and Founder of Bodhi Organic Tea
If you’re looking for ways to live a longer, healthier life, then following an anti-inflammatory diet is a great place to start. What we eat can have a big impact on how much inflammation is produced in our bodies, as certain foods can either trigger or dampen inflammation. Eating a wholesome diet rich in anti-inflammatory foods, spices, and herbs, and avoiding processed refined foods, is important for preventing inflammation, reducing the risk of chronic disease, and for promoting longevity.
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INFLAMMATION THE ROOT OF CHRONIC DISEASE Inflammation is the body’s natural response to injury, infections, and illness. It plays a vital role in healing the body and protecting us from viruses and bacteria. Without an inflammatory response, wounds and damaged tissues wouldn’t heal. Inflammation should only be a temporary response that dissipates after the healing process is over. Sometimes, however, inflammation persists and becomes chronic and this is when it can do more harm than good. When inflammation becomes chronic it increases the risk of chronic disease. Inflammation is said to be the root of almost all diseases including cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, type-2 diabetes, asthma, obesity, inflammatory bowel conditions, autoimmune diseases, and leaky gut. Scientists have found a strong correlation between inflammation levels and a person’s lifespan. According to a study published in the journal Lancet, low levels of inflammation in the body is a powerful predictor of longevity in people who live over 100 years old. (1) Chronic, systemic low-grade inflammation often goes undetected for years as it silently damages tissues in the body until disease sets in. It’s often only when signs and symptoms of disease appear that we become aware of it. Chronic inflammation can be caused by a number of different factors including an overactive immune system (autoimmunity), an underlying infection that the body’s trying to fight, or some repetitive physical stress on a certain part of the body. Poor diet, long-term stress, food allergies (e.g. Crohn’s disease), and a sedentary lifestyle can all contribute to chronic inflammation in the body.
EATING FOR LONGEVITY Here are some top dietary and lifestyle tips for preventing inflammation to promote a long and healthy life: LOWER INFLAMMATION WITH LOW GI (GLYCEMIC INDEX) FOODS Keeping your insulin levels low will help prevent the build-up of inflammation. Eating refined sugary foods regularly elevates glucose and insulin levels and will increase inflammation throughout the body. Some of the best ways to maintain low insulin levels is to regularly exercise and limit refined junk foods. Exercise is one of the best ways to normalise insulin levels and prevent insulin resistance. When insulin
resistance occurs, the cells are unable to effectively use insulin to absorb glucose, so glucose starts to build up in the blood. Other important ways to maintain healthy insulin levels are to avoid refined grains like white breads, rice, and crackers, and to steer clear of processed foods that are rich in refined sugars like breakfast cereals, biscuits, cakes, muesli bars, and soft drinks. To help keep insulin levels in check, you should be choosing nutritious unprocessed foods that have a low GI including unprocessed whole grains (whole oats, grainy bread, brown basmati, wild rice, buckwheat), most fruits (not fruit juice), vegetables, legumes, raw nuts and seeds (nut butters, tahini, quinoa), and wild fish. www.facethecurrent.com
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AVOID PROCESSED FOODS New research suggests that people who eat wholesome diets rich in fruits and vegetables and who avoid processed foods have a lower risk of death at an early age. (2) Processed foods contain highly inflammatory ingredients like refined oils (vegetable oils) and sugars (including high-fructose corn syrup) that can produce inflammatory compounds called cytokines in the body.Vegetable oils including corn, safflower, sunflower, soy, and peanut oils quickly oxidise when heated and form trans-fats and aldehydes, which are highly inflammatory. These oils are also high in omega-6 fats which are important in moderation but become inflammatory when eaten in excess. One of the best ways to make the change to an anti-inflammatory diet is to avoid eating processed foods. Choosing to eat a diet rich in wholesome, natural, unprocessed foods that are full of antioxidants, phytochemicals, and nutrients that are anti-inflammatory will help fight against inflammation and promote a longer life. Stock your kitchen with fresh fruits, vegetables, legumes, avocados, raw nuts and seeds and nut butters, tahini, quinoa, oily wild fish, and healthy oils like olive, avocado, flaxseed, and macadamia nut.
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Make sure to properly store your oils in a cool, dark place. Olive oil is a great choice for baking and cooking at a moderate temperature. Avocado, flax, extra virgin olive, and macadamia nut oils are all excellent oils to drizzle over salads and veggies and are also great for dressings and dips.
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Moderate amounts of fructose from whole fruit is healthy, however it’s when people consume large amounts of refined fructose from processed foods that it can contribute to inflammation in the body and an increased risk of diseases like obesity, cancer, fatty liver, insulin resistance, and type-2 diabetes.
Regular exercise is an excellent way to lower chronic inflammation in the body. Unfortunately, the average person spends around ten hours a day sitting at their desk. Sitting for long periods of time can have a negative impact on your health and is a risk factor for insulin resistance. Research has shown that sitting for more than eight hours a day can increase your risk of type-2 diabetes by a whopping 90%. (4)
Large epidemiological studies have shown strong health benefits of following a Mediterranean diet for reducing the risk of a number of chronic diseases including heart disease, and for increasing life expectancy (3). The Mediterranean diet’s health and longevity benefits are said to be due to its combination of mainly plant-based antioxidant and anti-inflammatory rich foods such as fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, unprocessed grains, and olive oil, along with oily fish and a low consumption of meats.
To help keep you moving throughout the day when you’re working, set a reminder every hour to get up and move around. Aim to do around 10,000 steps each day by choosing to walk to walk or the grocery store, or to pick up your kids instead of taking a car. Working at a stand-up desk can also help. Try doing some squats or leg raises while working. Schedule in some high intensity training or weight training during the week, too. This will help stimulate your muscles to release myokines, antiinflammatory chemical messengers that inhibit the release of inflammatory molecules (cytokines).
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EAT THE RAINBOW Fruits and vegetables are rich in antiinflammatory flavonoids, carotenoids, and vitamin C. Berries (blueberries, raspberries, acai, strawberries, black berries), dark green leafy vegetables (kale, Swiss chard, spinach), beetroot, cherries, pomegranates, oranges, tomatoes, lemons, carrots, kiwi, papaya, broccoli, avocado, and mangoes are all loaded with these important anti-inflammatory compounds. Pineapple contains bromelain which is an enzyme that helps reduce inflammation and aids digestion. (5) If you find it difficult to get your daily dose of vegetables, try having a veggie juice or a green smoothie to up your intake of green leaves. Some excellent inflammation-busting veggie juice combinations are carrot, beetroot, celery, apple and ginger; and pineapple, spinach, mint, lemon, celery and cucumber. TEAS FOR LONGEVITY Swap your morning coffee for a delicious cup of liquorice, ginger, or chamomile tea. These fabulous herbs have been used by herbalists for centuries for their anti-inflammatory properties. Cinnamon and turmeric are also excellent antiinflammatory botanicals that can be enjoyed in chai or added to hot almond or coconut milk for a delicious anti-inflammatory latte. Studies have found that green and rose hip teas are also great choices as they help dampen inflammation throughout the body. (6,7) Green tea’s antiinflammatory action is due to its high levels of polyphenols called epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). RAW NUTS AND SEEDS Turn your snacks, smoothies, breakfast cereals, and salads into super anti-inflammatory meals by adding a handful of raw nuts and seeds like walnuts, Brazil nuts, cashews, almonds, hazelnuts, chia, hemp and flax seeds, sunflower seeds, and pepitas. These nutritional powerhouses provide beneficial unsaturated fats including essential omega-3 fats (found in chia and flax seeds, and walnuts), vitamin E, and zinc, which have antiinflammatory actions. Nut butters and tahini (sesame seeds) are also delicious ways to enjoy these anti-inflammatory foods. A study found that people who eat at least three servings of nuts per week had a 39% lower risk of premature death. (8) www.facethecurrent.com
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OPTIMIZE YOUR GUT HEALTH A healthy balance of beneficial gut microbiome (bacteria) is important for supporting good gut health and for warding off gut inflammation. Problems with microbiome can contribute to digestive system conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome and leaky gut, and even depression, arthritis, and poor immunity. Including fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, and miso with meals is a great way to boost your beneficial gut bacteria. Taking a good quality multi-strain daily probiotic supplement is also recommended to help maintain a healthy and balanced gut microbiome and to protect against inflammation. SPICE UP YOUR MEALS Spice up your meals by adding fresh or ground ginger, turmeric, garlic, curry powder, cinnamon, and chilli. These well-known antiinflammatory herbs will not only add plenty of flavour to meals, but they will also help fight inflammation. LIMIT RED MEAT There have been several studies that show health benefits associated with eating a diet low in meat. (9) Plant-based diets are associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality compared to diets including meat. (10) Low meat consumption is associated with longevity. (11) Excessive red meat consumption can promote inflammation in the body. Red meat and processed deli meats are pro-inflammatory foods. If you like to include some red meat in your diet, buy organic and grass-fed as commercially grown meats are higher in inflammatory compounds. Try marinating your meat in olive oil and garlic as this will form a protective coating on the meat that will help to reduce the formation of inflammatory compounds when cooked. Always cook your meat on low-to-medium temperature and try not to burn your meat. IMPORTANT ANTI-INFLAMMATORY NUTRIENTS There are a number of vitamins and minerals that have antiinflammatory properties, which are essential to good health and longevity. Vitamin A is an immune enhancer and anti-inflammatory nutrient that’s found in cod liver oil, orange and yellow fruits and vegetables, and green leafy veggies in the form of beta-carotene (which is converted to vitamin A in the body). Zinc is another essential mineral required for healthy immune function and for its anti-inflammatory action. Zinc is found in fish, legumes, nuts, and seeds. Quercetin is a flavonoid known for its powerful antioxidant and antiinflammatory effects. Good sources of quercetin include black grapes, raspberries, broccoli, kale, onions, and apples. Vitamin E is another nutrient that has been found to have potent anti-
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inflammatory action.You will find vitamin E in foods such as avocados, olive oil, raw nuts and seeds, and wild oily fish. Oily fish are rich in beneficial omega-3 fats, so they make a fantastic addition to an anti-inflammatory diet. Alaskan wild salmon, trout, cod, mackerel, and sardines are all good choices. Tuna, especially tinned “chunk” tuna made from large tuna, are notoriously high in mercury so this should be an occasional fish. If you do buy tinned tuna, go for Skipjack “light” tuna that’s made from smaller fish. Taking a good quality fish oil or krill oil supplement is also a great way to increase your antiinflammatory omega-3 fats. Beneficial unsaturated fats found in avocado, raw nuts and seeds (including their oils, tahini, and nut butters), and extra virgin olive oil also have a potent antiinflammatory action. Following an anti-inflammatory diet rich in plant-based foods, spices, and herbs is an important way to stave off chronic disease and to help you
live a longer and healthier life. Aim to make small positive changes to your diet each week. Clear out your cupboards of unhealthy processed foods and replace them with wholesome alternatives. Go to your local farmers’ market and stock up on fresh fruits and vegetables. Make eating for longevity fun and delicious. Buy yourself some plant-based cookbooks and start experimenting in your kitchen with new recipes. Your body will love you for it. REFERENCES: (1)
Yasumichi Arai et al. Inflammation, But Not Telomere Length, Predicts Successful Ageing at Extreme Old Age: A Longitudinal Study of Semisupercentenarians. The Lancet,Vol 2, Issue 10, 2015, pg 1549-1558.
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J. Kaluza et al. Influence of anti-inflamatory diet and smoking on mortality and survival in men and women: two prospective cohort studies. Journal of Internal Medicine, 2019, 285;75-91
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Miguel A. Martinez-Gonzalez. Mediterranean diet and life expectancy; beyond olive oil, fruits and vegetables. Curr Opin Clin Nutri Metab Care. 2016 Nov; 19(6): 401-407.
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(5)
Aviroop Biswas et al. Sedentary Time and Its Association with Risk for Disease Incidence, Mortality, and Hospitalization in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Annals of Internal Medicine. Muller S et al. Placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial on the immunomodulating activities
of low- and high-dose bromelain after oral administration - new evidence on the antiinflammatory mode of action of bromelain. Phytotherapy Res. 2013 Feb;27(2):199-204. (6)
Priyanka Chatterjee. Evaluation of antiinflammatory effects of green tea and black tea: A comparative in vitro study. J Adv Pharm Technol Res. 2012 Apr-Jun; 3(2): 136–138.
(7)
Winther K1, Rein E, Kharazmi A. The anti-inflammatory properties of rosehip. Inflammopharmacology, 1999.
(8)
Guasch-Ferre M. et al. Frequency of nut comsumption and mortality risk in the PREDIMED nutrition intervention trial. BMC Med. 2013 Jul 16;11:164.
(9)
Campbell TC, Campbell TM., II . The China study: the most comprehensive study of nutrition ever conducted and the startling implications for diet, weight loss and long-term health. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books; 2006. May 11
(10) Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on the dietary guidelines for Americans, 2010: to the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Washington, DC: Agriculture Research Service, US Department of Agriculture, US Department of Health and Human Services; 2010. May, (11) Sinha R, Cross AJ, Graubard BI, Leitzmann MF, Schatzkin A. Meat intake and mortality: a prospective study of over half a million people. Arch Intern Med. 2009 Mar 23;169(6):562– 71.
ymore info: www.artofhealing.com.au www.bodhiorganictea.com www.facethecurrent.com
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