The Eden Magazine

EDEN T h e

AUGUST 2019

©

Magazine

Marianne Williamson BEYOND SPIRITUALITY

KAZ HAWKINS Woman with many stories to tell

EMOTIONS AS ENERGY IN MOTION

By Marco Nunzio Alati & Lavandaia

RINGO STARR

11th annual birthday celebration for peace & love

EMANCIPATION SYSTEMIZATION

By Michael White Ryan

THE NINE REALMS OF THE WOLF

By Teo Alfero

Table of Contents 6

MARIANNE WILLIAMSON

12

12

THE NINE REALMS OF THE WOLF

By Teo Alfero

16

MOVING FROM REACTION TO RESPONSE

By Tara-jenelle Walsch

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KAZ HAWKINS

31

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LOVE RELATIONSHIP & OTHER DECISIONS

By Joseph Bikart

34

TURN TEARDROPS TO PEARL

By Jayita Bhattacharjee

42

DEAD HORSES WILL NO LONGER BE IGNORED

By Kathy Guillerno

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RINGO STARR 11TH ANNUAL BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION FOR PEACE & LOVE

52

DEPRESSION HATES A MOVING TARGET

By Nita Sweeney

58

EMOTIONS AS ENERGY IN MOTION

By Marco Nunzio Alati

82

10 MINUTES A DAY TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE

By Phyllis King

Cover Photo

by ELISABETH GRANLI

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DINA MORRONE

Maryam Morrison

ALEXIA MELOCCHI

MARIA ELENA INFANTINO

EDWARD HAKOPIAN

GREG DOHERTY

TARA-JENELLE WALSCH

ISABELLE RUEN

NANCY E. YEAROUT

SHERI DETERMAN

MICHAEL WHITE RYAN

ANGELA DUNNING

JAN DIANA

GLORIA KISEL-HOLLIS

JOE SANTOS, JR.

SASHA GARY

MARCO NUNZIO ALATI

BRENDA SAINT HILAIRE

MARGARET TOMASZEWIC

JAYITA BHATTACHARJEE

MEET OUR TEAM

Photo by Artin Mardirosian

Spreading Compassion to all Sentient Beings and Living in healing and peaceful world

EDEN T

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MAGAZINE

Since 2010 The Eden Magazine is a free Online magazine 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 BRAND AMBASSADOR MARIA ELENA INFANTINO COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST GLORIA KISEL-HOLLIS CONTRIBUTING WRITERS JAN DIANA SASHA GARY JOE SANTOS, JR. ALEXIA MELOCCHI NANCY E. YEAROUT

ANGELA DUNNING MICHAEL WHITE RYAN MARCO NUNZIO ALATI JAYITA BHATTACHARJEE TARA-JENELLE WALSCH MARGARET TOMASZEWIC CONTRIBUTING STYLISTS + MAKEUP ARTIST EDWARD HAKOPIAN GRAPHICS & PHOTOGRAPHY ISABELLE RUEN SHERI DETERMAN GREG DOHERTY BRENDA SAINT HILAIRE WEBSITE

www.theedenmagazine.com 325 N. Maple Dr. Po Box 5132 Beverly Hills, CA 90209 To read this issue online www.issuupublishing.com To purchase a copy visit us in www.magcloud.com Eden Magazine is an non-profit & independent monthly online magazine.

Our aim is to create a better environment where we live among other living being in peace and harmony. We support artists that their work match 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 5 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e August 2019

M W MARIANNE WILLIAMSON

BEYOND SPIRITUALITY

BY ALEXIA MELOCCHI Edited by Dina Morrone

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Photography by Elisabeth Granli 7 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e August 2019

Marianne Williamson has always been a truth seeker and a truth speaker. She is an internationally acclaimed lecturer, activist, and author of four #1 New York Times bestselling books, as well as one of America's most well-known public voices for more than three decades.

Seven of her twelve published books have been New York Times bestsellers. A segment of her most known book, "A Return to Love" contains the quote, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…" It’s considered an anthem for a contemporary generation of seekers.

The book, inspired by content from a mystical text called "A Course in Miracles," by Helen Schucman, a Manhattan doctor, has been her inner compass since first immersing herself in the Course in Miracles precepts. Sales of Marianne's book skyrocketed after she appeared on Oprah in 1992. But Marianne was certainly not a “one book hit wonder." She continued to write bestsellers including, The Law of Divine Compensation, The Age of Miracles, Everyday Grace, A Woman’s Worth, Illuminata, Healing the Soul of America, A Course in Weight Loss, The Gift of Change, Enchanted Love, A Year of Miracles, and Tears to Triumph: The Spiritual Journey from Suffering to Enlightenment. Her newest book, A Politics of Love: Handbook for a New American Revolution, was published this year.

A native of Houston she has also been using her status to help those in need and causes dear to her heart.

In 1989, she founded Project Angel Food, a meals-on-wheels program that serves homebound people with AIDS in the Los Angeles area. To date, Project Angel Food has served over 11 million meals. Marianne also co-founded the Peace Alliance.

A few months back, she made an appearance and gave a powerful speech at the EMA (Environmental Media Association) Impact Summit in Beverly Hills where she boldly announced her candidacy for the Presidency in the 2020 election. Outside of her political announcement, I could not help but notice how she ignites the room when she walks in. Her sense of conviction about the issues that matter to her the most was truthful and impactful. Her focus? The environment and the changes that happened in America through the years, by the people and because of the people, not the Governments. Marianne wants to remind us of our own power and to take it back, because we can, for the constitution says so. But most of all, our soul is longing for that power and peace that comes from within. When I spoke with her, I noticed what was evident - she is a highly educated woman, up to speed with current events, and she exudes grace and quiet control in every gesture and every word that comes out of her. She made me feel that she deeply cares about this Country. We cannot predict the trajectory of her political aspiration, but we were compelled to ask her some questions that I feel matter to us all. The Eden Magazine is not a political magazine. It is a magazine where we feature beings who reach their highest potential and strive for more. We put the spotlight on the change makers, the game changers, the empaths, hoping to find wisdom, inspiration, and validation of what we all inherently feel but can't quite voice out loud.

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Marianne, you have been able to reach people of all ages with your message, but I especially noticed several young people at your speaking events. Do you feel that young people’s obsession with technology and thirst for being popular/liked hinders their ability to truly connect with their spirituality and with their direct participation in matters that may affect the future and the future of the next generation?

The digital revolution is as profound a change in human civilization as was the invention of the printing press. We’re only just beginning to understand what it all means -- its purposes, its advantages, as well as its perils. But it’s certainly here, and there is no stopping it. The outcome of its existence- either for purpose of good or for purposes of harm-depends on human consciousness. On the one hand, it’s true that people are using their tablets to disconnect from other people, but on the other hand, many people are using their tablets to connect with other people. The internet offers us both the best and the worst in terms of what’s possible for our future.

Do you feel that with so much information accessed on social platforms and media, it desensitizes people in general from truly wanting to seek their own truth and do their own fact checking in every area of their lives?

I fear that might be true. An overload of information on social platforms can bring about a single focus that distorts things, the same way we can look at trees but not realize the magnitude of the forest. In addition to that, there’s often information that is simply untrue, but you wouldn’t know it. The internet is democratizing in that it offers an important alternative to the corporate media, but at the same time there’s some crazy stuff out there. Each of us has to be responsible for our own critical thought processes.

You have dedicated your life to inspire others, and you are known for your messages of love and forgiveness. But in today's America these messages are becoming increasingly unpopular. Why have you chosen a political path when politics can be so cut throat? How do you plan to apply your message of consciousness to Washington yet maintaining a tough stance towards bullies and critics?

My hope is that my message will resonate with enough people that they will be willing to change the political conversation. An idea grows stronger when it's shared, and while you say that a message of love and forgiveness is becoming increasingly less popular, I think there’s also a greater yearning for it than every before. Everyone wants love; that’s the essence of our humanity. There’s no reason we can’t take the same conversations that dominate our personal lives and apply them to our larger world. If the purpose of our lives is to love one another, then that should apply to our collective existence too.

We need to be willing to imagine a better world. We need 10 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e August 2019

to be courageous enough to think outside the box, to claim for ourselves what it is that we really want. It’s no more ridiculous to claim love as the purpose of our collective lives, as it is to claim love as the purpose of our individual lives. Millions of people take a stand for love in small ways and large ways every day. If all those people would be willing to take that stand for love within the political realm, then we could change this country quickly.

Several of your books call for the "woman" to celebrate her power and be a Queen. How can a woman be a Queen and a Warrior while at the same time retain femininity and softness in her life?

It’s difficult only because of the projection of others. Unfortunately, women as well as men often perceive a woman standing in her fierceness as somehow less feminine. Yet the feminine must be fierce at times. A common anthropological characteristic of every advanced mammalian species that survives and thrives is the fierce behavior of the adult female of the species when she senses a threat to her cubs. Mother energy is fierce when the safety of her young is challenged.

Given the unmitigated heartlessness within the political domain today, especially towards children, the feminine aspect in all of us is called to rise. The projection onto women that that makes us less feminine is certainly a challenge.

You call yourself a political visionary, if you were to be elected President, how do you plan to re-engage the American people in its value system?

People hear you on the level you speak to them from. If you yourself are engaged with a topic in a deep way, then people hear you from a deep place within themselves. I am a romantic about American democracy, and I speak of my life for our first principles – that all men are created equal; that God gave all of us unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that governments are instituted to secure those rights; and if the government isn’t doing that, then it’s the right of the people to alter it. To me, every bit of public policy should be weighed against those principles. The role of the government should be to do everything possible to help people thrive. That’s where peace comes from, and where prosperity comes from.

All environmental policies are under attack, which ones concern you the most?

We have twelve years to make serious changes regarding the climate crisis, or we will be facing irreparable harm to our environment. We have twelve years during which we must sequester carbon, reforest, develop sustainable systems of energy and transportation, foster regenerative agriculture, deal with animal agriculture such as factory farming and work to reverse climate change. The EPA should be led by a world class environmental scientist. The EPA should be a magnet for the best environmental scientists in the world. Where The current administration has gutted the EPA s clean water act, gutted the clean air act, and allowed the production of dangerous pesticides, we must move in the exact opposite direction. The Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control, and National Institute of Health have all been disempowered, allowing food and chemical companies to flood our natural systems with dangerous toxins. Those are serious things which must be addressed, and if I’m president they will be.

Photography by Elisabeth Granli

“In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart, there is the power to do it.” ~Marianne Williamson

Photography by Wendy Zahler

What makes Marianne, the Woman, truly happy? Is your happiness tied to your current goals?

My happiness comes from the same place everyone's does -when I feel love and when I feel a sense of purpose. I do feel a lot of love on this campaign, though it comes with a lot of stress as well. I’m doing my best to follow this guidance that was given to me by a friend: “See the job. Do the job. Stay out of the misery.” I’m doing my best. *The Eden Magazine does not advocate for or endorse any political party, or individual running for the office of the Presidency. This article, on Marianne Williamson, is in support of her many years of efforts to increase spiritual and environmental awareness.

Photography by Wendy Zahler

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Photography by Marek Szturc 12 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e August 2019

THE NINE REALMS OF THE WOLF

By Teo Alfero

Realm One: The Wolf Heart Awakens Many people talk about the wild heart, or “rewilding” the heart.

I prefer to talk about rewolfing the heart. When was your wolf heart awake and alive?

We all have personal histories and experiences that influence the choices we have made and will make. But we humans often distort or repress our past experiences, which renders the truth of who we are and where we are in our lives elusive. This comes at great cost, because it keeps us from living a full, passionate life. Realm One is about clearing the lenses and uncovering the lessons contained in our life experiences, particularly those that have made a significant, lasting impact. In this chapter I offer mine. Experiencing a living wolf may not be possible for most people, but I believe that connecting with the real-life stories of wolves and humans can help us reawaken our wolf heart and reconnect with our life purpose.

Realm Two: The Ambassador Wolf Many uninformed wolf detractors try to dismiss the importance of wolves by hiding behind this question: What do wolves do for humanity? The Ambassador Wolf embodies what can be learned from wolves in captivity and from the primal human-wolf connection in action, which you will see in the guiding principles behind the Wolf Therapy program. In this chapter I’ll also share stories that will give you a glimpse of the power wolves carry as ambassadors for the natural world and as guides for humans.

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Realm Three: The Ancestral Wolf The First Nations in North America have a saying: “Wolves taught us how to be people.” Referencing discoveries in anthropology and biology, we explore this question: How did wolves make us human? And we present the latest scientific evidence, including the theory of coevolution of humans and wolves.

Realm Four: The Wild Wolf Validated by the findings of today’s foremost wolf behaviorists and biologists, I offer observations that answer this question: What can humans learn from wolves in the wild?

According to the messages I received in my twilight encounters with Wolf consciousness, humans and wolves share a unique, ancestral bond that predates myth and legend, history and evolution. That bond has influenced all we’ve done and all that we are since the be- ginning of time. The way I understood it, the wolf is the only animal who truly cares what happens to humans, and its message reached out to all of us, from the most vulnerable people, those in need of healing and inclusion, to the privileged.

We are united in the reality that we have all been prey to the darker sides of human nature.

Realm Five: The Human Wolf There are many behavioral similarities between wolves and humans, both positive and negative. In this chapter I respond to How is the wolf a mirror for humans? and what happens when we ignore our wolf connection.

Realm Six: The Cosmic Wolf In the summer of 2016, I had a dream vision that changed the course of my life. During that experience I received a wealth of detailed information from a higher, collective consciousness that presented itself to me as Wolf. In this chapter I present Wolf ’s message for humanity the way I received and understood it.

Realm Seven: The Mythological Wolf I am not the only one, or the first, to have received a Wolf message. Cultures around the world have been telling ancestral creation stories, inspired by Wolf guidance, for millennia. But modern humans have fallen into a state of isolation, forgetfulness, and disconnection. We believe ourselves separate from each other and the natural world around us; our more recent mythology, fairy tales, and folk stories—including Little Red Riding Hood, the Three Little Pigs, and others—reflect that. But the Mythological Wolf reclaims stories that reveal the nature of humanity’s original relationship with wolves and the natural world, stories from a time when our wolf connection was intact.

Realm Eight: The Ritualistic Wolf What did traditional wolf societies do with the Wolf message they received? They created practical applications and embodiments of myth in rituals, ceremonies, and rites of initiation, which I explore in this chapter.

Realm Nine: Your Own Wolf Practices How can you integrate these nine realms into your everyday experience? Wolf ’s message of sustainability, evolution, and altruism is urgent—and carries significance for every human being walking this planet. We’ll explore what you can do to maintain a connection with this vibration called Wolf and how to integrate the nine realms into everyday life.

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Teo Alfero is the founder of the Wolf Connection sanctuary and creator of Wolf Therapy a singular program that empowers individuals dealing with psychological and emotional pain, addiction, and trauma using the humanwolf bond. Teo is a t ransformational teacher and shamanic practitioner whose work is strongly influenced by that of Carlos Castaneda. He is a TEDx speaker, one of the 100 Making A Difference, and a member of the Association of Transformational Leaders. He has been featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and other major media. Born in Argentina, he now lives with his wife and daughter and the Wolf Connection pack in California. To learn more, visit WolfConnection.org.

M

SOUL COURAGE

By Tara-jenelle Walsch

Moving from Reaction to Response

There were so many wood spiders coming and going in the house that Mom began to name them. She told us they were friends and not to be feared. After all, “they help keep the mosquitoes at bay.”

Stanislav was one who took up years of residence. He sure got around and was seemingly everywhere in the house at once.

One night I woke to my sister screaming there was a spider in her bed. As I ran in she flung the covers over and sure enough the furry critter hopped out and made way to the floor. Two girls screaming now alerted our stepfather who begrudgingly came to the rescue.

I'll never forget what happened next: Stanislav scurried 16 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e August 2019

under the baseboard heater and my stepfather bent down and smashed it with his bare hand, escalating our screams to tears.

As years went by, we got used to spider sightings and shifted our terrified reaction down a notch. In our teens, I even created the temporary solution of placing a glass over them with a note on top that read," Warning: Spider under cup.” (being the little Houdini’s that they are, it was especially discerning to my sister when she'd see the note and cup, with no spider underneath…but that’s another story.)

I’ve since graduated to not squealing or even panicking (greatly) when I see a spider in-house. Now I just safely secure and release them outside.

Photography b yBekah Russom

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Though life is certainly filled with experiences of much greater depth, the story above is an example of how our reaction to fear can be triumphed and turned into a loving response. Most of the time this happens naturally as we grow older. Sometimes, though, it doesn't.

In those cases, it’s usually because there’s unresolved pain from the past, sleeping in our heart.

Even trite childhood incidents can stay with us forever. And as adults, when we encounter a similar situation those same feelings are woken up and generate a similar reaction in us. In essence we’ve developed a conditioned reply to that particular trigger through the years.

Eckhart Tolle has dubbed this as the “Pain Body” and describes it as an accumulation of painful life experiences that were not fully faced and accepted in the moment they arose, thus leaving behind an energy form of emotional pain.

And we’re talking about more than spiders, here.

We’re talking about the boy who was profusely degraded by his father as a child and is now triggered as an adult when his boss degrades him. His deep-seeded shame is woken up, filtered through pent up feelings he has towards his father and released into an external reaction of anger.

Also part of the human experience is working through pain. Yet a lot of times we skip that chapter and instead hide or stuff pain down, presumably so it won’t hold us back from love. The ironic thing is that the very denial of its existence holds us back from inner growth, which makes it difficult to connect with ourselves and others to feel that love.

But we have the ability to shift our long-conditioned reactions into responses that are more congruent with love, not pain. Responses that are far better suited for our well-being and those around us. Responses that will yield a deeper connection with ourselves, others and life.

So how do we get there? How do we move out of reacting from fear and into responding with love?

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Photography by Hanna Postova

This is just one example and can be modified in a multitude of ways to illustrate a common birth place for pain; childhood. Everyone in the world has something from their growing years that makes them wince, cry or shout. This is part of the human experience.

Compassion.

When we stop to think about the possible reasons behind reactionary behavior, whether our own or that of another, it opens way for compassion. Yet we needn’t understand the exact reason why or know all the details for us to feel compassion. Just knowing that the reaction is fueled by pain is enough, as we all understand feelings of pain.

opposite of this pain and redecorate your inner self with this positive vision.

Whether you’re the one reacting or receiving a negative reaction from another, a healing direction is always available to us.

If you’re on the receiving end of someone who’s reacting, try your hardest to not react back. Know that it’s not about you, rather a projection of that person’s pain. You’re getting a glimpse of their inner world. And hard as it may be, try to not sit in their pain with them, but rather sit with it, for them.

As easy as it would be to make someone else wrong for our demeanor, our reciprocation isn’t about anyone but us. We can’t blame our behavior on another person, politics or the world. We can only take responsibility for how we perceive things and the way in which we translate our emotions into action. This defines who we are at the highest level.

It’s easier to avoid this step than to work through it. It’s easier to snap back and react to someone else’s reaction, than to move into compassion for them. But if your goal is one of harmony and love it’s most helpful to pause in these moments, bring forth your Soul Courage and internally remind yourself who you are. Then demonstrate it.

Visualize your triumph in difficult moments and call in the strength to get there. Once acquired, revel in that strength!

Celebrate it! Raise your arms with glory in exaggerated victory, for you are one of the courageous souls that dares to heal within.

Let go of any defensiveness, remain calm and genuinely listen to the person who’s over-reacting. Doing this in a loving way (not a patronizing way) will create a beautiful mirror allowing them to see their behavior. Which, in turn, will invite them to switch from reacting through fear into responding with love.

If you’re the one who is reacting, pause the moment you realize what’s happening and check in with yourself. Take a deep breath to ease out of reaction mode. Then take responsibility for your behavior by verbally acknowledging it. Perhaps even apologizing.

RoadMap to shifting fear-based reactions to loving responses 1 - We all have pain; this is part of the human experience 2 - When untended, pain can leak into outbursts & reactions 3 - Moving through that pain will connect you with yourself, others & love 4 - Compassion & Vulnerability dissolve fear & make way for love 5 - Visualize victory & call in strength 6 - Rejoice in the healing process

If you didn’t catch it in time and already blurted out a reaction, it’s not too late to mend. By acknowledging your behavior right then and there to the other, you can show them both your remorse along with the willingness to be vulnerable as a means of growth.

There are also times when we’re completely alone and our negative reaction to something can affect our own psyche.

When our pain spills over and upsets our well-being.

If we accompany our reaction with the astute awareness of its pain source and the desire to heal it, we can restore grace. One way to do this is to watch what you do with your pain when you’re alone. What kind of conversations do you carry on with yourself and with the room? Do you vent verbally or physically?

When you notice that you’re about to default into a negatively programed reaction to something, try to catch the sparks of pain in action. Look at them as an observer. Acknowledge and validate them. Console them. Then bring in the polar

Tara-jenelle Walsch is a monthly columnist for the Eden Magazine.

She is the author of the book, Soul Courage, and the founder and spirit behindthe Soulebrate greeting card company. You will also find her speaking publicly about emotional and energetic awareness, and a sacred formula which she believes has the ability to enrich the world at large. Tara-jenelle was raised in Annapolis, Maryland and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications from Towson University in Baltimore. She currently lives in the beautiful hills of Ashland, Oregon.www.soulcourage.com

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AZ K

WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT

Hawkins

The story of Kaz has many wondering how she ever survived the trauma in her life but she puts it best herself saying ‘Music is the very thing that saved me, when I sing I am in the safest place on earth. It replaces all the cruelty, shame and pain in my life so all I want to do now is sing for those still fighting’ Multi award winning Kaz Hawkins is Northern Ireland’s very own Soul Superstar named after her self penned song about the childhood that was stolen from her. She sings to her young self to let her know that she was strong and now the song pays tribute to her following her dream on stage.

The Belfast born singer-songwriter now living in Shropshire preparing for a permanent move to France in the next few years, has wowed fans with her emotional honest performances across the globe. Her music brings an honest, fun, inspiring & hopeful message to those who need it. Using her story in song to break the barriers in mental health, Kaz Hawkins proves that music can heal, soothe and sometimes save souls that are lost. Hers, is a spectacular story of survival never mind a voice that has reduced grown men to tears at her shows. It took Kaz 20 years to follow her childhood dream and now she is living every minute by creating a legacy of persistence, empowerment and true Belfast grit. Her music is an achievement but Kaz gives credit to her fans for allowing 20 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e August 2019

her into their musical hearts. Kaz is the ultimate story of the Phoenix rising from the ashes.

An activist for Mental Health, Kaz has worked tirelessly for different charities over the years. She has been an official Ambassador at Aware NI, Northern Ireland’s Depression Charity and has completed library tours, given talks at Boston University, Florence Academy of Fine Arts in Alabama in special sessions where she told her life story using words and song to show how music can be used as a mental health tool. Kaz also visited prisons and schools in Beauvais, France at the invite of Le Blues Autour Du Zinc Festival. Fans have come to love the many hats that Kaz wears, especially presenting her own radio show “Kaz Hawkins Got The Blues” on BBC Radio Ulster when she isn’t touring. Always supporting the UK blues scene that has given her so much, Kaz accepted an honorary membership of the UK Blues Federation and aims to bring more exposure to the rich blues and soul artists in Northern Ireland. She has also represented United Kingdom in the European Blues Challenge of 2017 where the UK won for the first time.

Here is our interveiw with Kaz Hawkins

Photo by Sammie Quinn

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Photo by Carrie Davenport 22 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e August 2019

You have an amazing voice, when did you first discover that you had this immense talent and that singing was going to be a career for you?

I always sang but it wasn't until I was 12 years old and I entered a talent show. My gran kidnapped me out of school as my dad didn't allow me to pursue anything to do with music. The MD told my gran to have me listen to Etta James, he must have heard something there for Etta was to shape my vocal for the rest of my life after I heard her version of W.C.Handy's St Louis Blues. I didn't know that singing would be a career and for many years it wasn't.

You sing jazz and blues, what kind of music did you listen to growing up? Has it always been jazz and blues?

I listened to many genre's of music growing up but wasn't a fan of pop much. I was always an old soul from a young age. I think that's why I can switch between blues, soul and a little jazz so easily. I loved bands like the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, big band sounds but I also love the simplicity of Ella Fitzgerald, the sassiness of Aretha and of course the fun of Etta. I'm also a big fan of old underground risque blues like Lucille Bogan & Bo Carter. There is something about those old recordings from 30s & 40s that if I close my eyes I am in those honky tonk bar rooms with them. Mixing all this into my own style has been a natural effect I think after years swooning over these icons of music.

Did you ever have another career choice in mind or has it always been to be a singer?

I have been many things in my lifetime, singing was only ever a means to an end really in cover bands so I was a secret songwriter for many years. I worked in retail, care work, volunteering and was in Wedding cover bands since my 20s. Most people used my talent for their own gains so it took me a very long time to trust again. I didn't really surface with my original music until 2012 as I was in recovery from mental breakdown and drug addiction. It was my own music that gave me focus and I used the diaries that I wrote in later on for songs like Lipstick & Cocaine & Surviving which isn't really any genre at all, it's my heart and life for all to hear.

Is there a special place, venue, city, country, you'd like to perform and why?

I am a woman of simple means, I never thought I would be what I am now so every day is a blessing. I have travelled to great places with my music so would like to do that more. I'd like to play a stadium concert, that hasn't happened yet so it's always in the back of my mind, just to complete that dream of wishing I was like Etta or Aretha. I've never been to New York so that would be amazing and of course everyone wants

to experience LA. From an Irish girl perspective, Los Angeles seems so far away so that would be amazing, although it has rained most of my life, I don't know if I would cope with the heat.

Please share with us a little bit about your life growing up in Belfast?

It was horrific, I don't remember many good things, or even laughing as a child should. We had what was called "The Troubles" people died in bombs, shootings on a daily basis. Like most countries at war it was a very dark place. My home should have been the safest place during that time but unfortunately I was being sexually abused by an uncle from the age of 4 to 12.

I tried many times to tell what was happening but was beaten by my father for telling lies. Yes there were family outings, fun things that we done but I don't remember enjoying them. I began self harming at the age of 12 when the abuse stopped. I say in my shows now that those acts predestined me for failure. I had no love, I wasn't to be seen or heard. It was a harsh life and I began to push it all inside, lie that I was ok. Soon my mind must have blocked the trauma out but my behaviour into my teens was proof it wasn't really gone, it was just bubbling away under the surface, all that pain.

You have many colorful tattoos on your arms, would you like to share what some of them mean to you and what they represent?

The most colourful one is on my right arm. It says "Keeping the blues alive" and has some of the notes of I'd Rather Go Blind by Etta James. She of course was who I turned to for safety in music and again Muscle Shoals gave me something special as I stood on the very spot that Etta recorded that song in Fame Studios. On my left inside arm there is a bare black tree where the roots stop at my wrist to represent my pulse and the blood that runs through my veins. On top of the tree branches there are music notes that show all every branch of my life leads to music to keep me alive. On the outside of that arm is my Badville House and it's a very special one that only invitees can have tattooed on them. I am part of what is called The Badville Crew on Jamaica Plain, Boston. It's a great honour to be allowed this tattoo on you and for me it represents how art brings many together from all walks of life and it's all because of my good friend John Ryan who has been part of the furniture at the Brendan Behan Pub on J Plain which is where I had my first jam with local musicians while I was lecturing at Boston Uni for my dear friend Meg Tyler. I intend to have an Etta James portrait done but with touring all the time I just don't have time right now but it's in my to do list.

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Photo by Christine Moore

If you could go back in time, is there anything you would like to change and do over?

I don't believe in going back, the universe, god, whatever you believe, it's quite simple "there is a reason for it" I believe everything that has happened to me has prepared me for now, this moment and I now have so much that I can call on. Yes my life was traumatic but I can't change it. I'm sorry that my children suffered but I can't change that. I'm sorry that my pain hurt others but I can't change it.

You went through a lot in your life, how did you find a path to healing and to overcoming the abuse that haunted you for so long?

Music was my saviour. When I was locked up on suicide watch in a mental institute, high on any drug that would sedate me, I remember trying to pick out the notes on each instrument when I listened to songs. I would try to separate the drums from the guitar, strings, piano etc and imagine them all dancing around in my head. I don't read music and am self taught so I think it has something to do with that imagination I invented to take me away from the pain.

We never really get over abuse, but we can learn to accept that it has happened and not to be defined by but instead use it to have a better life. I have this amazing career now because I finally accepted the trauma I suffered couldn't be changed. I didn't want to suffer in darkness anymore, I had to do something to drag myself out of it and music was the only thing that kept me focused. When I gave myself to the music, stood on stage and created a circle of freedom for myself, this was were I could be anything I wanted and it worked. It did take many years to overcome my insecurities as a person but today I can safely say that I because so much had been taken from me, I am for the first time in my life a whole person.

You have traveled to many places, which is the one place that makes you feel at peace when you are there?

Oh it's a place called Muscle Shoals in Alabama.

After watching Muscle Shoals The Documentary and discovered the story of Te Lah Ney and the Wichahpi Commemorative Stone Wall (Te-lahnay's Wall) in Florence, AL. I watched a man called Tom Hendrix talk about his great great grandmother and how she was taken to Oklahoma in the Trail of Tears (Indian Removal Act).

Because the rivers didn't sing to her she decided to walk back to Alabama and it took her five years.

After hearing stories of her journey Tom dedicated his life to building this wall in her memory. I met him just before he died as I had written my song The River That Sings after hearing him speak in the documentary. He spent over 30 years lifting each brick with his own hands and this wall is the most serene place I have ever been. I am friends with his family after he passed away and I've been back to visit them. I sang the song to Tom in the prayer circle and he blessed me with the name "Bright Path" which made me crumble in tears to him.

When you walk through the twists and turns of this wall, it's as if the spirits take you by the hand and walk with you. I don't think I will ever experience anything like it and I promised Tom and his beautiful family that I will always share in keeping the memory of them with us on my own journey. It has my heart as do the people of Muscle Shoals. https://www.natcheztracetravel.com/natchez-trace-alabama/florence-tennessee-river/456-wichahpi-stone-wall.html.

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At just 19 you were a suicide victim, what message do you have for so many young teens who are currently going through something similar?

I don't like to use the word victim, we have to be careful in todays society. For instance, I am a mental health activist but I am still learning what peoples triggers are. Recently at one of my shows I was explaining how music had saved me as I tried to commit suicide. Before I had came off stage someone in the audience emailed me and as I always check my emails on my break I learnt another life lesson. She explained how my use of the word "commit" suicide is a no no, that as great as I am I need to rethink how I present the words because the families of those who had died from suicide are offended as they don't think of it as committing a crime. Our youth today depend on social media for information and I think that is where we need to inform and educate them. I am learning everyday and even while using my show specifically for mental health awareness, I still was in danger of not being educated. This is the work that has to be done for our next generation. There is no defining moment of clarity, I didn't have one day that I woke up and was fine again. I suffered pain most of my life and it took a lot of believing that I was worth saving.

That is the key I think, if there is someone reading this who thinks they aren't worth fighting for then that is who I will fight for, because I know what it's like to be dead inside.

It's my hope that we catch them in time before it's too late. That pain they feel will ease with the right help, support and love even if you have to walk away from negative people to find that support.

Who is the person who helped you the most during the most difficult times in your life? And what helped you to get through it?

There are many people who tried to help but I was either too confused, high on drugs or too depressed. I lost lots of people so there isn't really one person. Music was the only thing that I could be alone with and not feel broken.

Why did you choose the name “Mama Kaz” and what does it mean to you?

Oh that nickname is from many years ago. I'm not called that these days. I guess It's because I loved the old blues mama's and when I done a blues growl they would hear me blocks away. It was an affectionate name and I used it on my first blues band.

What do you like to do in your spare time, away from music and performing?

I spent many years wanting to make music my life so I don't really have anything outside it. I like to take photos but I'm very basic and my husband David & I love to travel in our Motorhome (RV) we are currently touring France in it between my shows so we get to see some sights along the

way. We also have a little blog as we're attempting our Bucket List 100 after just getting married on 4th March 2019.

Do you have any upcoming projects you are currently working on?

I have three shows. My duo with Sam York on piano which is called My Life And I where it is very personal and intimate. I explain how I used music as a tool in my recovery and I take the audience through the moments of writing the songs. I have just debuted Memories of Etta show with a nine members in my band here in France and it's a dream come true to sing the songs that influenced my vocal for over 30years. I am then launching another project Kaz Hawkins & her Band of Men in October 2019 which is a return to the more rock'n'roll, gospel blues side of my music which I'm excited for.

Is there someone special in your life, that you look up to as a role model?

I have two people in my life that I look up to. Sara who is a tower of strength and is the ultimate professional. She runs a fostering agency in England, Capstone Care and I'm always amazed at her tenacity and will for helping others.

She's such a loving, giving person and I admire & love her dearly. She has also helped me work out a lot of my fears on stage therefore helping my performance as she is an NLP programmer. Then there is Stephen, he is the creator of my music videos and has been a constant support, we have the funniest friendship in the true Irish sense, we tell each other exactly how things are, no back doors, no messing around just plain and simple and I respect that from him. Both of them I trust with my life because they don't need anything from me but yet I would give them all of me, just for that. pecial Thanks to; Kaz Hawkins Photography by: Sammie Quinn Carrie Davenport Christine Moore Makeup Artist Holly McNaghten

∑ Upcoming concerts 13 November 2019 Pizza Express Jazz Club - Soho, London, UK 14 November 2019 Pizza Express Jazz Club - Soho, London, UK

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RINGO

STARR

Photography by Sheri Determan

Ringo Starr held his 11th Annual ‘Peace & Love Birthday Worldwide Celebration’ with friends and fans at Capitol Records Towers in Los Angeles, California on July 7th, 2019. This marked the 79th birthday for Ringo, who is best known as the drummer for The Beatles. Ringo came on stage and led a ‘Peace & Love’ moment at 12:00 noon, followed by a birthday cake and #peaceandlove celebration with crowds of fans in attendance.

Ringo’s first Peace & Love birthday celebration was in Chicago at the Hard Rock Café in 2008, and last year, he celebrated his 10th annual celebration at the Hard Rock Café in Nice, France, with over 30 organized events worldwide. Each year the celebration spreads to more cities and countries, with social media helping to spread the word. Ringo wants everyone to think the words “Peace and Love” and say them at 12:00 noon where ever you are in the world.

“I’ve said it before but I really can’t think of a better way to celebrate my birthday, or a better gift I could ask for, than peace and love. It’s so great how every year it keeps growing, with the wave of peace and love starting in the morning on July 7 in Australia and ending in Hawaii, with celebrations in all the time zones in between”, says Ringo. I am so happy to be back at Capitol Records, and for our great sponsors who are carrying the message of peace and love around the world, like the David Lynch Foundation, Life is Good, SiriusXM, Modern Drummer and Starbucks. I also want to thank each and every one of you for continuing to help spread peace and love.”

"I also want to thank each and everyone of you for continuing to help spread peace and love," ~Ringo.

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‘PEACE AND LOVE’

11th Annual Birthday Celebration At the Capitol Records Tower in Los Angeles

‘If We Give Nothing Else, We Have to Give Love’ ~Ringo Starr

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RECLAMING YOUR TRUE SELF

By Angela Dunning

The Spiral Healing Path

Walking Life's Labyrinth

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Life and particularly healing and growth seem to follow more of a circular, spiral-like path. One which loops back and forth continuously, often visiting the same spot many times.

Much to our chagrin personal growth doesn’t seem to follow a linear, A–Z progression as we often think it “should”.

The journey each of us goes on often defies logic, rationale and linear time-space thinking and actions. It also defies our expectations and hopes and frequently blows our carefully made plans clear out of the water. Modern humans find this lack of straight trajectory highly uncomfortable, as it lacks certainty and defies our attempts to control aspects of our journey.

Yet, our healing path is still progressive despite the absence of such certainties.

Instead, it is as if we walk on a labyrinth-like path where we continuously re-visit the same issues, and each time we do we have the opportunity to digest just a little more medicine, new awareness, insights and healing.

Life seems then to circumambulate these key spots giving us the opportunity to visit them anew and hopefully, with a fresh perspective and increased curiosity. In this way, we can re-visit familiar places, people, situations, dilemmas, pain and traumas, and gain further insight and understanding of why we need to keep coming back here.

In our dreams too we often revisit familiar locations and situations which might at first seem like we’re back at the same old place. Yet, if we look very carefully and very closely we might see that something is different this time: a feeling, a detail, an angle or a change in how we think or behave in the dream. Always there is some movement of either progression or regression if we pay close attention and track our dreams over time.

It is as if the psyche uses certain familiar hooks and anchors which are particular to each individual. Hence, we will keep returning to certain situations which are unique to us and our own personal myth, and often wonder why others don’t share the same reoccurring dilemmas and challenges.

These anchors are like benches along the path of our own uniquely unfolding labyrinth. They serve as resting places for us to pause and reflect for a while on why it is we are back here again; how we might see things differently this time, and crucially, how we might think and act differently now.

This is a time for the new energy to work through us when perhaps previously it could not. Hence, another visit was required. Now we are ready and able to receive the medicine.

And, each revisit in itself is a potential freshly dug soil-bed

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where we can plant more seeds for the next stage and also our future return.

Another symbolic aspect of the spiral-like life path of the labyrinth is that we always have the opportunity to touchbase with the centre on each visit. We can keep coming back to our own centre, in Jung’s terminology: to the Self. That central, regulating archetypal core of our being; the divine or Spirit/God/Goddess within. From here we can access visions, insights, intuitions, creative impulses and often experience numinous encounters; in fact all the medicine we need from deep within to guide us onward.

In her book, Crossing to Avalon, Jean Shinoda Bolen talks about the labyrinth experience, both literally and symbolically: “The pattern of entering, getting to the center, and coming out is, however, a map of the psychological process: shedding, finding, and integrating.”

“There are no blind ends in a labyrinth, the path often doubles back on itself, the direction towards which we are facing is continually changing, and if we do not turn back or give up we will reach the center to find the rose, the Goddess, the Grail, a symbol representing the sacred feminine.”

Above all, I find that it is in having faith that one is on a path, despite its many twists and turns and doubling back, that healing can occur. If we can learn to flow with this process rather than trying to control it, life becomes a lot less stressful and a lot more meaningful as we accept that this is my journey, no matter how non-linear it seems to ourselves or others much of the time.

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’, and she writes regularly on Facebook: www.facebook.com/thehorsestruth/ and Patreon: www. patreon.com/angeladunning You can learn more about Angela and her work helping people and horses at: www.thehorsestruth.co.uk

By Joseph Bikart

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Love, Photography by Bruno Aguirre

Relationships

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and Other Decisions

By Joseph Bikart

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It may strike you as a particularly unromantic thought that I should classify such themes as love and relationships within decision-making. After all, shouldn’t love just happen, rather than being a matter of choice?

Shakespeare understood the intricate and deeper layers of love, when he wrote in Romeo and Juliet (Act I, scene 1): “Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake – it’s everything except what it is!”

If love creates such exacerbated and passionate feelings (from pathos, the Greek word for ‘suffering’), it may be precisely because it is never simply ‘bright’ or ‘dark’, never so obviously clear cut. Love and relationships may be exciting precisely because they are the locus of a permanent question, of a permanent tension between opposites.

Aristotle, back in the 4th Century B.C., defined virtue as “a disposition to behave as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess”. The mean for Aristotle is the opposite of both extremes, and we reach excellence through the habit of seeking and finding this mean between all the extremes in our lives.

Love and relationships are therefore soul-enhancing parts of our lives as they pose this permanent question (Heavy or light? Bright or dark? Etc) and require our ongoing positioning between both extremes. Love is a permanent decision.

Yet, we all know that love and relationships can also be areas of “stuckness” in our lives. We may end up either paralysed by the lack of connection (as evidenced by the proliferation of dating apps), or by the strong feeling of inadequacy in a relationship from which we find it hard to extricate ourselves.

Sometimes, this feeling is rendered more complex when we cannot even identify what we truly want. In Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Into the Woods”, one of the characters asks: “Are you sure that what you wish is also what you want?”

In relationships and many other areas of decision-making, different parts of us may want different things.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were a simple formula, an easy-to-use algorithm that would solve all our decisions, in particular those relating to relationships? This is what Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, had to say on the subject: 34 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e August 2019

“When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature.”

Love and relationships are therefore soul-enhancing parts of our lives as they pose this permanent question (Heavy or light? Bright or dark? Etc) and require our ongoing positioning between both extremes. Love is a permanent decision.

In this context, it is essential to think of what drives us towards relationships.

According to the Jungian psychoanalyst James Hollis, the yearning to return to a mythical paradise is “the primary motive, the hidden agenda in any relationship”.

We may regard as particularly ill-omened the fact that our very first decision as human beings back in Eden, was the Original Sin – not the best start to a life of independent decision making! However, Schopenhauer regarded the original sin as our original design: through breaching the tacit contract with God, it marks the start of our autonomous lives outside the Garden, even if it comes with the yearning to return!

In my mind, this is not limited to the relationship between two people. It also describes our relationship with ourselves.

As the psychologist Dr Tim Pychyl asserted, one of the explanations for indecisiveness and procrastination is the poor relationship between us and our future selves. Neuroscience has shown that procrastinators demonstrate a lack of “future self-continuity”, favouring the demands of the present self over the needs of the future self.

But let’s return to Eden for a moment. It is also, the place of God’s first question. In Genesis 3.9, God asks Adam: “Where are you?” In biblical Hebrew the question is even shorter, just one word: Ayeka?

Naturally, we can assume that God knows full well where Adam is physically hiding: his question is of an essential nature.

This is the question we should also ask ourselves when we struggle with our decisions and end up hiding behind the comfort of procrastination. Where are we in our lives, whether in our careers, in our relationships, our friendships, as well as our spiritual and intellectual growth?

Put differently, I don’t believe that there are many fundamentally complicated decisions. However, I think there are

fundamentally complicated humans. And this description applies to all of us, whether seldom or often. Therefore, we need to locate the self wherever it is stuck and reignite the engine of our volition.

1. Creativity: Did you employ enough lateral thinking when envisaging not only your options, but also your objectives?

2. Options: Have you considered the consequences of each option? And do you know which parts of you may want different things?

3. Selection: How do you operate this critical step which will cut you off from other possibilities?

4. Action: How do you commit to your preferred choice and evacuate doubt from the equation?

5. Resolve: Can you avoid the pull of potential regrets and stick with your decision without being side-tracked by any distractions or difficulties?

6. Completion: How can you lead your decision through this ultimate step, without either giving up too early, or dwelling in this last step so long that its completion is delayed endlessly?

Identifying our precise location and re-energising our volition are the keys to decision making. Succeeding in this endeavour leads us to the realisation that the most important question isn’t how we, as human beings, can become better decision makers. It is instead: how we, as decision makers, can become better human beings.

Designed by Marisol

In The Art of Decision Making, I have endeavoured to track the self through the nooks and crannies of our most challenging decisions. It may be stuck in any of the six chambers that make up what I describe as the COSARC pyramid:

Identifying our precise location and re-energising our volition are the keys to decision making. Succeeding in this endeavour leads us to the realisation that the most important question isn’t how we, as human beings, can become better decision makers. It is instead: how we, as decision makers, can become better human beings.

Joseph Bikart is a founding member is a founding partner and director of the international consulting firm Templar Advisors.

For the past 20 years, following a first career in investment banking, he has advised leaders in corporate and public life on their communication and negotiations. Through his work with thousands of decision-makers, he has created Decisiology, an innovative approach to executive coaching, drawing from his studies at the Institute of Psychoanalysis and at the Tavistock in London. He is also a keynote speaker, and a lecturer at the London Business School.

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Photography by Ekaterina Ignatova | ekaterinaignatova.com

Turn Teardrops to Pearl

By Jayita Bhattacharjee

The courage to go back and dig deep what was carefully buried beneath the sands, the courage to remember knowing it may tear you apart, the courage to face the painful yesterdays and still want to rise in the air, it then becomes an act of beauty in the witness of divine. Those who have lost and are extending their open arms in the air to hug someone, to feel something called love, and yet have not given up on life, they are some of the most beautiful people on earth. Everyday brings more and more memories that just break the dam and begin to carry us away in the flooding waters, running wild. The cool air in the morning, the cooing of the birds, would remind me of him as I feel him next to me, cuddling deep beneath the blankets, longing for my love.

We still hear them coming down the hallways of time, their footfalls echoing in the emptiness, as their feet shuffle on the floor. And down falls the rain that had been waiting for so long, held by the thickest clouds.They bring us to a plce of intense sadness, and open weeping from the heart, holding no identity or individuality, only the feelings that are felt in the purest form.

Yet, we need to welcome these deep feelings as these are the moments when we feel closest to them, who are gone. Gone are they, yet they are not gone… whispers the wind that blows on the face, says the leaves that sway in the breeze. A voice rises from the farthest far, "I go where you go”. Yes, and that is the ultimate truth of life…They walk besides us, silent and unseen, yet never failing to hold our hands.

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There are times, when memory cuts deep and the grief runs high in us , throwing us deep in the valleys and we struggle how to rise, climbing the walls. But then, such a climb becomes worth climbing, as through such a rising, we know defeat yet do not fail to hear the music of life. It is this call, this flying music that ultimately begs us to climb the steepest climb of our lives and yet to see the light. As we learn that tears act as a stress relief mode, we become patient with our own falling tears that fall every now and then.

Since this is the way to cleanse a suffering heart and bring the daylight back again. We do not feel so emotionally battered, everytime we let the tears flow as we walk down the memory lanes. The emotional pummeling lessens with the passage of time, as we go back and reveal the courage to remember those bygone days. Through remembering, we face what needs to be faced so one day we can be healed.

We are not collapsing in grief, in the long run. Rather the courage makes us stand against the grief. Our weariness lessens and we are no longe rbent so more burdened by the load of grief. The load feel a little less every time, we remember as we walk down those lanes. Though this needs us to be courageous, but through such a courage, we unload the heaviest load bending us down. We learn how to carry ourselves from the heaviest grief and still feel every moment in the spirit of life. We no longer drrag ourselves. Rather we feel light hearted every time we show the courage to reveal our hearts a little, to cry a little, to revisit the memory lanes a little. Through all such little efforts, we manage the steepest climb of our lives, the climb of a griefwall. So we can come to the other side, where life is waiting for us to come into its arms. Everyday, we walk through a struggle and a day comes, when the struggling ceases and we no longer shuffle our feet rather we make the bold footsteps, being grounded inside, and walk again on the pathways of life. We no longer live on the edge of life, rather in the heart of life, as we climb through courage, walking through a fearless beauty.

The light invades our hearts, so we cannot be held to any sort of bondage to our pain eternally. We choose to release, let out and love life again. We choose not to fear rather let ourselves live. And that can be the light of truth, if only we let ourselves accept the loss and live again, while keeping in mind, it is never a moving on, but a conscious choice of stepping forward in the trails ahead. A loss however brutal it may be, leaves a beauty behind. In such a realization, we get back our own soul essence, with which we were born.

Every time, we were fragmented from the severity of a loss, we got fragmented into a thousand pieces. We stare back at those pieces, wondering will they ever make it a whole. In the beginning, it may seem so impossible. With time, do we see, this impossible thing becomes somewhat possible with

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the light of wholeness, as we behold the eternality of spirit.

There will always be visit from heaven, from time to time.

Every time, you shed a falling pearl of teardrop, the spirit was with you, embracing you, clasping you to the heart. Feel the presence in the wisdom of your soul. What is eternal, never really dies. This is our journey from fragmentation to wholeness as we heal our broken self. Sometimes, the pain we try hardest to hide becomes most visible to others. We try to hide grief, so it becomes bigger and louder, that unspoken pain becomes so very spoke, so very pronounced, the more we try to hide it artistically.

Jayita Bhattacharjee was born n 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 with the ink that kept flowing from her heart. This is what gave her the fulfillment, the richness in her soul.

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."

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3rd Annual

NatureTrack Film Festival Accepting Film Submissions Beginning June 1st March 20 – 22, 2020 Los Olivos, California

On June 1st the 2020 NatureTrack Film Festival (www.naturetrackfilmfestival.org) in Los Olivos, California will open long and short film submissions in both live and animated form in the categories of Adventure, Animation, Biography, Conservation, Kids Connecting With Nature, Scenic, Student, and a special category called Outdoors & Out of Bounds. Up until August 31st there is no fee to submit a film for consideration. Beginning Sept. 1st, a fee of $10 will be required for late submissions. Closing deadline for all submissions is September 30, 2019.

Submissions in all categories will be accepted in both feature and short (40-min or less) lengths: Adventure Films submitted in this category should emphasize exploration and interaction

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with nature. A journey of discovery about or through our natural world.

Animation Films in this category should focus on nature, positive conservation efforts, or the environment as related in the other categories.

Biography Films submitted in this category should focus on a person who has lived, or is living, a lifestyle that enhances our understanding of nature, conservation, and/or our environment.

Conservation Films submitted in this category should focus on positive conservation efforts that work toward preserving and/or protecting nature and the environment.

Kids Connecting with Nature Films submitted in this category should showcase children connecting with nature through learning, exploring, discovering, or through community service in positive environmentalism or conservation.

Outdoors & Out of Bounds Films submitted in this category should focus on extreme adventure and athletic interaction with nature and the natural environment.

Scenic Films submitted in this category should focus on the beauty, majesty, or exploration of interesting environments that can be found in nature.

Student Films submitted in this category must be submitted by a student (with proof of student enrollment at the time the film was created). Student films should be focused on nature, positive conservation efforts, or the environment as related in the other categories.

Complete entry application and rules are available at https://filmfreeway. com/NatureTrackFilmFestival.

Films will be judged by a jury of film industry professionals and nature experts. $1,000 cash prizes will be awarded for overall Best in Festival (feature and short). The “Dan Conaway Award” of $500 will be presented to the best depiction of Kids Connecting with Nature, and there will also be a $500 cash award for both the Audience Favorite winner and the film that best “ignites passion for nature.” All category winners will receive a custom designed award.

The NatureTrack Film Festival (NTFF) closed out a successful second year in March with over 60 films screening from around the world. Once again, the beautiful Santa Ynez Valley wine country hamlet of Los Olivos played host to the NTFF to the raves of filmmakers and filmgoers alike. Organizers are looking forward to an exciting third year by bringing an even more diverse and distinctive selection of outdoor film to the 3rd annual NatureTrack Film Festival. All entries are thoughtfully curated and selected to “ignite passion for nature through film.”

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NatureTrack founder and director Sue Eisaguirre conceived the idea for a local nature film festival as an extension of the non-profit she started in 2011 which introduces school children to outdoor spaces from the seashore to the inland oak woodlands. Sue reflected on the 2019 edition of the NTFF saying, “The growth we experienced in our second year was thrilling for us, and a fantastic validation that the Central Coast area is eager to support and sustain an event that brings nature to the big screen in the gorgeous natural setting of the Santa Ynez Valley. We are excited to build on our success and offer even more international films in 2020 focused on “igniting passion for nature through film.”

Please visit the NatureTrackFilm Festival on social media at: Facebook https:www.facebook.com/naturetrackfilm/ Twitter https://twitter.com/naturetrackfilm Instagram https://www.instagram.com/naturetrackfilm/

The NatureTrack Film Festival welcomes sponsor and advertiser inquiries and offers numerous participation levels for businesses and individuals who wish to support the NTFF as a sponsor, partner or advertiser. Please contact Sue Eisaguirre sue@NatureTrackFilmFestival.org for information on sponsor and advertising opportunities. Volunteer inquiries are also welcome!

About NatureTrack: NatureTrack is a 501(c)3 non-profit that provides cost-free outdoor field trips for Santa Barbara County school-aged children, utilizing local trails and beaches throughout the county. NatureTrack instills students with leadership skills, attitudes and habits for lifelong learning, inspiring them to be respectful stewards of the natural world. Founded in 2011, NatureTrack has provided more than 20,000 outdoor experiences for students in Santa Barbara County. Demand for the curriculum coordinated program has increased every year with teachers praising the docent-led excursions that align with classroom instruction.

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Kathy Guillermo is a senior vice president with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. www.PETA.org.

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Dead horses

will no longer be ignored

Photography by Raphael Wicker

By Kathy Guillermo

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When I wrote this in June, 30 horses had already died at the Santa Anita Park horseracing track in Los Angeles just since December.

If you've ever seen a horse break a leg and go down on a racetrack, the shocking scene will play over and over again in your mind like a horror film. Sometimes the desperate animal, confused and in agony, will get up and try to run, the mangled limb dangling. This unimaginable tragedy is why vehicles follow behind Thoroughbreds in many races, and when a horse goes down, huge fabric screens are pulled from the truck and quickly erected. Witnesses with cell phones are not tolerated.

medications that mask injury and pain. Santa Anita officials are dealing with this by taking unprecedented steps to prevent further carnage. They have enacted rules, which PETA has long advocated, to protect horses, including banning more than a dozen drugs that mask injury yet were routinely administered.

State officials have voted to ban whips—the most visible form of abuse—and to phase out the controversial diuretic Lasix, which is illegal outside the U.S. on race day but administered to nearly every horse in this country. These steps don't go far enough, but they are the first serious reform in racing in a generation. While PETA ultimately opposes racing, we back rules that will prevent horses from suffering and dying, and we urge the entire racing industry to shut down until every track enacts them.

But Santa Anita is not an outlier. What happened at this track is a microcosm of what's happening in racing nationally: broken bones, death and public outrage. California isn't the only place where horses are dying. Their bodies litter Furthermore, synthetic surfaces, which save lives, should tracks in New York, Kentucky, replace dirt tracts, sophisticated CT While PETA ultimately opposes racing, scan equipment should be installed Florida, Texas and many other states. At least 12 horses have at every track, and trainers with we back rules that will prevent horses died on Maryland tracks this multiple violations should be perfrom suffering and dying, and we urge year, and 15 at Belmont Park manently banned. the entire racing industry to shut down and Aqueduct racetracks in New until every track enacts them.

York. While several factors may Broken bones should never contribute to a fractured leg, have become business as usuevidence from thousands of necropsies of Thoroughbreds al. But the more than two dozen horses who die on tracks in California overwhelmingly shows that most horses who every single week in the U.S. have been sold out by an indusbreak legs have a pre-existing injury at the site of the break. try that prioritizes speed and winning over decent care.

In other words, horses are being forced to train and race when they should be recuperating. These horses often don't The public must focus its outrage on something meaningful: appear sore because they're given a constant cocktail of Never gamble on horses' lives.

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LIVING YOUR LIFE IN JOY

By Sasha Gary

Photogrpahy by Seth Doyle

When we go to a restaurant we sit down, study the menu, figure out what we are craving, and will satisfy our indulgence.

Is there something new on here I haven’t tried before? Can I make a substitution to make it healthier for me? Will the Chef allow me to add or change the dish around? When you go out to eat, there are major considerations to go over before we get exactly what we want. Perhaps the service was good or bad, the restaurant took a long time to deliver, or it was right on time. Parking was a pain to get here.

This is the new hip spot so the reservation took two weeks to get and now I am finally in! Those circumstances you can’t control. But what you can control is ordering up exactly what you want to eat.

I like to order up exactly what I want from the Universe. Yes, I reach for my journal and write down what I want, and most of the time I get it! I allow the Universe to deliver it when the time is right and I let go of what to expect, or how it’s going to get there. I just have unwavering faith it will happen.

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As I began to do this practice, I realized I have more control of my daily life and I wanted to order up more! I began my Joy Menu! Every day we schedule ourselves to the bone with work, exercise, class, kid pick-ups, play dates, doctor appointments, and so much more because it is part of our daily routine. I wanted to schedule in more time for myself to enjoy my life! Now my appointments which are non-negotiable entails a bubble bath on Sunday nights, a beach bike ride two days a week, a mani pedi, a drive down PCH with the convertible down, a morning hike followed by a breakfast burrito.

Once I started to incorporate this practice, I felt so much happier because I was scheduling time in for myself on things that bring me joy, peace, happiness and raise my vibration. So, when I do go back to work, or home for the night there is always something to look forward to. Even at the end of the night to schedule in you time, love time, private time with your lover. Making it a priority in your life to focus energy there too!

Read a book, listen to a podcast, meditate and reconnect back to yourself before you sleep and believe me you will sleep so much better when you go to bed feeling at peace with ending your day the way you wanted to!

You will still have contrast to your day, there will be traffic, a flat tire, the dog went to the bathroom in the house, the kids are arguing, but you can have some joy sprinkled throughout your day to enjoy for yourself. If you do not do it, no one else will. The beauty of taking a break and enjoying your excursion is feeling the wind in your hair, walking in a meditative state in nature as you disconnect from your day. Enjoying an ice cream on a hot summer day, feeling like a kid again as you laugh with delight because you are in flow.

I often take may mini breaks during the day when I am at work writing from home or in between clients. If there is something I am trying to figure out, or maybe I am stuck on what I am writing, or I am waiting for an important phone call and all you can do is stare at the phone and wonder why it hasn’t rung? Is It on? That’s the perfect time for you to stop what you are doing and go get some joy! Many times by the time I get back, I have figured out the solution, the phone call came through and went to voice mail, it all works itself out.

I write down in my journey what brings me joy, what brings me happiness and peace. Sometimes it’s just laying in bed with a bottle of rose and

watching the housewives of anywhere while eating a piece of pie. Yes, that brings me so much joy! What brings you joy? What makes your life feel lighter, brighter and more fun? Life is meant to be fun. I know we have to work, and be responsible as adults and it can get heavy, and hard sometimes but feeling that little bit of heaviness lift from our hearts and mind on a hard day will alleviate so much stress, kick in some endorphins, and lighten your mood that your day will be more enjoyable as you go with the flow of life energy.

As you schedule yourself into your own calendars full of joyful activities, it’s a reminder of putting ourselves first and making ourselves a top priority.

Try scheduling a daily activity, a weekly activity, a monthly activity and a quarterly activity.

In psychology, joy and happiness are different yet connected. Joy is not external. You can’t buy joy, and it is not conditional on someone else. Joy is a choice. Feeling happiness is not a choice that we make, happiness happens to us. Joy requires you to connect to other people, pets, being creative, it is in action. Happiness comes and goes, it is an emotion that passes by. Living in joy is a constant and you make that choice each day to live in joy, there you will feel happiness as it passes through until the next time.

Sasha Gary is an actress, writer, and Wellness Coach at www.balancedbellasonline.com a 16 week online health program for women that shows you how to implement small sustainable changes one by one to help you with whole food nutrition, self-love and a conscious movement.

Sasha is a yogi of 25 years, a crystal healer, and an avid sound bowl meditation participant and lives in Venice California!

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The Allure of Matter: Material Art from China Photography by Sheri Determan Since the 1980s, Chinese contemporary artists have cultivated intimate relationships with their materials, establishing a framework of interpretation revolving around materiality. The concept of “Material Art” is related not only to the general term materiality in contemporary art, but also refers more specifically to artworks with the goal of making “matter” the primary vehicle of philosophical, political, sociological, emotional, and aesthetic expression. Their media range from the commonplace to the unconventional, the natural to the synthetic, the elemental to the composite: from plastic, water, and wood, to hair, tobacco, and Coca-Cola.

The exhibition focuses on unorthodox use of materials to create art that manifest the artist’s aesthetic vision and social evaluation.

The Allure of Matter: Material Art from China brings together works from the past four decades in which conscious material choice has become a symbol of the artists’ expression, representing this unique trend throughout recent history. Some of the most influential Chinese contemporary artists today are featured in this exhibition, including Xu Bing, Cai Guo-Qiang, Lin Tianmiao, and Ai Weiwei. The works include two-dimensional, three-dimensional, and new media works that are complementary in form, material, and visual effect.

“The Allure of Matter Matter is an opportunity to see some of the leading works of art coming from China today,” says Stephen Little, LACMA’s Florence & Harry Sloan Curator of Chinese Art and Head of the Chinese, Korean and Southeast Asian Art Departments. Wu Hung, organizer of the exhibition and Adjunct Curator at the Smart Museum of Art continues, “While most of the exhibition’s featured artists are well known in the Chinese contemporary art world, they are still little-known in the U.S. It is our hope that this show will help audiences understand the context of these artists as “material artists” within the greater scope of Chinese contemporary art history.” Wu Hang is also the Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History and Director of the Center for the Art of East Asia at the University of Chicago.

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The Allure of Matter can be seen at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art until January 5th, 2020, before it travels to the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

The exhibition is accompanied by the first scholarly volume to examine Chinese art through the lens of materiality.

49 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e August 2018

I can remember clearly as a little kid feeling the fear of ageing. When I looked at my grandparents I thought, “I don’t want to grow old and die like them!” I can still recall this realization and thinking this can’t be what will happen to me!

This is Why I’m Not Afraid to Die

By Nancy Yearout

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I am sure that many people have felt this way sometime in their lifetime. When a loved one passes, we are reminded of the cycle of life and death.

Growing up on a farm in rural Ohio, life seemed so simple. My Summers were magical as a kid, with green grass to run in, my Dad plowing the fields on the weekends with my mom in the kitchen baking a blackberry cobbler. The Summertime delivered new kittens in the barn to love and daily trips to our pond to catch tadpoles with my sister.

I have always felt great joy when I was with my Dad. He is such a kind soul. He always made me feel special. As a little kid I would spend hours with him in the barn while he repaired the farm equipment and such. He had me separate the screws, washers and nuts into their own labeled cigar boxes. You see my father smoked Kind Edward Cigars for as long as I can remember. He used the cigar boxes for many things. My sisters and I used the cigar boxes to hold our school supplies each year.

As you grow older you begin to realize that times speeds up, life goes by quickly. Before I knew it, I was grown with two children of my own. There came a time in my own life when it was necessary for me to move back in with my parents after a divorce. My Dad came to Michigan and drove the U-Haul with myself and my two children following behind. We were headed to New Mexico to live. He was retired and took the time for me. He did not want his daughter traveling across the country by herself.

I am still appreciative of his kindness today. Thanks Dad. I was a mess at the time, and you made it better for me.

How blessed my children were to have my father in their lives as he drove them to school and picked them up every day. He also stepped in when a school project was due, or a math problem seemed unsolvable.

You see he was an engineer with a creative mind. My daughters school projects were unbelievably great because Grandpa helped them create It! What a relief for me to have such a wonderful soul stepping in when their father was not present.

Photography by Limor Zellermayer

Life got better for me. I began a new career in Real Estate and became one of the best in my field. It wasn’t until a few years after my success that I realized my father had kept a scrap book with my Real Estate advertisements and awards that I had received. He was keeping track of my success and it meant the world to me.

My Father came to my new brokerage office before the grand opening and helped me put together all the desks that I bought

that required assembly. I am grateful he was there for me again.

The years seemed to fly by quickly and my Dad began to slow down. His age and all of his hard work over the years had taken a toll on his body. Throughout his life he had trouble with phlebitis in his legs and had a difficult time getting around but would still somehow make it up on the roof of their two-story home to place the Christmas Lights.

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There came a time when I drove up to my parent’s home and saw new modern Christmas lights that shine up on the home.

Although he could not get around like he used to my fathers was full of life and laughter and always joked around. He was a Mason, a Shriner and a member of the church with the integrity and honesty you don’t see very often. You could say he’s an upstanding fellow. As you probably figured out that my father is someone, I have looked up to and honored my whole life.

As time passed, he had a several mini strokes and could not work his crossword puzzles any longer. He had a difficult time hearing me on the phone when I called as his hearing had been impaired from an accident at work years earlier. He became frustrated that he could not walk and could not hear the conversation with many people in the room.

When I came to visit him, he could hear me if it was just the two of us with no back ground noise.

My life changed and I married a wonderful fellow. We moved five hours away so I did not get to see my Dad as much as I would have liked to. I visited on Holidays and when we could. Last year he gave me our 310-year-old family Bible to have rebound and pass down to the next generation. This act of kindness touched my heart deeply. As I felt he knew he could entrust this precious symbol of our family with me.

It was on a Monday when my little sister called and said that Dad had taken a turn for the worst and that this occurred quite suddenly. I made a plane reservation the next day to fly to see him before he passed.

I must share with you that for three weeks straight prior to my father’s passing, a beautiful yellow bird that would come at the same time every day and peck at my window. It was the strangest thing, what did this mean if anything? My cat was freaked out as much as I was and would watch him peck and peck at my window. It was if he had a message to tell me, but what was the message?

The night before my flight my youngest daughter was at my parents’ home, when she called to say that Grandpa may not make it through the night and ask if I wanted to Facetime my father. The phone camera came on and I could see my father in his bed.

His eyes were closed as I told him how much I loved him and what a wonderful father he had been to me and how I appreciated his kindness and love. It was a difficult moment, but I somehow knew he heard me as I saw his lips turn up.

I walked into my living room in Texas and sat down on the couch with my husband after the call. I looked up and, in the distance, in my mind’s eye I saw my Dad, but he was young, maybe thirty years old and he was standing tall, very

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muscular and he looked Great! His blond hair was thick and curly, and he smiled and waved good bye to me and then he was gone. I was shocked! I told my husband I saw my father and he waiver good bye to me. His body died the next morning, but I knew he left the night before.

My father showing himself and waiving his final farewell is etched in my mind for eternity. It was the biggest blessing that I have ever received. I tell you this story so that you know that there is life beyond this one, and what you do here and how you treat people does make a difference.

Nancy Yearout is an Energy Healer, Intuitive Life Coach, Author and Inspirational Speaker. Her religious and spiritual work has enabled her to help many people to live the life they desire!

Her motivation and drive come from Source/God. Nancy feels inspired to share the wisdom and the messages she receives with others. Her real-life experiences are shared each week on her Radio Show/ Podcast, High Road to Humanity where insightful, spiritual guests share their story. This is Nancy’s way of each sharing new insight about raising the vibration and consciousness for all of us to create a healthy, Loving and kinder people as well as a safe harmonious place to live.

My Credentials: Sales Coordinator for General Motors Corporation, Sales Manager for multiple Specialty Leather and Fur Stores, Owner and Qualifying Broker of The Harville Estates Real Estate & Development LLC, Owner of Energy Girl Publishing LLC., Author of, Wake Up! The Universe Is Speaking to You, Author of Monthly Contributor to Eden Magazine, Motivational/Inspirational Speaker, Intuitive Personal Coach Intuitive card reader, Energy Healer, Radio Host/Podcast High Road to Humanity.

Today she is happily married to the love of her life.

Nancy Yearout Hosts a Radio Show/ Podcast every week on Toginet radio and iTunes called High Road to Humanity. Visit her website www.NancyYearout.com or her Podcast www.Highroadtohumanity.com

A Cat Cafe Experience

www.crumbsandwhiskers.com

Adopted: 800 | Saved from euthanasia: 1,710 | Amount donated to charity: $24.5K

WE HELP RESCUE & FIND HOMES FOR HOMELESS CATS

53 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e August 2019

DEPRESSION HATES A MOVING TARGET

Photography by Gesina Kunkel

By Nita Sweeney

My mind was trying to kill me again.

"Who do you think you are?" it growled as I squatted in a green port-o-potty four and a half miles into the Columbus Marathon. The sun shining on the white top bathed me in gray light.

The running partners I'd begun the race with that morning and trained with for the past four months, had gone ahead without me. They would have stayed. I'd spent a mile convincing them to leave after I could no longer ignore my bowels.

Alone in the fiberglass cubicle, trying to avoid sitting down, I shivered with loneliness as I finished my task.

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Mom. Dad. Jamey. All dead.

My ever-faithful husband, my sister, and friends, all still very much alive, were on the course, but miles away. Even the dog, my other regular running companion, was absent—at home—probably asleep.

This left me in treacherous company—with only my mind— forever critical.

Someone in the line outside knocked. I would have to carry my heavy heart across the pavement solo.

"I'm a runner," I whispered to my mind. Then I pulled up my panties, opened the door, and ran.

How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink Off the Sofa and into the Ravine Five months before my 49th birthday, I slouched on the sofa in my pajamas squinting at my laptop screen. A high school friend's social media post read, "Call me crazy, but the running is getting to be fun!"

I remembered Kim riding horses in high school, but neither of us had been athletes then and we certainly weren't now.

I read on. She had begun an interval training plan to run three times a week. The website suggested alternating 60 seconds of jogging with 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes. Sixty seconds sounded almost possible.

But depression clung to me like a shroud. It was noon on a weekday. As usual, I'd just gotten up and hadn't showered in days. The simple act of walking Morgan, our yellow Labrador, around the block often proved too difficult.

Around the same time, Fiona, a writer friend from London also took up running. She loved buying "trainers" (sneakers). Her emails reminded me of my first trip to a running store decades earlier when I'd scoffed at the price tags to hide being intimidated by the options. Fiona also talked about how running felt and the glow after. She is younger than me, but she's not a youngster. The seed grew.

Shortly before I saw Kim's post, I’d begun to have a recurring dream. My body gently rocked as I floated down the road through Griggs Reservoir, a wooded park along the Scioto River near our central Ohio home. My arms, bent at the elbows, swung by my sides. A breeze grazed my face.

It felt like flying. The rhythm lulled me back to sleep when I woke from nightmares. There was no anxiety. I wasn't breathing heavily. Relaxed, and happy, I was just moving through the bright green world. I was dreaming of running.

A few minutes into browsing Kim's interval running schedule, an extra-long burst of hiccups reduced me to sobs. I cried until they passed, closed the laptop, and went back to bed.

One March weekday, inspired by the daffodils bursting through the soil of the winter flowerbeds, I returned to the running website. "This might kill you" came the familiar voice in my head. I recalled Kim and Fiona's smiles. Sixty seconds of jogging hadn't killed them.

Still, her running posts nestled like seeds in the back of my consciousness. Later that week, Kim posted, "Week one finished!" Infected by her glee, I remembered the pleasure I'd had when I'd run short distances decades before. A seed sprouted.

A wise part of my mind thought exercise might energize me while a deep animal instinct tried to protect me by scoffing. "You're old and fat. People will make fun of you and you'll die of heart failure." Most people have these competing voices. Mine are just louder.

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Drawing strength from the flying and floating sensations of my dreams, I wrestled tube socks over my flabby calves, sweatpants across my wide hips, a long-sleeved t-shirt and hoodie over my thick belly, and a pair of trail shoes, the closest thing to running shoes I owned, on my swollen feet. Ed, my husband, was at work so didn't see my unwieldy outfit.

ferociously in my ancient sports bra. Due in part to medications, a healthy portion of the weight I'd gained in the past sixteen years was in my breasts. I slowed and bent my knees. This reduced the bouncing and hurt less. I wondered if it was also easier on my joints. I would later learn this was true.

In sixty seconds, the timer went off.

Morgan circled and nearly knocked me down when I opened the closet where we kept his leash. I would need his support.

I picked up a digital kitchen timer and went outside.

When I yelled, "We did it!" Morgan looked confused. I'd been jogging so slowly he hadn't needed to break stride.

Most of the residents of our maple and sycamore filled residential neighborhood were at school or work. Even if they were home, they probably weren't looking out the windows of their 1950s ranch houses.

Still, I imagined the neighbors not only watching, but laughing if they saw me try to run. I steered the dog toward Donna Ravine, a secluded street down a hill along a creek where the houses sit far back on wooded lots.

Once I felt safely hidden, I set the timer for sixty seconds and bounced tentatively in my trail shoes.

The small white timer in my sweaty hand was a welcome friend. It had carried me through years of mindfulness meditation periods and decades of the ten minute "writing practices" that I'd learned from author Natalie Goldberg.

Perhaps it would serve me well again.

Morgan sniffed, peed on the newly sprouted leaves of a shrub, then stared into the distance.

"This is gonna hurt," I told him.

My mind had replaced the floating feeling of my dreams with a movie montage. First, a day nearly two decades before when I'd pushed myself around an indoor track gasping dusty air. Then another day when, bone tired from long hours practicing law, I'd cut a run short because I couldn't make it up one more hill. And finally, one day my mind decided I was through.

The dog stared up at me. He had no fear.

"What do you think, Pink?" I asked, referring to the pink tinge of his almost brown nose.

He cocked his head and perked his copper-colored ears.

I hit the timer button and began to jog.

It hurt.

Pain spread through my chest as my boobs bounced

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I didn't care. I tasted victory. Pleasant memories from decades past surfaced. Running in the rain, happy and soaked, feeling tough as I plowed through puddles. Outrunning younger men. Feeling strong, young, and pretty.

But as we walk/jogged our way out of the ravine to where the homes sit closer to the road, these images of running glory faded. The windows stared at me. I turned around and jogged back down the hill, out of view.

In the safe, secluded ravine, I alternated walking and jogging for twenty minutes. The dog continued to walk no matter how fast I thought I was going. When I finished, I breathed heavily while he barely panted. No matter. I was sweating. It had been a long time since I'd sweated from exertion and the sweat made me smile.

The walk home felt like floating. I glowed inside from pride and outside from sweat. I had run. And, I couldn't wait to run again. But first, I needed a nap. When I lay down, I dreamed I was flying.

That evening, I emptied a can of green beans into a saucepan while Ed sautĂŠed chicken. I said nothing about my accomplishment. I'd given up running so many times before.

When the food was ready, I ate hungrily as we talked about whether to buy dogwood trees for the front yard.

I spent the next day at a coffeehouse working on the novel I was revising. As I rewrote the same sentence, I renewed my resolve not to tell anyone. That night, when I talked on the phone to my sister, Amy, I did not tell her either.

Besides Ed, she's my closest confidante. Amy is eight years older than me and my brother, Jim, is two years older than her. They parented me as much as our mother and father did. I told none of them because I didn't want them to get their hopes up that I would lose more weight, have more energy, keep track of stuff I kept losing, be able to shop for groceries, remember where I was going when I left the house, or care more about anything. I didn't want to let them down if I failed. I also didn't want anyone to discourage me. It never occurred to me people might cheer.

In truth, I was guarding my own hopes. If I told no one, it wasn't real. This small victory was my imaginary friend.

I could cling to it regardless of where the jogging thing went.

After a decade of legal practice (and a major depressive episode), Nita turned in her shingle for a fast writing pen.

People still ask legal questions, but she's done her best to forget theanswers. Instead of negotiating labor contracts for public agencies, she writes, and shares what she 's learned.

Nita’s articles, essays, and poems have appeared in Buddhist America, Dog World, Dog Fancy, Writer’s Journal, Country Living, Pitkin Review, Spring Street, The Taos News, WNBA-SF blog, Pencil Storm, and other newspapers and newsletters. She writes the blog, Bum Glue andpublishes the monthly email, Write Now Columbus. She has been featured on Health.com, Healthline.com, Livestrong.com, Fupping.com, PsychCentral.com, bpHope.com, Bustle.com, NextAvenue.com, UpJourney.com, andMedium.com, in bp Magazine and Epoch Times, on the Word Carver, Running Dad, and My Brain on Endorphins podcasts, and nominated for the Ohio Arts Council Governor’s Award. Her poem “Memorial” won the Dublin Arts Council’s Poet’s Choice Award and an early draft of hermemoir, Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink, (previously titled Twenty-Six Point Freaking Two) was short-listed for the WilliamFaulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition Award. The book is a #1 AmazonNew Release in the “mood disorders” and “bipolar disorder” categories.

Nita earned a journalism degree, and a law degree from The Ohio State University, and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Goddard College.

For ten years, she studied with and assisted best-selling author Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones) at week-long writing workshops teaching the “rules of writing practice” and leading participants in sitting and walking meditation. Goldberg authorized Nita to teach “writing practice” and Nita has taught for nearly twenty years.

When she’s not writing and teaching, Nita runs. She has completed three full marathons,twenty-six half marathons (in eighteen states), and more than sixty shorter races.

Nita lives incentral Ohio with her husband and biggest fan, Ed, and her yellow Labrador running partner,Scarlet (aka #ninetyninepercentgooddog). nita@nitasweeney.com

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Emotions as Energy in motion

Photogrpahy by Alex Williams

By Marco Nunzio Alati & Lavandaia

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Driving to an event in Topanga Canyon, the glorious sun was blazing above us. My dear friend Lynne sat in the passenger seat as she held a beautiful bouquet of yellow and purple wild flowers. We were on the verge of being unfashionably late. I had been to Topanga Canyon on various occasions, yet never this high up the canyon.

As we drove up the elevating hills, the winding road began to narrow and we lost all cell service. Lynne began to breathe a bit heavy as she had a terrible fear of heights…something unbeknownst to me. The higher we drove, the more frantic she became. Clearly, we were lost The sun began to set and Lynne was now deep into her fear of heights. I pulled the car off the road, as Lynne anxiously asked me to stop.

I did not want her to panic and at the same time I was completely clueless on what to do to calm her. Right in that moment, I remembered a message that Lavandaia sent me that morning, in which Mother Earth gave firm instructions.

“The emotions and feelings you produce are circular, they come out from the heart through the navel and as a ripple effect, they create your reality of either beauty or tragedy.

When the emotions that you label as negative are suppressed, they go back inside instead of going outward. By suppressing emotions, you move further away from your own soul. Remember that there is no one pain and no one emotion that lasts forever. Let these emotions be without any filter, listen to your gut, and remain child-like. Pray for Me, and be nourished by the beauty I’m providing you with.

Connect to your inner child, to your heart, because when the heart prays, you are feeding and nourishing the heart of Earth as well.”

As I was reading the message, I immediately connected it to Lavandaia’s words about feelings and emotions during one of her workshops.

Our body has specific physical dynamics as a response to our emotions, which come and go mainly from our gut.

Through self-awareness we learn to distinguish higher feelings from more unclear, hazy emotions. The pure emotions come from our inner child, and they are fluid, clear, and precise. When you look at a child, it’s very easy to understand the emotions he is experiencing. You just need to look at his face and you immediately know if he is feeling joy, anger, sadness, pleasure, fear, happiness, enthusiasm, etc.

On the contrary, hazy emotions are confusing and distorted by the thoughts of our self-judgmental mind. They are usually produced from a combination of limiting beliefs and thoughts of unworthiness. Think, for example, of an extremely insecure person who, as a defense mechanism, does nothing but judge everyone he encounters. He will often feel emotions such as hatred and jealousy only as a response to his inner convoluted sense of unworthiness. Thus, he will always create realities where being judged is the epicenter of his own world.

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When we really allow ourselves to pay attention to our gut, we can clearly recognize the two types of emotions and understand that we shouldn’t put a filter on them.

The child simply expresses what he feels in that given moment, without any filter. Mother Earth defines these emotions as primary needs, essential and vital energy that cannot be suppressed. However, what tends to happen is that the child’s emotions are repressed by continual bombardment of, “Don’t cry!”, “Don’t do this here!”, “Why are you frustrated now?”, “Stop being angry!” etc These impositions feel completely foreign to the child who is simply exploring a process of self-discovery through various feelings, an inner journey that is suddenly halted.

Think about it, can we demand a child not to feel pain directly after scraping his knee? It’s not physically possible. From the child’s perspective, there is no difference between feeling the pain of scraping his knee, and being angry or frustrated. They are both exploration of self.

However, children are frequently scolded or punished for behaviors that express emotions that we consider to be socially unacceptable. This leads the child to judge those emotions and label them as “unacceptable” and “not beneficial”, then file them away in to their subconscious mind.

As a child incorporates these limiting beliefs, the next time these emotions arise, he filters them through his mind and he experiences them as an inner conflict. E-motion is energy in motion, with a specific energetic power and energetic charge. It cannot dissipate due to the mind’s construct.

Hence, these emotions - instead of going out, in a circular and expansive fashion - tend to be repressed and stored as toxic substances inside. A tainted seed has then been planted, a seedling of a sick plant that can bloom into mental and physical ailments. That is why as parents become aware of the highly impressionable consciousness of children, they should realize that their role is simply to witness and observe the entire spectrum of their child’s feelings, while providing support in their process of self-discovery with love and compassion.

Let’s not forget that we all are grown up children and as adults, we may be incapable of producing certain pure, circular emotions. We may instead tend to express certain behaviors linked to convoluted beliefs that weakens the connection to our inner child. It is, then, fundamental for us to constantly listen and feel our gut, to learn to willingly bring forth all the emotions that we were not allowed to express as children. We still have the innocence and pureness of the child within us and we need to reconnect to it. And by doing this, we reconnect to the very core of our hearts, and to the heart of our Mother Earth. There is, in fact, no higher joy and fulfillment for a mother to see her child express his pure potentiality, his clear power, his innate essence.

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As Lynne and I stood atop Topanga Canyon, watching the sunset, the hills were transforming into layers of grey shadows. I then decided to follow Mother Earth’s instructions. I simply observed and held the space for Lynne’s moment of fear and desperation. As quickly as her anxiety came on, it began to dissipate. Her breath went back to its normal pace, and she slowly moved her attention from the scary cliff, to the immense beauty we were surrounded by.

The drive down the canyon was nothing like the drive up.

In fact, it was the exact opposite. Lynne and I were laughing, taking in the beauty, and feeling quite alive! It was as if she’d been washed free of emotions that did not serve her anymore. And the best part was hearing her express how much she would really love to come back to the same glorious hill the next time we both had a free moment together.

After graduation in Industrial Biotechnology, Marco played a key role in international research projects in Canada, Austria and Spain. He stumbled upon the Reconnection by mere chance and it enlightened him in ways he hadn't realized he needed.

Three months after that unique experience, he left his job in biotechnology and embarked on his journey to become a full time Reconnective Healing Practitioner, and one of the two Italian Mentors and Teaching Assistants of Eric Pearl’s direct Team.

He is currently living in Los Angeles and collaborating with a number of independent scientific studies that are exploring Reconnective Healing and its extraordinary benefits.

For info contact marco.alati@gmail.com 323-617-2289 “Description” is all in the eyes of that who is experiencing, thus “description” of “who” becomes irrelevant. And the truth is, that describing Lavandaia using “words” is like trying to catch a fragrance. Scent cannot be caught, it can only be enjoyed and discovered through the experience itself. Who Lavandaia “is” is her mission, Giving clarity and divine knowledge to those who are willing to move forward in life and explore how to express their highest self.

For more information visit www.lavandaia.org Or contact us at paola.seed@gmail.com

MESSAGE FROM THE GODDESS MOTHER

With Jan Diana

HARMONY the Key to Peace My Beloved Children of Heart, “Greetings of joy! It is always a time for joy when we connect in our hearts.

As we gather together to share this moment, let us open to receive a greater feeling of connection to each other. Let us allow our hearts to be open to receive a validation of the sweetness of our divine relationship.

Each of us has a unique energy frequency. You might say we have our own song. Call it a soul song if you like.

It is a way of being known as our individual self, and yet we are part of the bigger soul song. It is as if you are a beautiful instrument playing in an orchestra consisting of many different instruments. We each play our parts together creating a symphony of great harmony, joy and peace.

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greater harmony. This is happening based on each one’s personal choice of harmony as well as the collective of Earth.

The history of humanity has taken place on our beautiful Earth. We have experienced living in the fields of polarity where there has been opposing forces. This has offered us the opportunity to experience many things which could not have been experienced in any other way.

So we celebrate this. We are grateful to Mother Earth for providing us with this wonderful place to live and to have many experiences.

Now we are on pathways of change. We have chosen to move out of the duality plains into the greater harmony.

Imagine a New World free of conflict and discord. Imagine there being no lack of any kind. Image living in peace and joy as a constant in every moment.

This is our focused vision. This is our ultimate destination, it is our destiny.

You might ask how can I feel more harmony in my life now? What are some ways I can enhance my life experiences in my every day moments?

First, it is important to recognize what is out of harmony in your life. What feels uneasy, upsetting, perhaps frustrating.

Anything that comes to mind as some kind of issue that bothers you has associated with it some discord.

Harmony is the key note that we all have within our personal soul song. It is a resonance with our heart that plays notes of delight and lifts us into the heights of forever bliss.

Harmony is the natural way of being. It is a unified resonance that blends in such a way to uplift and enhance one’s experiences and expansion potentials. With harmony there is no discord. There is only peace. There is a flowing energy that lightly dances wherever it is directed.

Where there is harmony, the energy will flow freely, joyfully, peacefully lifting and expressing in the most exquisite ways.

It is a lightness of spirit expressing itself as it desires.

Harmony is a divine attribute. It is always recognized by our spirit, our soul, as our true nature.

When in harmony you feel the connection to your divine presence. Within harmony you have the feeling of the familiar, a sense of being home.

In these glorious times of great change, we are moving into

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Discord in and of itself is upsetting as it doesn’t resonate with you or with your soul song. It creates a feeling of dis-ease in many forms.

Recognizing what elements are creating these feelings helps you to identify areas you can choose to bring your focused attention to. Then you can actively seek solutions to harmonize these situations.

Harmony is a divine attribute. It is always recognized by our spirit, our soul, as our true nature.

Sometimes it might be a process of letting go of something that doesn’t resonate with you. Or perhaps it is a matter of you shifting how you feel about something or how it is perceived.

To begin to bring greater harmony into your life it must be a choice. You desire it and make the choice to take steps to create that reality for yourself.

FREE CLASS: As a Gift I am offering you a Free Tele- Class, “Remember Who you are”.

You have the ability to do this. It is part of your divine makeup. Take any issue or situation that you would like to bring harmony to. Spend a few moments focusing in your heart on this topic. How would it feel to have harmony about this? What would that look like? Ponder these thoughts while focused in your heart.

-Restore pathways to remembering the truth of yourself using the tools of SVH, a prayer modality that can shift the old stories, old beliefs and perceptions that are not relevant to your truth.

-Receive tools that you can utilize in your life to further free yourself from the veils of forgetting -Take a journey to meet your true self and receive a priceless gift

Let your heart whisper to you. Make a simple plan of action steps to take and begin. Always hold the vision of resolution and how that would feel as you move forward.

As you focus on harmony you become a peacemaker. You bring peace to yourself and to others.

Developing these innate gifts and abilities will strengthen your connection to your divine self. The new resonate frequency will shift to support your focus, bringing greater joy and peace into you and to your life experiences.

You will leave this class filled a greater vision of yourself and what is now possible for you.

This class is a great joy bringer!

Note: Register by subscribing by email at: http://www.jandiana.com (if the time is not convenient, register to receive the recording when available)

With harmony as your focus, you allow yourself to become an enlightened being. Your life becomes filled with the joy and lightness that your heart desires.

Each element of harmony you bring into your life brings more harmony into the world. Greater harmony blesses the collective of humanity.

You have within you the power to change your life into one of great peace through harmony. You have the power to assist all of Earth to reach and fulfill the destiny of a New World, where all beings live in the sweetness of love, joyfulness and peace.

This is your destiny. It is the destiny of all the children of Earth.

Let us walk this pathway together with open hearts, loving ourselves, and loving all. Let us be in gratitude for all that we have been blessed with. Let us each choose to move into the higher harmony and walk the pathway to fully remembering our sacred selves. Shamon.”

With great love, Your Beloved Mother

Jan Diana is an intuitive healer, spiritual teacher, and master practitioner.

Her mission is to assist clients & students in creating harmony, balance, heightened levels of clarity, develop innate gifts & abilities, empowering them on their personal evolution to create the dreams of their heart. She utilizes several modalities including SVH L4, Animal healing, GHM, Language of love, Reiki Master, and more.

Free meditation journeys, articles, & classes. http://www.jandiana.com

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The Importance of men skin's care

LOOKING GOOD & FEELING GREAT

By Margaret Tomaszewicz

Women tend to develop a pretty consistent skin care routine that they’ll use on a daily basis to keep their skin healthy, fresh and youthful. It’s important for men to develop this kind of routine as well. While the steps a man takes to care for his skin each day might be very different from what a woman will focus on, the goals tend to be the same. Everyone wants to have healthy skin, prevent breakouts, treat problem areas and keep their skin looking young even as you age. In this article, we will talk about the benefits of a skin care routine for men, what some of the best products are and what you should consider when coming up with a routine for the first time.

A lot of skin care products on the market contain very harsh chemicals that will end up doing more harm than good. While these products might help your skin at first, you could be damaging your skin irreversibly. There are some ingredients and components that you’ll want to incorporate into your daily routine. Let’s take a closer look.

Salicylic Acid This is a fantastic ingredient that is used in the majority of acne products on the market. Salicylic acid has the potential to soak deep down into your pores and treat a blemish right at the root of the cause. Even at a low dose, salicylic acid can shrink down pimples and acne in a very short amount of time. It is relatively gentle, so you don’t have to worry about it drying out your skin or making it appear very red and raw.

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Photography by Joanna Nix

Skin Care Ingredients to Look For

Hyaluronic Acid Hyaluronic acid is something that the body makes naturally, but you can apply a product to your skin that contains it as a way to tighten and firm up the skin. It’s a very common anti-aging ingredient. If you’re a smoker or someone who doesn’t live a very healthy lifestyle, your body probably isn’t making enough of this acid.

Retinol Retinol is made from Vitamin A, and it has the ability to produce more collagen in the skin. This leads to a more youthful appearance. You can quickly get rid of unwanted wrinkles and fine lines. Not to mention, you can prevent more from occurring. This is an ingredient found in many moisturizers and toners, but there are many cleansers on the market that utilize retinol in their make up.

Natural Ingredients Coconut Oil This is a very versatile ingredient that has antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal and antioxidant properties. You can use coconut oil on its own, but it's also a very common ingredient in many skin care products. It can heal the skin, strengthen it and even fade scars.

will help prevent clogged pores or breakouts that you typically experience.

Clear Skin Toner You can use this product as an aftershave to soothe the skin and prevent bumps on the skin caused by shaving. Toners are great if you have oily skin. You’ll notice that your skin stays hydrated without becoming too greasy. The goal of using a toner is really to balance the pH of your skin, hydrate it and keep your pores clean.

Magic Bamboo and Charcoal Mask It’s a good idea to have some products as part of your daily skin care routine that isn’t used each day. Rather, they are occasional products that you would use once or twice per week.

You can use this Magic Bamboo and Charcoal Mask to exfoliate dead skin from your face and prevent ingrown hairs that can occur from daily shaving. It doesn’t take long to apply, and you can wash it off after just a few minutes of treatment.

Tea Tree Oil Tea tree oil can be used on blemishes, dry patches of skin, eczema and other problematic areas. It works well to reduce redness and prevent infection. It also functions as an anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antimicrobial and anti-fungal. You’ll usually find tea tree oil in spot treatments or toners. It’s a great ingredient that you’ll often find in hair products as well.

Aloe Vera Aloe has been used for centuries to heal burns at cuts. It is an excellent tool to use for hydrating and nourishing the skin.

People have been known to keep an aloe plant in their home so they can break off a piece and use it when necessary. Tons of skin care products contain aloe vera since this is such a soothing compound to have on hand.

Best Skin Care Products for Men It’s important to have a good repertoire of products on hand in order to keep your skin looking its best. You may need to try a few different things to find what works best for you, but it is important that you don’t give up. Look for products that tailor to your specific skin condition. There are products for dry skin, oily skin, normal skin, and combination skin.

WODA Non-Tinted Sunscreen It’s important that you use a sunscreen throughout the year.

Even when the snow is flying, the sun can greatly affect the quality of your skin. Our WODA Non-Tinted Sunscreen can be used to prevent skin cancer safely by way of a zinc oxide product. Not only will it protect you from the sun, but it also helps hydrate and soothe your skin.

Totally Coconut Foaming Cleanser Foaming cleansers are nice because they work up to a nice lather and they rinse off really well. You can use this Totally Coconut product during the process of shaving your face. It

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Nourishing Peptide Eye Cream If you’re constantly at work staring at a computer screen, you may have noticed that your eyes are looking a little tired. You may even have wrinkles popping up. Men can take the steps necessary to prevent aging as well. This Nourishing Peptide Eye Cream can prevent and treat fine lines around your eyes.

It even contains a zinc oxide sunscreen which is great to use around the thin and sensitive skin around your eyes.

Best Skin Care Routines for Men Your skin care routine doesn’t have to be really time-consuming and involved. In fact, you can use a few quick products to cleanse, hydrate and protect on a daily basis. Your skin will look better than it ever has.

A.M. Skin Care Routine When you wake up in the morning, you can use a cleanser to get rid of any dirt and oil that has accumulated overnight.

If you used any products while you slept, you’ll be able to remove those and start fresh for the day. You can follow up with a toner after you have shaved. A moisturizer and sunscreen are other great products to use daily in the morning hours as part of your routine. They will help protect your skin from free radicals, pollution and so much more.

Best Skin Care Advice for Men When you are developing a good skin care routine, you should focus on the types of products that you want to invest in. It’s important for a lot of people to adhere to a budget when they’re investing in skin care products, but the quality of the products you use really do count. You don’t have to purchase dozens of different products. Invest your money in a really good cleanser, toner and moisturizer to get you started.

Sunscreen is a great addition that will help prevent any signs of premature aging and skin damage.

Don’t feel like you can’t have a skin care routine set for yourself just because you’re a man. Women aren’t the only ones that should be paying attention to the quality of their skin.

Everyone wants to look young and have healthy skin. Address issues that you’re having with your skin and develop a skin care routine that will work for you and your budget.

To your heath!

P.M. Skin Care Routine At the end of the day, this is when you should clean your face again, and you can use products to treat blemishes, dry patches, etc. You can use a toner to treat your skin or balance out the levels of hydration. Use a moisturizer and an eye cream before you head to bed. When you sleep, this is the time when your skin will do the most healing. Help it along with some great products that you feel comfortable having on your skin all night.

Best Facials for Men Periodically, you should use various facial products to keep your skin exfoliated and hydrated. It’s even more beneficial to head to a local spa to have a facial done for you. European Skin Care and Massage Studio have created a specialty men’s facial package that will tailor to skin issues that the majority of men face. It focuses on deep pore cleansing, hydration, and a relaxing face and neck massage.

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Margaret Tomaszewicz is a licensed esthetician with over 25 years of experience.

She is the owner of European Skin and Massage Studio in Santa Monica, California and has developed the Organic WODA European Natural Skin Care Line.

Her products are available on wodaskincare.com and on Amazon.com For every product sold WODA Skin Care plants a tree.

Margaret can be reached at 424-279-9771 or europeanskinandmassagestudio@gmail.com wodaskincare.com

LANGUAGE OF SPACE

By Michael White Ryan

EM Photography by Hieu Vu Minh

AN CI

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PATION SYSTEMIZATION

Meditation

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Emancipation, such a powerful word it is? No need to imagine, for it is liberation from history. Let us think for a moment, could this be from personal history, far longer than a lifetime. Armed with your own prescribed endowed patent license, gives one the privilege of repeating one’s self-created-permitted actions thoughts and desires, continuously.

Thus, contributing to all manner of things, depending on the issues/situations one is actively engaged in, and the state of being, one’s personal connection with….

The bases of emancipation relates to being set free, from all number of things. When in actuality, it means free from anything, everything, memories, everyone, and especially in this day and age, the self. Which hopefully brings to the forefront, today’s most foreboding question, what is the self?

Better yet, is there more to life than this….? As the drum roll plays in the background, the question has a tendency to haunt one’s mind, over the length of one’s entire life time.

It’s not easy contemplating the enormous all-pervading mass of internal ideas, constantly rolling around inside our heads, especially by one’s self! Learning to appreciate the “I am”, has, since time began, left mankind feeling as if there is something missing? And what may possibility be on everyone’s lips, comes with such foreboding questionings, “which self ”?

And the answer remains duh…, Why all of them!

We are an empire unto the self a powerful living organism ? why are we so forgiving We accept our experiences based on known facts and all of those other majority people’s conclusions, and let’s face it, facts are facts are beliefs are systems. Yes, well-rehearsed educated systems of strategies past, of past, passed handme-downs! Now right now, if we contemplate this for just a minuscule moment, we may just discover, our experiences were shrouded from view, hidden by a mind-sight of existing valid reasoning’s. Ever, so so clever are we! We are already knowing, the completed facts, long before one has even tasted the experience??? It’s all hogwash, who said you have to experience a transformation, to become a creator!

The Big Question comes in the form of, how did we get to where we are today, externally, internally? Is it evolution, is it regurgitation? The answer may be much simpler than we realize. Unfortunately, like most deeds/actions in a 3D world, the answer comes as a paradox! The “I am”, idea of contribution to serve the greater good for humanity is by its own energetic quality, a self-serving practice. This comes under the concept of building new systems to do good, greater than that which exists now, from a mindset which exists now.

Call it a different name, camouflage it as a must have and BAM, there you have it, disguised perpetual consequences, created, devoid of transformation, re-invented from a mindset already in existence!

There are two unassuming words well known by all, and possibility often overlooked. BALANCE, as science informs us, is derived from two equally opposing forces. n life represent by,

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I good-bad, right-wrong, light-dark, black-white and so on. HARMONY, is much more difficult to explain. Unfortunately the dictionary has never been able to define the power within this energetic seemingly unassuming force. One factor is absolute, we all know it’s a bitch when harmony doesn’t exist! Birthed from these, intimate coupling of opposites, comes a life composed of a new energetic quality. A foundation totally instigated, received, delivered, ambushed and controlled, by which one of the selves deems responsibility, for an appropriate response or action.

for all humans, come other solutions from the opposite corners of the spectrum. It’s a Balance and Harmony kind of world. Discovery exists in the internal realms of human action (light, external) and non-action (dark, internal).

Meditation comes in many mirriorid forms of reflection.

Acknowledged by many masters and scholars over centuries of cultural generations, could be some truth substance in this stuff! Choose just one, any process will do, explore, change up, engage until you find the difficult one, then stick with that!

A life fueled by PURPOSE is an intention bargained from an existing internal reason, a divine mind-motive energetic quality produces one’s state of being.

One’s reasoning’s are facts, supporting goals, life’s purpose becomes beliefs one’s sustainable life!

Meditation also comes wrapped in its own form of systemization, for self-discovery. Who would have ever imagined, there is no difference in different. Different comes wearing multi colored appearances, to fool the mind and test one’s awareness. Life is intentional awareness (Balance) and emancipation (Harmony) shrouded in the magic of systemized circumstances (Grace)!

Specialization rewards a person with time honored experience, knowledge, wisdom. Remove that person out of their field, give them a hammer and nail, next hour they are at the doctors repairing a damaged hand. Single focus is a meaningful, self-satisfying vocation which can leave one empty in other areas of existence. A self-serving focus, driven by a foundation of, where do I belong, is a formidable well intentioned set of reasons/goal that may result in blindconsequences. Hence purpose may come with its own specialized set of horse blinkers.

The search for freedom from entrapment, emancipation, may just be the mother of the entrepreneurial movement. An extraordinary movement, creating systems, believed to liberate one from the systemized hierarchical systems of a binding past. Only to embody the very same process under a disguised goal. The “I am” is once again, doing this, for the common good of mankind. Now in existence, this massive set of strategic systemizations is an absolute necessity for a successful business, which leaves the entrepreneur with an absence in decision making, over to algorithms, functioning as a human mind-set.

It’s that same old, same old story of which comes first the chicken or the egg be still my child the answer lies within As with all mind-set driven solutions to better expand life

Blessings to one and all, in this path of self-discovery……

Michael White Ryan is a co-founder with his wife Pamela Edwards of Language of Space.

They are leaders in sustainable business growth via Performance Design and Performance Code.

Sustainable design encompasses both Western and Eastern philosophies including advanced Feng Shui principles, Environmental Design, Buildings, Alternative Health, Business Advisory Consultants and 20 plus years as entrepreneurs. Recognized in the top 100 globally and are Americas Leading Feng Shui Business Consultants.

They are on faculty at CEO Space International one of the oldest business organizations in America today, currently operate in 7 countries and reside in Carlsbad CA.. www.languageofspace.com

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THE WAY I SEE IT

By Joe Santos, Jr.

S hould I Stay

S or hould I Go?

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We've all heard that expression. We've all contemplated that question or that decision. When it's as simple as hanging out a bit longer at a club, the beach, or at a party, it's one thing, but when it comes to a "life decision" how nonchalant are we then? Some, quite, others, not quite. Every situation is unique.

Photography by Eric Nopanen

One thing we should "own" is our ability to decide for ourselves. It's the difference between what's right and what's wrong. Most of us that are "healthy" seem to not struggle with the difference. Then there are those of us who get lost in the simple process of determination. Or, is it as simple? I believe when a decision must be made regarding ones' happiness, health, survival, well being and everyday right to live ones' best life and happiness, the decision is as simple as it gets. If someone or something is in the way of that, then it's time to go. And fast!

Have you listened to a friend struggle with issues at work? It's easy for us to say, "Well, just quit.

Find another job". How about those that struggle with friendships? "Stop hanging out with her/ him. Make new friends". We're so quick with our "dismissive" advice. Are we really listening to the pain, struggle, and plight? Or have we become just another member of this "throw-away" society? Or, have we finally come to the realization that life is what we make it. What we want it to be! Even what we deserve! Do we know what we deserve? That may very well be why we get stuck.

We think maybe we don't deserve to feel loved, be able to love, laugh, live. Have we experienced a bad marriage, abusive relationships, physically and mentally? We know deep down how that feels.

NOT GOOD. Do we stay? Do we stay? Yes. I asked twice!! Well, we all do deserve better. That is why we are put here to experience life. We have been given one HUGE gift called life. Handed to us wrapped up in a tiny package that at any given moment, will undoubtedly self-destruct. Still waiting?

It is up to us to create our "every day" every second. It's up to us to ensure its arrival by reinvesting in ourselves, by trusting our inner voice, our inner self's instinct, our gut. That place where God speaks the loudest, that place we "hear" but insist to avoid listening to and silence by speaking over it. The lesson here is simple. We complicate it. Life and love are supposed to feel good. Not just good, but amazing. If there are circumstances and people in the way of that, then they have to go. It's not easy,

but it's essential. Let your reflection guide you. If you forgot what you look like, find a way to remember you. Listen to your truth. Stop adding additional time to skepticism, uncertainty, unhappiness, and madness. Start freeing yourself at all costs. Nobody said we are supposed to live consciously without the hopes, feelings, emotions, dreams, and desires we deserve. How is it so simple for so many of us to abandon what is ours? What God gave us? Yet we consider ourselves to be spiritual, even "GOD-like" Why? How? Because we take a Yoga class once a week? Or, "meditate" with one eye open by using a phone app while referring to ourselves as evolved?

Enlightened? Really? Well, to those that are (there are many), and to those who pretest to be (there are also many), blaming every imperfection, insecurity, catastrophe, foil, mistake, mishap or date gone wrong on "Mercury in Retrograde" without respecting the Universe enough to realize that "Mother Nature" has bigger fish to fry! Why don't we just choose who to listen to, believe in something bigger, greater, and smarter than the inconsequential things that create our many complicated decisions we seek advice for. So, when we ask, "should I stay or should I go?" Ask yourself, What am I staying for?

And where am I going to? If your answer is based on your inner voice, true inner voice, God, then your answer is clear and brilliant and will only ensure the best for the rest of your life.

Joe Santos, Jr. is a Celebrity Chef and Life-Stylist. He joins The Eden Magazine as a writer sharing his unique view on life, death, love, and the avoidance of mediocrity.

Follow Joey on Instagram @jojoboy13

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13th

Los Angeles Greek Film Festival

At the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood

T

he red carpet Closing Night of the 13th Los Angeles Greek Film Festival (LAGFF) was held Sunday, June 9th at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. The West Coast premiere of Nikos Labot’s “HER JOB”, was followed by the Orpheus Awards Ceremony and an elegant reception in the outdoor courtyard of the Egyptian. Guests enjoyed Good Greek Grill, Georgos Wine, Pietris Bakery, Bakersland, and Sugarista and danced to Dimitris Mann & The Greek Rebetiko Trio.

Festival Director Aris Katopodis opened the ceremony with a warm welcome to guests that included filmmakers, industry professionals, Greek VIPS and dignitaries. The Awards were co-hosted by popular actresses Patricia Kara and Elena Evangelo.

Emmy-nominated casting director and producer, Valorie Massalas was the 2019 Orpheus Award Honoree and received a standing ovation and cheers from the audience. She is a longtime LAGFF Advisory Board member and co-produced and cast the acclaimed Gods and Monsters, which was nominated for three Oscar Awards.

Award winning actor-dancer and 2018 Orpheus Honoree, George Chakiris presented the Orpheus to Massalas.

A special Tribute Video for Massalas included heartfelt messages from A-list entertainers The tribute video was directed by Constantinos Isaias. “There were so many incredible films and talent this year”, explained Festival Director Aris Katopodis. “Our distinguished jury panel looked at the films very closely. The awards, especially audience ones, were very close.”

Awards presenters were Kelly Vlahakis Hanks, Sunil Sadarangani, Bobby Roth, James Axiotis, David Streit, Panos Vlahos, Ioanna Triantafyllidou, Soudabeh Moradian and George Chakiris. Several of the presenters also served on the LAGFF Jury.

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LAGFF is a 501(3) non-profit organization and open to all filmgoers and patrons of the arts. The full program and Festival information is available at www.lagff.org @lagff #LAGFF2019

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From Celestial Watercolor by Elise Mahan and D.L. McElroy

VIRGO:

THE VIRGIN / MAIDEN

By Elise Mahan & D.L. McElroy

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Perfectionistic, practical, elegant, modest— just what you’d expect from the sign of the Virgin. Virgos like order and thrive in detail-oriented careers like accounting, health care, and lab research. But this sign is just as meticulous in fields such as filmmaking, business start-ups, and editing. Virgo is generally not the sign to seize the leadership spotlight, but because of their purposeful natures and the admiration of their peers they may frequently inhabit those positions.

Virgos frequently seem to have weighty problems on their minds; the sign is given to excessive worry and concern. These people are often workaholics, staying late at the office to take care of some detail or other.

Virgos are typically even-tempered, calm, soothing individuals when they aren’t overworked. A Virgo is often very concerned with how they look, taking great care in their dress and grooming. Virgo people will be the first to roll up their sleeves and pitch in to help finish a task—not for glory or personal gain, but simply to put an end to procrastination and finish the job. They despise loose ends.

Watercolor Tools & Techniques Watercolor is an incredibly diverse medium, and with just a few materials you can create your own celestial paintings inspired by the beauty and power of the cosmos. In the following pages I have included a few of my favorite tools and materials that I work with. However, I encourage you to experiment with a variety of paints, pens, brushes, and papers throughout your artistic journey, as you will certainly find something unique that works for your style of watercolor painting. It is my hope that this book will inspire you to explore the endless possibilities that watercolor has to offer.

People born under the sign of the Virgin are typically frugal—with both their love and their money. Virgos are not particularly demonstrative folk, and they are notoriously stingy. Virgo is the sixth sign of the zodiac, representing responsibility, maturity, and thrift. The symbol for Virgo is an amalgam of the first three letters of the Greek word Parthenos, meaning “virgin.”

Washes There are several types of washes that can help you create a beautiful sky. The first is a graded wash, which is a technique that starts with a dark color. When you add water, your wash gradually lightens near the bottom of your painting, creating a lovely ombré effect that makes for a luminous and magical sky. The second is a flat wash, which creates an even distribution of a single color on your page. Once this layer is dry, you can go back in a second time with other complementary colors to make your sky pop, or you can leave it for a very minimalist and stark-looking sky, which works well for a winter scene. Finally, a two-color wash or gradient wash uses two colors on a wet surface. You can either use two different colors or the same color in varying degrees of pigment intensity; they will mix and blend together when dry to produce a lovely effect.

Mercury rules Virgo, so don’t be surprised if practical, fastidious Virgos do a sudden about-face seemingly out of nowhere. Their highly attuned perceptiveness may have them taking note of something the rest of us can’t see. Famous Virgos include Warren Buffett, Tim Burton,Michael Jackson, Mother Teresa, Henry Ford II, Greta Garbo, Sean Connery, Arnold Palmer, Sophia Loren, Kobe Bryant, Gene Kelly, Gene Simmons, Lyndon B. Johnson, Queen Elizabeth I, and William H. Taft. The Modern Shamanist totem for this sign is the Brown Bear. ~D.L. McElroy

Wet-on-Wet Technique The wet-on-wet technique begins by adding a water wash onto the paper before adding your preferred paint color. This first wash will cause the watercolor paint to spread and bleed across the paper in a beautiful and unpredictable way. I use a ½-inch (1.3-cm) flat wash brush to lay down a thin coat of water, but you could also add a small amount of color for a light wash. For my skies, I like to add a very small amount of gold metallic pigment to my water for this step, so that the gold paint will re-wet when I lay down my second layer of paint

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Wet-on-Dry Technique The wet-on-dry technique begins by loading a flat 1-inch (2.5-cm) wash brush with a color and painting directly onto the paper. This technique allows for a more controlled distribution of paint, but gives less of a transparent, flowing quality than the wet-on-wet technique provides. Both are great techniques, and for my skies I tend to use aspects of both within the same painting. For example, I will lay down a light water wash onto a small part of my painting, then load my brush with pigment and work on the dry part of the paper near where I laid down my wash. I let that paint slowly blend with the wet areas, creating a bolder, more pigmented area alongside a softer, blended area. There is less of a spreading effect with wet-on-dry technique, but it provides an intense, dark quality to certain areas of your sky.

A Virgo Watercolor 1. Choose your desired paper size, and cut it down with room to spare for framing if necessary. Tape off the edges for a square-, triangular-, or rhombus-shaped painting, or use a compass or any round object as a template for a circular painting. Once this is complete, you can sketch out your preliminary landscape.

2. Once you have your sketch the way you want it, choose your color palette. For this zodiac painting, I chose greens.

I used a two-tone gradient wash with viridian green and a small amount of gold metallic watercolor. I let my wash dry completely before I begin the next part of my painting.

I generally like to have several paintings that I work on in rotation, so that while one is drying, I can work out the details of another.

3. Once your first wash layer is dry, decide whether it needs a second layer or whether you like the effect achieved from your wash. For the most part, I am never satisfied with that first wash, as it really is just an underpainting to give a sense of where I want the lights and darks in my painting. I go back into my sky and use this second layer to add darker tones and metallics, and I fix anywhere in my painting where the paint dried inconsistently or spread in a way I didn’t intend.

4. Once the second layer is dry, begin building up mountains and trees. You should still have a faint trace hiding under your wash layers of the initial pencil sketch of any mountains or trees you made. I find those marks and go back into them with my chosen color. For this painting, I went with white, snowy-looking pine trees with no mountains. I kept my sketch very minimal, knowing I would go back with a gel pen and my 000 round brush for the trees. I start with a lighter white (add more water) for the background trees, and as they move forward, I use brighter white (very little water) to achieve a more dynamic landscape. I go back

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in with a gel pen to get more detail once my trees are dry.

My final details are the stars and constellations. I go back in with a small round 000 brush and white paint, or a white gel pen, for these as well. ~Elise Mahan

Elise Mahan was born in Arizona, but has lived much of her life in Northern California with her husband, Matthew, her son, Miles, and two sassy kitties. Elise creates paintings that are inspired by her love for astronomy, natural history, and her work as an early childhood educator. She uses a range of materials such as gouache, watercolor, graphite, walnut ink, and metallic pigments in her work.

Each painting is a chance for her to draw upon ethereal and surreal elements that utilize and explore texture, color, and botanical elements that exist within the natural world. Elise aims to explore the connections between natural history and symbolism and how they relate to one another within art and society.

D.L. McElroy holds a BS in Horticulture, and an MS in Environmental Resources. She is happiest writing in the service of environmental, conservation, and land remediation issues, as well as wildlife and indigenous plant populations. She lives in Michigan with her patient husband and a neurotic rescue cat.

She can be reached at her blog www. deescribe315.wordpress.com Learn how to paint the beautiful night sky throughout the seasons while learning about sun signs and their place in astrology with Celestial Watercolor—complete with an overview of the tools and techniques of watercolor.

With this book, travel nearer the heavens following simple directions for painting each of the constellations, accompanied by information about each sign of the zodiac. A basic introduction to watercolor techniques and its tools will get you started. Learn more at www.quartoknows.com.

81 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e August 2019

82 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e August 2019

10 Minutes a Day to Change Your Life

By Phyllis King

Many of us mistakenly believe devoutly that effort and struggle is the path to abundance. We think the harder we work, and the more hours we spend, the more abundance we will have.

That is one way to create a form of abundance. It has inherent limitations because of the taxing nature of the approach.

If you want to become abundant without exhaustion or struggle learn to change your approach toward energy at the beginning.

Rather than use struggle as your approach to abundance learn to use joy. If your creation begins with joy, it will also end with joy. If it begins with struggle it will end with struggle.

One way to shift the energy from struggle to joy is to practice the Imagining technique. Imagining can change your relationship to your output of energy and subsequently how you receive in your life. Imagining teaches you how to insert high-vibration frequencies into your energy, medicinally. It teaches you how to create on a quantum level. It is an act of allowing abundance in, rather than chasing abundance.

Every morning before you start your day, and every night before you drift off to sleep practice Imagining. Imagine your life as you would like it to be. Perhaps you wish you had a new relationship, or to heal the one you have. Perhaps you want more financial resources, or improved health, or a better job. Imagine it. Then generate all the feelings you would have if the "things you want" were realized in your life. Bathe in those feelings, as if they were happening now. Revel in the joy of your heart’s desire being manifested in your life.

Do not try to figure out how you will make something happen…just imagine it has already happened and enjoy the feelings of satisfaction. Absorb them into your being. You are engaging divine providence on a quantum level. It is effortless and joyful.

The second part of the Imagining technique is to acknowledge your connection to the Infinite. See yourself as one wave in an ocean, ebbing and flowing in perfect timing together. Remember you have the power to create your life with Source energy

because you are Source energy. Abundance is your birth right.

Allow this gentle awareness to take over your thoughts.

Begin and end your day with Imagining. Within 48 hours you will begin to see change in your life, and not just the areas you desire. You are raising your overall vibration. Opportunities, money, relationships, etc., will seem to come out of nowhere.

They will show up effortlessly while you do the business of living your life.

As you end your day, again imagine. When we plant the seeds of prosperity in our mind before we drift off to sleep, we create while we sleep without the filters of the ego. You can experience intuitive dreams. You will often awaken with insight about your unfolding life experience.

You can also practice the imagining technique anytime during the day if you begin to feel stressed-out or contracted. It’s a great tool for realigning with high vibrations. IT WORKS!

Known as the Common Sense Psychic (tm), Phyllis King has worked with tens of thousands of people in 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

83 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e August 2019

Excerpt from How to Make Space

TAKE

YOUR TIME

By Dr. Arlene Unger

‘Let us know the happiness time brings, not count the years.’ ~ Ausonius TICK TOCK, TICK TOCK I’m late, I’m late… When the White Rabbit in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland dashes past, frantically checking his watch, he epitomizes the modern feeling that we are time-poor. Most of us feel that there is simply not the space in the day to do all the things we need to. But in reality, the present generation has more leisure than any previous one. Our problem is not that we have less time, but that we are too driven by the clock.

We are so used to tracking the minutes that it is hard to imagine that people once lived in a very different way.

From candle and water clocks, sun dials and hourglasses to clock towers, the grandfather clock and watches, humankind has long sought to measure time. With the pressures of modern-day life we can often feel that we don’t have enough hours in the day, but it is important for our emotional well-being to set aside an hour or two each week to enjoy a fun activity. Here are some steps to effectively block out time in your hectic schedule: 1. Adopt the idea that not only is free time good for your health, but it will help you to discover who you are and to be content with your own self.

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Wordsmith by PiscesDreamer

PLAYTIME ‘Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.’ ~William Penn

2. Think of something you have longed to do during your busy week but put on hold – like going on a hike, cycling along the ocean, taking up needle-point or reading a good thriller.

3. Say out loud the very thing that makes your soul feel like jumping for joy.

4. Now take out your diary or open your phone calendar. Find some hours where you can break away from your obligations to do that very thing: circle the day and time clearly in your diary, and make a promise to yourself that you won’t postpone or reduce it.

5. Allow yourself to get excited about your upcoming activity by gathering the items you need, planning your route or telling friends and family about your plan.

6. After the activity, check in with yourself about how it went and what you’d do differently next time: it is your free time and you can adapt and tweak it as you like. Thank yourself for giving yourself the space and time to pursue a favorite hobby.

7. There is nothing more enriching in life than giving yourself free time to just chill out and have fun. Recognize the importance of creating space in your calendar for more fun and play, and commit to setting aside dedicated free time every week.

Reap the Rewards Mindfully scheduling free time not only enables us to pursue activities and pastimes that we truly enjoy, but has numerous other benefits such as boosting our productivity at work and setting priorities. It can also provide much needed perspective on life. When we are in the middle of an important business project, it is easy for work to become all-consuming. Taking some scheduled time-out allows us to recognize that there are other aspects of our life that are equally as important and shouldn’t be neglected.

SIMPLE ROUTINE ‘When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute – and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.’ ~Albert Einstein Albert Einstein knew more about time than anyone, and he had a handy trick to introduce a little more of it into his day: he is said to have owned a set of identical suits so that he didn’t waste time wondering what to wear. ‘Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler,’ was his mantra. All of us need to find ways to avoid ‘decision fatigue’, because the fewer small decisions you have to make, the better primed you will be for the big ones. Here are some other ways to streamline your decision-making first thing in the morning:

.

Keep food simple When it comes to the first meal of the day,

.

keep it straightforward and healthy. There’s something soothing about having the same breakfast each day, and it means there is one less decision to make.

.

Dress ahead Your clothes needn’t be the same every day, of course. But you will make space in your morning if you have all your clothes ready the night before.

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Do the bag drop When you come home after work, make a point of clearing out your pockets and bag of any debris. Make sure you have everything in it that you will need the next day.

Einstein is not the only great thinker to have streamlined his routine. Barack Obama simplified his wardrobe when president of the United States, while Oprah combines two tasks in one when she takes her dogs for their daily walk, also enabling her to get outside for some fresh air.

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SLOW AND STEADY Want to make more space in your day? The answer could be to go slower. Many spiritual thinkers have noted that the more we rush, the less progress we seem to make. The most charming illustration of this point is a fable reputedly written by a Greek slave named Aesop in around 600 BCE. Aesop is said to have been a keen observer of animals and used their characters as the basis for tales with a moral message for humans.

Whether Aesop even existed is a matter of a debate, but the tales that are ascribed to him are a treasure trove of ancient wisdom that has delighted readers for centuries.

Racing Ahead In the Aesop fable ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’, a hare is bragging about how fast he can run. He mocks a tortoise for his slowness: ‘How do you ever get anywhere?’ ’ The tortoise looks calmly at the hare and replies that he gets where he wants to go and quicker than the hare might think, and he challenges the hare to a race to prove it. Much amused, the hare accepts.

Get used to waiting Often we rush around because we can’t bear the thought of sitting still and waiting. Aim to arrive at appointments a few minutes early and train yourself to sit calmly taking in your surroundings rather than automatically distracting yourself with your phone. It may feel uncomfortable at first but with practice you will find it easier to do this.

Know that tomorrow is another day Accept the fact that you may not achieve everything today. Many of the deadlines we give ourselves are false – does it really matter if you don’t send that email or do that task? Sure, sometimes it does, but often things can wait without any disastrous consequence.

See leisure as important When you are busy, it is tempting to cut back on downtime. But downtime is what helps you regain the headspace you need to be productive and effective at work.

Remind yourself how important it is to give yourself a break.

The animals set off and the hare leaves the tortoise far behind in the distance – so far behind that he decides to take a rest.

He soon drops off and as the hare sleeps the tortoise plods on.

In time, he passes the hare, still asleep. When the hare finally wakes up, he sees the tortoise in the distance far ahead. He runs as fast he can but it’s too late: the tortoise wins the race. The moral is that slow and steady beats fast and unfocussed.

SLOW YOUR DAY DOWN ‘Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.’ ~Lao Tzu If you feel like you are constantly in a hurry, take inspiration from Aesop’s tortoise and slow down. Here are some tips to beat the rushing habit: Get up earlier than you need to A rushed morning means starting the day frazzled.

Don’t overschedule Rather than trying to arrange meetings or complete tasks back-to-back, keep spaces in your day, so that when tasks overrun there is time to finish them off.

Mind the gap Find a way of marking the transition between one activity and the next. Even in the busiest day, there are moments of emptiness when you can pause, breathe and appreciate life.

Leave extra time Don’t try to plan your journey to arrive somewhere exactly on time. Leave half an hour earlier than you need to, so that you can take it slowly. Find something pleasurable to do on the journey, too. Listen to a podcast or read a good book.

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Dr. Arlene Unger is a Californiabased clinical psychologist and wellness coach, with thirty years of experience in the field. In her busy practice, The Empowerment Center, she emphasizes the need to find life balance – and to let go of the judgment and self-criticism that can hold us back. She blends clinical expertise with her intuition and imagination, treating people face-to-face but also specializing in online coaching and counselling. She uses a wide range of therapeutic tools, including Mindfulness, Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Emotional Brain Training.

Learn more at https://drarleneunger.com/.

Through fascinating anecdotes and intriguing vignettes, How to Make Space reveals how people throughout history and around the world have embraced a simpler life, from Buddhist monks to Swedish Lagom and modern minimalism.

Be inspired to follow their example and reap the benefits of more time, more clarity, more joy, more space.

Learn more at http://www.quartoknows.com

Photography by Geran-de-Klerk

87 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e July 2019

From Grief to Grace Pet Bereavement Counseling Monthly Column with Pina De Rosa

The loss of a beloved pet can be the deepest heartbreak of our lives. Each month we will address and answer a key topic

urn close to your chest. Fill yourself with love. Imagine connecting In our July column on Pet Grief Counseling, we looked at your heart with your pet’s heart as a way to give and receive love “My pet died, what do I do?” from both hearts. Stay in love, not fear as you get to celebrate the undying love in welcoming them home. Slowly, and together with For this month’s topic, we get to look at how to “welcome the your friend, walk through every room of the house, the garden, evashes” home. ery place the pet visited at home. It may seem strange to read this, but it will feel very profound to actually go through the experience The return of the ashes home is something that does not need to of welcoming your pet back home this way. If you have a garden, be rushed. As Scott Summerville (the wonderfully kind mortician do the same by walking for a few minutes holding your pet’s ashwho handled the after care for my dogs) best put it: “During your es along his/her favorite path in the garden. And then ultimately pets final days, just dedicate your time and energy to giving your gently lay the urn to rest in your pet’s favorite spot in the house, or beautiful dog all the love you can. After your pet passes, celebrate even in your pet’s favorite bed. their life. Light some candles and incense...play spiritual music... invite loved ones over (and have them bring your favorite pizza At least for now, it can be a temporary resting spot for the ashand some ice cream) to say their “goodbyes” and grieve with you. es, then later on you can decide if you want to move them to a There is no reason to rush through this deeply emotional process. different spot. The ashes can find a final resting place in the house If your dog passes away at home, don’t worry...Nothing is going to later on; that does not need to happen on the first day. It’ll feel happen to your pet overnight. Just wrap them in an old sheet and extremely surreal for you because those earthly remains are your get some rest. beloved pet, but at the same time it will feel like your companion Call or text me in the morning. Keep peace and love in your heart.” is not there as they are physically absent. Your friend’s presence is very important as it will help ground you in this most surreal All this is until the moment your pet takes his/her last breath. experience. Preparing for this moment, and welcoming the ashes In last month’s column, we addressed more of what are the next home with such a grounding and respectful ritual helps deepen steps, what to expect, as well as options such as the goodbye letthe reverence even more. In doing so your heart can begin its ter. If you choose to have your pet cremated, “welcoming the ashhealing es” home may sound a bit “California woo-woo” but what I am journey. about to share was actually taught to me by an elder, a dear friend from another culture. The ashes being returned home is likely to be quite a surreal experience, so please be sure to not be alone when that deeply emotional moment happens. When you hold the urn for the first time, and even for a few weeks after, you Pina De Rosa (APLB / AAVSB) will likely vacillate between the feeling this is my pet..this is not is a two-time TEDxSpeaker my pet..yes this is my pet (those are his/her earthly remains), no and Certified Pet Grief this Counselor, founder of is not my pet (he/she is not physically there)… As this back-andwww.PetBereavementCounforth will feel like a most surreal experience, I definitely recommend you be home with one close friend for the moment that seling.com. You may reach her the ashes are returned to you. It would be best to arrange the ashes directly for 1-1 Pet Grief be returned personally by someone from the mortuary (vs. being Support (sliding scale available). returned to you by mail, as certain businesses provide, or even Her passion project is #MissionWellington and his vs. going alone to pick them up at the vet’s as the drive home could www.TreatsForPups.com, bringing “doggie bags” of pet food, blankets and supplies to the homeless pups living out be most distressing, especially if you are driving).

in the streets.

When you are home with your close friend (who arrived at least Follow her at or submit your questions to an hour before the ashes are delivered), hold the urn with both www.Instagram.com/LifeAccordingToWellington your hands when you receive the ashes– perhaps even hold the 88 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e August 2019

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