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If you want to enrich your life immeasurably, make friends with the sacred. It is everywhere. You don’t need to travel to Stonehenge or Machu Pichu to discover it. Nor do you need to swallow some consciousness-altering drug. Sacred power continually pours forth from the center of the universe. It is simultaneously here and now, while also everywhere, at any time. Trouble is, most of us have become blinded by the mechanically-oriented worldview that pervades our technologically-driven culture. So we have forgotten how to see it. Rediscovering the sacred is the simplest thing in the world. It happens through a shift of consciousness—a break in time and space, if you like, through which you can experience the sacred realms come into being. Often this takes place spontaneously. It is given by grace. But anyone can also create structures in their life which invite this to happen. Organize the space you live and work in, for instance, to make a place in your life for rituals which honor the radiance of the world around you and within you. Doing this can be a lot of fun, too. Think of it as an adventure, a game, a childlike exploration into expanded awareness. A SACRED ADVENTURE My first experience of the sacred as an adult took place when I was 18 years old—just finishing my second year at Stanford University. Five months earlier, I had fallen in love for the first time with a man three years older. Then I found myself in the unenviable position of having to leave him to live in New York. I knew it would be a long time before we met again—if ever. We had one day to spend together in San Francisco before my plane left. We went for a walk in Golden Gate Park. I had been in the park many times before, visiting the Japanese garden or the museum. But I’d never paid much attention to what was around me, except in the vague way we all appreciate being amidst trees, grass and flowers. That morning, the realm of the sacred cracked wide open for me. As he and I wandered across grass, through trees, knowing that in a few hours we would no longer be together, it felt as though death were sitting on my shoulder. I had no idea why. The love between us had arisen simultaneously a few months before. From the moment we met, both of us had experienced the sense that it was a bond that had always existed and always would. I loved this man with an intensity I had never dreamed possible. I could hardly bear the fire that burned in me when we touched, let alone the surges of power that happened when he held me in his arms. CRACK IN THE COSMOS In the park that morning, we crossed a road and stepped up on to the curb. In front of us a group of old men were bowling on the green. They were dressed in the shabby clothes the old sometimes wear—garments which, like old friends, you have lived with so long you don’t want to be parted from. None of the men paid the least attention to us, absorbed as they were in their game. All at once, the scene before me shifted from that of a pleasant ordinary morning spent in nature—nice trees, green grass, a small knoll behind the old men rising to a copse above—to something at once blissful and completely terrifying. Space expanded in all directions. A million tiny holes appeared in reality—each emitting light—so that the air and grass, the pavement we had just crossed, the bodies of the men in their shabby clothes, the clouds above us, and the trees around us trembled with a strange radiance. Time burst wide open, breaking in great waves over the lawn. I couldn’t tell if this strange experience lasted for a few moments or for hours. My heart swelled to immense proportions. I had no idea what was happening, since I had never experienced anything like this before. It seemed totally crazy—as though, at the same time, I had been wiped out and brought into being in a brand new form. When an experience of the sacred arises spontaneously—often at times of great emotional joy or loss—it is both blissful and awe-filled. In whatever guise it shows itself, the sacred is a far cry from any ‘orchestrated’ experience of pink-flowers-and-soft-music which purveyors of false freedom and all their easy answers offer us. It is an experience full of beauty and terror, fascination and majesty. In the presence of such overwhelming wonder, you find yourself standing before a mystery that is wholly other. I knew nothing about what was happening that morning in Golden Gate Park. Only that an epiphany had occurred that day, and that I wanted to live a lot of my life from this level of being in the future. MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM In 1917, Rudolf Otto published one of the most important books on spirituality ever written, Das Heilige—The Sacred. In it, he describes the awe-inspiring mystery (mysterium tremendum) which we feel in the presence of sacred energy. He characterizes it as a perfect fullness of being, a flowering which dissolves away our conditioned thinking and breaks down all the barriers to being fully present in the moment. Every time we are touched by the sacred, the experience urges each of us to live a little more of our life from the deepest levels of our being. Make room in your life for the sacred, and you can make a quantum leap towards authentic freedom and creative power. Otto characterizes the qualities of the sacred as numinous—from the Latin numen, meaning god. For they are brought about by the sudden revelation of an aspect of divine power within the paraphernalia of our day-to-day lives. Such is the nature of the sacred when it enters our life. One minute, you’re waiting for a bus or standing beneath a tree you have stood under a hundred times before. The next minute, this tree has suddenly become altogether something else. It has been transmuted in some mysterious way into an expanded, luminous reality. Of course, it is still a tree both to you and to everybody else standing there. In fact, nothing in particular may distinguish this particular tree from all the other trees on the street. Yet because, at that moment, it has chosen to reveal itself more fully to you, your immediate experience of it becomes transfigured. It feels as though the tree has revealed its secret nature to you. It has become a repository of all that is awesome—so much so that, often, experiencing the sacred makes it hard just to catch your breath. For a time, it can even make you wonder who you are and what on earth you are doing there. JOY IN THE NUMINOUS Another great philosopher of the sacred is religious philosopher Mircea Eliade. Eliade calls the manifestation of the sacred—during which the numinous realms open to reveal themselves—an hierophany. This is a great word. For it does not imply any religious or philosophical bias that would indicate you need to belong to some in-group to have a right to sacred experience. Hierophanies belong to everyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear. In early civilizations, hierophanies were common occurrences. In the tribal cultures that still remain, they are to this day—in fact, wherever people live with an awareness of the magnificence hidden within the most ordinary of things. To them, rocks are sacred, as is the wind, stars, earth, animals, the changes of the seasons, the sun and the rain, the birth of a child, the death of an elder. Wherever you discover an awareness of the sacred, you will also find rituals for celebrating it—rituals which set the stage for hierophanies to happen more often. WE FEAR THE SACRED Most of the modern world feels profoundly uneasy about such experiences. We are the only known age in history that lives almost entirely in a desacralized culture. Limited worldviews imprison us, forcing us to live an almost totally profane existence. A tree is nothing but a tree. Wind is but movement of air, caused by nothing more than mechanical shifts in currents. As far as rocks are concerned, what could possibly be more mundane? We make fun of “primitive” people and their “quaint” superstitions. We often exploit their land and force the values of our materialistic world on them. What we forget is this: Cultures for whom the sacred appears through ordinary objects know very well that a rock is a rock. They don’t venerate the rock itself, or the wind. They worship the hierophanies which appear as these things to reveal the essential spirit of each—something vast in its beauty. They know that whenever and wherever the sacred erupts into the mundane world, no matter what form it takes, a deeper, wider, richer dimension of reality is inviting them to dance with its power and celebrate its beauty. EXPAND YOUR REALITY Most of us have to relearn how. Once we do, we find our lives continually renewed, energized, and ecstatic. It is as though a wild blessing has been given – a blessing which nourishes and heals us. In The Sacred and the Profane, Eliade speaks of the basic need we as humans have, ‘to plunge periodically into this sacred and indestructible time…the eternal present.’ It is a need so deeply ingrained in our being that, when we are unable to fulfill it from time to time, we end up living in a nihilistic wasteland. Our lives become narrow, no matter how many fast cars we buy, how many drugs we take, how many lovers we have. Eating, sex, and getting up in the morning become nothing more than physiological events in a mechanical world. Reawakening an awareness of the sacred in your own life and making room for it turns these events into much more than largely mechanical actions. Each can evolve into a ‘sacrament’—the meaning of which is communion with the sacred. Once it does, our capacity for vitality, joy and creativity goes on expanding. FREEDOM’S GATEWAY Welcoming the sacred into your life is the first step in opening a door to authentic freedom. It is not hard. All of us knew how as children. Then our educational system with its emphasis on the rational, the abstract and mass conformity has taught us to forget it. It taught us to be ‘serious’, to ‘work hard’, not to ‘daydream’, not to ‘be silly.’ Luckily, like learning to ride a bicycle, you never really lose the skill. To recover your own lost ability to bring hierophanies into your life, you need only remember what you have temporarily forgotten and begin to play again. Nature is a great carrier of sacred power for us. This is because the energies of nature, in which we have lived as human beings throughout four million years, are our energies. Our bodies and our beings literally communicate through our DNA with those of plants and animals. At a cellular level, our bodies know the familiar taste of herbs and smells of the earth. It’s a knowing built right into our being. When we interact with nature, we align ourselves with her power, coming into harmony with the different directions and the energies she carries, as well as with all the elements—air, fire, water and earth. By making friends with the living world around us, whether this means going out into the fields, by the sea, into the hills, woods or mountains, the sacred opens itself to us. If you are a city dweller, learning to dialogue with any natural object in your environment—a rock, a flower, even the food you eat, opens consciousness to the sacred. The gifts this brings when we do are limitless.

Some people have an addiction to alcohol, others to cocaine or shopping or television. Aaron and I are addicted to animals. No joke. We adore them, are besotted by them and long to spend a lot of our life connecting and communing with them be they household pets or wild creatures. We once spent 5 days in Canada sleeping with an Arctic Wolf. At other times, in Africa, we romped with baby lions in the bush. There is no question that our addiction will never be cured. When it comes to any animals we adore them...yes even rats and sharks although we don’t allow either of these amazing species to live in our home. We have always our homes with some of the best domestic creatures—cats and dogs. CREATURES RULE Dogs have long been the great protectors of the home. Cats bring us a sense of mystery and enchantment. They never forget that they were worshipped in Ancient Egypt and that they honour your home with their sacred presence. Introduce herbs into the lives of your pets and well-chosen plants share in the cleansing, enhancing and blessing of your beloved animal friends. For many years we had two Bearded Collies called Sunshine and Moonbeam. Now we live with and two Burmese cats called Gus Winterbear and Grizabella Starfire who grace our lives with love and affection, warmth—and the odd flea or two. INTO THE BATH Our dogs were long-haired. We found we had to bathe them regularly to discourage fleas. I always used a mild, tea tree shampoo and tried to keep each dog in the water for ten minutes to drown the fleas (not easy with Moonbeam!). Finally I gave each dog a rinse with eucalyptus tea. Fleas can’t stand the smell. How To Make Eucalyptus Tea Put 4 tablespoons of dried eucalyptus leaves into a teapot and cover with 2 cups of boiling water. Leave to steep until cool and strain. Alternatively you can add 20 drops of tea tree oil or eucalyptus oil to a pint of water in a spray bottle then mist your dog being sure to protect their eyes and noses. I even make my own flea powder and dust the dogs and their favourite sleeping places with it regularly. Leslie’s Homemade Flea Powder Mix 1 cup of diatomaceous earth with 2 tablespoons of citronella oil, 4 tablespoons of eucalyptus oil and 4 tablespoons of orange oil. Store in an airtight container. Shake over each animal and rub into their fur. DOGGIE PILLOWS For all the talk about how tough dogs are supposed to be. When you get down to it every dog, big and small, is a comfort-loving animal who hates fleas. I make flea repelling herb pillows for my dogs’ beds. I stuff an old pillow case with herbs and sew it up. I then slip this pillow inside another old pillow case as they get dirty quite quickly and I like to change them often. I always include pennyroyal in my doggy mix. Its Latin name is Mentha pulegium, pulegium coming from pulex (flea) in Latin. The name for the main chemical constituent in pennyroyal is pulegone. All of which proves that chemists do sometimes have a sense of humour. When choosing herbs for your dog’s pillow remember that their noses are much more sensitive than ours. You don’t want to overwhelm them. There are times when this can be put to good use, however. Rubbing a little clove oil on the legs of furniture will discourage puppies from chewing them – but check somewhere inconspicuous that the clove oil won’t damage your furniture or you will be back to square one. What To Use In A Herb Pillow Liberally stuff an old pillow case with one of the following herbs, whole and dried, or a mix of equal parts of two or all three of them. As dogs lie on them and crush the herbs it releases more of the flea-repelling scent. Try a mixture of: pennyroyal camomile flowers dried rue CATS NAP It’s not quite so easy with cats. Their saintly heritage makes them sensitive to strong smells, or anything that might dent their superior composure. Herbs like rue and pennyroyal which repel fleas also repel cats. I have found that some cats don’t mind camomile so I put a little in my cats’ pillows and mix in some catmint or valerian. Just about every cat I have ever met goes mad for valerian. To my nose it smells like the wet socks of soldiers who have been marching through swamps for a week. But, out of love for Winter Bear and Starfire, I make a few extra herb sachets with this mixture and scatter them in my linen cupboard where they love to while the day away. A note about catmint. There is an old saying that cats take little notice of the plants that grow from seeds sown straight into the garden. But when you raise the seed indoors, or buy some plants, and them transplant them into the garden the cats will literally love it to death. I have never tested this theory scientifically. I find that my cats chew the plant no matter how I grow it. Herb Pillows for Cats As these pillows are smaller than dog pillows I suggest crumbling up the dried herbs. Use a mixture of: camomile and catmint, or camomile and valerian TROUBLED EARS Ear mites are a common problem in cats. They are irritating for them and for you. Dribbling a few drops of garlic oil (peel a whole bulb of garlic, steep it for a week in 2 pints of olive oil, strain, bottle the oil and keep it in the fridge) into the ear twice a day will help enormously. Stop if your cat is made unhappy by the smell. If, however, you have a young female being courted by the local tom cat and you don’t want kittens, try putting a few drops of essential oil of garlic on the back of the female’s neck. Her suitor is likely to be put right off his stride.

For more than 50 years we women have been sold birth control pills. I first came upon it when I was 21 years old. Having given birth to a little girl my second child—and I was concerned about not becoming pregnant again. At that time birth control pills were dolled out for free to women. You just showed up at the Margaret Sanger Clinic, then housed in a building at 17 W. 16th St in New York not far from where I lived. I went there believing this new discovery—the birth control pill—would prevent me from having any unwanted pregnancies in the future. I was given a container of pills and told to take one each day. Believing in this wondrous new discovery, I returned to my apartment and took the first pill. Within two or three hours I felt quite sick. But, trying to be a good girl, I persisted. Over the next three days I swallowed the second and third pill as well. I spent those three days sitting in my king-size bed literally moaning because I felt so unwell. It was at that point I realized that this marvelous new discovery was most certainly not for me. I never touched the birth control pill, or any other pharmaceutical akin to it from that day until this. Meanwhile, over the next 30 years "The Pill" became a worldwide success. Or so it seemed. In the early 1980s "Direct To Consumers" advertising came into being. Women everywhere began to be bombarded on television and in magazines with a lot of hyped information about a wide variety of birth control pills and other artificial drugs, all of which were full of artificial hormones. By now of course birth control pills have become a multi-billion dollar industry. In fact, 50% of all oral contraceptive drugs are now sold worldwide. There's no question that being able to take a pill to prevent pregnancy can be convenient. But at what cost to the health of any woman who takes them long term? It’s essential that women learn to balance the risks of taking these pharmaceuticals with their supposed great benefits and convenience. These days, contraceptives are offered in many forms. Most women are prescribed an IUD containing artificial hormones. These are widely used in the UK. Meanwhile, in a few European countries—from Denmark and Sweden to Norway and the Czech Republic—hormone-free intrauterine devices are available. Some of these non-hormonal products are given free in countries with universal government health insurance. In the United States, however, there is only one nonhormonal IUD. It's known as Paragard. And it is by no means the top seller. There all sorts of other products you can use for family planning. These include condoms, diaphragms, spermicides, and other non-hormonal birth control methods such as regular injections and permanent sterilization. So what's the problem? Let’s start here: In 2012 a huge study was carried out on Depo-Provera. This is a contraceptive injection based on an artificial hormone called a progestogen. It found that women who received prescribed shots of Depo-Provera every few months more than doubled their risk of developing breast cancer. Of course birth control is not the only reason that women take "The Pill." Many, especially teenagers, are prescribed "The Pill" in an attempt to make their experience of menstruation more bearable hopefully easing monthly cramps and helping to alleviate premenstrual syndrome. What few women regardless of age are aware of—especially young women—is that using artificial hormones, in the form of “The Pill” or any other form, which are doled out almost like candies these days, can seriously undermine their health long-term and do damage to their lives. Austrian geneticist Josef Penninger discovered that there is a dangerous connection between progestin—an artificial hormone used in many birth control pills—and conventional HRT significantly increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer. Researchers at the Institute of Molecular Biology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences have identified the mechanism that allows synthetic sex hormones to influence these cells. It can switch on a hormone in your body known as RANKL within the cells—especially your breast cells—which makes them divide and multiply. It can also prevent cells from dying as they are supposed to in order to make room for new healthier cells. And since stem cells in the breast have the ability to renew themselves, this can make you prone to breast cancer. As Penninger says, “I have to admit it completely surprised me just how massive the effects on the system were. Millions of women take progesterone derivatives in contraceptives and for hormonal replacement therapy.” There are lots of natural alternatives to clearing PMS and the monthly menstrual agonies that women—particularly young women—experience. Homeopathy, acupuncture, and chiropractors can be of tremendous help. Simply supplementing your diet with a good form of magnesium can make a huge difference. Steering clear of plastic water bottles that contain dangerous BPA (Bisphenol A) is also important. So can making simple changes in what you choose to eat, like avoiding packaged convenience foods of all kinds. For many women, just giving up cows milk products including cream, cow’s milk yogurt, and cows milk cheese makes a huge difference in clearing up cramps and PMS. Also, stay away from carbohydrates that come from grains and cereals and refuse to take sugar in any form. Sheep, goat, and buffalo milk make wonderful cheeses, yogurts, and other products. Finally, eat REAL FOODS—proteins from animals that have been raised on green grass, together with organic vegtables and a few fruits. Do this for as short a time as three weeks to a month, and your health can literally be transformed. Try it and find out for yourself.

Valid discoveries in medicine depend on the ability of researchers to make accurate observations in relation to the subject they are studying. For the past 70 years, obesity research has been based on massive false assumptions which, by now, have developed all the earmarks of a fundamentalist religion. Even governments have bought into these lies. Here’s one of the biggies that form their false litany. In the words of the Surgeon General of the United States—“overweight and obesity are the result of excess calorie consumption and/or inadequate physical activity.” IT JUST AIN’T TRUE There is so much nonsense taught about obesity, not only through the media, but even through published findings of trained scientists and doctors who should know better. If ever you decide to take time out and to plough through the voluminous research and declarations about obesity, its causes and its cure—as I have done virtually ad nauseam—you will discover that some important conclusions about the cause of weight gain, and the difficulties of making weight loss permanent, demand to be drawn. Some of them will surprise you I think, because we have been taught to believe so many false ideas by the media, food manufacturers and Big Pharma. Obesity is NOT a disorder caused by lack of exercise. Nor will intense exercise prevent or cure overweight. Obesity is NOT caused by overeating or lack of will power. As the prestigious National Academy of Sciences report Diet and Health points out, “most studies comparing normal and overweight people suggest that those who are overweight eat fewer calories than those of normal weight.” THE TRUTH CONCEALED Overweight and obesity are states of excess fat accumulation as a result of some, as yet officially unidentified, disequilibrium in the hormonal regulation of fat metabolism. This is the major issue which must be addressed to conquer the epidemic of chronic overweight. The healthy diets - Leslie Kenton's Cura Romana To my knowledge, only one scientist chose to spend 40 years of his life grappling with the fundamental issues of obesity, its causes, its symptoms and its essential nature: ATW Simeons. After doing specialized work with thousands of patients, he concluded that the accumulation of excess fat on the body is the RESULT of a metabolic disorder—a functional abnormality in an area of the brain which lies at the center of hormonal control, within the autonomic nervous system. He then proceeded to identify the means of restoring balanced functioning to this area, thereby allowing the body naturally to shed its inessential fat and restore the harmony on which radiant health depends. It was he who created Cura Romana—The Roman Cure—more than half a century ago. Unwittingly, his discoveries challenged the nonsense promulgated by food manufacturers, and posed a serious economic threat to the sale of potentially dangerous slimming drugs sold by multi-national pharmaceutical companies. No wonder his work has been vilified, discredited and attacked by the powers that be. HERE’S THE GEN Do you want to stay lean and healthy? Do you want to stop feeling brain dead? Do you want to regenerate and rejuvenate your body? Here is how: Stop eating cereals and grains like wheat and bread and pasta as well as convenience foods which are made out of them. Because of the effect these foods exert on insulin and blood sugar, refined carbohydrates, sugars and starches are most certainly the dietary culprits in the development of diabetes, coronary heart disease and obesity. They are also inevitable contributors to other diseases of civilization, including cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Well-designed independent research studies confirm all this and more. Cereals, grains, and sugar-based carbohydrates not only make you fat and/or prone to degenerative conditions. They distort hormonal regulation and homeostasis, fostering obesity as a consequence of the way they disturb insulin balance. They engender insulin resistance syndrome, Metabolic Syndrome—Syndrome X. Why? Because carbohydrate foods such as these turn into sugar instantaneously on eating them. They dull your brain. They stimulate insulin secretion. This in turn increases hunger, and diminishes the energy available to the body to fuel good metabolic processes and for use during day-to-day life. Finally, they undermine the healthy functioning of the fat and appetite control center in the brain, which is the one thing you want to restore balance to if you want to stabilize weight permanently. If you include starches in your meals, eat only a small amount of “safe” starchy foods—15 to 20%—such as potatoes, buckwheat, brown rice, or wild rice. More to come about natural health, weight and rejuvenation in relation to foods soon.

What does it mean to live a life from your own mythology? Why does it matter? With such questions, I invite you to the experience of one quantum leap after another to expand your strength, creativity and joy. Each one of us comes into this world with a unique mythology. The more conscious you become of the myth or myths by which, long ago, you chose to live your life, the sooner you will realize who you really are, what gifts you bring, what values you cherish and how you can best turn dreams into realities as you walk this earth in a human body. The road to discovering the mythology by which you live may well be the most exciting and empowering experience you’ll ever have. WHAT IS A MYTH? First let’s be clear about what myth and mythology are NOT. In the English language, few words have been more grossly perverted than these two. In daily parlance they are wrongly taken to mean something that is untrue. In fact, mythologies and myths are stories of a very powerful kind which reveal profound truths. They put our conscious mind in touch with feeling states that lie deep within us. Like fine poetry, a mythological story can never be accessed or understood by the linear, analytical thinking that epitomizes the postmodern mechanical thinking. The worldview we have inherited contends that we we live in an arbitrary, meaningless universe devoid of spirit. I suspect this is the main reason the meaning of myth has become so corrupted. PORTAL TO NEW REALITIES In truth, a myth is a metaphor. The word comes from French métaphore, via Latin from Greek metaphora, from metapherein which means “to transfer.” A metaphor transfers meaning by pointing to an experience which, by its very nature, transcends all human categories of intellectual thought. Any metaphor acts as a portal to the awareness of an archetypal realm of experience. It is transparent to states of expanded consciousness and can be “known” only through your body and your intuitive senses. In its simplest form, a myth is a special tale that can be told ten thousand times in a thousand ways without losing its power. It is a tale which will be received differently by everyone who hears it. Yet it always carries an archetypal hook, able to grab our imagination by the throat and awaken the knowingness deep within each of us. SECRET OPENINGS Joseph Campbell, one of my personal heroes, puts it another way: "Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour. The wonder is that the characteristic efficacy to touch and inspire deep creative centers dwells in the smallest nursery fairy tale—as the flavor of the ocean is contained in a droplet, or the whole mystery of life within the egg of a flea,” he says. “For the symbols of mythology are not manufactured. They cannot be ordered, invented, or permanently suppressed. Myths are spontaneous productions of the psyche, and each bears within it undamaged the germ power of its source." Myths live forever in our hopes, dreams and relationships. Mythological images are the means by which conscious awareness is put in touch with creative energies that drive our lives from the deepest levels of our being. When we are out of touch with them in our lives, or if we choose to deny them or pay no attention to them, we become separated from the core of our being and can find ourself in a state of confusion or despair. By contrast, a mythology that we become aware of, which fires us, is one by which we can be guided to live our lives with purpose and fulfillment. So how do we discover what mythological impulses and values inhabit the deepest regions of our psyche? Childhood usually holds the key. Now is the time for you to ask the question, “By what myth have I been living my life?” CHILDHOOD HOLDS A KEY There was a moment in Carl Jung’s life when he realized what it was to live with a mythology, and what it was to live without one. When he asked himself by what mythology he was living, he found he didn’t know. Despite his much-celebrated successes, Jung had come to feel that his work until then had all been based on an intellectual understanding of the mind. As many of us do, he realized that he climbed to the top of a ladder only to discover it had been placed against the wrong wall. In his late thirties at the time, Jung asked himself a question: “What was it that fascinated me, what was it that I most loved doing as a boy whenever they left me alone and let me play?” He remembered that what he had loved most was making buildings and cities out of small stones. He decided that, having now grown up, what he would do was play with big stones. He bought a piece of land on the lake across from Zurich. Then he planned and constructed a house. As he worked with his hands, he allowed his thoughts free run in the imaginal realms. Soon he was dreaming rich dreams. He recorded them using words and images in a journal while mythic riches from deep within his soul continued to break through into conscious awareness. FASCINATION AND BLISS Before long, he understood that the dreams he had been recording resonated with great mythic themes that he had been studying while working on his book, Symbols of Transformation. He began to paint mandalas which he found acted as gateways to greater self-discovery. The connections forged by entering the mythic level of your being invariably bring us a sense of zeal, fascination and bliss. It connects us ever more deeply with our own creativity. Sooner or later it also prompts us to share our creative gifts with the world. If we are willing to look back in silence, without judgment, to our own childhood, we often discover a myth which we either are living or are meant to be living, even though we have long remained unaware of it. Often we discover that, at a young age, we sensed what we intended to do with our life in years to come. DISCOVERING MY OWN TRUTHS I remember that at the age of five I had an argument with my maternal grandmother about marriage and children. She was trying to explain to me that, when you get older, you need to find someone to love. Then you got married in a white dress, and you ate a beautiful white cake. This meant, she said, that later you would be able to have children. I was an archetypal tomboy, hated dolls, loved climbing trees and playing football. Yet even at that age I knew that I wanted children when I grew up. Her description of the white dress and the wedding cake sounded dreadful to me. “Ugh,” I said, “I hate cake. I don’t ever want to be married.” Surprised at the vehemence of my reply, she patiently explained to me that the wedding was a necessary prelude to having children. I knew there and then that she was lying. Our Siamese cat, Babette, had given birth to lots of children and she had never been married. So ended the discussion. One day, years later, having brought four children by four different men into the world and raised them all on my own, I would remember that conversation. It surprised me. How, I asked myself, could I possibly have known that I would live out the clear intention held by the five-year-old me which, in the interim, had lain sleeping in the dark, somewhere deep within my psyche? FORGOTTEN TRUTHS Like Jung, when we are children we often have a strong sense about who we will become and what we are going to do when we grow up, based on a myth or passion that fires our soul. Usually this “knowing” gets submerged beneath what “they” tell us we are supposed to do or be. Schools, advertisers, religion, well-meaning (or sometimes not so well-meaning) adults “educate” us. They tell us it is better to drive around in a shiny car than to live the life of a hobo. Personally, even as a kid, I was quite sure that given a choice between such options, I would prefer to be a hobo. As for having children and raising them on my own, this had definitely been on my agenda. Even though we may travel down many roads that lead to dead ends in our life, when we look back to childhood we often find that a particular myth or myths hidden deep within a part of us have been directing our life all along. They may even have been the power which, each time we’ve gone down a meaningless road, has drawn us back to our center asking us to reconnect with what we most love, and providing the power to create the life we want to live. YOUR UNIQUE MYTHOLOGY Discovering by what myth or myths you are living your own life leads down two parallel roads which eventually join. They take you deeper and deeper into what is the most important process of all: Forging connections with the core of your being and calling forth your own unique, creative power so that it is expressed in every area of your life both for your highest good and for the highest good of all. Coming to experience the power of mythology as a living archetype and diving in to the wondrous mythic realms fuels the creative process within you. It helps you discover, as Jung did, the mythology by which you have been living your own life. Once you begin to see this, you can ask the question, “Does this bring me delight, energy, freedom and belief in my own creative gifts? Does this story help me live out my deepest desires and purpose, or not?” IN CHALLENGING TIMES Ask yourself this: If I were faced with a situation of total disaster, if everything I held most dear to my heart and all of my loved ones disappeared, if the life I’ve been living were devastated, what would I live for? What could sustain me? How would I come to know that, despite all the challenges, I could go on living instead of throwing in the towel and letting myself fall into an abyss of impassability and fear? Now is the time to begin exploring the realms of mythology and find out. A revelatory way of looking back at your life, if you have kept a journal or a diary, is to read through some of the entries you have made into it in past years. You are likely to find that some of what you believe you have only recently come to understand. You are also likely to discover that what was important to you long ago still is. RECORD YOUR DREAMS Such revelations can help you identify some of the driving themes of your own life—the destiny that you, most likely, unwittingly chose for your life although you did not know it. So, keep a journal. Carry it with you wherever you go. Record in it your dreams, your longings, your conscious choices and the choices that life seems to make for you without any conscious choice on your part. Continue to ask yourself, “Does the myth by which I appear to be living fire me with a sense of wonder and excitement?” If so, great... just keep on going. If not, how do I begin to uncover the mythology deep within me that will? I would love to hear from you about your own experiences in answer to the question: “What mythology guides your life?”

The core of a human being - that source of virtually boundless creative power, as well as physical and psychic energy - will never be found by dissecting the human body. Nor can it be arrived at by analyzing the human mind. Yet a sense of what I call living from the core or the soul, an experience of living - living truthfully to your own values - is something each of us experiences at certain times in our lives. Although most of us only happen upon this experience accidentally, it can also be cultivated by pursuing actions which we enjoy or which make us feel good about ourselves and our lives. It can happen when we fall in love; when we feel happy because everything seems in harmony around us; or when we feel pleased with ourselves, our children, or some accomplishment. In such moments, everything seems to fit together, or feel right, and life has meaning. Such a sense is central to an experience of living with energy. The techniques for building a high-energy lifestyle with lots of energy are only of lasting value if you value yourself, and live your life on that assumption. tuning into core energy Psychologist Abraham Maslow, who spent his life studying not human pathology, but rather human beings who lived their lives with great energy, creativity and joy - he called them self-actualizers - referred to the special moments in our lives as ‘peak experiences.’ After examining the experiences of thousands of high energy, creative and happy people, he came to the conclusion that these self-actualizers have certain things in common. They tend, for instance, to be the healthiest people in society, mentally and physically. They tend to have a lot of values in common too, such as prizing simplicity, wholeness, effortlessness, truth, honesty, uniqueness, completeness, and perfection - in fact, the same values one might expect mystics to possess. They are, in effect, fully functioning people who tend frequently to have peak experiences - moments of great happiness, rapture, ecstasy - in which life’s conflicts are at least temporarily transcended or resolved. Other psychologists, anthropologists and philosophers have described Maslow’s self-actualizing person too. Carl Rogers - perhaps most appropriately of all - refers to Maslow’s self-actualizer as a ‘fully functioning’ person. Out of their work has emerged a whole new picture of what it is to be human. It has changed our perspective so that we no longer see a human being the way Freud did - as a collection of repressed destructive urges, only barely restrained by learned moral constructs from destroying ourselves and others - but as potentially autonomous human beings. We recognize that the destructive and self-defeating tendencies that we all have are far less the hidden truth of a person than the results of a frustration in the expression of what Maslow called the Self - or soul of life itself. Not only boundless energy, but happiness and freedom from this frustration and from negative thought patterns and the behavior they engender, lie in letting your natural self-actualizing tendencies (which in most of us are still weak or dormant) develop. Until they grow, we all regress into fear and frustration or laziness. Once they become stronger, one’s life becomes an ongoing process of energy release, growth, and unfolding of potential as well as, quite simply, much happier. what are your peak experiences? Take a notebook and, on a clean page, describe a moment or moments in your life where you felt a sense of `living from your core' - a time when everything seemed to work for you, where you felt temporarily fulfilled and good about yourself. If you are not sure you understand the idea, simply describe a moment when you felt particularly happy. Remember the scene as vividly as possible, and use as much detail as you can to recall your impressions. Use this description as a reference point from now on for how good you can feel and how wonderfully life can fit together. As you become more and more self-actualizing and come to live more and more from your soul, peak experiences become more frequent. Create New Visions of You and Your Life Now start to dream of what it will be like for you to have all the energy you ever need. Begin to play with a number of clear mental pictures of yourself fit, well and looking great. But don't just consider the physical changes you would like to make. Get to know the person you aim to be, and see yourself in this image. Record what you see, hope for, want to bring into being in your notebook and refer to it often when you feel unsure of your goals and direction. Here are some of the characteristics of high energy self-actualizing to use as inspiration: An exceptional ability to cope with change and to learn from it. Most people have trouble with change. It is unsettling and frightening. It needn't be. It all depends on how you look at it. We all face fear of changes, but the more you come to live from your core - to manifest your soul energy - the more you will tend to view change not as threatening, but as a challenge to learn from and grow from, whether any particular change at face value appears to be `good' or `bad'. And as far as failure is concerned, instead of being a source of fear, it can be viewed as something that shows us how to deal with a similar situation in the future. After all, human beings do fail sometimes. No great worry about saying ‘No’. Not aggression, but assertiveness, plays a central role in creating energy. It implies a strong sense of your individual right to your values and opinions, and a tendency to respect the rights of other people as well. You need to be able to say no to a food or drink you don't really want, a request from a lover or spouse, a demand from a child or a colleague. The best way to develop healthy assertiveness is simply to practice it. It feels a bit strange at first, but the more you do the easier it becomes. Paradoxically, only when you are positively assertive can you discover what real unselfishness is, because then what you give is what you choose to give, not what you feel obliged to give. A well-conditioned body. This not only brings you energy, it also helps you cope with stress better, look better and younger, and strengthens your sense of self-reliance. It also shifts hormonal balance and brain chemistry, making you highly resistant to depression and anxiety, and highly prone to feeling good about yourself and your life. Top-level fitness leads to a freedom to achieve excellence in other non-physical areas of your life as well. It increases stamina, strength and flexibility - not only physically, but emotionally as well. A marked absence of common minor ailments and troubles. Most people believe that the Monday morning `blues' or the aches and pains in joints after forty are a normal part of living. But they take up little space when you have an abundance of energy. `Normal' means moving with ease, and feeling pretty good about things day after day - sometimes feeling very good indeed - not because something stupendous has just happened, but because when you are really fit and well that is the normal way to feel. Laughter comes easily. An ability to laugh at the absurd (including yourself when appropriate) and a sense of fun are perhaps the most important of all the high-energy characteristics. Joy is health-giving. Paradoxically, often the most delightful sense of humor parallels a strong sense of purpose in a person - another high-energy characteristic. Integrity. The more you become a self-actualizer, the more you set your own standards and live up to them. Your values become a source of strength and energy for you. You don't have to compromise them to achieve some temporary advantage. You can feel the truth, be who you really are, and make your life work. Hard to believe? It’s time to.

Want to control your weight? The key to this may be simpler than you think: Get more sleep. A brand new study of 1800 sets of twins reveals that those twins who slept nine plus hours a night had a drastically increased ability to combat genetically-predisposed weight gain, compared to the twins who slept less than seven hours. What this means is that, when you do get enough sleep, your genes become less critical in determining how much weight your body lays down. You will no longer at the mercy of your DNA. If at the same time you make good lifestyle choices like eating a healthy diet, and getting some regular, enjoyable exercise, can set the stage for living a long, slim, healthy life. If you are someone who has long struggled with weight control, this is great news. A few extra hours of sleep a night could throw the ball of weight control right back in your own court. MEET YOUR ALLY The word leptin means ‘thin’ in Greek. Leptin is an important hormone which helps regulate your metabolism. It tells your brain when you have had enough to eat—the experience known as satiety. Earlier studies have shown that, when you are sleep deprived, your body’s levels of this hormone drop, and you develop what is known as leptin resistance—a condition which interferes with fat burning. Meanwhile, levels of another important hormone ghrelin (leptin’s hunger-signaling counterpart) rise. This results in your experiencing increased appetite and food cravings—especially for carbohydrates like grains, cereals, sugars and junk food—all the stuff which makes us fat and undermines our health. NIGHT AFTER NIGHT John Keats in his ‘Sonnet to Sleep’ called sleep the “soft embalmer”, praising its “careful fingers” and “lulling charities”. How right he was. The benefits sleep bestows on us extend far beyond weight control. Sleep helps heal our bodies and our minds—enabling us to integrate new information with ease. When we are sleep deprived, however, our bodies come under biological stress. They begin to respond in negative ways in an attempt to protect us: Muscles get tense. Heart rate and blood pressure go up. Digestion becomes disturbed and your stress hormone, corticosterone, floods the system. Then your body lays down yet more fat deposits while refusing to let go of the ones already there. But here’s the rub about sleep deprivation. In case you think you can “catch up” after prolonged periods of too little sleep, you can’t. For sleep to become an ally in your fat-fighting armory, you need to get plenty night after night. WHAT’S BEST The new twins research shows that some of us need nine or more hours sleep a night to receive weight control benefits. But there are no hard and fast rules. So instead of trying to adhere to a strict eight or nine-hour-a-night regime, listen to your own unique body. When you do, it will tell you how much sleep you should be getting. Life factors such as age, stress or illness, occupation, sex, diet and pregnancy mean that some people will need more sleep, and others less. Check this out: Are you often tired upon waking? Do you get sleepy throughout the day? Experiment. See how you feel after different amounts of sleep, and find what works for you. Your entire being—not least of all, your slimmer waistline—will thank you for it. To here more click here

Color matters. Seeing, wearing, or being exposed to a color - whether in the form of cloth or pigment or light - affects you below the level of your conscious mind. It can make you feel happy or sad, aggressive or peaceful, determined or indifferent. Each color has its own personality, and appears to offer a particular quality of energy for work as well. Researchers have found, for instance, that the color green can help provide 'elasticity of will' which makes you able to persist despite opposition or setbacks to finish a task. Exposure to green can also enhance your sense of self-esteem. Red's "workforce" is different altogether. The color red represents the power of will to strive for effective action, and exposure to it can help develop the will power. Yellow, the other color particularly useful for work, brings the spontaneous enjoyment of action and the ability to project yourself beyond your present work goal towards the future. Colors also have strong emotional or symbolic qualities. Blue symbolizes the feminine and the mystic. It is a color that tends to make people feel peaceful and calm. Red incites sensuality, voluptuousness and sometimes anger. Yellow makes you more cheerful. Violet symbolizes the magical; black, renunciation. And color's affects are not just psychological either. Because of the complex way in which exposure to various colors acts via the brain upon the autonomic nervous system, exposure to a specific color can even alter physiological measurements such as blood pressure, electrical skin resistance, and glandular functions in your body. color as energy Like both light and heat, color is an easily defined part of a whole gamut of energy, which comes to us from the sun and other sources. It is the part that makes itself easily perceptible to the human senses by reflecting off or interacting with matter. While heat is the perceptible effect of disturbed oscillation of atomic particles, light is the visible reflection off the particles in the atmosphere. Color makes up a band of these light wave frequencies from red at 1/33,000th's of an inch wavelength to violet at 1/67,000 of an inch wavelength. Below red lie infrared and radio waves; above it you find the invisible ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma rays. The colors we see are nothing more than the vibrationary rebound of frequencies which a particular object has refused to absorb. For instance, black hair absorbs all the color rays and gives back none, while snow rejects them giving them all back. That is why it appears white. A red flower has absorbed all except that which we interpret as red, and so on. The colors we see are wavelengths of energy that our brain interprets as seven basic shades or hues: red, yellow, green, blue, white, black and violet. And the experience of these frequency rebounds affects us profoundly and subliminally. As one highly respected color researcher puts it: Colors are not only and usually, not even primarily 'recognized', but they are felt, as exciting or soothing, dissonant or harmonious... joyous or somber, warm or cool, disturbing and distracting, or conductive to concentration and tranquility. And one of the remarkable things about the affective and biochemical powers of color is that they do not appear to be dependent on a person or animal seeing a color for it to work its magic. Russian scientists experimenting with the blind have found that earlobes and fingertips are highly sensitive to color. So probably are other parts of the body. And many studies show that even a blindfolded animal or person exposed to specific colors by having pigments rubbed on them, by shining light on the skin, or even being made to live in an environment of a carefully chosen shade will register predictable physiological and psychological responses. Learning about color's affective qualities and putting color to use can not only enhance your spirits and improve your looks; it may even improve your health and expand your consciousness. ancient color practices Although color effects are now beginning to be studied and described in biochemical terms or in the language of modern physics, the health benefits and consciousness-altering effects of color being used by these color therapists are not a new discovery. Celsus, the famous Roman physician of the first century AD, used colored plasters on the skin to promote healing, and prescribed medicines in specific colors to treat different ailments. In the Middle Ages different colored rooms were "prescribed" to heal various sicknesses. And ancient religious traditions reflect a clear awareness of the energy variations we now measure as wavelengths of different colors. They knew, for instance, that red has the slowest rate of vibration and the longest wavelength, while violet was energy vibrating at the highest rate with the shortest wavelength. And they associated the different colors and their vibrations with the specific energy centers or chakras in the body - three dimensional pulsating wheels which can be seen by clairvoyants, and are said to be centers in the energy body that govern physical and emotional changes in a person. Chakras are much represented in Eastern religions. (Even Christian art traditions acknowledge chakra energy when they depict saints radiating a halo from the head.) The halo represents the highest chakra - what the Buddhists call the "Thousand Petal Lotus" - but there are said to be seven chakras in all, each believed to be responsible for regulating energy in specific systems and parts of the body. Red is said govern the lowest reproductive chakra at the base of the body, and to impart a strong physical energy. The orange related chakra at the navel is concerned with digestion, while the yellow chakra at the solar plexus is said to be linked with certain emotional states and associated with the functions of organs such as the pancreas and the liver. Green is the color linked to the heart chakra, and with the qualities of courage and love. The blue center in the throat is known as the chakra of higher creativity and of self- expression. The color indigo belongs to the brow chakra, and is said to be concerned with such qualities as intuition, and right-brain-dominated thinking. The violet chakra, which is supposed to be situated at the crown of the head, is said to be linked with the body via the pituitary gland and the endocrine system as a whole. And, while color therapists who claim to work with chakra energies are quick to point out that many different colors can appear in the various chakras at the same time, visualizing or being exposed to the colors most associated with each, they say, can dramatically improve the functioning of that chakra and those physical and psychic links with it. We use color a great deal in our lives - to change our moods or to intensify them, and to explore different kinds of feeling and response. Following the ancient color chakra guidelines, you can buy color gels and place then on lights or windows where the natural light shining through creates wonderful prisms. You can experiment with different colors of fabric stretched over home made frames, or with huge pieces of brightly colored paper hung on the walls and changed frequently. You can play with color changes in what you wear and see how different this makes you feel and how different colors seem to bring out different parts of your nature. We like to color old tee shirts using fabric dyes in different shades such as clear green, yellow, apricot and brilliant orange. It is remarkable how changing the colors you wear can alter the way you feel and your sense of your self. And not only is exploring the effects of color rewarding in terms of exploring your own physical and psychic energies, the experience of playing with color can be sheer delight.

Valerian: This is the root of the plant Valeriana officinalis, which was the primary herbal sedative used on both sides of the Atlantic before the advent of barbiturate sleeping pills. It is a safe and well tested herbal remedy with a smell like dirty old socks (the smell drives some people's cats wild). Don't let that put you off, since Valerian is a powerful and useful tool for inducing safe sleep - more potent than most of the other natural tranquilizers such as hops or skullcap or chamomile. You can take Valerian in a couple of ways, but I like the tincture best - 10 to 20 drops before bedtime in a little water, or in the middle of the night when you awaken. Alternatively you can use a couple of capsules of the dried root. Valerian in lower doses is also useful when your nerves feel 'shot' during the day. Very occasionally Valerian will be too strong for a particular woman, so that she awakens with a little sense of hangover in the morning. If so, you can either cut down on the dose or try another milder remedy. In any case, it can be a good idea to change remedies every so often so your body doesn't become accustomed to one, rendering it ineffectual. Passion Flower: Passiflora incarnata, also known as Maypops, is a climbing plant that boasts magnificent white flowers with a purple center. It has a wonderful sedative and mildly narcotic effect on the body. Passion Flower is most useful for women who wrestle frequently with nervous tension and particularly helpful when nerves seem to be edgy before and around the time of menopause, when hormones can fluctuate wildly. It is also useful for relieving pain, thanks to its mild analgesic and antispasmodic qualities - all of which has been well demonstrated in laboratory and clinical tests. Passion Flower can also be useful for a woman troubled with premenstrual tension. It is not as strong as Valerian in its actions, is more calming than sedating, and as such is a great alternative to tranquilizer drugs. Use 10 to 20 drops of the tincture or the same amount of the liquid extract in water. Alternatively take two capsules of the dried extract up to four times a day as needed. Where a woman might take Valerian at night just before bed, the best results from Passion Flower often come from taking it 2 to 4 times a day to calm nerves and make everything easier and less stressful. Chamomile Tea: Matricaria chamomilla. One of the nine herbs sacred to the Anglo Saxon god Wotan, chamomile was also much loved by the Romans. Its name Matricaria is derived either from the Latin word 'mater', meaning mother, or from 'matrix', meaning womb. It has for thousands of years been used as a woman's herb against painful menstruation, to calm anxiety and aid sleep - even to help build strong bones, since it contains a form of readily absorbed calcium. Chamomile is also a uterine tonic - something else that has been scientifically evaluated. It boasts many other therapeutic properties as well such as being antibacterial in its actions and good for skin. The easiest way to take chamomile is in the form of a tisane or tea by infusing 5 to 10 grams of the dried flowers in hot water before bed or whenever you need relaxation. Chamomile works particularly well when taken together with Passion Flower. Hops: Humulus lupulus. The flowers from this British herb are often used together with other remedies to treat everything from indigestion to calm nerves. Like Valerian, hops has a pronounced sedative effect, but is milder. Unlike Valerian, hops smells sweet, and can be used without concern for side-effects. You can use hops in the form of a tincture but by far the best way for sleep - particularly good for women who are awakened in the middle of the night and have trouble going back to sleep - is to drink hop tea, which you make before going to bed by steeping the flowers for ten minutes in hot water then straining and allowing to cool. Sit the tea - sweetened with honey if you like - by the side of your bed, so you can drink it when you awaken in the night. Also wonderful is a little pillow stuffed with dried hops blossoms, which you put under your neck when you go to bed, or if you awaken. Oatstraw: Avena sativa. The straw from oats has an ability to restore energy when nerves have been frayed, and for counteracting insomnia. It can help ease night sweats, calm anxiety, and even relieve headache. Again, stuff a little pillow with oat hulls or infuse them in hot water as with hops, and keep beside your bed through the night in case you need it.