The Power of the Human Spirit For Your Health

Examining the true power of the human spirit gives me a unique and honest insight into our health & spirituality. So, I need to be open and forthright in this personal and spiritual journey.

Let’s get something spiritually straight right from the start; I am an Atheist, not an Agnostic; I am faithless and hopeless (according to some), and to others’, a thoroughly and totally, God-less disbeliever! Now, having said all that, I am also a great believer in Humanity, Nature, Evolution, the ever-expanding Universe, the Quantum Universe; Multiple and Parallel Universes; the Holographic Universe; and most importantly, the Power of the Human Spirit!

I am not Religious; but Spiritual, my life is not governed by ritual or dogma; and, I totally live in the NOW while Loving Life to-the-fullest! Additionally, I also believe that we as Spiritual Beings possess infinite wisdom and an infinite potential; not surprisingly, we are ALL capable of tapping into this personal Spiritual reservoir, if we are aware enough and determined enough to do so.

The resolution of both the Human & Spiritual Condition will only come about through COMPASSION towards ALL Life EVERYWHERE! We will have to learn how to become aware of this UNIVERSAL LAW, PROTECT AND PRESERVE ALL LIFE FORMS! And, this doesn't mean that we can’t live through them or on them either! Life survives on a biological level by feeding on lower forms of Life or living matter. At present, for most, this is an inescapable and necessary fact of REALITY!

Spiritually speaking, our foods and fuels are made up of and NOT limited to the following: love, compassion, respect, empathy, sympathy, consideration, dignity, humility, forgiveness, prayer, faith, belief, honor, kindness, agreement, tolerance, God, Source, Spiritualities, hope, help, and Goodness. This too is also a fact and a reality of our mutual Human and Spiritual co-existence!

These are some of the Spiritual currencies that we can easily use to change our lives forever! You see, without our Spirituality, we would all be dead-unaware of Life’s’ miraculous and bountiful existence! Life wouldn't matter, because we didn't matter! Making other people matter, matters to everyone, as we are all interconnected; making plants and different life forms matter, also matters to all; as we are as said, intimately connected to Life everywhere! Physical matter and all Energy forms also matter as it is what keeps us in the game, and surviving through these challenges and obstacles. 

Finally, Space matters, as we all require a safe space, a private place, that we can call our own special place. All matter living or not, matters to every other atom and subatomic particle within this, or any other Universe! EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE IS CONNECTED IN SOME SMALL OR LARGE, MEANINGFUL OR SIGNIFICANT WAY! This is another profound example of the power of the Human Spirit, and our true, but mostly hidden from view, connectivity!

Spiritual speaking, our salvation, and togetherness will require a quantum leap in our awareness as well as our preparedness for what lies ahead, in the not so distant future. Our true health and well-being will NOT just be influenced by our food and environmental choices; but, by our personal Spiritual awareness and development, this will also play a major evolutionary influence as well, helping to maximize our physical well-being and our longevity. 

Your true health source will be your connection with your spirituality and your spiritual Source. This is the only way to realize and utilize the Power of the Human Spirit for your health!

Power to the Human Spirit!

Home Gardening For Natural Health Using Any Space or Place, Even an Apt.

Home gardening for natural health using any space or place, even an apt. can be easily achieved by almost anyone, if gardening for ‘natural health’ is what you are sincerely after. Factually speaking, the Single Biggest or Most Important Thing that anyone desiring 'abundant and radiant health' can do towards achieving 'optimum health and maximized longevity,' is to become a self-reliant, natural health, home Gardner. I kid you not!  

Now, don't laugh or make excuses for yourself about your time or limited resources, i.e., land or the lack of space to grow your crops; not to mention your planting/cultivating inexperience. This ideal can definitely be achieved by anyone living anywhere, and even for free!

The surprising health benefits of becoming a home gardener are many and long-lasting. Incredibly enough, even living in an apt, with no backyard or dedicated garden space, one can still grow organic, nutrient-rich and vitamin/mineral dense herbs, sprouts, and even plants; albeit, in a limited space. This is easily accomplished by way of compact sprouting trays, small growing beds/trays of nutrient-rich soil, in space-saving containers, grown in areas like window ledges, patios, balconies, even within spare closets, using UV lamps, etc. Direct sunlight is preferable, but if you live in a basement with no windows, if that’s even permissible today, growing your own natural foods using UV lamps is entirely possible, practical, and undoubtedly fun to do!

Additionally, one can also find and use, exchange-with or rent, local backyards or land space from local homeowners or landlords that are open to the idea of growing/sharing these rich, natural home-grown, and pesticide-free healthy foods. The exchange can be as easy as growing foods for them and or their families; they may even be willing to pay for the seeds and start-up costs. Depending on the size of the plot, you can also get some other land-less but eager, health-conscious locals involved as well. Put up posters or advertise in the classifieds or local papers, for both growing areas/land, and similar like-minded people to help with the cultivation of this newly found 'life-saving and health-enhancing' land space.

A recent article by Dr. Mercola really hit me hard and woke me up to some important facts. His email headline had me hooked immediately, 30 Times More Nutritious Than Most Organic Vegetables - You Can Easily Grow Them in Only 7 Days! The title of the article being, “Great Reasons to Eat Your Sprouts.”  It focuses on and in simple to understand language, how to grow your own sprouts; a self-help video is also included; as well as, to help you get immediately started, the good Dr., also provides you with a DIY Sprout Doctor Starter Kit, should you decide to purchase this online and have it directly delivered. 

Now, how easy is that?

From Sunflower seeds to Alfalfa and Wheatgrass, to Mung beans, Lentil sprouts, and even Brussels sprouts, you can do it all with ease and limited space. The great reasons for this type of activity are listed as being, higher vitamin content; higher enzyme content; increased essential fatty acid and fiber content; increased bioavailability of minerals and protein; not to mention, being totally pesticide and chemically free of any toxic elements. How great is that?

See the video and starter kit for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c40Df2iIvQA

Another article written a few years ago goes into greater detail about gardening in small spaces, even apt's.

Now, I hope you believe me when I say that home gardening is totally possible for truly ‘natural and abundant health’ while using any space or place, even an apt?

Discovering Highly Workable Alternatives to Drug Addiction and Harm Reduction Programs

Drug addiction continues to flourish, despite the best intentions of the many programs out there claiming to have some of the answers to this social, economic, and political conundrum. Lives are lost, and countless other lives are ruined every single day, and in every city and town within our country. All the while, we as good citizens pay the ultimate price of this dreaded disease, by the consequences of its growth and its damaging effects.

Robberies, assaults, thefts, and frauds, are all rising in most cities, just check out the stats for yourself. Furthermore, these addictions only help contribute to the spread of infectious disease! This problem inevitably becomes, a truly monstrous burden on our health care system. No matter what you may think, or believe, we are NOT heading as a society, towards more prosperous and peaceful times!

The cold hard truth of the matter is that WE desperately need truly workable solutions that matter to the lives of the individual drug user, as well as to the rest of society as a whole! WE, need to SHARE this burden and responsibility. Otherwise, this unsolvable as yet drug problem will continue NOT to be resolved; while, its attended impacts, continue to shatter lives and destroy our quality of life!

It’s NOW or NEVER.

We can indulge ourselves with more studies, reports, and countless other well-intentioned social research papers; yet, we will still find ourselves knee-deep in this fowl smelling pile of bureaucratic, bumbling-buffoonery at its very best! Our Government is to blame for this continued drug problem and its subsequent proliferation. The raw truth is this, it can only provide cheap, highly unworkable, and extremely ineffective, cookie-cutter solutions to this growing and deadly pandemic!

Drugs kill, and drug addicts kill, or haven’t you noticed? Yet, our friendly and benevolent Government chooses NOT to help with permanent solutions; mainly because, they take more time, more money and more resources, while NOT guaranteeing any real results; at least, that’s based on the unreliability of existing drug programs out-there! Most just don’t work, and our Government knows this! So, they really don’t want to throw money away on these poorly-effective programs. Would you?

Individuals, like individual drug users, are the sum of their many parts. There are many parts to the makeup of a whole being, and as such, we need to directly address these individually and collectively, if we are to see some real long-term solutions. People are radically simple, yet we still remain complex to ourselves and to others. There’s no escaping this apparent paradox.

Most existing drug programs focus on one part, a few parts, but, NEVER the complete parts of the whole being, the desperate and frustrated individual drug user. Their whole is NEVER seen, and their self-discovery is NEVER the only goal or end-game! 

Failed drug programs produce failed individuals that think much less of themselves and their WILL to permanently change. In other words, they lose HOPE, because the HELP they relied on, believed in, failed them, again and again. I've heard stories of some people that have gone to 8 different rehabs and programs, with ZERO success; including, developing through–out all of this, a much greater habit to deal with!

In the next installment of this series, I will propose a general idea and a workable plan, of taking the whole individual/drug user into account, as if their LIFE truly mattered.

The End to Harm Reduction Programs

Harm reduction programs ineffectively approach a ‘life and death’ condition, like drug addiction...with these limiting qualifiers, “Recognizing that drug use cannot be completely eliminated….” Thus, the predefined need for harm reduction programs! In other words, hope and help are both limited and finite quantities and qualities, to a point! Endless hope, limitless help, and unbridled compassion don’t exist in this finite Universe of Harm Reduction. I need to ask, why not?

What if there was a way to actually help people stop using the drugs they are so dependent upon?

What if there was real hope for a better life, a healthier and happier life, for EVERY drug user?

What if there was a place beyond harm reduction; a place called, harm elimination; where total drug abstinence, comfortably existed for every drug user as a real possibility? An end to harm reduction programs!

Sure, sure, I know, there are so many unworkable and failure dependent drug addiction programs and therapies out-there; with zero-2% success rates as the norm; is it any wonder social agencies, Governments, corporations and, even every- day-people have lost hope in them?

My approach to this myth of failure is not a fantasy or just my optimistic reality; this is real, it is tangible, and, an observable actuality; this end condition of drug abstinence is realistically achievable; given the means to make every single and precious life matter. That’s the start and foundation for all of this. That EVERY life matters! And, it needs to matter to every one of us in part, and as a whole society! People need to be responsible for each other and help each other while giving each other hope in the process! We ALL need to be involved in the well-being of any of our societal members.

When we ‘just’ reduce the harm, we do not salvage the individual drug dependent user from their crippling drug use and its ill-effects. Instead, we just prolong their misery and suffering. They are suffering, every second of every waking day! Let’s address the real spiritual needs of the individual drug user, instead of their drug habit. Let’s zero-in on what’s ruining their lives, and not, that they are taking/using drugs in a harmful way to themselves, others and society!

Is this the best that we can do for them…these miracles of human existence, these wondrous beings of life…harm reduction?

Why? Because we ‘think’ we don’t have the money or the social will to go all-the-way, and take full- responsibility for that troubled and scarred individual drug user?

Instead, we offer doomed-to-fail and highly contrived, cookie-cutter solutions to this problem of drug addiction; allowing the users to continue on and on, eventually, the drug or associated lifestyle contraindications take their toll and their life!

Another classical/farcical definition for this no-end game is one offered by our Government social research scientists, ““Harm reduction” is a pragmatic, non-judgmental set of strategies to reduce individual and community harm caused by drug use. The focus is on taking incremental steps to reduce harm rather than on eliminating drug use. Abstinence may or may not be the end goal.” Thomas, G. (2005). Harm reduction for special populations: Harm reduction policies and programs for persons involved in the criminal justice system. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

As you can see the options for abstinence is not the focus, aim, goal or ‘life-saving application’ of these harm reduction programs. In the next posting, I will offer practical, affordable and highly workable solutions that we as a society and drug-users can work through together; cooperating responsibly and proactively with each other, to eliminate drug dependence; while creating together, a truly achievable and everlasting abstinence!

Media Sensationalized Vitamin and Supplement Studies: Who or What Are We to Believe?

What I am about to share with you is not news; truthfully, it is ‘manufactured-news’ that’s been creatively written to strike an emotional chord, directly aimed at your vitality and good health!

Hey, I really get that we’re all trying to be ‘healthy’; whatever that term actually means? These days, even the words, ‘natural’ and ‘organic,’ exist in questionable forms; as examples of ‘down and dirty’ and ‘deceptively devious’ creations of Corporate America! So, we need to be continuously educated and informed. We also need to be reminded that our choices and voices do matter; and that WE can become instruments of change, individually and collectively for the greater good!

I am going to go out on a limb and make a sweeping generalization regarding most mainstream vitamin and supplement manufacturers; they use cheaply outsourced ingredients of questionable quality and compound strength. Basically, they are physiologically useless; while some can even be dangerous to your health if taken in combination with other supplements or medications.

But the truth of this matter may even be stranger than fiction. I need to ask, why are these media sensationalized vitamin and mineral studies always so outrageous, and their conclusions so damaging to the value and usage of vitamins and supplements? 

With shocking, headline-style-pounding-copy, our media assaults both our senses and sensibilities; undermining our hope for good health and, creating uncertainties as to who or what to believe. Vitamin supplements raise the risk of cancer in men, research shows; Vitamin E Supplements May Do More Harm Than Good; Selenium, vitamin E supplements increase prostate cancer risk; “Studies Suggest Multivitamins Are Useless And Possibly Dangerous”; and, “When Vitamins Backfire.”

Spanning decades, these studies have been ‘trying’ to determine the effectiveness of vitamins and supplements on our health; some, involving tens of thousands of participants that were meticulously tracked for the duration of the study. Somehow, these studies and their startling findings have always managed to garner great press and made people think twice about their healthful usefulness. During these times of vitamin media hype, many people stopped taking them. The scare tactics worked!

Here, it should be clearly stated that not ALL vitamins and supplements are created equal, regarding their ingredients and potency; and most importantly, where their components were sourced. From my research of these studies, and what the press had to say about them, I was able to look for and find things they all had in common; other than, the most obvious, choosing inferior vitamin and supplement brands as part of their study protocols! This alone is an astonishing coincidence. Or is it?

1.       Most of the vitamins and supplements that were part of these studies were of significant low dosages to be of any discernible or measurable physiological effect; in some cases barely the RDI (Reference/Recommended Daily Intake; formerly known as the RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance). I say this not as a scientist or doctor, but, as a student of chemistry and human physiology. I know how the body works and what our bodies need, regarding nutrients, vitamins, enzymes, proteins, carbs, minerals, etc. For example, don’t expect a dosage of 40 mg of vitamin C made from cheap synthetic and inferior ingredients, buffered with fillers, colored with dyes, and containing other chemical modifiers, to be able to help anyone prevent scurvy!

2.       Not surprisingly, most of the vitamins and supplements that were part of these studies were of inferior quality and not as ‘bio-available’ as other more expensive and better quality ingredients, easily available in the marketplace. Cheap generic multi-vitamins and supplements were chosen, like Centrum for example!

3.       Some of the vitamins and supplements within each of these studies were of a synthetic origin; which in fact are mass produced, in dubious conditions and, of questionable quality, mainly for the agriculture and food industries, as additives to farmed animal feeds; including, as an unnecessary and useless addition within our processed and packaged foods. For example, when we buy a multi-vitamin at Wal-Mart or Costco, the basic ingredients are all of the same kind and from the same source. China is one of the world’s leading suppliers of vitamins, minerals, supplements and, mainly of an inferior variety!

4.       Interestingly enough, some of these studies are what are called Meta-studies; which were designed to gather data from past studies and re-interpret their findings; sometimes in a new way, or to validate and corroborate already existing vitamin and supplement research data and their pre-designed ‘foregone’ conclusions.

The above facts make me question the purpose of these studies, and their well orchestrated, highly sensationalized accompanying media reports, condemning their usage and warning us of their dangers! This targeted and highly crafted media approach is almost an over-kill and deliberate; from my perspective, it looks more like a ‘propaganda campaign,’ than writings designed for our better health and well-being!

In the next installment of the continuation of this story, we will delve deeper into what some of these common vitamin and supplement ingredients are actually made of; including, introducing you to a host of fillers, modifiers, shellacs, dyes, coloring agents, etc., etc. Do you really know what you are taking? Not all vitamins and supplements are created equal; and next posting, you will find out exactly why; including, the life and death differences!

Harm Reduction Programs & Why They Fail To Achieve Permanent Results

I applaud the goals and intentions of the Harm Reduction Programs; including, its many dedicated staff and hard working Harm Reduction Program volunteers. These programs help save lives and make our communities a lot safer and disease free; as infections and contagion are also dramatically reduced! Yet, I can’t help wondering in theory at least; is this the best we can do for that valuable human being-the drug user, we are supposed to be helping? 

Or, are we just providing a fiscally and politically correct, band-aid solution, as a means of social engineering and population control? To weed out the sickly and mentally unsound; the impoverished and drug dependent; while making and creating the illusion that something is actually being done of permanence and hope. Personally speaking, in my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth!

Honestly though, throwing a bit of money at a problem like this (drug addiction), is about the same order of magnitude as our current and prolonged problems as a nation; regarding terrorist threats and their tragic effects! It will not help us win any real victories or prevent the bombing of innocent women and children over there in the Middle East! War is war, the body counts are high, and tragically, people become displaced, robbed and raped, tortured and brutalized, during this whole maddening and dehumanizing process!

Like an addict that becomes addicted for life; no hope for a better life; no real chance of becoming a better person; imagine if you will; no reason to want a freer life, without being an addict for the rest of their life! Mostly living poor, with poor hygiene and poor living conditions; while being forced by other conditions and circumstance, to eat devalued, denatured, sugar-laden, greasy, fatty and salty foods; that our Government and social agencies are more than happy to dish out!

Then, on the front lines of some of these agencies, where all the action really happens; it’s all about budgeting, scrimping and fighting for ‘dollars and cents’; trying their best to provide some measure of hope and help. Unfortunately, with zero ‘true’ nutrition available from the food these agencies serve! How is a valuable human being (drug user), supposed to get healthy and live a long and productive life?

An addicts’ diet, like their lifestyle, is limited by many means. Their relationships are fragile and emotionally explosive, and their habits force them to make many compromises; while giving them added stress and pain as they deal with getting the money to feed their daily addictions! I am NOT judging, just stating the facts as I see them and have experienced them first hand and, for decades on end. You know, from the school of hard-knocks, living on/off the streets myself and seeing all this harmful, 'harm reduction programs,' play themselves out, for well over a decade now!

I need to ask, why are we advocating, providing and educating for the ‘safer use’ of drugs; for what, the ongoing needs of even ‘other’ social agencies and programs, to help facilitate the further use of drugs; but, in a bit safer way? While the addict remains a helpless prisoner to their drugs for the rest of his/her life! Sad but true fact!

I am in favor of saner, longer term and, more productive solutions; where the addict becomes a non-addict for the rest of their live-long-days! Is that too much of a radical idea? Is it subversive of me to suggest we treat these addicts like ‘valuable human beings’; to save/salvage their lives from the crippling effects of their almost guaranteed lifetime drug dependence; including, their sometimes deadly and untimely consequences?

Shouldn't we be focusing on a more permanent solution to this age-old drug problem? Haven’t we all realized by now, that most of the current drug programs and rehabs out there are not working; they, like our jail inmates, have a high rate of re-offending! Sanely, as I see it; if we actually cared about the value of a human being; the only true way to harm reduction and, to finally escape from the effects of drug dependence is by way of drug abstinence! To finally rid oneself of that diseased monkey on their back once and for all PERMANENTLY!

Half of U.S. Tap Water Contaminated with Live Legionnaires Bacteria

According to a recent Natural News article, “Half of US tap water found to contain live bacterium that can cause Legionnaires' disease.” This is the same live bacterium that can possibly result in a deadly form of pneumonia. Environmental Science & Technology made the news public regarding these astonishing findings!

Scientific researchers from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) collected the sum of 272 water samples from 68 taps through-out the U.S. during a two-year duration. The testing results were startling; 47% of the samples tested positive for Legionella pneumophila, a bacterium potentially capable of developing into either Legionnaires' disease or the less-severe Pontiac fever upon infection. These conditions are collectively referred to as legionellosis.

Surprisingly enough, almost half of the taps from which water samples were collected from, 32 in total, were found to contain traces of L. Pneumophila, in at least one collected sample. Of the 32 taps, 11 were recognized as containing the bacterium in multiple test samples. For example, water samples were collected from all over the residences; kitchen sinks, bathroom sinks, drinking fountains and refrigerator water dispensers, based on the reported findings.

And, what I find even more startling than these results is the FACT that, "This study is the first national survey in documenting the occurrence and colonization of L. pneumophila Sg1 in cold water from the point-of-use taps." 

Really? 

The first national study?

A word of caution at this point needs to be strongly suggested. 

Legionnaires' disease is known to be contracted through airborne exposure; which means that drinking contaminated water is not necessarily an issue per se. But, breathing in the vapors of contaminated water can be, like during a hot shower, or, as we already have known from our own fatal legionnaires’ history; as in, the condensation produced within an air conditioning unit!

Vapor is the only known transmission medium of this bacterium into our bodies. You cannot acquire legionnaires by drinking it from contaminated water, or eating things it has been washed in, or even catching it necessarily, from other people!  Please keep that also in mind!

I agree to the voice of warning of this activist reporter writing on this topic, “Though relatively rare, infections leading to legionellosis are mostly caused by L. pneumophila when they do emerge, which supports the urgent relevance of this latest investigation. If potentially millions of Americans are regularly exposed to a bacterium that could, in some cases, kill them, then public health agencies need to address the problem, or at the very least warn the public”.

Makes absolute sense to me!

You can view the full study abstract as published by the American Chemical Society here: http://pubs.acs.org.