The Eden Magazine June 2022

EDEN T

JUNE 2 0

H

E

A M GAZINE

SPIRITUAL BEINGS OR JUST PLAIN OLD SOUL

By Zee

CHAKRAS

FROM A SHAMANIC

PERSPECTIVE

By Annika Panotzki

Silvia

CHIAVE CONSUL GENERAL OF ITALY IN LOS ANGELES

HOW

INTERMITTENT SILENCE

HELPS YOU PREPARE

FOR MEETINGS

By Dr. Krisha Bhatta

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The Eden Magazine

@The Eden Magazine

Photo by Jess Bailey

@The Eden Magazine

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DINA MORRONE

Maryam Morrison

JOE SANTOS, JR.

PHYLLIS KING

EDWARD HAKOPIAN

ALEXIA MELOCCHI

ARTIN MARDIROSIAN

ANGELA DUNNING

ZEE

SHERI DETERMAN

BEN ROLLINS

SASHA GARY

SHERRI CORTLAND

GRETA PAZZAGLIA

GREG DOHERTY

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PHILIP SMITH

ISABELLE RUEN

MEET OUR TEAM

Photo by ISABELLE RUEN

Discover the path to a peaceful life among other living beings. We are all made of vibration and light in the universe to manifest our energy around all livingness.

EDEN T H E

MAGAZINE

Since 2010 The Eden Magazine is a free online publication focuses on spreading compassion to all Sentient Beings living in a healing and peaceful world FOUNDER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MARYAM MORRISON EXECUTIVE EDITOR/ CONTRIBUTING WRITER DINA MORRONE COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR/ CONTRIBUTING WRITER ALEXIA MELOCCHI CONTRIBUTING WRITERS ZEE SASHA GARY PHYLLIS KING JOE SANTOS, JR. ANGELA DUNNING SHERRI CORTLAND JAYITA BHATTACHARJEE GUEST WRITER PHILIP SMITH CONTRIBUTING STYLISTS + MAKEUP ARTIST EDWARD HAKOPIAN GRAPHICS & PHOTOGRAPHY GREG DOHERTY BEN ROLLINS ISABELLE RUEN SHERI DETERMAN GRETA PAZZAGLIA ARTIN MARDIROSIAN (Nexision)

JSQUARED PHOTOGRAPHY @J2PIX

WEBSITE www.theedenmagazine.com 325 N. Maple Dr. Po Box 5132 Beverly Hills, CA 90209

To purchase a copy visit us in www.theedenmagazine.com Eden Magazine is a non-profit monthly online magazine. We aim to create a better environment where we live among other living beings in peace and harmony.

We support artists that their work matches our criteria. If you would like to submit your artwork, article or/and your photography for our future issues please contact Maryam Morrison at; maryammorrison@theedenmagazine.com The Eden Magazine reviews article content for accuracy before the date of publication. The views expressed in the articles reflect the author(s) opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher and editor. The published material, adverts, editorials, and all other content is published in good faith.

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Table of Contents 10

SILVIA CHIAVE

By Dina Morrone

24

ACCEPTANCE AND CHANGE

By Lauren Walker

34

24

28

HOW INTERMITTENT SILENCE HELPS YOU PREPARE FOR MEETINGS

By Dr. Krisha Bhatta

34

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WHY & HOW LIFE CENTERED THERAPHY WORKS

By Andrew Hahn & Joan Beckett

38

38

YOUR SEASONAL ALLERGIES MAY BE A WHOLE LOT WORSE THIS YEAR DUE TO THE PANDEMIC

By Bryce Wylde

44

SUPPORTING PEOPLE WITH INTERLLECTUAL DISABILITIES AS THEY AGE

By Dr. Craig Escude

48

AUTOMATIC WRITING

By Sherri Cortland

48

52

CHAKRAS FROM A SHAMANIC PERSPECTIVE

By Annika Panotzki

56

OXYMORON SWEET SORROW

By Jayita Bhattacharjee

62

28

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LEARN THIS ONE LIFE LAW EVERYTHING WILL MAKE SENSE

By Phyllis King

52

Cover by JSquared Photography @j2pix

Life is Essential, Feel it 66

SPIRITUAL BEINGS OR JUST PLAIN OLD SPIRIT

By Zee

76

66

TRANSFORMING OUR LIFE LAW EVERYTHING WILL MAKE SENSE

By Angela Dunning

80

AN INTERVIEW WITH JERRY SARGEANT

82

THAT'S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR

By Joe Santos Jr.

76

86

OPENNESS IN EPHESUS WITH BELOVED MOTHER MARY

By Ferose Dada

90

IT'S TIME TO GO DEEPER

By Jolie Dawn

94

THE LOVING BREATH OF ABUNDANCE

By Heidi Connolly

82 86

90

98

94

YES, DROUGH REALLY IS THAT BAD

By Theo Whit Comb (Covering Climate Now)

98

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"Clean water, the essence of life and a birthright for everyone, must become available to all people now"

Photo by SILA BAISCH

~Jean-Michel Cousteau

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Silvia Chiave

By Dina Morrone

Consul General of Italy in Los Angeles

She is a force to be reckoned with - wife, mother, dedicated professional at the top of her game, passionate about theatre, literature, paragliding, horses, cooking, and staying fit through Pilates.

She advocates for women and women’s issues and recently co-produced the film One Of Us, which gives visibility to several Italian women of all sectors and depicts the underrepresented female face of today’s migrations.

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Silvia, where were you born, and in which city did you grow up?

I was born in Milano, but I grew up between Rome, France, Senegal, and Venezuela because my parents worked in the Foreign Service, and we would move every four years. So since childhood, I have enjoyed a pretty diverse environment, thus learning the very value of diversity. When I was so young, traveling the world also shaped me into an adaptable person, capable of rapidly adjusting to new conditions and thoroughly enjoying any new experience around the globe. As a "third culture kid," I also developed a strong bond with my country, Italy, where I longed to go back, even for short periods, to find my roots and rediscover my personal and family history. And this is why, after attending a French school, I decided to go back to Italy for college and therefore spent the very last part of my teenage years in Milano. For me, now, home is the present, not a space concept but a time concept: the place I live in now. L.A. has been home since the first day I arrived.

What were some of your childhood passions and extracurricular activities you enjoyed doing?

As a kid, I loved horse riding. I had always wanted a pet to take along with me on my multiple travels, but my parents struggled to make me understand that a life like the one we led wasn't suitable for pets. So one day, when I started horse riding in Caracas, they purchased a horse for me, my half-Arabic blooded Alfajarin. Whenever I had time, I'd go to the club – a military horse riding club – to cultivate this hobby. Paragliding has also always been a latent passion. I still remember watching people fly as a kid. Still, it was not

before I turned 28, when I was already working as a diplomat in Rome, that I could eventually enroll in a course. That's where I met my husband: he owned one of the first schools in Italy, and he taught me how to fly, but also the beauty of this wonderful activity that conciliates freedom, the power of silence, and the respect for the environment. I eventually got my license to carry people and became an assistant instructor at the school.

When did you know you wanted to pursue a diplomatic career, and what steps did you take to embark on this path?

The nomadic life is almost in my genes, and I must say it is quite addictive. While I was always in search of my Italian roots and developed a strong attachment to my present and the place I was living in, I also nurtured a profound curiosity about what the world has to offer and decided life was too short not to try and enjoy the most of it.

My parents were also an important example and greatly encouraged my brother and me to follow our path - my brother is a designer – and pursue our objectives with determination, giving us the tools to find our way in life. In college, I studied economics, but with an international specialization, and after that, I took a Master in International Affairs to prepare for the Foreign Service exam. It is very aleatory, and there is a lot of competition, so one studies a lot and sometimes for years without having the certainty to succeed. I was very determined but also lucky. My first attempt was successful. My significant comparative advantage was that I knew four languages – Italian, French, English, and Spanish – and I could concentrate on the other subjects.

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You have traveled extensively. Is there one place that stands out that has had a significant impact on you? And what has that place taught you about yourself?

This question is a difficult one! Likewise, when I'm asked where I'd like to be posted next, I don't have a clue. I believe every country in the world is worth living in for a few years, and the bath in any culture is enriching. All the places I've lived are linked to a particular phase of my development, childhood, and adulthood. Therefore, they all impacted who I am today. I don't remember much of Dakar, where I lived until I was 8, but I still carry those West African vibes and the sense of freedom that only a city where you spend a lot of time outdoors can give. Caracas, with its tropical atmosphere and colors, coincided with a teenage Silvia. In contrast, New Delhi, my first posting abroad by myself, gave me a sense of how profound and difficult it can be to understand such a millenary culture. The clean and tidy Luxembourg offered me the thrill of appreciating what the deep heart of continental Europe has to offer. Finally, I returned to the Mediterranean when I was assigned to Tunis, a country so close to Southern Italy which made me feel so at home and where my children spent the first months of their lives.

You are a mother to twins, a wife, and a dedicated professional at the top of your game! What can you share with other women about the rewards and challenges of being able to embrace all three? And what are you most proud of with regards to family?

I am very lucky because I have support all around. When people ask me how I can handle it all, I always reply that there are plenty of moms out there with a job, less fun than mine, no help, no partner, no nannies, and those moms should be an example! I have help at home and a very present family back in Europe, always keen to take a plane and travel here if their support is needed. Even though my job can be demanding, I try and keep myself grounded in the important things like being able to spend time with my little ones and my husband and also take time for myself to recharge in challenging times. What I'd say to other women is to try to share the burden and be supportive of others. Too often, we tend to keep it all on our shoulders until we break down. In sociology, the triple burden is mentioned – reproductive, productive, and community work – as the main factor that is a barrier to women's empowerment.

Sometimes, we perpetuate this narrative.

The thing I am most proud of is to see my children happy, accomplished, and blossom as individuals. And also to give them an example of a different family – where mom works and dad is at home with them. It's easy because they are almost four, but still, I often think they have a beautiful childhood where we also try and make them understand they are privileged and fortunate. I am proud when they behave like they've understood this concept.

The thing I am most proud of is to see my children happy, accomplished, and blossom as individuals. And also to give them an example of a different family – where mom works and dad is at home with them.

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Recently, you co-produced a film, One Of Us, with director/producer Chiara Tilesi. Please tell us about this film. How did you become involved, and what would you like women to take away from it?

One Of Us has been a very important project for me, both work-wise and personally. It was born after I asked Chiara, a great woman, to be a protagonist of our International Women's Day Celebrations, and she wanted to do something with me because we felt we shared the same views. Thus, we decided to work together behind the scenes to give visibility to several Italian women of all sectors and depict the underrepresented female face of today's migrations. It is a world made of professionals in all sectors, including science, space, university, literature, business, venture capital, and entertainment and cinema. Also, we both felt there's still a need to change the narrative around women, who often are depicted as objects instead of subjects, victims, and not actual protagonists in our societies. Therefore, another vision of women, besides that of always having to be young, perfect, beautiful, and professional mothers and caregivers, all at the same time, is possible! The project was a success in its first edition in 2021, so we did it again!

Also, our Embassy in Washington DC adopted it, and in 2022 there was an East Coast and West Coast edition. The initiative also proved that women can work well together. The other producer, Debora Guetta, is also a wonderful lady, and so is the composer of the original music, Elena Maro.

What would you like to say to young women pursuing a diplomatic career?

I am part of DID, an Association of Italian female diplomats with gender parity in the Italian foreign service as its primary goal, through mutual support and exchange of ideas: the Association favors an inclusive culture in our Administration. Furthermore, it fosters the conciliation between the working and the private spheres.

In this framework, there is a program of mentorship where the more experienced of us who adhered to the program are coupled with younger ones to mentor and advise on how our world works, particularly women.

Things change fast, and I have been working for 22 years now, so I am not sure my advice is still valid, but what's for sure is that while being very rewarding, this is not an easy life, especially for families. All of us, especially women, need to find our way to conciliate everything.

The most challenging thing is finding a partner who will be keen to follow, and this is still very true for my female colleagues. I am blessed to have a wonderful husband playing the role of "spouse of" with grace and pride, but this hasn't been without sacrifices from both sides. The good thing about our job, on the other hand, is that there are plenty of choices (first of all, we can decide to work for a limited time in almost the entire world) and we can, as I did, make choices that are functional to our private lives and needs. Bottom line: yes, it is not easy. Yes, you'll have to make sacrifices and be very careful on how to handle it all with your family and the children if you have children, but also, this career can and will allow you to manage and make the right choices - those that work for you.

What has been one of your most rewarding professional accomplishments?

It is difficult to say, but looking back, being able to help people that want to feel the Italian Institutions close to them has been immensely rewarding. I like the Consular job for this reason and for the capacity to problem-solve that will directly impact the lives of our nationals abroad. In the most recent past, the pandemic was a great exercise of leadership because we needed to reorganize as things outside changed rapidly, 15 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

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at a fast pace. To help nationals find their way in moments of great uncertainty and give updated information with continuously changing rules and laws. In this regard, I am very proud of my staff, which was always on the front lines and continued to do its best to offer the most services possible to our nationals. It was also good to see how the crisis affected uniting the community around the Consulate. And to have received gratitude and appreciation for the work we did, 24 hours a day, and help them all despite all difficulties.

Please share a treasured memory of your time in Los Angeles that you will cherish for a long time?

And what does L.A. have to offer that no other place you've been to has?

During my time posted here in L.A., I got into the habit of printing books of pictures of special events and my daily life because there are so many memories to treasure and keep for the future, and all are special. From a personal point of view, it is the city where my children, who came here at the age of four months, actually spent their whole life to date. As far as my job is concerned, L.A. is a unique place and a distinctive posting, everything happens or has happened around here, and it is much more than many think. The entertainment business is only one of the characteristics of this remarkable place: it surprised me, as it surprises many, to find out how much else there is in sectors like aerospace, finance, startups, hi-tech, research, university, and how many opportunities Italian companies and individuals can find in L.A. It's very challenging and inspiring at the same time to be able to go in a mere 24 hours from an inauguration with a speech at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures to a meeting with a Jet Propulsion Laboratory - this is extraordinary! I'll forever cherish the opportunities this variety of fields and activities has given me - the possibility to observe this ecosystem where all seems integrated. The 2020 Golden Globes and the 2022 Academy Awards were among other memorable moments. They were once-in-a-lifetime experiences for a person like me, who is not part of the entertainment business unless I'm nominated sometime in the future!

Living in Los Angeles is like living in a movie.

podcasts or audiobooks – time to read for pleasure is never enough – and I enjoy hiking with my little ones. I walk to the office and back– my commute is very short, but that allows me to walk half an hour every day. As soon as the sun comes out, we like spending time on the beach, which also recharges me. Finally, finding a way to take some time for myself or my family, even if we don't do anything special but simply enjoy being together. That makes me feel good.

If you could perform in a Hollywood movie or Broadway show from the past or present, which show/role would you choose and why?

One of my passions is theatre. In all my other postings, I could dedicate some time to acting. But, paradoxically, in L.A., the professionalism is so high in this field I had to abandon the idea of acting for fun and performing in theaters with non-professionals, as I had done in Tunis or Rome. I'm very dramatic, and tragic roles have always suited me best. Making people laugh is a quality I've never had. Everybody takes me so seriously. I am fond of movies in costume, so I'd say I would like to play the role of Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons or the one of Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind. Roles that show how it looked to be a strong woman at a time when female power was mainly behind the curtains and how powerful women were even in times when it was difficult for them to emerge and be independent.

What do you do to stay mentally focused and physically healthy?

There is a Latin saying: "mens sana in corpore sano", and what better place than Los Angeles to put this motto into practice? I am a pilates addict, and before the pandemic, I used to go to a gym that eventually closed for good. During all that time, I did practice pilates at home. To be able to do this, I even purchased a reformer machine. I also walk whenever I can. Listen to

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Is there a charity or cause dear to you, and why?

My parents transmitted a strong sense of justice and the importance of equality to me. This is why I tend to stand with the weaker and become passionate about causes that involve minorities. I was raised with the principle that democracy is not mainly expressed through the will of majorities but by the respect of minorities. In this framework, since I believe women are a minority in the world I incidentally belong to, the achievement of gender parity, especially in male-dominated fields like the one I work in, is a cause I feel critical. I've had brilliant examples in all my career – the latest being our Italian Ambassador in Washington, Mariangela Zappia, the first woman ever nominated to this post, one that leads by example. I want to pass on their teachings to younger generations. I also feel particularly close to LGBTQ+ causes, especially knowing there are places where their rights are ignored when not violated. I try and do my best to help LGBTQ+ individuals and families. Also, I am involved with charities like Action Aid, which I support by sponsoring children in Africa. I was a child when we lived in Dakar and had the chance to see and touch with my own hands the less fortunate.

Tell us about a perfect meal you like to prepare.

I love to bake and prepare everything at home from scratch. So I make my bread, pizza, pasta, cookies, cakes, yogurt, and the typical Italian holiday sweets like Panettone, Pandoro, and Colomba, which are a genuine headache to prepare and require a lot of attention to detail and technical capacities. In our front yard, we cultivate pumpkin plants to have the flowers – fiori di zucca – I fry with a stuffing of mozzarella and anchovies, which is the original Roman recipe. By the way, I also prepare mozzarella at home! The only issue is that I don't dare to offer it to guests because it's made with raw milk. So my perfect meal is the one where all is homemade, and every ingredient is known. Of course, I don't have much time for all of this, but it's so relaxing that I find time at night or on weekends.

Outside of work, what are some hobbies you enjoy doing with your children?

My children are not quite four years old, so some of my hobbies – like paragliding or snowboarding – are not yet suitable for them, but others like cooking, travel­ ing, reading, or hiking are! I take my kids everywhere.

Before the pandemic, when I visited the other States – Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico – I always traveled with my family and stayed in the place for the week­end. While I was working on the weekdays, they would hang around and visit, while on the weekend, we could be tourists together. They've been to Santa Fe,

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Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Ojai, and San Diego, although they were too young to remem­ber. In the summer of 2020, we didn't dare take a plane or go to hotels for vacations. Instead, we rented an R.V. and drove up to Oregon and back for a ride of over 3000 miles. The children were only two years old, and they won't remember, but I hope they'll keep that sense of freedom and joy that only being on the road can give. We also walk a lot together, so much so that to celebrate our National Day, this year on the 5th of June, we organized a FUN RUN with a street festival for families open to all ages with a lot of prizes to win!

Check it out at www.italyrun.org.

Daily, we cook: we make bread, pasta, gnocchi, and cookies. Like all children, they love manual activi­ties.

They follow me, but I am happy that they can now recognize different kinds of dough. I also hope I can impart my love for reading. We read together at least once every day, and they always ask for new books.

Do you have some parting words for our readers?

I will miss you, L.A.! A lot. I am excited to see where my life and career will take me next, but I will always have a special place in my heart for this extraordinary place that has given me so much.

Special thanks to: Silvia Chiave Enrica Dente degli Scrovegni Alessandra Tarissi De Jacobis & Giorgio Guerra (Entertainment Attorney in Italy and California) JSquared Photography @j2pix Lisa Joy @lisajoymakeup

Joe Magnani & Jared Schlachet

ARE

JSquared @J2PIX

Joe Magnani and Jared Schlachet, the duo that makes up JSquared Photography, have been working together for over a decade and remain one of the most sought-after photography pairs in the industry. From studio and network work to publications, advertising, and brands, JSquared is known for their impeccable technical skills and their ability to bring creative visions to life in print and on-screen.

Joe and Jared attended the prestigious Brooks Institute of Photography, honing in on their craft from a young age. While they met after graduation, the duo began assisting one another on solo jobs and quickly realized that together, they could make magic happen on set. Their way of working is unique; two sets of eyes working together, with each photographer taking their turn behind the camera while the other directs each frame, guiding the shooter and ensuring every photo captures a detailed moment in time.

JSquared has become a favorite amongst talent over the years with their collaborative, no-ego, down-to-earth energy. Actors they have photographed include Mark Ruffalo, Lena Waithe, John Legend, Awkwafina, Taraji P. Henson, Bob Odenkirk, Heidi Klum, and America Ferrera, Lana Condor, Elle Fanning, Zoë Kravitz, Tracee Ellis Ross, Justin Hartley, and Omari Hardwick, to name a few.

Corporate clients include Apple, Amazon Studios, CW Network, HarperCollins, Harrah's So-Cal, Humane Society, In-N-Out Burger, KCET, The Ludacris Foundation, Netflix, Neutrogena, O, The Oprah Winfrey Network, Ora TV, Paul Mitchell, Penguin Random House, PETA, Revlon/Elizabeth Ardon, Simon & Schuster, Sony BMG, Too Faced Cosmetics, Under Armor, United Health Care, UNICEF, and Warner Bros.

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and digital outlets globally, reaching hundreds of millions of people. Outlets include Billboard, Buzzfeed, CBS Watch!, Cosmopolitan, Emmy Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, GQ, The Hollywood Reporter, Inked, LA Confidential, LA Weekly, Los Angeles Magazine, Men's Health, People, Redbook, Shape Magazine, Today's Black Woman, TV Insider, Women's Health, TheWrap, and AARP. Originally from the Bay area, when he isn't on set you can find Joe in the outdoors; camping, fishing, mountain biking, and road-tripping. Jared, a father of two girls, grew up in the Denver area and notes he has loved photography since high school. A motorcycle enthusiast, you can find Jared cruising up and down the coast on his Harley-Davidson when he isn't behind the camera. Joe and Jared currently reside in the Los Angeles area.

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Acceptance AND

Change

By Lauren Walker

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I

f you go into a forest and look at the trees, they are all different, and they are all beautiful, and they all have their own place on the land. When two trees grow too close to each other, they often end up entwining themselves and growing together. In the highest alpine valleys, there are tiny little flowers that grow out of rocks, a testament to the fact that nourishment and life are everywhere. The sun does not discriminate on whom it shines.

It is high time that we also stop discriminating against ourselves or others. We are all children of the aether. We are all worthy of our particular place on this planet, worthy of that life- giving sunlight, worthy of love.

Resilience and regeneration are the lessons we glean simply by paying attention to the natural world.

We see that in the way ecosystems regulate themselves. When there are too many rabbits, the fox and wolf populations increase, and when the rabbits decrease, so too do the foxes and the wolves. We also see that if the toxins or the dams or the buildings are taken away, the earth will very quickly heal and revert back to the pristine abundance and diversity that are her hallmark. We are the same. If we remove adversity, we can heal and thrive. If you can remember that you, too, are made up of the very same things as the earth and that you are a part of the earth, it makes it easier to come back to that center, to come back to the place of deep nourishment, deep love, and self-regard. This is the place where you get grounded again, centered and peaceful, and can build the reserves to inhabit your life fully. You are built of the same resilient essence as the earth, and sometimes you just need to remember that.

Healing the World Paul Stamets had a debilitating stutter. For

as long as he could remember, he couldn’t get through a single sentence. Whenever someone tried to engage with him in any way, he would look down at the ground to avoid eye contact and humiliation. Staring at the ground for most of his life, he noticed things others didn’t.

He found mushrooms and fossils.

Instead of going to an Ivy League university like his two brothers, he got his bachelor’s degree from a state college and then retreated to the woods, where his handicap would go unnoticed. He became a logger.

One day his brother John came to visit him and brought a book on hunting wild mushrooms. By the end of the day, Stamets was hooked. He began to tirelessly study the strange and otherworldly phenomenon of mycelium, which are the roots of the mushroom, and its fruiting body.

Early in his mushroom studies, Paul found a book on psilocybin mushrooms, which had been used in this country to help alcoholics and severe mental health disturbances, with astonishing results. Their use had fallen out of favor due to the culture wars and political maneuvering. But Paul was intrigued and, illegality aside, tried them. He took what is known as a “heroic dose” and climbed to the top of an oak tree, the better to watch the beauty of the gathering clouds. As he started to feel the effects of the mystical experience of his mushroom trip, the clouds became a massive storm, with thunder, pouring rain, and lightning dancing all around him.

He held onto his tree for dear life while experiencing one of the most profound awakenings.

To his utter amazement, when he climbed down from that tree, his stutter was gone!

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Take off your shoes. Walk barefoot.

Find a quiet, beautiful place and sit down on the earth.

Lean up against a tree and hear its heartbeat. Allow yourself to listen. Listen to the sounds outside yourself.

Listen to the sounds inside yourself.

Just listen.

Paul has devoted his life to the scientific studies of mycelium and made discoveries that have major real-world consequences. He has even been contracted by the U.S. government to help find solutions to health crises.

Mycelium has a wide range of uses, many of which Paul has studied and proven out. They are the remediators and regenerators of the earth.

The oldest living structure and the most varied.

They can be used to remove toxins and poisons on the earth. They can do the same in our bodies, having properties that run from healing cancer, mitigating the effects of Alzheimer’s, and reversing the effects of aging. They can be used to make biodegradable products. They sequester carbon.

They support the health of bees, helping overcome colony collapse disorder. Over his lifetime of research, Paul has discovered the way mycelium interconnects the entire planet, communicating in ways that mimic computer networks and our own minds. They might even hold the secret to consciousness itself.1 Paul took his disability to the earth, literally. First when staring at it nonstop as a survival mechanism, and then when holding on to a tree for dear life while essentially reprograming his brain with a substance that came from the deepest interconnections of the earth itself. The earth is the moderating factor of all the elements, and Paul’s story illustrates just that.

If there is one substance that has the possibility of overcoming nearly all of the problems currently facing the planet today, mycelium would

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be a front-runner, and Paul would be the leader who could take us into a cycle of true healing and rebirth.

His life is now devoted to helping the earth heal with the very powers of the earth herself. He has balanced all of the elements around the center of the Earth element—the ability to love and hold dear and precious yourself as your own center, and the earth herself, which nourishes and heals everything.

Practice: Go Out into Nature Take off your shoes. Walk barefoot. Find a quiet, beautiful place and sit down on the earth. Lean up against a tree and hear its heartbeat. Allow yourself to listen. Listen to the sounds outside yourself.

Listen to the sounds inside yourself. Just listen.

Even if you live in a city and don’t have the ability to go off into the wild, you can find a tree and lean against its trunk and press your nose into its skin and your hands into its bark. I often find myself in New York City or Denver, and I go up to the one tree in its square of bare earth, take my shoes off, and stand there, drinking in the healing.

If you’re a new parent who can barely make it through the day, or you work three jobs to make ends meet, or you work the night shift and keep challenging hours, it can be enough to simply touch a flower, gaze at a tree from your window, or look up at the night sky. You are not separate from nature, even if you live in a tall apartment building. You can even bring up a little clump of grass into your apartment and put your bare feet on it to ground you.

If some part of a traumatic experience happened in nature, you may need more support to find the grace of it again. Nature can be cataclysmic and unforgiving, even as it is awe-inspiring. Every year people die on the mountain where I ski, doing what they love. You may have been involved in a flood or a wildfire or a tornado, and the idea of the outside world does not feel safe or rejuvenating. If that is the case for you, try spending time in more defined and tended spaces that still give you the healing vibration, sounds, smells, and clean air without the overwhelmingness of a huge landscape.

Gardens and parks can serve this purpose very well.

So can do something like planting some seeds indoors and watching them sprout on a windowsill.

Even watching a nature documentary can bring you that sense of awe while still allowing you to feel safe and cozy on your own couch.

The Bottom of Temporal Pond In the early autumn, when it’s still nice out and the angles of the sun start to get lower in the sky, I like to do my EMYoga practice outside, at the bottom of the temporal pond. In my yard, I have a small creek that spills into a large pond that rages with water in the early spring. By midsummer, it is usually gone, dried up from a long, hot summer and the end of the snowmelt from the mountains.

At the bottom of this empty pond, there is still a sense of moisture, even after the longest fire season.

There are shoots of grass and wildflowers and longstemmed doilies of lace from the white yarrow that drinks in the moist earth beneath the bottom. The earth is soft clay, and there are hoofprints pressed in all around from the deer who came to drink the last bits of water before it dried up and from those who still search for it after it’s gone.

Down here, ten feet below the rest of the land, in this little bowl, I am held by the earth. It is a perfect place to practice EMYoga. I put my feet on the warm ground; I press my face into the sweet-smelling clay; I grip handfuls of soft moss when I do my downward-facing dog.

My practice becomes full of self-massage, and when I feel the clay of my body right next to the clay of the earth, I feel awe at the miracle of them both.

1. Fantastic Fungi, directed by Louie Schwartzberg, written by Mark Monroe (Los Angeles: Moving Art Studio, 2019), documentary film.

Lauren Walker has been teaching yoga and meditation since 1997 and created Energy Medicine Yoga while teaching at Norwich University, the oldest private military college in the country.

She now teaches EMYoga across the US and internationally. She is frequently quoted and cited as an expert in Yoga Journal, Mantra Magazine, and Yoga Digest, and a feature article about her yoga work was published in The New York Times. Her two previous books, The Energy Medicine Yoga Prescription (2017) and Energy Medicine Yoga: Amplify the Healing Power of Your Yoga Practice (2014), both won the Nautilus Silver Award for Best Mind/Body publication.

In 2016, she was named one of the top 100 most influential yoga teachers in America.

For more of her work, see EMYoga.net Photo by Green Kt Photogrpahy (Kat Gebauer)

27 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

Photo by XtravaganT/Adobestock 28 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e MAY 2022

How Intermittent

Silence Helps You

Prepare for Meetings

By Dr. Krishna Bhatta

M

eetings are a major source of stress in our daily lives, combining general social anxieties with particular worries that what we say or do will not be correct or live up to expectations. As such, it's no wonder that so many of us experience Zoom fatigue these days. Fatigue is an apt word for what happens when our mind becomes overstressed and over-stimulated. Just as your body becomes physically tired from working for too long, your brain will eventually tire from over-use. If you don't allow it to relax, it will become totally exhausted. This can lead to experiencing feelings of increased stress, anxiety, and even anger.

Some of us have found a sanctuary in our homes. For

others, the distractions of children, spouses, pets, and even our neighbors can easily exacerbate the stress of work. We may compensate with music and expensive noise-canceling AirPods, but it is not the outside world that needs to be silent; rather, it is ourselves.

Meetings actually involve two of our three purposes: our general-purpose, which is often considered our profession, and our higher purpose, which is our contribution to those around us. But there is a third and deeper purpose, which is taking care of the inner self. By this, I mean rekindling the eternal flame. That flame can sputter when the mind around it is chaotic and stressed— just before an important meeting or presentation, for example.

29 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

One practice that helps to clear the mind and soothe the flame is intermittent silence. First, we should recognize that our inner self is not empty space; indeed, it is the source of everything we do and achieve in the outer world. Without a strong, peaceful, and positive inner self, our outer efforts will seem fraught at best. With a beautiful, warm light glowing from within, however, our interactions with others will feel natural and sincere.

Intermittent silence is practiced in five stages: 1. Close your mouth. Leave all words and become wordless.

2. Close your eyes. Leave the visual world behind.

3. Practice silent listening. Be aware of the sounds around you but don't try to analyze them.

4. Watch your thoughts silently. You have entered an abstract world of limitless possibility.

5. After three months of practice, silently watch your emotions. Become non-attached from your fear, anxiety, and anger; set them aside in a small box.

About Relaxx App Relaxx's goal is to bring material change to the people of the world by connecting their inner flame with their daily routine. With tools, techniques, content, and an application, we can affect change in people's lives immediately, helping companies and families around the world; the world needs us more than ever.

Dr. Krishna Bhatta is the founder of Relaxx App. The app has a number of great features, including mindfulness, intermittent silence, and meditation to help people sleep, relax, prevent stress and burnout, stay calm, and become more in tune with nature. Relaxx's vision is to become the world's destination for mindfulness, intermittent silence™, meditation, and consciousness. In reality, that translates to being the world's destination for wellness. It's a portable guru, a portable peace and positivity companion. The Relaxx app is available for both Apple and Android devices.

Practice this cycle for at least ten minutes a day.

Don't worry about an intention, whether you are breathing correctly, or anything else for that matter.

Just allow yourself to be, but also be aware of your thoughts simply. When you first begin practicing intermittent silence, your mind may become restless after the first several minutes. Although, if you make this cycle a habit, and especially if you practice in the same place and at the same time every day, your mind will calm itself, and you will find your practice waiting for you.

Keep in mind that you don't need to wait if negative emotions begin to surface before a meeting or if you begin to feel anxious about that next Zoom call on your calendar. When you feel your mind beginning to upset your inner flame, take a moment and try to access that same place of silence. It doesn't matter if you are in a cubicle, a private office, or an apartment with sirens blaring outside. Remember that you are accessing the silence and the peace within yourself.

Do not expect the outside world around you to stop moving. Otherwise, you will find yourself very disappointed.

After you have your moment, you will then find that you are able to go to your meeting — or log onto your Zoom call — without so much stress or anxiety.

Know that when you have connected to yourself, it becomes much easier for you to connect with others and them with you. Peace and Positivity travel with you wherever you go.

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Krishna Bhatta is an author, surgeon, and inventor, currently practicing as chief of urology at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine.

Dr. Bhatta began his life in a small Indian village, attended Patna Medical College in India, and continued his education in the U.K. He completed his research and medical training at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston before settling down in Maine. Dr. Bhatta takes joy in sharing what he has learned and earnestly hopes to further generations' spiritual discoveries. He dreams of a world where eastern wisdom and western discoveries embrace each other to make the world a better place.

Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/krishnauniversecom-109997046621/

31 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

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33 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e MAY 2022

Everything You

Need to Know About Why

and How Life Centered Therapy (LCT) Works

By Andrew Hahn, Psy.D & Joan Beckett, L.M.H.C., MBA, M.A., C.A.G.S

34 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

Photo by Katerina K Photography (@katerinakphotography)

O

ur symptoms can cause us great suffering, and, on another level, they invite us to remember what couldn’t be taken in stride so that we can now master it. This leads to healing. The simplest and most powerful way to heal is through discovering body sensations associated with our suffering. When we bring all our awareness to these body sensations (mindfulness) and choose to become them from the inside out (somatics), the work becomes safer, more effective, and more efficient.

Every body sensation is a member of the community of Soul, just as we are. The only difference between ourselves and all the sensations is that we are the ones who embody the sensations and can choose where to bring attention because the spotlight, so to speak, is on us.

It is not the one we identify with that is the client doing the healing, although they are the ones seeking the healing.

It is Discomfort itself that is the client. We talk directly to Discomforts, and we receptively listen to and share what they have come to say.

The implication of this is that there is no such thing as regression. Everything is happening in the here and now, including our finding sensations that have come to share their stories.

Since there is no regression, there is no need to “conventionally” resource the client by titrating the experience. All the resources needed are to choose to bring a witnessing function and awareness to Sensation and decide to become Sensation.

It’s just an experience we’re having.

It also follows that there can be no such thing as pathology.

In LCT, we believe the client is just in a story that needs to be found and healed.

The work is very simple. Just allow suffering and choose to become aware of the discomfort associated with suffering.

Choose to bring all awareness to the sensation; let it share while you witness and hold the one doing the sharing. This allows it to heal and go back into its pure form, and the discomfort goes away. When that happens, either all the symptoms go away, or our relationship with them changes to such a degree that we are no longer reactive.

35 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

.

With this as an introduction, we will now go into these concepts in more detail.

Part I—A Theory of Life: Re-membering and the Body in the Context of Trauma and Healing Life Centered Therapy Is a Framework That, by Definition Opens to All Possibilities We are presenting a new theory that we hope can create a paradigm shift in the field of psychology.

The shift we are proposing is moving from a focus on any one part of Life, for example, behavior, emotion, or cognition, to one where the Essential Self in the context of a relationship with all Life is foundational. In this model, Life itself is the expert, the person who is healing is the expert reporter on Life, and if there is a facilitator, they are an expert in the framework only.

Any approach that lacks the inclusivity of all of Life by definition is limited. We are asserting that, in order to heal, we need to open to all of Life, and in so doing, we open to every possibility of the cause of your problems and every way of resolving and healing them.

We are asserting that, in order to heal, we need to open to all of Life, and in so doing, we open to every possibility of the cause of your problems and every way of resolving and healing them.

Our Symptoms and Suffering Are an Invitation to “Re-Member” Our difficulties and/or symptoms and the suffering that accompanies them are an invitation to remember and heal. Our basic premise is that any event we are not able to handle creates a traumatic shock.

This shock, at least metaphorically, splits a part of us off, or, to put it differently, it “dis-members” us so that we’re not whole. So, our suffering is an invitation to “remember” and master something we were previously unable to handle in order to become whole. Then, we are no longer stuck. Notice that re-membering has nothing to do with time. It’s about integrity and making whole something that had been split.

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Life Provides Opportunities to “Re-Member” Life provides opportunities to remember the situations we couldn’t handle. Shock creates an engraving in our body. This engraving acts like a magnet, bringing similar events to the originating one until we are finally able to “get it right” and handle the experience with courage/equanimity/grace. The movie, Groundhog Day, is a wonderful example of how the protagonist keeps reliving a day, learning from his experiences, and making one less mistake each run-through until he “gets it right.” We can stop reliving things and accelerate the process of healing by working with the symptoms that Life provides us by activating our trauma and then letting it share its story.

Life Is Always Sending Us Messages In the worldview of LCT, there are no accidents.

Rather there are synchronicities: strange coincidences between our inner and outer worlds that conspire to teach us lessons. Synchronicities may, at first, be completely out of our awareness. By developing a new lens, what may have previously seemed random may, indeed, be recognizably synchronistic. It may benefit you to pay attention to coincidences in your life. They could be created by Life and your unconscious to help you heal.

Life continually works to focus our attention.

Examples may be when we have an odd thought and wonder where it came from, when something peculiar catches our eye, when we speak and have a “slip of the tongue,” or when we can’t get a song out of our heads. If we dismiss or judge these experiences, we may lose out on Life’s invitation.

The Best Way to “Re-Member” Is Through the Body Whenever we encounter a situation that we can’t handle, the experience creates an equivalent uncomfortable body sensation(s). For example, if I asked you, “When you allow your depression, what do you feel in the body?” You might say, “I feel nauseous.”

So, “nauseous” and depression are exactly the same thing. You could say that you’re not depressed at all; the rest of your body feels fine. It is someone named “Nauseous” who is depressed. You are experiencing that being and making the mistake of identifying with them as opposed to knowing that they are just something/someone you are experiencing; they are not who you are. It is technically incorrect to speak with the client by saying something like, “If your tears could talk, what would they say?” This brings us into our heads.

Moreover, we’re asking the wrong person. It is technically correct to talk directly to tears: “Tears, what have you come to share?” It may be strange to open to the possibility that a discomfort is simply something that couldn’t be handled, and every situation that can’t be handled has an associated discomfort. Yet, in our experience, this simple truth is extraordinarily useful.

Every Sensation Has Consciousness and a Life of Its Own Every time there is a situation that can’t be handled, a part of us gets stuck in that moment. That stuck part with its associated discomfort has a life of its own. It was born in a moment and has its own identity, history, and future. It also has its own story to share.

Choose to bring all awareness to the sensation; let it share while you witness and hold the one doing the sharing.

This allows it to heal and go back into its pure form, and the discomfort goes away.

In fact, we could say that we as a Soul are a community comprised of many beings, including ourselves, aspects of ourselves (like roles we play, which many frameworks call “parts”), or portions of ourselves (example: an organ system). We think we are living in the present moment because we haven’t entertained that a member of the community living through us is “dis-membered” and stuck in another time.

The Key Is “Re-Membering” the Root Cause The most powerful way to heal is to discover the root cause—the originating event where the “engraving” crystallized. If we heal a later version, it is like cutting a dandelion at the stem instead of pulling up its roots.

Cutting at the stem has some effect, but the dandelion invariably grows back.

Often, people who have worked on problems that they understandably believed originated in this lifetime and have not gotten all the results they hoped for attain remarkable results when they heal crystallizing traumas that originated in earlier lifetimes. Often when they heal those earlier lifetime traumas, they realize that the issues they were working on in this lifetime were echoes of the original root cause and that nothing new crystallized in their current lifetime. In this situation, invariably, the problems in this lifetime just begin to resolve without needing to be specifically attended to.

Andrew Hahn, Psy.D., a licensed clinical psychologist and podcast host of Guided Self Healing/Fearless Living; and Joan Beckett, L.M.H.C., MBA, M.A., C.A.G.S., a licensed mental health counselor and former divisional controller of a Fortune 100 pharmaceutical company, are thought leaders in the field of consciousness and spiritual, energy and somatic psychology.

They are principals of the Life Centered Therapy Institute.

For more information, please visit www.lifecenteredtherapy.com.

37 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

38 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e MAY 2022

Your seasonal

allergies

MAY BE A WHOLE LOT WORSE THIS YEAR

DUE TO THE

pandemic

By Bryce Wylde, BSc, DHMHS

Be prepared to act quickly at the first sign of itchy, watery eyes and sniffles.

39 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

A

dd "bothersome sneezing and watery eyes" to the list of ways the pandemic may be affecting your quality of life. All that hand sanitizing and social distancing you've been doing may contribute to more severe symptoms this allergy season.

•

sense to avoid bombarding your immune system with other inflammatory agents such as sugar and white flour, which promote inflammatory cytokines. Also, steer clear of excessive alcohol and smoke."

•

Choose homeopathic solutions. "Homeopathic products, such as Similasan Allergy Eye Relief eye drops, activate your body's own defense mechanisms to address the underlying problem. Similasan contains only natural active ingredients (no dyes, chemical vasoconstrictors, decongestants or steroids).

That means, for example, the eye drops can be used as often as needed."

•

Start eating more brightly colored fruits and vegetables. "The mast cells (part of the body's immune system) react to allergies by releasing histamines, which cause itchy eyes, runny nose, sneezing, etc. There's a ton of research showing that the quercetin in some foods helps stabilize the mast cells before they start releasing histamines. Common quercetin-rich foods include apples and onions."

If you want to try avoiding the primary causes of your seasonal allergies, Wylde says testing can help identify the culprits. "In addition to the familiar skin scratch tests, there are blood tests for allergies and sensitivities." But 100% avoidance may not always be possible. "Instead, there are safe, natural solutions to reduce your exposure to allergens and keep annoying symptoms from disrupting your life. The trick is catching them early."

•

But avoid foods that may cause allergy cross-reactivity: "This occurs when proteins in pollen are similar to the proteins found in a particular food. Tree nuts also demonstrate cross-reactivity. This causes tingling and unpleasant itching in the mouth, throat, and lips, as well as an irritated GI. Although not life-threatening, it's actually more common than peanut, milk, egg, and fish allergy, occurring in about 10% of the population.

"By the time most people seek help, they're miserable from a full-blown allergy attack, and vasoconstrictor eye drops and antihistamines (with all their many side effects) may be their only options," explains Wylde. "In the case of conventional eye drops, those can overdry your eyes, so you're exchanging one uncomfortable symptom with another."

"If you have an allergy to tree pollen (especially Birch), then you likely have cross-reactivity to apples, plums, kiwis, carrots, celery, potatoes, hazelnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, and even spices such as oregano, basil, and dill. These may need to be avoided. If your allergy stems from grass pollen, you may want to avoid melons, oranges, kiwi, tomatoes, and peanuts."

How to enjoy more freedom from allergy symptoms • Minimize your exposure to inflammatory agents. "Allergic reactions can contribute to inflammation, which can lead to a whole host of other issues, including speeding the aging process. This isn't to say that inhaling tree • pollen will cause premature aging, but it makes

•

"It's called the hygiene hypothesis," explains Functional Medicine Expert Bryce Wylde, BSc, DHMHS. "Most of us haven't been exposed to typical amounts of viruses or bacteria over the last year or two. When that happens, your immune system can become dysregulated. Once you are re-exposed to seasonal allergens, it is possible your immune response will overreact, and your symptoms will be a whole lot worse than usual. That's simply how the immune system works."

Why you want to be prepared for peak allergy season Pollen, and other airborne allergens, cause cells in the immune system to release histamines.

Those histamines trigger everything from itchy eyes and throat to a runny nose.

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•

Be aware that some health products may be bad for allergy sufferers. "For those reactive to ragweed, serious cross-reactions are possible from consuming chamomile, honey, and echinacea. This is not oral allergy syndrome, however. In this case, it's because they belong to the same botanical family."

•

Remove outdoor allergens once you come home.

"Change your clothes. Wash your hair. Put your pillow and pillowcase in the dryer to remove dust and pollen. And use a saline flush to safely remove allergens from your nasal passages."

•

Understand that allergens are everywhere! "It's a common misconception that allergens are seasonal and only encountered outdoors," says Wylde. "Your indoor air (home, car, and office) is often more polluted. Plus, even if you don't see yellow dust, microscopic outdoor allergens can cling to your hair and clothing. You may be carrying them with you throughout your day."

•

Wear sunglasses and a hat. "These will help keep allergens from getting into your eyes and clinging to your hair."

•

Replace your home filters and vehicle's interior cabin air filter. "If you can afford to, install a High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter on your furnace. This type of air filter can theoretically remove at least 99.97% of dust, pollen, mold, bacteria, and any airborne particles with a size of 0.3 microns. When it comes to your car, Most people are unaware they even have these filters, which trap pollen, dust, and other airborne particles. They typically

need to be replaced every 15,000 to 30,000 miles. And if you drive on dirt roads, you may want to replace yours more frequently."

Allergies don't have to be a no-win battle. "The key is to change your behavior before symptoms become severe," concludes Wylde. "That way, you can help your body respond more effectively when it is exposed to allergens and finally enjoy all the good things that the season has to offer."

Bryce Wylde, BSc, DHMHS, Homeopath, is a leading health expert specializing in integrative and functional medicine, homeopathy, clinical nutrition, and supplementation. As associate medical director at P3 Health in Toronto and director of My Health Report, he blends the latest in science and technology with traditional and ancient remedies.

Wylde is the author of three national best-selling books, a previous host of CTV's Wylde on Health, and is a frequent guest health expert on U.S. and Canadian TV. 41 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

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42 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e MAY 2022

43 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e MAY 2022

PRACTICAL

HAPPINESS

By Pamela Gail Johnson

44 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

A

Native American story tells about how God gathered his animal advisers together to help him decide where to hide the Secret to a Happy Life from humans.

He first asked the Eagle, “Where shall I put it?”

The Eagle answered, “I shall hide it at the top of the highest mountain. Man will never find it there.”

God considered this but decided against it.

“One day, Man will go there,” he said.

Next, he asked the Clam, “Where shall I put it, little Clam?”

“I will hide it at the bottom of the deepest ocean,” the Clam answered.

us recognize danger and keep us safe. That’s why it’s always easier, and maybe even more natural, for us to see what’s wrong before we can see what’s right. Having a positive outlook usually requires a conscious effort until it becomes a habit or our go-to mindset.

Most of us are also culturally conditioned to think we’ll be happy when we get the next bright, shiny new thing on our I’ll Be Happy When List. You know what I’m talking about: that dream career, that ohso-lovable pet, that super-sexy/super-fast dream car, that gorgeous spouse, the big house, the perfect kids, the vacations in Europe, a healthy financial portfolio; the list goes on and on.

This seemed like a better idea, but the Lord hesitated again. “Man will go there someday,” he said after some thought.

Instead of recognizing that our happiest moments often happen on the way to the destination, we instead take them for granted, believing that the goal is the ultimate happiness prize.

Then the wise Owl stepped forward.

“Though I regretfully cannot take it there myself,” he intoned, “perhaps you ought to hide the secret on the moon.”

Happiness is rarely an outside job. It’s when we look inside our homes, our relationships, and our lives that we find it hiding there.

After considering this, God finally came to the same conclusion as before: “No. There, too, Man shall go.”

So, what is practical happiness? It’s the foundation for realistic happiness. It means expecting that unhappiness, stress, fear, chaos, and annoyances will zap your happiness sometimes while trusting that you can manage these Happiness Zappers. It understands that happiness is unique for each of us, yet the experiences that make us happy are fluid and change. It recognizes that happiness is the rush of excitement but also the serenity of contentment and the many other types of happiness in between—thirty-one of them, in fact.

After some period of reflection, the humble Opossum came forward. “Perhaps,” he said, so softly that he could barely be heard, “the secret should be hidden in the heart of Man.” There was an awed silence among the animals.

Finally, the Lord spoke: “Yes, cunning Opossum, that will be the last place Man will look.”

This story reminds us of something that we already know but are often reluctant to embrace: Our happiness is inside us. The challenge is knowing how to find it.

The problem? Our brains are hardwired to quickly recognize and help us get away from things that can hurt us. This goes back to our caveman days when we had to protect ourselves from gigantic, hairy, scary creatures and such. Our brains evolved to help

I began to realize that everyone could access happiness at almost any time if they were able to recognize some simple, realistic principles about how happiness worked.

With that goal in mind, I came up with the four practical happiness principles: • Happiness is personal.

• Happiness Zappers can be managed.

• Happiness changes as you change.

• Happiness is bigger than you think.

45 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

Principle One: Happiness is Personal Sounds obvious, right? It comes with a caveat most of us miss …

Just because something “sounds” obviously doesn’t make it easy or even natural.

Let’s define what happiness really is.

Happiness is when you naturally feel good in the moment.

And, what makes you feel good can change moment by moment.

Fear creates a physiological change that influences our behavior when we are actually threatened by a dangerous situation or we believe something may threaten our physical or emotional safety in the future.

Chaos happens when things are in disarray, unorganized, and confusing.

Annoyances are when someone or something irritates or bothers us to the point that our mood is adversely affected.

Sometimes happiness is as simple as feeling a little better than you felt the moment before. Other times, it comes from accomplishing something.

And sometimes, happiness is your state of being for no particular reason.

Even when people share the same happy event, they don’t experience it the exact same way, making it unique for each participant.

Personal happiness shouldn’t be judged. What makes you happy may or may not make someone else happy. And vice versa.

Principle Two: Happiness Zappers Can be Managed What’s a Happiness Zapper? It’s simply an experience that takes away some of your happiness.

We’d like to be happy all of the time. However, we know that’s simply unrealistic.

Each day, every single human being on the planet will experience different Happiness Zappers.

How we choose to manage them significantly impacts how long they impact us and our happiness.

There are five types of Happiness Zappers that we either manage or they manage us: Unhappiness is most often connected to loss when we must create a new normal over time.

The death of someone or a pet we loved is the ultimate loss. Yet other losses redefine our lives, too: unwanted career changes, health challenges, friend or family conflicts, and other normal, expected, or even unexpected life changes.

Stress is when we feel pressure or tension from things that require a response from us that can impact us mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

46 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

Creating a ZAP-MAP or Zapper Management Action Plan is one of the easiest ways to manage your Happiness Zappers in four steps: 1. Identify the Happiness Zapper.

2. Specify the type of zapper: unhappiness, stress, fear, chaos, or annoyances.

3. Decide if the zapper is controllable, uncontrollable, or a bit of both.

4. Determine actions you can take to manage the zapper.

Each person will manage their Happiness Zapper differently. And, you may need to adjust how you manage any particular Happiness Zapper as circumstances change. Life is fluid, and what’s needed to manage the things that adversely impact our happiness should be flexible, too.

Principle Three: Happiness Changes as You Change On a subconscious level, you know that what makes you happy changes because you change.

Sounds pretty straightforward, right? It’s not.

Happiness is a feeling, and feelings trigger emotional responses making the principle challenging to apply.

Think about it: How often do you try to recreate experiences that used to make you feel happy? And, when that doesn’t work out the way you want it to, you get upset because the happy feelings you remember from the past aren’t happening right now because “something” isn’t quite the same as it used to be.

What’s really happening here – you’re missing out on experiencing your present happy moments to their fullest because you’re emotionally stuck in the past.

Life, and by extension, happiness changes as a result of: Maturity comes from the natural process of growing older and the experiences that influence our mental and emotional behavior.

Life changes are big events that alter our perspective and even our actual daily existence.

Experiences provide us with knowledge and empathy as a result of what we do, see, and feel.

Unexpected Moments show up in our life without warning or anticipation but can shift everything in an instant.

Recognizing these catalysts of change makes it easier for us to manage them. Which then gives us the emotional capacity to fully embrace the present and recognize all of the current experiences that make us happy too.

The Society of Happy People identified Thirty-One Types of Happiness to help you identify how big happiness really is. And you can get the SOHP Happiness Counter which lists all of the types of happiness: sohp.com/gift.

Sometimes, the quickest way to experience more happiness is to actually notice more of the happy moments that are already part of your daily life.

Once you start thinking about happiness with a Practical Happiness mindset, you’ll notice more of your happy experiences when they happen.

And, when a Happiness Zapper happens, you’ll approach the situation from a how do I manage it perspective instead of a why is this happening to me one.

Happiness is more abundant when we acknowledge the moments when we naturally feel good— and sometimes that only means feeling a little better in this moment than the one before.

Adopting a Practical Happiness mindset takes practice. Yet, when you practice it consistently, you’ll discover the real question each day is: What does happiness mean to me right now?

Principle Four: Happiness is Bigger Than You Think One of the problems with feeling happier is that people think happiness is a singular feeling. It’s often associated with moments when we’re laughing, feeling joyful, or being playful. All very high energetic vibration types of happiness.

Yet, if we define happiness as naturally feeling good at the moment, it’s much bigger than you think.

There are many moments that make us feel good or happy, yet we don’t associate them with happiness even when we should.

A few include: 1. When you feel inspired to learn something new.

2. When you feel relief when something unpleasant didn’t happen.

3. When you feel content because you really wouldn’t change that much about your life.

Pamela Gail Johnson founded the Society of Happy People in 1998, created the first three globally celebrated happiness holidays, and is the author of Practical Happiness: Four Principles to Improve Your Life.

She was an award-winning salesperson for American Express and Staples and now helps leaders and teams create happier workplace cultures. Visit her website at SOHP.com.

47 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

Spiritual Growth Checkpoint:

By Sherri Cortland, ND

Automatic Writing 48 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

I

've been channeling Spirit since the 1980s via automatic writing. My Guide Group, the "GG," dictated channeled material for four metaphysical books this way.

My goals for this article are two-fold: (1) To put forth some background information about automatic writing; and (2) To give you the process that I've used for over 35 years so that you, too, can start communicating with your Guides, Higher Self, and the Angelic Realm.

Automatic writing is one of the ways that incarnated souls on this side of the veil can communicate directly with Spirit. While many may consider it to be New-Agey, automatic writing has been used for centuries by regular folks, mediums, authors, and composers since the 19th century to bring forth information, wisdom, and even music from the other side of the veil. Automatic writing is also widely used to communicate with Spirit Guides and loved ones who have passed over. Originally called Spirit Writing, this form of communication started gaining popularity during the 19th century, and here's a quick peak at some of its earlier practitioners: · In the 1850s, Judge John Worth Edmonds of the New York Supreme Court publicly stated his belief in automatic writing. He became interested in Spiritualism after the death of his wife and encouraged his friend, the medium Dr. George Baxter, to utilize Spirit writing to contact famous people who had passed over. · In the early 1900s, Mrs. Arthur Conan Doyle, wife of Sherlock Holmes' author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, used automatic writing in order for her and her husband to contact their son, who passed over during World War One when he was killed in action. · Also, in the mid-1900s, English medium Rosemary Brown, who was renowned for her musical compositions, professed that the music was dictated to her by famous composers. Brown said that in 1924 when she was seven years old, the late composer Franz Liszt told her that when she grew up, he would communicate with her and give her music. She also said that in 1964, after not playing for many years, she became aware of the presence of Liszt guiding her hands on the piano. · In the 1960s and '70s, Ruth Montgomery, once

a syndicated columnist for Hearst Headlines and United Press International, and a member of President Nixon's press corps, used automatic writing to channel information for her books about life after death from her Guide, Lily, and also from medium Arthur Ford after he passed over. · Also, during the '60s and '70s, Helen Schucman, who started out as a research assistant at a medical center, began using automatic writing to record the information that became A Course in Miracles.

Practitioners of automatic writing are generally in an altered state of mind achieved during a few minutes of meditation, although fully conscious, as they put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, and there are three main ways that the process takes place: (1) It can be like dictation, where you hear a voice and then write down what you hear. The voice can be inside or outside of your head, and it may or may not sound like your own voice; (2) Spirit physically pushes or moves the pen in your hand or your hands on a computer keyboard; and (3) Which is a combination of the first two way where you hear words in your head while at the same time your hands are being moved on the keyboard or the pen is moved across the paper.

One of the many benefits of automatic writing as a means of direct communication with Spirit is that it's very much a back-and-forth conversation, meaning that one can ask questions and request clarification about the information that's coming through.

Another big benefit is that you have a written record of everything that's been communicated.

There is no right or wrong way to practice automatic writing, but based on personal experience, one should be patient and persistent when first setting out to make contact this way. Contact could happen the first time you try, or it could take several months. Truly, practice makes perfect when it comes to automatic writing, and the first step is, of course, to make first contact. The next step is to become comfortable with the process.

Here are some tips based on the way I communicate with my Guide Group to help you get started with automatic writing:

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Getting started… · Choose a time of day when you can sit undisturbed for at least 15 minutes. · Sit comfortably with a pad of paper on the table in front of you and hold a pen or pencil loosely in your hand with the tip of your writing instrument touching the paper. You can use a computer keyboard instead of a pad and paper. · Say a prayer of protection; for example: "I am protected by the love of God; only those entities of the highest intentions can pass through my door. If others should try, my door will immediately close, effectively blocking them out.

This is my prayer of protection. Amen." · Write on the top of the paper, "Will someone write with me?" · Clear your mind and wait. If it helps you to burn incense or candles, go right ahead. Don't forget to blow them out when you're finished. · If nothing happens within the first five minutes, end the session; it won't be happening that day.

Your first connection… · When you first connect, it may feel like someone is grasping your hand and or your arm. It's different for everyone. Just relax and let it happen. · You will most likely experience circles, figure 8's, and back and forth movements with your pen or pencil. If you're on a computer, you may experience your fingers moving around on the keys before you actually start to type. · Ask the entity for his or her name by writing the question on your paper or typing it on the computer. Next, ask the entity what his or her relationship is with you. Don't go any further until you know who you're writing with. · Next, ask the entity for a message, i.e., "Do you have something to share with me?" Write this down on paper and wait for a response. As you get information, you can ask questions about what you're receiving—just write your questions down and wait for the responses. · When your Guide is finished, you'll feel your hand and arm relax. My Guides end our sessions with the words "Go in Peace" to signify the end of a session. You'll establish a similar type of routine with your Guide (s). If you want to end a session, just write: "I have to go now." Always thank your Guide after each session. · Keep your eyes open while you're writing so you can see what you're doing, and if you're us-

50 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

ing pen and paper, don't forget to move your hand back to the beginning of the page when you reach the end of the paper.

Continued sessions: Here are some things to keep in mind for continued sessions… · When you first start out, do your automatic writing at the same time each day—have a set appointment time with your Guide (s). · Keep in mind that your Guide (s) have lives too, and if you can't make a session, let your Guide know you won't be working with him/ her that day. Just say out loud, "I'm sorry, I can't make it today for our session." · Meditate for a few minutes before you start your session—it will help you open up and help you focus. · Say the prayer of protection I've provided above (or makeup one of your own) before you start—it will keep you firmly in the light.

Everyone deserves direct communication with Spirit, and automatic writing is something that is available to all of us; and another benefit of establishing this kind of direct communication with Spirit is that you can experience it anytime and anywhere you happen to be. We just have to sit down and get started.

Namaste.

Sherri Cortland has been communicating with her Guide Group, the “GG,” since 1987 via automatic writing.

Much of the information she has received is included in her four books, which were originally published by Ozark Mountain Publishing and are currently available on her website and on Amazon.

On Sherri’s website, you will find several free classes and meditations, along with more articles and workshops on video. https://www.facebook.com/SherriCortlandAuthor www.Sherri-Cortland.com

51 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e APRIL 2022

THE

CHAKRAS FROM A SHAMANIC PERSPECTIVE

by Annika Panotzki

52 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COMe JUNE 2022

Photo by Helen/Adobestock

O

ur energy body, or the light body, is attached to our physical body through energy points, what we call chakras. Each chakra represents different energy, force, emotions, physical organs, and their functions. The light body carries information about how to build our body, our mind, and our emotional body. If something becomes imbalanced, either in this life, other timelines (past lives), or in our ancestral lines, it will be there as an imprint.

This imprint can either be active or sleeping and is what attracts energy from our subconscious. You can see it manifested in patterns, for example, in relationships, friendships, work, or health. These are the programs that, in the example of relationships, can keep you attracting the same kind of partner.

These imprints guide you when you ask yourself questions like “Why is this happening?” when you can’t see what something has to do with a subconscious wound or program.

Different wounds and programs are linked to different chakras because the chakras also represent our stages in life.

When we build our energy system and develop tools to keep the chakras in balance, we build a rainbow bridge from our bodies. That bridge keeps us connected with our inner selves and our higher self. One foot in each world.

The root chakra is the energy from when we came to this earth and our early years, how our needs were fulfilled, and the unconditional love that we got. If something did go out of balance here, our root chakra would be affected. This is our connection to feeling held, safe, loved, and cared for. Symbolically this is also our connection to Mother Earth and the sacred feminine. It’s how we express our wildlife force and creativity. The root chakra is the foundation, the soil that we build the rest of our energy system.

Your childhood is also an age where you are very sensitive to your environment.

What you experience, and the programs of your mother and father, become your truth.

The sacral chakra symbolizes the strong tree trunk that grows from the roots in the fertile soil. When we come into our teenage years, we start to get to know our power and strength. We challenge our inner powers by exploring the polarity between the feminine and masculine powers. If we have chosen strict parents, we often get help from our inner “archetype of the rebel to break free. Here we need to find the balance within ourselves and in our life. This is the dance between the polarities. Symbolically we find our inner love story. If we lose our power in this important phase or become imbalanced, we can either go into victimhood, abuse our powers, or lose our power by being the savior. We start to project our inner wounds and imbalances onto the outer world, and here we have the fight of the ego. We identify the ego or get caught in it; we can free ourselves of the projections or be misled by them. We have a chance

to start trusting ourselves and our gut feeling, no matter what.

Our solar plexus is the seat of our soul.

The voice of our essence. To reach the path of our destiny, we must free ourselves and transform the root and sacral chakras into pure power that supports our destiny. With the compass of the sacral chakra and the trust of our inner guidance, we can now thrive. We can allow our passion and creativity to fire up our dreams and not let anything stop us. We become vibrant and shining like the sun. Sourcing from a place of no ego, we listen to our inner wisdom and bring more joy and meaning to life. When all of us follow our inner passion and destiny together, we automatically create a new world. This is the seed we come to earth with, and our path is to discover our inner gift to give and share with the world.

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When we live from a higher meaning, we activate our heart chakra. We go beyond all of the judgments and no longer create just for ourselves. When our cup is filled with unconditional love, oneness, and forgiveness, it overflows to the world. We see that all is a part of the creation and a higher plan. The lessons that were needed are learned, and we see the gold that is hidden in them: lessons, wisdom, and expansion of the heart. We create a higher vision for future generations.

cumstances are creating it for us, and we let the subconscious, the programs, and the imprints dictate our movie. When we free ourselves and understand that we are the creators, we create every moment into reality.

When we build our energy system and develop tools to keep the chakras in balance, we build a rainbow bridge from our bodies. That bridge keeps us connected with our inner selves and our higher self. One foot in each world.

The throat chakra is where we radiate our inner truth and expression. When the inner work is balanced, we no longer have the need to be right, lie, create conflict, or gossip. This chakra helps us to become transparent. We are who we say that we are, and we do what we say we will do. There is nothing to hide and nothing to fight, just our inner truth in a calm, powerful expression. When you have that embodied, you don’t even have to vocalize the boundaries that keep your energy intact – you radiate them. The energy of the Grandmother Moon helps to keep this chakra clear and brings magic into life. For it to happen, she teaches us how to transform every month, to let go of what’s no longer serving our inner truth and make room for something new. Her wisdom knows when it is time to sow and when it is time to reap.

Our higher selves and inner wisdom are connected to the third eye chakra. When we understand that we are our own healers, that we have all the answers within us, and what powerful manifestors we are, here is our connection between the worlds. With our inner eyes, we can visit the different realms and dimensions, traveling to the Under World, Middle World, and Upper World to find answers, gifts and download visions. With an open third eye chakra, we can do the seemingly impossible and develop skills and senses beyond our five earthly ones. This is how we develop communication with our higher selves, with the cosmos and our star families. We understand how everything is connected between the worlds.

The crown chakra is connected with the source of all, the universal source. It is like an antenna toward the cosmos. Every step that we take, we create from within, like a movie that is written in every moment. If we source from a lower consciousness, we believe that outer cir54 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

Annika Panotzki is a modern medicine woman with a vision of guiding you back into your own power, heart and wisdom. \Her deep knowledge of shamanic energy medicine, plants, herbs, superfoods and healing assists this mission.

She is also the owner of the holistic center Conscious Life and co- owner of the superfood brand One Love Generation, offering healing super blends from Mother Earth.

Annika is an author of The Chakra Cookbook: Colourful Vegan Recipes to Balance Your Body and Energize Your Spirit isavailable on Amazon and in all bookstores.

55 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e MAY 2022

OXYMORON

SWEET SORROW

By Jayita Bhattacharjee

56 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

THE ESSENTIAL INSTRUMENT OF MORAL VALUES IS THE IMAGINATION.

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eading or writing a grand poem stimulates our minds and makes us ponder this life and world from a new perspective. From a neuroscientific point of view, this is not a mere accident. In recent years, many researchers have conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging and numerous other sophisticated tools to look deep into how the human brain reacts to poetry.

The discovery is that the brain seems to be wired to recognize the rhyme and rhythm that poets engage in when composing the verses. This rhyme and rhythm differentiate them from prose or ordinary speech. Upon contemplating poetic imagery and the numerous layers of meanings in poems, both explicit and implicit, activate specific areas in the brain.

The usage of an oxymoron in poetry is suggestive of the fact that something can very well possess two qualities at the same time.

And this very concept of placing side by side the glaring contrasts in ideas spurs much philosophical thought. Hence the Romance poets made use of oxymorons to stimulate meditation. Oxymoron produces a very dramatic effect in poetry. For instance, when we hear the famous oxymoron "sweet sorrow" that was beautifully crafted by Shakespeare, it strikes us instantly. It provokes us to think and pushes us to ponder the hidden meaning of contradictory ideas. It effectively creates a vivid and memorable image or phrase and compels the reader to pause and ponder, to reflect upon the meaning of what was just read.

By adding two words or terms together that

are innately contradictory, the use of a wellthought oxymoron can create a phrase that has lingering resonance and an evocative sensibility that is more immediate. It begs us to stop and consider what deep meaning it conveys in the contradiction imposed, and that in turn is used to control the rhythm of a poem or punctuate a point. Through contrast, they create a new meaning together.

Because of the oxymoron, the poem may become more memorable, "parting is such sweet sorrow" by William Shakespeare. This creates a far more evocative image. Oxymoron helps the poet have more effective control over the poem's rhythm. Oxymoron practically forces the reader to stop and consider what he or she has read. They make us think about a point and what greater significance it carries within a poem. The oxymoron creates dramatic irony and hence has become the main thrust in poetic language.

A literary function of the oxymoron is to draw the reader's attention to the different implications of the words that combine to create it. And we think about how two polar opposites can co-exist to form an image that is greater than they considered individually. For instance, "The Beauty and Pain" is an oxymoron. It makes you feel the pangs of powerlessness, the uncertainty, angst, fear, and terror within each breath, and yet it makes you reconcile that madness. You grow from pain, you rise from loss and the catastrophic events that transpired in your life, though they were unbearable to comprehend, insanely cruel to make sense out of them, yet somehow you managed to bloom from inside of them.

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The oxymoron inspires the way to balance the deep grief with the celebration of life. The enduring of the agony yet the rising of delight can be powerfully healing for the heart. The sadness that you get obliged to experience as life throws them on you makes you battle and struggle, and ultimately, you get to sip the joy. And you experience what you thought was beyond your reach, the ultimate celebration of life, no matter what phases it brought along your way. Through the faces of incomprehensible suffering, you somehow reach the place of blissful joy. We do not broaden the scope of pervasive anxiety; we do not wallow in hopelessness; rather, we stand up and take back what is rightfully ours: joy, the ultimate birthright.

Photo by Klara Kulikova

Love is oxymoronic, as bittersweet as its taste. Such is the emotion that has the smell of both the clear and confusing phases, the burning pleasures that keep one waking every lonesome night, yet the wounds that grip as the rain of a lonesome time. To be human is to feel the beat of love yet to traverse the bittersweet mystery of it that lives in its contrasting tastes of it. The great contrast. You pass this place through creativity, birthing a new version of your soul. Even when you are squeezed through the eye of the needle in beauty and pain, love and loss, even while you walk through the portals of contrast, the confusion and clarity make the best blend to describe the feeling of love.

Despite all this, love listens. It feels you when you need to be held. It knows you, knows the scent of your heart, and eventually, it passes on to another heart.

Though love is oxymoronic, it is the most beautiful ending to a romance novel of all times. Love may taste bitter and sweet, yet it will do whatever it takes to stream the scent of it. The very smell will love you back with all your

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perfect imperfections. The bitterness eventually filters out the door, down the winding pathway to a place where the river rushes to meet the ocean, with the sweetness bringing more color to your cheeks than the blusher ever had. How surprisingly, its oxymoronic nature healed the sadness replacing your flushing cheeks with a beautiful blush.

Companionship reawakens a pearl of ancient wisdom. Every time you both touch one another, you sink deeply into each other. So, the bitterness doesn't unsettle you as the connection travels deeper. At times, the distance might perplex you. Still, the bitterness and sweetness will captivate you, as there is something about love that will pull you into your body which is both assuring and scary. Every time you breathe into love, you sink more deeply into it, and you are carried into another world. A place that feels real.

Despite its oxymoronic nature, your greatest mistake would be the love you ignore burning inside of you. No matter how it tastes, you don't let the sadness become your story. You keep its music pulsating through you. You taste its flavors that delight you. Reality melts away, and you forget completely that life can be strikingly different.

The overwhelming crossroad of sweetness and sadness may perplex you from time to time. Still, it will pull you into its sheer desires. The truth is love can be terrifying and beautiful. And it becomes your land of light and shadow.

It's like you travel to an ancestral place that holds both for you.

You will feel alive in a way that is personal and shared. You carry this feeling in your eyes and laughter and tastes in ways both known and unknown to you. You feel the savage beauty on your skin as you find love's sunken treasure in the waters too deep.

Poetry comes from a distinctive outburst of feelings, emotions that cannot contain within themselves and are simply overflowing. These originate from the thoughts recollected in tranquil moments. Reciting poetry is interesting, too, as the human voice is very well an integral part of the portrayal. You are in such close intimacy with words. We can express emotions in both prose and poetry, but we do not experience the essential language emotionality in the same way in both prose and poetry. In poetry, there is an intimate connection between language and emotions, where every single word is weaved in a manner, so it acts directly upon a thrust. A poet chooses the words to trigger your memory, associations, images, tone, meter, and rhythm, so they reach your body and mind; during the rhymes, repetition and alliteration land on your eloquent tongue so you can taste their delicious wine.

What does an intimate connection between language and emotions actually mean? We need to take a closer look at the in-depth study of languages emotionally in terms of emotional triggering. The release to expression broadens our mindset, and creative thinking flows from there. People's perception of the poet's intent colors the manner we hear the poem. If the narrative is positive, they think the excerpt is radiant. If the narrative is negative, they think the excerpt carries a tone of sadness. People are moved by poetry when they think that it has been created from the saddest emotions. Imagining the emotional circumstances of the author can be an effective way of becoming engaged expressively with a piece of art. Poetry is a beautiful depiction of the human mind. Instead of being self-annihilating, it becomes self-constructing as the poet goes through a hurried tapestry of images and sensory imprints which can be amenable to change by revisiting, re-reading, and retelling our own history through memory.

The verses are drawn from shared impulses or at least a compelling urge to create and experience and portray a sensory and evocative scene where we can place ourselves, one that can be our home. Poetry evokes emotion by offering a poignant abstraction, and in doing so, it engages our imagination.

It is the whispered sweetness of the soul beneath the cacophony of this discordant world. Poetry delights the readers through an artistic blending of form and content. It takes you to a place of a

higher calling so as to emerge with a revelation of the truth about this mysterious life and to pass on the message of a universal betterment.

Poetry gives a shaping power to this life, and creating the form can convey the poetic vision to its readers. It transcends the limits of time and place and reaches readers of all ages and times.

The weaving of verses in poetry brings the heightened imagination, which in turn is the wellspring of love, sympathy, and compassion.

The ability to feel for others and feel with others springs from this empathy and such an empathetic state stems from the feeling of imagination. The pain and pleasure, the agony and ecstasy of another, must be his own. The essential instrument of moral values is the imagination. Poetry expands the boundaries of creative vision by continually refilling it with the thoughts of new-found ecstasy, which have the innate power of drawing, grasping, and understanding all other thoughts to their own poesy passion. They, in turn, create new spaces and gaps; that void forever craves fresh thoughts that can fill this hunger. There is a connection between beauty and goodness or believed so ardently in the power of art's sensual pleasures to improve this emotionally broken society.

Jayita Bhattacharjee was born in Calcutta, India and later on pursued education from University of Houston in Economics, she had chosen her career as a trustee and teacher. Her Indian residence is in the vicinity of the famous Belurmath.

Currently, she is settled in Tampa, Florida. Her love for writing on a journey of heart and soul was hidden all within. Looking at the moments captured in love and pain, joy and grief, the hidden tragedies of life...it was a calling of her soul to write.

Her books "The Ecstatic Dance of Life', " Sacred Sanctuary", " Light of Consciousness", "Dewdrops of Compassion" are meant to shed light on what guides a person to respond to the mystical voice hidden inside, to soar in a boundless expansion with the limitless freedom of spirit."It is in the deepest joy that I write with every breath of mine."

59 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

Photo by UNSPLASH

RESOURCE

FURNITURE

We all know that “new furniture” scent – the dense, chemical-smelling waft of air that hits you in the face when you tear off the plastic and pull apart the Styrofoam.

T

his odor is actually called “off-gassing,” and it comes from furniture that doesn’t meet the environmental and safety standards laid out by CARB2 and TSCA Title VI, which both limit the amount of formaldehyde released in homes and the environment from wood products. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), high levels of formaldehyde exposure can be extremely harmful to human health, and the health of our ecosystem.

It’s difficult for furniture companies to avoid off-gassing because it’s cheaper and faster to manufacture products that use off-gassing materials such as some paints and stains, varnish, and plywood. Com-

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panies that do avoid these materials are certainly better for the environment, but they often sacrifice quality to make up for the cost of materials. This means these companies are considered “green” but not “sustainable.”

So what does all this mean?

The terms “green” and “sustainable” are typically used interchangeably, but not every product is both, and this is especially true when it comes to furniture.

While responsible material sourcing is important, it isn’t the only factor that creates green and sustainable furniture.

When a company says their product is “green,” that usually means the materials used are recycled or natural in some

way. Products that are “sustainable” are made of renewable materials, manufactured with clean energy, and won’t need to be replaced in a short period of time, therefore reducing the amount of waste they produce.

Is it possible to find furniture that is “green” and “sustainable?” One company achieving both is Resource Furniture.

The company sources its furniture from only the highest quality manufacturers in Europe and is committed to transparency in environmental practices – the first key to knowing whether or not a company’s “sustainability efforts” can be trusted.

All of the company’s wall beds are sourced from a European company called Clei, which manufactures the wall beds under rigorous environmental practices, proving that it is possible for furniture companies to protect their customers and the environment. Every single Clei wall bed is made under the same standards:: •

•

•

Clei wall beds are constructed of composite wood panels containing a minimum of 90% recycled or reforested wood product.

Products manufactured using new chipboard panels are made of renewable, controlled, virgin wood rated E1 or better – the highest European standard for formaldehyde regulation – and contain the highest quality of raw materials to allow for a 35% reduction of wood scraps while reducing energy consumption.

Clei’s sophisticated panel manufacturing process ensures no waste is released into the environment.

Composite wood panels are cut and edge-banded inside specialty vacuum chambers, which recapture sawdust and gas by-products for recycling.

And all of Resource Furniture’s products, even beyond the Clei wall beds, are CARB2 and TSCA Title VI certified, meaning no formaldehyde is used in the furniture’s manufacturing process, the fur-

niture does not emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the atmosphere, and each piece only uses water-based lacquers, paints, and glues. No off-gassing here.

How can the company also be sustainable? The furniture is modular, meaning each individual piece can be taken out and repaired or replaced without the need to discard the entire unit. In fact, the entire founding principle of the company is to create more functional homes, including rooms that can transform from guest bedroom to office. More functional rooms mean eliminating the need for more space, which in turn reduces an individual’s carbon footprint. The furniture itself is inherently more sustainable than a static sofa, desk, or table.

We live in a time where companies make furniture at the lowest possible cost for the highest possible reward, and they’re forgetting that these unsustainable practices lead to an unsustainable environmental future. Is a cheaper table worth exposing our homes and planet to toxic chemicals and further waste? Resource Furniture says no, and is committed to creating healthier, happier homes and a healthier, happier planet.

The author's opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints on this article do not reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of The Eden Magazine. and strickly is the author's opinion.

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Photo by Klara Kulikova

Abundance Corner

By Phyllis King

62 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e MAY 2022

LEARN This One Life Law

EVERYTHING Will Make Sense

I

n my business, people come to me to ask, “when will I find love?” or “when will my money get better?”

Or “when will I stop struggling? Or, when will life stop being so hard?” One common denominator with most of my clients lack is the absence of awareness of this one life law: We do not create outcomes. We create results. We are creators 24/7; when we learn this life law and work within the mindset of “what am I creating by my choices, my emotions, and my thoughts?” our life changes. Everything we have felt was out of reach suddenly becomes available.

Most often, people come to a circumstance from a deep state of lack of some kind. They identify with that lack as the truth. They are confused as to why they struggle. Let us use the example of someone who wants to bring a love relationship into their life.

63 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

As we seek to bring abundance, love, success, or fulfillment of any kind into our lives, we must recognize that what we want already exists in consciousness.

They mostly think about what they can get from another person rather than what they can give.

Love has little to do with “getting.” Love is an action word of generosity and grace towards another.

Or, other times, the inner narrative says, “I am supposed to get married. “If I do not have a partner, something must be wrong with me,” or “I want to feel complete in my life.” ‘I am lonely.” These are examples of real-life mindsets that have come into my office over the years. They are all doomed to fail or become problematic.

They are based on lack. They all suggest that the self is less-than. The thing they desire is what will make them whole. That view is inherently flawed.

People choose this view repeatedly. They experience disappointment repeatedly. The answer is to wake up to the living law that we are creating our lives 24/7. If we do not like the results, we need to try something else. That something else begins with recognizing our wholeness as divine beings.

To make the point – let us imagine we are cooking soup. The base of our soup is sour or otherwise degraded liquid stock. No matter what we add to the stock, it is going to taste funky. When our creation began with faulty stock, it became difficult at best to make it taste good. In life, it is not too different than soup. When the foundation of our creative process/our motivation is negative or grounded in lack, we are going to have fragmented results.

As we seek to bring abundance, love, success, or fulfillment of any kind into our lives, we must recognize that what we want already exists in consciousness. Then our process becomes about how we relate to that which already exists. The best way to relate to that which already exists is to be like it. Be abundant. Be loving. Be a success in action. Be what you want to see.

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exists. The second piece is in remembering that as creators, we are God-like. The more we honor that in ourselves, the more our relationships, our jobs, and our friendships become grounded in love rather than lack. We insert ourselves directly into the divine flow, able to receive abundance.

When we master the law of results, not outcomes, we focus on our true motivations. It is “next level” living. So, when people talk to me about living paycheck to paycheck or being one payday away from living on the street, what they fail to recognize is that they are also one payday away from living in supreme abundance. It is all in how we nurture our relationship to consciousness and how we see ourselves in that dynamic.

Culture, religion, parents, and well-meaning friends have conditioned us to believe we are less than what we are. We have been convinced we are unworthy and small. Our view of God is one of a punishing deity, as opposed to a consciousness that honors our creative processes.

The law in the universe provides free will for us to experience life. We get to know the difference physically between happy and sad, good and evil, success and failure. With that knowing, each of us has free will to create pain or peace.

Learn this rule of results, not outcomes. Awaken to your true nature. Receive the abundance life has promised you simply for being alive.

Known as the Common Sense Psychic (tm), Phyllis King has worked with tens of thousands of peoplein 25 countries.

She is known for her practical and down to earth approach.

She has been featured on, ABC, CBS and NBC TV, radio programs across the country, and has been published in over 70 print and online publications.

She has four books, including Bouncing Back, Thriving in Changing Times, with Dr. Wayne Dyer. Her latest book The Energy of Abundance is available in bookstores now. Phyllis holds a B.A. in Sociology. www.phyllisking.com

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SPIRITUAL BEINGS OR JUST PLAIN OLD

SPIRIT

By Zee

Y

es, it's hard to decide, and yet here we stand; it's time to choose. These past times have been interesting, to say the least; humans everywhere are lost in reliving mind-reflections. Consequently, again and again, that tedious old saying has come home to haunt us once again, what are we has risen to the surface. Unfortunately for some, it has moved into obsession. For others, this question has slowly been lost among the rhetoric of far more pressing issues, like the needs one has to accomplish in order to fit the mold of a now chosen fashion of mob acceptability, once referred to as a FAD. When searching deeper, one can hear in the distance words of rescue, revolving in a closed cycle like an old LP record, round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows. As is often stated, we are spiritual beings trapped within this fleshy creature, yet it's not who we truly are. Please remember it's an old saying that has done the rounds since the famous "be here now" book, and all is good. The idea of one as a spiritual being is only food for the ego and keeps us from ever discovering what's real. You are not a spiritual being; you are a spirit.

Spirit are we.

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sprouting we are one, and we are all in this together. The joke, "egg yoke," is all over us. Over once upon a time, through numerous passing years, we are a whole lot no wiser. Not sure if there is any help available, as we humans love to repeat the same old crap forever while pretending to be an evolving self.

Escape into the sun Separation is how modern humans function, continuing regardless of how much we discover about this human-machine.

It's a sad affair when we deny any aspect of who and what we are. We are flesh, and we are spirit at the same time, and any denial, expression, or idea that maintains any thoughts of separation while we exist in this 2D universe tears us apart and keeps us apart from our true self forever.

Wakey wakey folks, it's time to let all the false ideas go bye-bye.

As a spirit, we are eternal and we are human, never separated, A life-cycle of moments As long as we refer to and remain believers as spiritual beings, we will falsely feed one's egoist mindset and forever, constantly remain nothing but mindless creatures living in darkness. Separated from all the potentials that exist for our human nature to discover and experience. The world of joy and wonder is what humans bring to the table. You decide.

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Segregation is our way of life. It's the 2D concept in the repetition of a manmade idea and nothing more. Educated are we in the way of right and wrong, black and white. It's a dual system that allows one's human thinking to be in direct opposition to another human thinking, and boy did we drink from the cool-aid big time. We are intelligent, we are smart, we are resourceful, and yet we fall short of discovering what it is we are actually doing and how we think our thoughts through.

All hope is not lost love and light are we.

We are not spiritual beings, we are spirit As previously mentioned in a past article, all humans were born with trauma and from that moment forward, every function and emotion is embedded. Now every thought comes through those foundations created by those traumas. The experience of past negative conditioning and hurt is with us every day, hiding in the background. Fortunately, this developed understanding has now shone a light on why many humans worldwide are experiencing countless difficulties.

The end result is that humans are disabled from their thinking, their emotions, and their actions; all of this has surfaced from the past two years of turmoil.

These actions are mankind's failures and the real source of all human viral infectious diseases of the physical body and the human mindset. KaBoom.

In those last two sentences, there lies the wakeup call to grasp how one does function. When does one move into harmony as a human being and enter into a relationship with one's natural surroundings?

Or does one, via the savior of choice, forever remain ignorant and maintain mindless survival functioning rituals within the patterned mindset of the "Truman Cage."

We think we know.

As creatures of patterned predictability, all acceptable knowledge has to lead us further astray from the wonders behind risk and the unknown adventures of ever discovering our true nature and participating holly in being "who we are."

Apologies, let's not get too heavy; it might ruin someone's lunch.

One's human mind gladly accepts that we are spiritual beings; in fact, we love it, makes one feel worthy. The I am is leaping in fits of joy and self Huggies; who wouldn't, after all, it's one's private Hollywood home show on steroids.

It has exposed the level of human evolution at this time in the 21st century. The big question: was it the past two years that set fires on edge, or did these denied human behaviors just require a trigger to set them free from where they have been hiding under one's shadows since birth?

The way of the world and its untold secrets remains a mystery for now and for a good reason.

If anything is real, the past has declared in monumental moments of glorified history that those leading the charge are unworthy and will remain forever unvictorious in their quest for such glory.

Disabled beings we have become

It's a sad ending when it all comes down, for the independence to sand on solid ground and announce to self I am the real hero of my life. This is the foundation that sustains one's life. Will it ever be possible for mankind to move forward when them/they are forever distracted by chasing the need for self-consumption draped in rainbows by clever marketing gurus?

As a spirit, you are one, open, resourceful, and beautiful beyond words. Remain in this realm, and the real values this universe has to offer will be seen. In this elemental water-shedding year 2022, mankind has been given a gift to rid one's self of the internal flames and move from the delusion of being spiritual and claim your SPIRIT heritage.

Any acknowledgment of a real fact is never a negative, regardless of what that may be! It is foremost in finding our way back to one's intended foundation! It is our inherited, educated foundations that are untrue! All the beliefs we hold dear to who we think we are as a human-being: have been falsified! We, as a species, no longer have the ability to know which of our actions are negative or positive. Therefore our making of every misunderstood action/thought via one's choice is a direct violation of one's mental body, physical body, and one's spirit.

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www.sodastream.com TURN PLAIN WATER INTO FRESH SPARKLING WATER IN SECONDS

WE BELIEVE THAT SOMETHING AS SMALL AS SPARKLING YOUR WATER AT HOME CAN SPARK A HUGE CHANGE IN THE WORLD

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WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT

Rebecca Kordecki You survived the pandemic, but the world hasn't gotten less crazy. As you try and navigate this "new normal," is there anything that can help quell the stress and anxiety that seems to be constant companions?

Thankfully there is, and it's simple and effective. Breathwork is that magic pill you've had all along and didn't know it.

The practice of breathing in altered breath patterns allows you to influence the nervous system in a way that helps release stuck energy and negative loop patterns, taps into blocked creative channels, and relieves stress, anxiety, and overwhelm.

For more than 30 years, Rebecca Kordecki has taught people all over the world to change their life one breath at a time.

"I've had clients experience breakthroughs in all areas of life," said Kordecki. "For some, it's getting a grip on anxiety, but others have used breathwork to lose weight, let go of a toxic relationship and even stop suicidal thoughts. Learning how to breathe is truly transformational."

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It's not lost on any of us that the past 2 years of the pandemic have given us all a figurative kick in the introspective pants.

We have all been forced to find new ways to center, to ground, to de-stress, reset, and find the "happy" in life again amidst all the unknown swirling around us each day. After all, in the big scheme of things, this moment in history is but a chapter in the larger novel of our lives.

So let's lean into finding what works for us where mindfulness is concerned and find ways to embrace what is right here, right now, in front of us with zero judgment.

This is, in simplistic terms, what mindfulness offers. Finding the sweet sauce in the spaces between each breath without critiquing what we experience.

Below I will share six of my favorite mindfulness (of course, breathwork and meditation are tops!) practices that can take place anytime/anywhere.

But first, it's important to understand the way some of us navigate life, although usually by no fault of our own, is by allowing life events to do what's called an "amygdala hijack," a phrase coined by psychologist Daniel Goleman.

During this brain hijack, the amygdala is overactive, and we respond reactively rather than from a place of center and calm.

This is the amygdala's job to detect danger, but often it thinks something is dangerous that's not a threat at all. People who suffer from PTSD or trauma deal with this most often as their sole way of dealing with danger. This is also known as a flight, fight or freeze response.

Unfortunately, this reaction can lead to many health issues and a constant state of high alert.

Learning mindfulness as a way to elevate all areas of life is important - especially for those who struggle with trauma and PTSD. Here's a deeper definition of mindfulness and how this practice can be a game-changer and, in my humble opinion, should be in everyone's selfcare/wellness tool belt.

Mindfulness is the art of living and being in the present moment - with complete awareness both mentally and physically while allowing all the emotions, sensations, and thoughts to exist without judgment of self or others. In short, we are witnessing our thoughts and feelings with objectivity.

The biggest lesson mindfulness teaches how to truly "just be" without self beat or criticism in any direction. Mindfulness originated with Buddhist and Hindu teachings. In Buddhism, the journey toward enlightenment includes the concept of "sati", which encompasses attention, awareness, and being present—the first step toward enlightenment. From this term, the word "mindfulness" was born.

Mindfulness practice offers many benefits and is often referred to as a "superpower."

MINDFULNESS

IS THE ART OF LIVING AND

BEING IN THE PRESENT MOMENT WITH COMPLETE

AWARENESS

BOTH MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY

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at-home or on-the-go mindfulness practice that is guaranteed to introduce you to a whole new YOU. 6 Ways To Practice Mindfulness NOW: - Pay attention to the way you respond or engage with the world around you throughout the day. Rather than instantly reacting to a situation, someone else's energy, or the content you consume from a place of emotion, instead, with each encounter you have - remember to take a deep breath, lean into the present moment (stay out of the past or present) drop reactivity and feel and breathe for at least 10 seconds. Allow yourself to respond or react only when you feel a true connection to your center.

- Engage in a sport or activity that involves mental focus as well as movements, such as rock climbing, yoga, trail running, martial arts, painting, and dance styles like hip hop, tango, salsa, jazz, etc. These sorts of activities demand mindfulness due to the precision and technicality of the activity along with the mind/body connection that is required to master the activity or sport.

Here are some of the main benefits of practicing mindfulness: • Reduces anxiety and stress - this study shows how even just one session of mindfulness meditation can greatly reduce anxiety.

• Gives your brain an upgrade through the rewiring that takes place during consistent mindfulness practices • Multiple health benefits such as increased brain functionality, improved immune function, and lower blood pressure and heart rate • Improves mental functions by increasing awareness, greater clarity and focus, a sense of calm, and a feeling of greater connection • Reduces feelings of depression and self-criticism and increases resilience to difficulties This is just the short list of the benefits - the entire actual list is quite long!

Ok, now let's dive into how we can cultivate an

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- Create a daily mindful breathing practice that consists of breath awareness exercises. The goal of this type of breathwork is to get present with the inflow and outflow of the breath by noticing the length of each breath, the sensations of the breath, and all the nuances that take place with each wave of the breath cycle.

- Practice moving meditations; this is a different style than traditional seated meditation and is done by simply becoming aware of your breath, your surroundings, your senses, and each movement as you engage in any regular activity throughout the day.

PAY ATTENTION TO THE WAY

YOU RESPOND OR ENGAGE

WITH THE WORLD AROUND YOU THROUGHOUT THE DAY.

RATHER THAN

INSTANTLY REACTING TO A SITUATION, SOMEONE ELSE'S ENERGY, OR THE CONTENT YOU

CONSUME FROM A PLACE OF EMOTION

- 5 minute Trail of Gratitude practice - this is one of my favorites and is part of my daily wellness routine. You can do this seated or lie down - this is how I end each breathwork class I teach, and it's a beautiful way to combine gratitude and visualization (another powerful mindfulness technique)

As a final component to this morning mindfulness and wellness routine, end with 3-5 minutes of affirmations. I've found that singing or "rapping" them has created more of a connection to my affirmation practice over the last few years... seriously, give it a try; you'll see what I mean.

How to do it: Picture yourself in your favorite place in nature, and see yourself standing there - your bare feet firmly rooted on the ground beneath you.

Start with these 6 ways to create more mindfulness throughout each day and watch as your connection and interaction with yourself and the world around you begins to transform.

In front of you is a trail, and it's clear you are meant to walk down it.

As you stand there, begin to see all of the people in your life that have touched you, changed your life for the better, and deeply impacted you - all the people you are grateful for, and see them one by one appearing on this trail of gratitude.

And remember, you are always just one breath away from being "happy and healthy."

https://rebeccakordecki.com/

Walk up to them, look deep into their eyes, and say, "thank you, I'm grateful for you," and give them a big hug for touching your life. Continue doing this for 5 minutes or more and see how many people you can call onto this trail of gratitude. This practice brings tears every time.

- This one is more of just great wellness and a mindful way to start the day. Finally, another of my favorite wellness and mindfulness practices involves combining some of the above (breathwork and visualizations) in the shower with the addition of self-massage for relaxation and stress relief, and affirmations (aka rapfirmations) How to do it: Start with some deep mindful breathing. Take a breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, making an audible sigh on the exhale. Do several cycles of these "deep sigh breaths" - letting the sighs be freeing, relaxing, and soothing.

Then do a body scan which is simply starting at your feet and working your way to the top of your head by checking in with each area of your body for any discomfort, stress, tightness, or stuck energy along the way.

As you move up the body, breathe into each new area and see where you might need to add some self-massage along with the warm water from the shower targeting that area. Take a few minutes to massage that area until relief is found and complete the body scan.

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HIT Living Foundation

I

t was a beautiful sunny day in La La Land when the HIT Living Foundation organized their pawfect May Day Soiree at the Hollywood Roosevelt rooftop.

When the Editor and Publisher of The Eden Magazine asked me to attend a function like this one, it was akin to her saying JUMP and me responding HOW HIGH.

THE MAY DAY SOIREE

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My passion for animal advocacy is no secret. And I cannot stress enough how one phone call or email, or social media post can change the trajectory and destiny of an animal in need.

The HIT Living Foundation is a non-profit rescue for dogs, but it certainly does not pass on cats either,

as its focus is animal welfare and humanitarian aid.

Honesty, Integrity, and Trust are the 3 pillars of their mission statement.

And with the Soiree, they delivered that in spades.

The Foundation started in the Bahamas, but its reach is worldwide.

The founder Heather Crowe gave a moving speech about the dire need for financial support for all rescue organizations in general. With the pandemic, and inflation rising, the funds have been dwindling, as has the support. Also, sadly many dogs and cats are being surrendered back to the shelters or abandoned, and it is a foundation like this one that uses all its energy to network for animals in need so they may find happy homes.

We met a few of those luckily rescued doggies at the event, including a gorgeous Siberian Huskie girl with one eye who had expressed love and gratitude to everyone approaching her. She was what we call a "foster fail," and her human mom and dad could not be happier to call her their own.

At the event, there was a silent auction as well as a raffle. BLK water sponsored the event, and The Flower Chef created a floral wonderland. Pup and Pop Bakeshop provided organic doggie treats. Many pet owners attended with their rescue fur family members.

The pop group 98 Degrees, led by Nick Lachey, was there for support, as well as various animal advocate celebrities.

If you want some good Karmic Brownie Points, they can be easily gained by donating to those rescues like The Hit Living Foundation. No amount is too small.

A special blessing would be bestowed to anyone who saves the life of an animal and finds them a safe home and family to share moments of love, joy, and memories to last a lifetime.

It's worth it. Please take my word for it. https://www.hitlivingfoundation.org/

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RECLAMING YOUR TRUE SELF

By Angela Dunning

Transforming Our Wounds

into Wisdom

W

e are all wounded in one way or another. Some of us carry deep scar tissue from way back, even from our first moments of life in the womb, if our entry into this world was not happy or desired. We accumulate additional wounds as we grow up, at the time when our flesh and soul are so vulnerable, precious, and permeable that the hurts go in deep and quick and remain with us until we finally bring them to consciousness and make the commitment to our own healing. Throughout our adolescence and adulthood, we undergo further pain, traumas, and losses. We fail, we struggle, we experience betrayals, and often, we also let ourselves down in a myriad of ways through self-destructive habits and behaviors.

Each lifetime carries many opportunities for wounding to occur.

Yet, it is in the process of bringing to consciousness the source of our wounds AND in allowing ourselves to FEEL the pain of that experience fully that we begin to heal. Releasing stuck trauma in our body is also part of the process for many and requires gentle, ongoing support: therapy, bodywork, energy healing, and lots and lots of self-care and love.

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Photo by Vladimir Fedotov

“If you have a deep scar, that is a door; if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.” ~Clarissa Pinkola Estés

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THE CONSCIOUS WOUNDED HEALER, LIGHTING THE WAY FOR OTHERS SO THAT THEY MAY ALSO BEGIN TO SEE THEIR OWN PARTICULAR WOUNDING AS THE CRUCIBLE OF THEIR WISDOM. The next step, however, is antithetical to our modern lives. The medical model and its insidious mind-body separation leave no room or time for understanding what we can learn from our pain and wounds. Neither does it value the metaphorical or symbolic realm where we can also begin to glean the meaning and wisdom behind and within our wounds.

ment is a necessary initiation. It’s taken me years to accept and value this in a positive way. Years of struggle and pain and thinking I will never recover and be able to live the life I was born to fulfill. And yet, that day can eventually come.

The light will return, and the insights drop down more deeply into us as we mature and listen to the wisdom to be found in our wounding.

What could be the wisdom in your wounds?

What possible positives can be mined from such pain and suffering? Turning the entire way of looking at what happened to us in the past on its head is a mighty feat indeed and requires much courage. To start to see how other people and situations have caused us pain as gateways into a deeper, untapped, and often ancient wisdom inside of ourselves is an incredible achievement. Let me give you a personal example.

Naturally, people with a similar wound unconsciously feel drawn to work with me, and so I revisit these painful spots again and again as I gently help them start to unravel the painful cords strangling their authentic voice, body, and soul.

Of course, with the help of the horses who thrive on seeing us thrive authentically, it is a potent combination of support for others.

I have a major Mother Wound at the core of me.

As an unwanted baby and an emotionally and psychologically neglected infant who had to grow up rapidly and seriously adapt to my family’s ways rather than honor my own ways, I have suffered greatly in my life, most of all in the area of relationships; all kinds of relationships. Yet, now that I have come through the other side after years of psychotherapy and other forms of healing and support, I am able to see how that particular wound has led me not only to be able to do the kind of professional work I do with other wounded people, but it also enables me to write and support people through continually mining the wisdom behind my wound. It is indeed an enormous gift. My senses are acutely honed. I can spot a similarly wounded person a mile off. I can empathize with the howling pain and hollowness left at the core of one’s being when you start out in life unloved and un-nurtured to simply live as your true self. And that is where the real gold is for me and my work: I can support other people to rediscover and nurture their true, authentic selves in ways I simply wouldn’t be able to without having first gone through this profoundly painful early initiation myself.

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This is where we learn that the phrase The Wounded Healer really holds deep meaning. I also add the word ‘conscious’ because we can be a wounded healer without having done the hard work of bringing our wounds fully into consciousness, let alone really mining the depths for their unique wisdom. So I think of my path as that of being The Conscious Wounded Healer, lighting the way for others so that they may also begin to see their own particular wounding as the crucible of their wisdom. If we all took this path, the world would be a much softer and more compassionate place indeed.

Quote at the beginning taken from Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ book, ‘Women Who Run With The Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype.’

Angela Dunning is a regular contributor to The Eden Magazine. She is the author of The Horse Leads the Way: Honoring the True Role of the Horse in Equine Facilitated Practice.

Angela writes regularly on Facebook: ebook.com/thehorsestruth.

You can learn more about Angela and her work helping people and horses at: www.thehorsestruth.co.uk.

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An interview with Jerry Sargeant You have lived an extraordinary life. At one time, your life was going on a negative path. Can you tell us about that and how you managed to change your life around?

I started working for a criminal organization in my late teens until a series of events took me on a different trajectory. I was asleep, traveling by taxi to Bucharest Airport in Romania with my ex-wife and children in the back. A loud crash woke me. Glass flew everywhere, and the cab swayed and skidded across the road. I remember thinking, we're in a bad accident.

Then the car came to a halt, and no other vehicles were on the road. I thought that was strange.

Author of Activate Your Super-Human Potential. The Ulitmate 5D Toolkit

Aalayah, my daughter, was under the driver's seat (no seatbelts in the cab) and Laura and Josh's mouths were full of glass. The taxi driver was in shock; there was a hole in the windscreen, and there was blood on my face but astoundingly, I wasn't cut. I got out of the taxi. Two women lay injured 30 meters from me. One of them had her ankles completely severed. Through the haze, I thought I saw a lump in the road, about a hundred meters away, which I thought was another body.

I walked past the two injured pedestrians, strangely drawn to what looked like a dead body. Something hovered above, which I can only describe as mysterious translucent energy. I shook my head, trying to lose the image. But whatever it was, it remained above the body until it got nearer, then it slowly fizzled off into the ether. By this time, I was standing looking over the body of a woman with her legs wrapped around her head.

I now know that the energy hovering above her was her soul.

It was like someone (the soul) had taken an old car (body) to the scrap heap. The soul no longer required the physical vessel that lay so damaged on the tarmac. The soul just left. I wit-

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nessed the connection and disconnection between body and soul. And in that extraordinary moment, I understood we are more than our physical bodies; we are atoms and molecules in continuous movement in time and space. We are energy.

I looked up to the heavens and said thank you. The experience opened my world. Many things started to change internally, and new astonishing events unfolded.

The car crash was the start of it all.

What else happened to you to put you on this path?

Around the time of the car crash, I met my first spiritual teacher, who worked for Scotland Yard's secret psychic division. I learned how to remote view, access past lives, bring my light from my body and travel, and more.

I met shape-shifting reptilians in human form and encountered angels and fairies. But what really amplified my life and brought Star Magic to Earth was when I got picked up by a spaceship and taken to Alpha Centauri. There I met two hundred Lyrans, beings from other planets, who shared the healing codes I call Star Magic.

That changed everything. I spent nine months in Egyptian Mystery schools learning how to use these codes and bring Star Magic to this planet.

How did you come across your ability to heal yourself and others?

Tell us how it has changed the way you are in the world.

Sometime after the car crash, my exwife had a headache. What was unreal was that I could see it in her head. I saw green energy, so I reached in and pulled it out. It sounds strange, and it was even more bizarre to do the first time, but her headache went away.

More and more experiences began to happen. Once I was given the healing codes by the Lyrans and was shown how to use them in the mystery schools, more people who needed healing appeared in my life.

I knew I must share this work with others and booked a space at a mind, body, and spirit festival. I offered people the chance to win one of three free healings with me. About 80 people put their names down on a list. I phoned them all and told them they had won so that I could practice. I worked with everyone, and the results were incredible, and I collected testimonials and set up the first Star Magic website.

You work with people from all walks of life, helping them heal on all levels, spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional — tell us about some of those healings.

There are so many. One that stands out is a lady that had been punched in the face by her husband twenty years ago, and her face was cracked and dented. She had facial reconstruction surgery, but it did nothing.

She came to my training in India. I worked on her for 10 minutes max, and when she came around, the hole in her face was gone; two years on, it's still perfect.

Another man, Mark, contacted me through the website. Doctors told him he would have to have ten feet of his colon removed. Tests showed he suffered from diverticulitis, peritonitis, and Ecoli and had tumors in his intestine. I worked with him twice energetically and at a distance —after the second treatment, he woke up with a scar across his stomach, and he felt amazing. He returned to the doctor and had further tests, and everything had disappeared. The doctors canceled his surgery.

These are just two examples; I have video testimonials and other stories at: www.starmagichealing.com.

What is Star Magic, and how does it work?

A human being has a body and a brain. Both are like biological computers, downloading information from the quantum field. We are also souls residing in these physical bodies, and we are multidimensional.

We exist in many spaces at the same time. Some of these experiences affect us negatively in this new space, this present-day reality. Adverse experiences are not necessarily harmful because there is an opportunity for growth within every situation.

Traumatic experiences create a program within the body/biocomputer. Remember, we are bio-computers, and programs control the computers. Guilt, rejection, and anger (programs) stem from somewhere.

What we do is find out where. We tap the quantum field and access the time-space coordinates of the trauma. Once we find out what happened, we change the data stream feeding the bio-computer, the body,

and the brain so the human can no longer access that data stream/trauma.

Imagine if you had a website and wanted to change the color from pink to yellow. You would go into the back end of the website and change the code, and then the color would change on the front end.

What we do is no different.

Everything is code, and we humans are mathematical equations. We are code. We disconnect the code/ information stream creating the physical, emotional, and mental (all or some) symptoms and replace them with Star Magic Codes of Consciousness, and then the healing takes place.

There is a range of ways to apply Star Magic, from beginners to advanced healing, and we share them all.

What is Star Magic Foundation, and what kind of work do you do?

It's a foundation to give back. It's so important to give back. We have taken teams to the Philippines to rebuild towns and villages and put permaculture projects in place after a big typhoon. We went to Cambodia to help children who had suffered at the hands of child trafficking. We also went into the jungle to help with sanitation at schools there.

The Star Magic Foundation regularly donates to other local and international projects. We also help souls who want to come on our training courses or need healing and haven't any money.

There must be balance in everything.

What do you hope to achieve with Star Magic in the future?

The Team and I are training souls to heal using Star Magic. We have trained thousands in more than forty countries. The goal is to build global healing centers.

We have acquired land for the first three, and the building will start in March 2023. People will travel to these centers from all over the world to train and heal. The Star Magic healing codes are built into the architecture, making the actual buildings living technology.

My focus is on training others to work and create from these centers and build these facilities, expanding consciousness on Earth and unifying our human family.

To find out more about Jerry Sargeant, please go to his website www.starmagichealing.com.

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THE WAY I SEE IT

By Joey Santos, Jr.

THAT'S WHAT Photo by Murilo Bahia

FRIENDS ARE FOR 82 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

I

Photo by Tverdokhlib/Adobestock

t's interesting how friends are made, but more so, how they're lost. They say you can't have too many friends!

But, they also say, oh, how can you have so many friends?

It was 1982, and there were some rumblings about AIDS, but there were no tests. Everyone was young and healthy.

Who would have thought? Could have thought!

I am always curious and fascinated by the stories of how people meet and become friends. I love hearing them. One was told to me years ago and stuck with me to this day. I was in Manhattan for a few days to do some Holiday shopping before continuing to Michigan to join my partner Andrew and his family for Christmas. A close friend who lives on the upper east side where I was staying said he was invited to a formal dinner party at a penthouse on Sutton Place and asked if I'd join him as his plus one. I said I would love to. There's an old saying, "have a Black Tie, will travel." I'm always prepared. Come to think of it now, that might be why he asked me. Anyway, we both cleaned up nicely, and off we went. The Doormen ushered us over to a private elevator that shot us up 40 flights. The brass elevator doors opened to a gorgeous apartment, elegant and with absolutely no pretense. It was the real deal, with floor-to-ceiling windows revealing sweeping views up and down the East River and beyond. Waiters in white ties carrying silver trays of Martinis and others serving Hors D'oeuvres of Smoked Salmon and Caviar on Potato Galette and Lobster Thermador "Nibbles." Everyone was beautifully dressed - mostly men in Black Tie and only four amazingly beautiful and well-dressed women. They were coiffed and bejeweled. There were 20 guests in total. And about that many in staff. New Yorkers know how to throw a party.

There was a shiny black lacquered Grand Piano by the window with none other than Michael Feinstein there to tickle those keys away. I was this close to quoting Bette Davis as Margot Channing in All About Eve, "fasten your seatbelt," but I digressed. At least let myself get a French Martini or two down before I started that bit! After all, I was a guest!

And speaking of guests, I have to mention the fear of the lost art of the host.

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As soon as we arrived, the party host came right up to us, warmly greeted his guest/ friend, introduced himself to me, and graciously welcomed me into his home and party. That is called class.

And are minder that all is not lost in this world.

I headed straight toward the redhead in the emerald necklace and earrings. She talked me up for 15 minutes before insisting I meet her Gay Husband, Lloyd. (Gay Husband is a term used by women of a particular social standing). Often, their legal husbands have either passed on, moved out, or lost interest in endless shopping sprees, galas, luncheons, cocktail parties, mindless chitchat, and gossip. You know the kind of things most Gay Husbands can't get enough of.

They turn out to be their most trusted confidants, protectors, fashion gurus, and arm candy.

A girl's best friend (so to speak). Delighted and encouraged by the legal husbands (mostly decadently rich). "Here, take the Rolls and the Black Amex and make sure she gets home safe."

Well, it was finally time to be seated for dinner. I had lost my friend whom I went with to a hunky Polo player at the opposite end of the table. Fine with him. Fine with me. We both made new friends and had a ball. I was seated beside Mariantha (the redhead in emeralds) and Lloyd. She began to tell me the story of how they met. I was all ears. She said they met in 1989 at a Gala Fundraiser for AIDS held at The Plaza Hotel at ten thousand dollars a plate.

She was there with her actual husband and was prepared to present their check for one hundred and fifty thousand as a donation. Then someone introduced a young, tall, handsome, elegant man. He went up to speak and began telling his love story of how he met his partner Douglas on the last day of a long party weekend in Miami.

It was 1982. He spoke of how it felt like kismet.

Everything was there. Everything was right, the air, the sky, the moon, the stars, the moment, the man. After all, they were both 24. Life was fun, exciting, and sexy, and it was just beginning. It turned out they both lived in NYC. Lloyd was pursuing a career as an interior designer and Douglas as a realtor. They fell for each other hard and fast. They moved in together within the year and began building a beautiful life. Lloyd contracted a new client on the west coast and had to fly out to San Francisco to oversee an installation. He hoped to be there for a few weeks

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before Douglas would fly out to meet him and spend a few days together.

Well, that wasn't meant to be. Lloyd said he got a call from Douglas saying he wasn't feeling well and thought it best to postpone the trip. Neither felt overly concerned and decided it was best to rest up and that they would see each other at home in a week or so. It was 1982, and there were some rumblings about AIDS, but there were no tests. Everyone was young and healthy.

Who would have thought? Could have thought!

Douglas was rushed to a hospital the following day. Lloyd flew back immediately. He arrived at the Hospital, was refused access to see him, and wasn't given any information because there wasn't any. The next day Douglas died. Alone.

Mariantha, moved by his story, ran up to him after he spoke and knew he would become her forever friend. She embraced him and swore to him that he would never be alone and she would fight to see this Disease through. She tore the original one hundred and fifty thousand dollar check-in half and pledged one million dollars instead. They have been dear and close friends ever since, raising awareness and millions of dollars, hoping that no one will have to go through that horror again.

"That's what friends are for." So, who needs them? When you're friends like Mariantha and Lloyd?

We all do!

Joey Santos is a Celebrity Chef, Life Stylist & CoHost of The Two Guys From Hollywood Podcast on iHeart Radio.

A Columnist for The Eden Magazine since 2016.

Joey was raised in NYC, Malibu, and West Hollywood. He is the son of Film & Television Actor Joe Santos, and his Grandfather is World-Renowned Latin Singer Daniel Santos.

To follow Joey on IG: @jojoboy13 To contact Joey; whynotjoe@gmail.com

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An Excerpt from A Disciple The Spiritual Path to Infinite Happiness

OPENNESS In Ephesus with beloved Mother Mary

Photo by By andreusK/AdobeStock

By Feroze Dada

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‘Those who cannot renounce attachment to the results of their work are far from the path. Actions do not cling to me because I am not attached to their results. Those who understand this and practice it live in freedom.’

A

t a retreat at Mother Mary’s house in Ephesus, Ustād my spiritual master was teaching me about silence…. the first step towards our journey inside.

And about Humility -our ego-which is the first obstacle that comes in our way in our spiritual path. My master had recognised these faults in me and wanted to teach me a lesson, in a way that I would best understand and remember.

Spiritual teaching is not just in words but experiential……here is what happened at dinner at our first morning in Ephesus: “That evening at dinner, I was impatient to share what I’d noticed with others on the retreat.

I sat opposite Ustād (professor. teacher, Master) and chatted away.

Others in the group were quiet and reserved, answering only when Ustād spoke to them.

I rattled on, feeling increasingly uncomfortable but not knowing why.

When I paused for breath, Ustād spoke.

‘I’m inspired to talk about two topics tonight.’ He took a a sip of water.

‘The first is silence.’

My heart sank. I hadn’t meant to dominate the conversation; I’d simply wanted to share my excitement.

My mind had sped off with me clinging on to it. I’d stopped being aware of others around me because I was too focused on them listening to me.

‘Silence is necessary because if your

mind is distracted, you’ll miss the moment of inspiration or fail to recognize a glimpse of Divine knowledge.’

He looked over at me pointedly.

‘Or an imparted thought that comes from a master or teacher.’

So that’s why students were quiet around Ustād and only spoke when he asked them a question. Not because they were shy or reserved but because they didn’t want to miss any of his wise words.

‘And the second topic is humility,’ went on Ustād.

I felt his words like a punch to the stomach.

Had my ego got the better of me? Is that why I wantedeveryone to listen to me? Did I want recognition from them for how well I was doing on my spiritual journey?

Ustād turned to me.

‘So Feroze, every morning, I want you to kiss the hands of two people…’

My mouth fell open, and I stared at him.

Surely, he was joking?

I couldn’t think of anything more embarrassing.

Kiss someone’s hand...? Like a servant.

In front of the group and hotel guests. as if I was subservient, that they were better than me?

For a brief second, I felt a flash of anger. Then I recalled my Master’s words on the day he initiated me as his student.

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‘Before one embarks on the spiritual path, we need to work on ourselves. Remove any moral imperfections such as meanness, jealousy, anger, greed, hatred, fear, and pride. They’re obstacles to moving forward. No one is perfect, but we need to make efforts to improve as a human beings. Consciously working towards improving our moral code, being aware of our faults - tirelessly working to reduce these.’

I looked at Ustād and met his unflinching gaze. He was waiting for my answer.

I swallowed my pride and nodded.

Pride. Arrogance. They were indeed traits I needed to work on. I did want to remove obstacles from my path and think with a clear unconditioned mind.

‘He just wants to teach me a lesson; he’ll have forgotten by tomorrow,’ said a reassuring voice in my head.

But the next morning, Ustād had not forgotten.

He pointed me in the direction of two people.

There was no persuading him out of it.

For just a fraction of a second, I hesitated.

But something inside me was urging me to step up.

I had faith in the way he was teaching me. And I knew from our past conversations that the Sufi way of learning was from direct personal experience.

I took a deep breath and approached the first person.

‘May I…?’ I said in a mortified whisper, bowing over the woman’s hand and brushing my lips against her skin, noticing an expression of bemusement in her eyes.

For the next five days, I continued to carry out my task.

FEAR AND GREED PROMOTE THE MIND, AND THE MIND IS THE INSTRUMENT OF THE EGO.’

ego needs to stand aside to make way for our journey towards oneness with the Divine,’ said Ustād, a smile in his eyes after my task was completed.

Later that day, I joined the group for a brisk mile meditative walk. This time I welcomed the silence as a time to reflect on the lessons Ustād had taught me about silence and humility.

Suddenly I felt those same invisible arms that had wrapped me up in a warm embrace in the Virgin Mary’s house slip around my shoulders. And that familiar sense of peace flooded through me. Then words poured into my head, almost as if she was whispering in my ear.

‘Humility is the biggest challenge that human beings encounter on the spiritual path - a challenge that’s defeated the best of students and often their spiritual master’.

‘That’s because the human ego dominates in a person’s physical form. Like a pendulum, as you push against it, it moves a little, but when you are unaware, it swings back. So, we need to continue to persevere and persist against it in every moment.’

The voice was gentle and nurturing.

‘Humility is not about having a demeanor of being kind, softly spoken, verbally self-defacing – it is deeper than that. An absence of pride is also not a substitute for meekness.

‘True humility is etched upon the soul. Glistening through the eyes of the beholder and revealing itself in their every action.’

Then the voice stopped. And I walked on amazed, savoring the wisdom that had filtered into my mind. Knowing it had come from somewhere else, from a woman who had lived thousands of years before.

I caught up with Ustād. Our footsteps fell naturally in tandem.

How does one achieve humility?’ I asked.

I was embarrassed but, equally, I realized, it was a lesson I needed to learn.

He looked across at me curiously.

‘With the strength of the Virgin Mary, who suffered and withstood immense pain,’ he said knowingly.

And I’d got off lightly. My Master’s students in the past had worked in orphanages, lived off charity, and cleaned the streets for up to six months until humility was ingrained through humiliation.

‘The Sufi emphasis on non-duality shows us our

A shiver ran through me. Of course, she knew better than anyone what humility was after losing her only son.

‘And the compassion of Jesus, the patience of Job, determination of Moses, the wisdom of Krishn

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a, knowledge of Brahma, and love of Prophet Mohammed.

‘It comes with fighting pride and arrogance, as generosity can only be acquired by fighting stinginess.

Fear and greed promote the mind, and the mind is the instrument of the ego.’

Meditation was helping me become more aware of how my mind worked. But I noticed how my hopes and fears all too often attached themselves to my thoughts and distracted me, whilst at the same time; my ego continued to influence my actions. It was an ongoing process of awareness. The pendulum of my ego would swing back, but next time I’d be ready for it, less attached to my thoughts.

‘True humility is uncommon. Few will achieve it due to the prolonged exposure to pain and suffering that’s required,’ said Ustād gently.

‘Simply surrender to the experience.’

I felt his words resonate. I was learning to evaluate my experiences differently, without relying on my old conditioned mind that held power to keep me imprisoned.

I recalled Lord Krishna explaining the secrets of the universe and the purpose of mankind to Arjuna in the ancient Indian text, The Bhagavad Gita.

‘Those who cannot renounce attachment to the results of their work are far from the path. Actions do not cling to me because I am not attached to their results. Those who understand this and practice it live in freedom.’

I didn’t know what lay in the future. But I understood intuitively that what I was learning now was a foundation for the next part of my journey. I wanted to take Ustād’s advice and surrender to the experience.

Ustād described surrendering as ‘spiritual pragmatism’.

‘To accept whatever comes our way is best. With acceptance comes action, and with actions come outcome.

First, embrace the difficulty and then surrender to its outcome. If you need to die, accept this. If you need to be imprisoned, accept this.

Human beings cause most of their problems because they can’t surrender to the outcome of a difficult situation. The secret is to embrace and surrender to the difficulty. This is where all the spiritual growth is waiting for you.’

I may not know where I was headed or the outcome but I was open to all experiences on the road I’d started out on.”

Feroze Dada was born in Karachi, and has lived and worked for most of his life in London. He worked in the finance sector and was entrepreneurial in helping several media start-up companies. A decade ago, his life changed when he went to Myanmar to visit his wife’s family. He became deeply involved in working with a Buddhist monastery in Shan Province, helping it over a number of years to become self-sufficient, supporting as it does some 1200 orphan children.

He became a meditation practitioner and continued to work with his Sufi teacher, learning how to live a fulfilled and meaningful life, and by helping others.

He is the interviewer and producer of the online TV series Discovering Humanity and Our One World, and author of Children of the Revolution; A Spiritual Journey to Burma and Buddhism.

As well as his work as founder of The Inle Trust Charity, www.inletrust.org.uk set up to help the children at the Phaya Taung monastery in Myanmar, he teaches and promotes meditation at The Sylvan Healing Sanctuary www.sylvanhealing.org in London. This is a community of healers, teachers and practitioners that offer energy healing, meditation and mindfulness.

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An Excerpt from Empowered, Sexy, and Free by Jolie Dawn

IT’S TIME TO GO DEEPER

By Jolie Dawn

H

ow can you get started on a spiritual path or deepen your current practice? If you want to connect to your spirituality, intuition, and divine potential, and you’re ready to release control and be guided, let’s get you started. Maybe you’ve tried to take up a spiritual practice before — meditation, yoga, reading all the books — and whatever you’ve tried hasn’t worked. Maybe you’ve gotten dissatisfied with the whole thing and come to me (or someone like me) to help you find the right way to do it.

I’ve got some bad news for you.

There is no “right” way to connect to the divine. There is no one way that is better than any other. It is solely based on you and how you feel. If what you did before didn’t work, then it wasn’t the right thing for you, or else you weren’t looking at it the right way, like something you chose rather than something someone was supposed to do for you. Beautiful soul, no master, book, or workshop will ever be able to do it for you. You must make a choice to become at one with God for yourself — no one else can do that for you.

Why? Because the relationship you seek with the divine is actually the relationship, you seek with yourself.

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Whatever you perceive as the divine — God, another deity, spirit, the universe, the earth, anything else — created you.

You are a part of the creator, and the creator is a part of you, just as a mother is part of her children and a child is part of their mother. To love the divine is to love yourself, and to love yourself is to love the divine.

Maybe you’re thinking that spirituality means being a hippie and burning incense and never showering and talking in big words that no one understands. Um…maybe? If that’s your thing? But if it’s not, then no.

I remember attending a sound healing event once and looking around at everyone, thinking they had completely lost their minds. I was so uncomfortable. Everyone was all airy-fairy and overly scented with essential oil. I couldn’t focus on what I was there to learn. Everyone had a powerful experience, and I just wanted out.

Have you ever felt that uncomfortable around other people’s spirituality?

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I had to ask myself: Why was I so triggered? It took me a while to understand what was going on, but eventually, I realized I was being shown that I was not comfortable in my own expression of spirituality. To me, spirituality was right only if it was done in secrecy. Maybe I wasn’t totally into sound healing, or maybe I was, but what was really bothering me was the openness of it all. Such an open expression of spirituality made me really uncomfortable, even though I’d chosen to be there in the first place.

But the more I thought about it, the more I understood that spirituality is a unique expression for each of us. However, you like to connect to something that’s greater than you, to divinity in whatever form you envision is perfect.

Here are some things that can help: DEVELOP A CONSISTENT PRACTICE. Whatever you commit to, whether it be meditation, journaling, chanting, praying, singing, yoga, or gardening, do it consistently. Do it with joy. Allow yourself to find pleasure in the practice. They say it takes twenty-one days to form a new habit, so give yourself those three weeks. If one practice doesn’t work for you, try another. Remember, there’s no wrong way to get spiritual.

LOOK INTO THE EYES OF YOUR FELLOW HUMANS. Really. It’s called eye gazing, and I love it. I was so freaked out by this practice initially. It can be a bit uncomfortable at first to see and be seen so vulnerably. But let me tell you, when you can quiet your mind and then gaze into another human’s eyes, you will find a spiritual beauty that can move you to tears. The eyes are the gateway to the soul.

Allow yourself to experience the resonance, the wonderment, the curiosity of what those eyes have seen.

There is always so much more than what you see on the surface.

Note: this is best done either with a close friend or in an eye-gazing event, at least at first.

STAY IN GRATITUDE. Being grateful expands your vibration, makes your energy field lighter and allows you to easily attract what you desire. It lets the universe know that you’re happy to be here. It reminds you that you’re happy to be here.

LIVE BEYOND THIS PHYSICAL DIMENSION. When I first worked with an energy healer, it completely shook up my reality. She could see things that I couldn’t: my energetic body, my aura, my chakra system. You don’t have to be able to see these things to know that they are there. Live beyond the 92 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

confines of this reality, whatever that means for you.

Speak to your angels, request support from your guides, and honor the mystery beyond what meets the eye.

BE AWARE OF YOUR VIBRATION. A mind filled with doubt, worry, regret, resentment, jealousy, or anger will affect your vibration. We all know the Negative Nancy — when she enters the room, we feel a shift. We can all feel the tightening. Be responsible for your vibration. Cultivate a mind filled with peace, love, possibility, light, and joy! You will be the light in the room that magnetically attracts others.

Love Yourself with all You’ve Got. How much love do you have for yourself? Are you willing to fall into a deep romance with yourself? I challenge you to look in the mirror, look into your own eyes, just as you are and as you’re not, and say, “I love you” ten times every day. This will completely alter your vibration. In this practice, you are honoring yourself as divinity, as the light itself. See beauty and perfection in your own eyes. See the infinite, divine being that you truly are.

Jolie Dawn is the author of Empowered, Sexy, and Free and the creator of the Dare to Prosper Challenge, the largest women’s prosperity meditation gathering online, attended by women in more than fifty countries.

She specializes in helping women awaken their prosperity consciousness, embody their deepest truth, and reclaim personal freedom and creativity.

Visit her online at http://www.joliedawn.com.

Excerpted from the book Empowered, Sexy, and Free©. — www.newworldlibrary.com.

THE LOVING BREATH OF ABUNDANCE Photo by travnikovstudio/adobestock

By Heidi Connolly

W

e all know that inhalation cannot exist without exhalation.

No matter how much air you take in to stay underwater for a certain length of time, for example, you still have to come up for more eventually. It's the natural course of things. It's life.

So what happens when we apply this as a metaphor for the way we handle our feelings about abundance and money?

That's right...money. Even the word goes against our spiritual natures. Is it okay to live a spiritual life and treasure abundance simultaneously? Is it possible to feel about money the way we feel about something so seemingly opposed—something like love?

Picture yourself on a big ship, on the upper deck. You are watching as luggage is being loaded onto the ship, one steamer trunk, one suitcase at a time.

You watch it coming in, spotting your own luggage on its way, with a sense that all is right with the world because you, and everyone else on the ship, will have everything you need when you need it, or you will be able to find whatever you need aboard. You relax, your shoulders relax; you prepare to have a safe and joyous journey, and… exhale.

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Your journey is indeed a pleasant one, one where everything is easy, and you lack for nothing, and now it is time to return to your place of origin. As the ship docks, you disembark and join all the other passengers to wait for your luggage, the same luggage you boarded with, to return to you once again. You breathe in and then breathe out when, once again, it arrives at your feet, back where it belongs.

Luggage in, luggage out. No worries that there will be fewer belongings than you packed when you left home. In fact, there may even be more things you picked up along the way, gifts you will have in your possession only briefly, as you plan to share them with loved ones and friends. As you disembark, you know all is well in your universe.

This analogy is based on an experience I had while meditating about three years ago and is the reason I started calling money "Love Energy Units," or LEUs. In my meditation, I was on an old-fashioned steamer ship, similar to the one above, watching as sailors carried trunk after trunk of coins and jewels up to the ship. I watched as they kept coming, on and on and on. The trunks came up; they were parked behind me and then were carried off again without any hiccups in the flow, simply the infinitely ongoing receiving and letting go. There was no need to "keep" any of it because it kept coming in. No need to fear lack because it kept coming in. No reason that I had to believe it was "mine," and no reason to hold onto it

in case there wouldn't be enough in the future because no matter how much I, or anyone else, shared, it would keep coming in, in an endless flow.

Just like breath.

Breathe out; another breath automatically flows in.

Share your love energy; more love energy automatically flows in your direction.

When her husband Randy transitioned in 2012, Heidi Connolly’s life took a dramatic turn. Owner of Harvard Girl Word Services for over 20 years, Heidi focused on the work of others; now, through the writing with Randy of her awardwinning book Crossing the Rubicon, Heidi understands that she is capable of much more than she’d ever given herself credit, including her ability to communicate with the Other Side.

Currently, her multidimensional compass is set to the practice of writing, intuitive/mediumshipcoaching, spiritually guided healing music, and living life as a “Vacationing Angel.” Heidi’s newest book, The Gateway Café, is the enticing story of a teenager’s journey of awakening through inter-dimensional travel and angelic intervention.heidiconnolly.com

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DORIS BERGMAN'S 5th ANNUAL

GRATITUDE LOUNGE’ HITS A HOLE-IN-ONE AT THE 15TH ANNUAL GEORGE LOPEZ CELEBRITY GOLF CLASSIC Toluca Lake -- On Monday, May 2, 2022, the rich and famous

teed off at The 15th Annual George Lopez Celebrity Golf Classic, held at one of Toluca Lake’s most prestigious golf clubs. The sold-out’ tournament, benefiting The George Lopez Foundation, included Doris Bergman’s Fifth Annual “Gratitude Lounge,” co-hosted by SWAY® PREMIUM AUDIO, TWISTED SILVER & ROBOSEN®. Bergman showcased an incredible array of luxury gifts featuring fashion for him and her, including bespoke tuxedos & suits, the finest in beauty, skin and men’s grooming, outrageous cannabis topical & edible products, exotic chocolate delights, stunning jewelry collections, delicious soy candles, unique electronics, hearty spirits, including, organic Tequila, delectable gourmet sweets and much more.

The mission of The George Lopez Foundation is to create positive, permanent change for underprivileged children, adults, and military families confronting challenges in education and health, as well as to increase community awareness about kidney disease and organ donation. georgelopezfoundation.org 96 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e JUNE 2022

Gifts and services were provided by: Olita Skin Care; The Bearded Sailor; Robosen®, Sway Audio; Movo®; Nukka Razors; Arrowhead Water; Cannabolish; Fresh Wave Works; The Marijuana Factory; Sub Zero Ice Cream; Dulce Vida Organic Tequila; Twisted Silver; Art Lewin Bespoke; Milena LA; Gyber Pizza Oven; Actual Veggies; Aloha; Alter Eco Foods; Arrowhead Water; Bala;; Boost Oxygen; Kings Brewing Co.; Brownie Brittle; Cask & Kettle; Chef ’s Life; Chipz Happen; ChocXo; Crispy Green; Eastern Standard Provisions; Essentia Water; Field Trip Foods; Food Huggers; Frunutta; Green Peach; Happy Grub; Herbion Humanitea; Jackson’s Chips; Liquid Death; Live P.S. Skincare; Mariner Flat Breads; Nukka; Nutri Care; NuvoMed; Pickle Power; Portland Pet Food; Potent Kitchen; Rain; Raw Gear; Raws; Simply Gum; Smart Sweets; Sow Good; SUJA; Tampico; Tosi; True Made Foods; Unisoy Jerky; Whisp’s Cheese Snacks; Clean Simple Eats; Dr. Heffs Gum; Momo’s CBD; ONE Bars;Zip Top Wish Garden Herbs; UP2U; Feel Good Super Foods; and, The Ultimate D.J. – Mr. Craig Scime. VIP Gift Bags were provided by Twisted Silver.

George Lopez, Mayan Lopez, Andy Garcia, Cedric The Entertainer, Joe Pesci, Bailey Chase, Billy Magnussen, Oscar De La Hoya, D.L. Hughley, Don Cheadle, Caroline Rhea, Dondre Whitfield, Edward James Olmos, Gary Valentine, Jack Wagner, Joe Mantegna, Ryan McPartlin, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Adrian Gonzalez, Alissa Kacar, Alysha Del Valle, Andy Vargas, Ben Baller, Brian Krause, Celine Pelofi, Pat Monahan, Chris Spencer, Christopher Judge, Debbe Dunning, Derrex Brady, Elizabeth “Lizzy” Small, Emilio Rivera, Eric Martsolf, Eugenia Kuzmina, Galen Gering, Jackie Flynn, Kelly Sheehan, Kendall Schmidt, Kim Estes, Kyle Lowder, Lee Trevino, Lisa Vidal, Lu Parker, Mark Rolston, Matt Cedeno, Michael Irby, Mike Phillips, Neil Giraldo, Nigel Lythgoe, Norman Nixon, Patrika Darbo, Philip Boyd, Richard Karn, Roland Martin, Steven Michael Quezada, Sugar Ray Leonard, Tisha Alyn, Wells Adams, William Wilson, to name a few, were among the cadre of celebrities who were treated to the best of the best.

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Yes, THE DROUGHT REALLY IS THAT BAD

By Theo Whitcomb

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Shrinking snowpacks, parched topsoil and depleted reservoirs are symptoms of the West’s worst set of dry years since 800 A.D.

cross the West, state leaders are bracing against the longterm impacts of aridification. In late April, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown added four additional counties to the ‘drought emergency’ tally — now, half the state is in a state of emergency. Further south, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which gets water to millions of city dwellers, restricted outdoor water use for the first time ever. In Colorado, the U.S. Department of Agriculture designated the entire state a “primary natural disaster area” due to the threat of drought — also considered an ‘unprecedented’ move. The Southwest, as a whole, has been hit hard with dry conditions: Utah and New Mexico both issued separate emergency declarations, one for water scarcity and the other for wildfire.

The political designations unlock resources and expand powers for states and counties to navigate the extreme water scarcity, making available, among other things, relief aid for the agriculture industry. Westerners will undoubtedly need it this summer, and — as the drought likely continues — future summers.

Shrinking snowpacks, parched topsoil and depleted reservoirs are symptoms of the West’s worst set of dry years since 800 A.D. There is also a significant likelihood the megadrought continues. A study published in Nature Climate Change in February predicted a 94% chance the drought stretches through 2023; the chances of it persisting through 2030 are 75%, when factoring in continued impacts of a warming climate.

Lassen Peak & Manzanita Lake, Photo by Estivillml/AdobeStock

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According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, most of the West is in “moderate” to “severe drought.” Certain regions, like eastern and southwestern Oregon, California’s Central Valley, southern Nevada and eastern New Mexico are in “extreme” to “exceptional” drought.

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Here are a few numbers and notable coverage to understand how the drought is impacting the West:

CALIFORNIA • Urban water use in the state rose by nearly 19% in March. 6 million people in Southern California will face outdoor water restrictions for the first time ever this summer, as Metropolitan Water District of Southern California orders outdoor watering once a week in a few densely populated cities.

THE SOUTHWEST • Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the nation's largest reservoirs, are at record lows — 24% full and 31% full, respectively. Powell’s stored supplies have dropped to just about 5 million acre-feet, triggering emergency releases to stymie dropping levels. The lake has a capacity of 26 million acre-feet.

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Cities, from San Diego to Las Vegas, are adapting with programs like “cash-for-grass” and water recycling, according to reporting from Yale Environment 360.

98% of the Southwest is in drought this week, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

According to NASA Earth Observatory, researchers are seeing widespread and severe low-snow and low-runoff conditions across the region. Their modeling indicates snowpack has peaked roughly a month earlier than normal in the Upper Colorado Basin.

THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST • According to Oregon’s Fifth Climate Assessment, the state’s annual average temperature has warmed by about 2.2˚F per century since 1895. More than a third of the state, on average, has been in drought since the year 2000.

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58% of Idaho is experiencing moderate to exceptional drought conditions. The state’s water resource department issued an emergency drought declaration in 34 out of its 44 counties in April.

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Glaciers in Washington’s Olympic National Park could be gone by 2070, with permanent impacts on an important source of summer water, according to a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface.

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Water sold for $2,000 per acre foot for the first time ever.

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In 2021 alone, the ongoing drought cost thousands of jobs and over $1 billion in the San Joaquin Valley; hundreds of wells have gone dry and more are expected to dry up this year.

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California’s largest reservoirs, Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville, are at ‘critically’ low levels.

Note: This story was updated to clarify that the current drought is not the "longest continuous streak of dry years," but rather the "worst dry period" since 800 AD. Despite a few wet years, drought conditions have persisted.

Theo Whitcomb is an editorial intern at High Country News. Email him a theo. whitcomb@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.

This story originally appeared in "HIGH COUNTRY NEWS" It is republished here as part of The Eden Magazine partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global journalistic collaboration to strengthen coverage of the climate story.

Lake Poweel, Arizona, Photo by Juan Carlos Munoz -AdobeStock

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