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In sickness and in health - such is the commitment to care, nurturing and to love that each parent makes towards a child. The health part is manageable, but when sickness strikes it can get scary. Yet this is when Nature's power can shine brightest of all. Natural healing views the doctor's and the parent's role in caring for a sick child as that of a helper. It sees illness - from vomiting to measles to a simple cold - as a manifestation of the body's attempt to eliminate whatever does not belong to it, and by doing so restore order and balance. It also recognizes that the only true healing can come from within. And it identifies the helper's role as that of supporting the body of the sick child in what it is attempting to do - to banish the microbe, remove the poison from his system, readjust hormonal balance or whatever else happens to be necessary to restore equilibrium. When I was young, I was lucky to become good friends with a handful of inspired doctors who not only understood the theory behind natural healing, but some of whom had been practicing it for as much as half a century. The techniques they taught me - from using a compress to quell a fever or calm vomiting, to methods of hydrotherapy for treating earache and athletic injuries - have served me well not only in helping all four of my children to heal themselves, but in helping myself and many others too. Each of these techniques, in its own way, supports the body's own wisdom in healing and/or helps the sick child feel more relaxed and comfortable while healing takes place. beware of antibiotics Antibiotics are great for life-threatening diseases. To employ them for anything less can be a big mistake. Thanks to their overuse by doctors in the past 30 years, malevolent microbes which they were designed to kill have fought back valiantly by developing strains of resistant super bugs. As a result, what once were easily treated bacterial ailments now often do not respond to drugs. Antibiotics are also completely useless in the treatment of viral conditions such as colds, even though some doctors still prescribe them. When they do work on bacterial conditions they not only kill the bacteria they have been designed to kill, they also wipe out a lot of the `good guys' too - helpful bacteria which are part of a child's intestinal flora, on which the continued competence of his immune system depends. I, like the doctors from whom I have learned about natural healing, do not give them to my children. The only way I would ever consider using antibiotics would be in case of a disease which was literally life-threatening and even then I would only do it after consulting a handful of doctors in whose judgment I trust, one of whom would be my second son, Jesse, who is himself a doctor. If for any reason your child has to be treated with antibiotics, it is wise for up to six weeks afterwards to give him supplements of enteric bacteria including acidophilus to help recolonize the good intestinal flora they will have destroyed. the healing power of fever Illness is his body's attempt to reestablish balance and harmony both energetically and biochemically. When it strikes, whether it be cold or sore throat, or childhood disease such as chickenpox or German measles, the parent of a Nature's child is most concerned with how to work together with the child's own natural processes of healing: First, to help speed recovery without causing long term health risks, and second, to help the child be as comfortable and pain free as possible while healing is taking place. Let's look at fever first since that is the thing most parents are most frightened of. Fever is not something which needs, as most parents these days believe, to be suppressed the moment it appears using aspirin or other drugs - for fear it will damage the child. Far from it. Fever is a sign that your child's body is trying to burn off something which is not supposed to be there - a virus for instance, a bacteria, or some element in his food or his environment to which his body takes exception. When an infection develops, your child responds by manufacturing new white blood cells called leukocytes, whose purpose is the destruction of viruses and bacteria and the elimination of wastes and other damaging materials from his body. Then white blood cells become very active in his body - dashing to the site of infection to fight the `baddies'. In the process - which is known as leukotaxis - certain chemicals called pyrogens are released, designed to raise body temperature and make the cleansing more efficient. So important a part does this rise in temperature - fever - play in the process of healing, that artificially created fevers have been used throughout history as a way of treating illness in people who do not have the vitality to produce high enough fevers in themselves. Luckily, kids do. One of the reasons children develop such high fevers when they are ill is that their bodies are enormously vital. That is also why a child can get very sick suddenly, as well as why the sickness will frequently clear just as rapidly. Governed from within, the natural process of healing in a vital young body is intense and highly efficient. As we get older, our bodies lose that efficiency so we heal less rapidly and less effectively. We are taught that 98.6 F is the normal temperature. Yet temperatures vary from person to person. They also depend on how the temperature has been taken - for instance by mouth, under the arm, or rectally. Generally speaking the best - and safest - way of taking a young child's temperature is axillary - by tucking the thermometer in the fold beneath his armpit and leaving it there for five minutes. It is far safer than trying to do it rectally and risk damaging the child, or putting a thermometer into his mouth where he might crunch on it and break it. Not all fevers are dangerous, nor is the degree of your child's temperature much measure of how sick he is. Unless there are other symptoms such as great listlessness, difficulty in breathing, severe pain or some other sign which could indicate the presence of a serious illness such as meningitis or diphtheria, doctors who use natural methods of treating illness will wisely tell you that you should keep an eye on the fever but leave well enough alone. hot for what? There are lots of reasons why your child may develop a fever - overexposure to heat as a result of being too bundled up (particularly in babies), a reaction to food or some poisonous substance, too much sun, a long journey, changes in the weather, a tooth breaking through, over-excitement. If you suspect that he has swallowed some poisonous substance, you need to seek medical help immediately. And in newborn babies, it is important to pay more attention to fever and get a doctor's advice since there is always the chance of an infection having developed as a result of fetal monitoring during birth, or forced obstetric procedures, such as the overmedication of women in labor. Most fevers, however, occur as a result of viral or bacterial infection and are part of the body's own immune response to invasion which, left alone, the body will clear. When your child is running a temperature it is important to make sure he is not dehydrated since the perspiration, runny nose, vomiting and diarrhea which often accompany fever can deplete his body of fluid. This is easy to do by giving plenty of cool water and pure fruit juice - not the so-called fruit drinks which contain sugar and other additives. brain damage and other fears Ninety five percent of childhood fevers never reach 105F, which to many parents represents the so-called danger level. In fact, a fever of 105F which in an adult is extremely high can be quite normal in a child who is fighting off infection. The greatest fear most parents have of fever is that it will cause convulsions. In truth, it is not the size of a fever which is indicative of the likelihood of convulsion but the rapidity with which it rises. If you have ever seen a child in a convulsive seizure it can be a very frightening thing to witness. I have lived through a number - strangely enough, not with my own children, but with other people's. In the midst of watching a child in the throws of convulsion, it is hard to remember that this kind of seizure is uncommon, and that even when it does occur it seldom results in any serious side effects. For instance, in one large study involving 1706 children who had experienced febrile convulsions, not one of them suffered death or motor defects. My doctor friends have always taught me to work with fever, to allow it to burn through while making sure it does not get high enough to cause seizures. This practice was first introduced to me by my grandmother who looked after me when I was sick as a child. She kept my fevers within `safe' range by sponging my body every hour or so with cool water. In the beginning when I had a sick child I would ring one of my doctor friends, worried by my child's temperature and his crying and say, `My son is ill, should I bring him to see you?' After asking me a few questions such as, `How high is his temperature? When did it start? Is he eating?' and so forth, the doctor would advise me to keep an eye on him, give him plenty of fluids and use a compress around his middle to keep the fever under control. So that was what I did. And it has worked beautifully. the abdominal compress This is one of the most effective techniques for helping to eliminate wastes from the body and to keep fever under control while it carries out its job of cleansing. Applying cold water around the middle of the body in the form of a compress charges the local cells with energy, activates circulation and stimulates the liver - the body's organ of detoxification - so that stored wastes can be released more efficiently. Here's how: Tear a piece of old cotton cloth wide enough to reach from under your child's arms down to his hips and long enough to wrap around him once comfortably. An old cotton sheet or pillowcase (not nylon or cotton and polyester) is ideal. Dip the cloth into cold water and wring it out. Then wrap it around the child's middle and secure with safety pins. Wrap a thick dry towel around this and put him into a warm bed. You may want to put a pair of thick socks on him, too. It is important that he doesn't feel cold. Keep it on him for half an hour. If he drops off to sleep for the night you can remove the compress in the morning. Repeat several times a day as needed depending upon the level of his temperature. don't insist your child eats When animals are ill they stop eating. So do children. This is a natural part of their body's attempt to heal itself. It is also a source of great concern to parents. It shouldn't be - especially during an acute illness. Your child's body knows that its energies should be directed towards clearing itself of viruses, bacteria, or what have you, which lie at the core of his illness. To put unwanted food into a body in such circumstances is not only unhelpful, it can actually undermine the healing process by making your child's body turn its attention away from the elimination processes to having to deal with digestion and assimilation - both of which take a lot of energy. Instead, offer him plenty of water and fruit or carrot juices - preferably made fresh with a juice extractor - and keep him in bed until he gets better. Freshly made juices require almost no energy to be assimilated yet they carry a high degree of structural information for health and healing, including many of the most important vitamins and minerals such as beta carotene, which helps strengthen immunity, and vitamin C. Such juices also encourage the elimination of toxicity from the body. Your child can literally live on juices alone during any minor illness. Most kids love them. I also believe in a lot of tender loving care when your child is sick. Massaging his feet with a little ordinary kitchen oil while he lies in bed well covered can be a wonderful way of giving it. You don't need to know how. There isn't any right way, it is just a matter of intuitively letting your hands follow where they want to go. It is enormously soothing, and helps draw the negative energy in his body down towards the feet to be eliminated from his body. It also helps reassure him that you are there and love him, in a way that words can never do. waterpower Hydrotherapy can help too. Particularly if he has an earache - a condition which is agonizing yet rarely dangerous. This technique was taught me by one of the doctors I admire most in the world, Gordon Latto, who has looked after my family - mostly by phone - for almost thirty years. I have used it again and again - for earache in kids, for conjunctivitis myself, for headaches and for childhood and adult athletic injuries to ankles and legs and feet. It, too, works on the principle of drawing energy downwards in the body. In doing so, it not only relieves pain, but also congestion. Finally it increases circulation to the leg and feet area, speeding any healing that is needed there, say, from a turned ankle at football practice. Here's how: Take two buckets large enough to put the child's feet in and deep enough to submerge his legs up to the knee. Fill the first with water as hot as he can take. Fill the second with cold water. Let him plunge his calves and feet into the hot water and stay there for 3 minutes. Then get him to take them out and put them into the cold water for 30 seconds, then back immediately into the hot again (you might have to top up with more hot before you do since it does tend to cool down during the procedure). Do this until you have repeated both hot and cold three times, ending with cold. While this is going on, it is important he is kept warm. Make sure he is in a warm room and that his body is well clothed, so that on no account is he allowed to get chilled. Immediately afterward, put warm socks on his feet and pop him into bed. Repeat this procedure three times a day - or even more often when there is pain. care for colds and coughs In the tradition of natural medicine, a cold is considered the body's most common way of eliminating waste from the system rapidly. In addition to offering a child fresh raw fruit juices I have always given extra supplements of vitamin C and beta carotene - the precursor to Vitamin A - which comes in good quantity in carrots and green vegetables. Both are natural anti-viral agents. I like to give children these nutrients in supplement form (but in much smaller quantities) when they are healthy too, as a way of helping to support their immune system so they become resistant to disease. One of the most important things I have learned from some of my doctor friends has been that at the first sign of a sniffle you cut out any and all dairy products from a child's diet - milk, yogurt, cream, butter, cheese, and any other food which might even have the tiniest bit of any of these things in it. This helps speed recovery and stops even more mucous from forming. Aromatherapy can help with colds too. If you have a little aromatherapy burner - the kind you put water into the top of then light a candle underneath - you can add a few drops of tea tree oil to the water and let its molecules fill the room to help ease a child's breathing. Sage is another essential oil good for this. Both have anti-microbial properties. If you don't have a burner, try heating a saucepan on the stove. When it is steaming drop five or six drops of the essential oil into the water. (Be sure to keep it well out of harm's way in the room your child is in and never leave it unattended with a young child.) You can also fill a basin with hot water, drop some essential oil into it and let the child put his head, covered loosely by a towel, over the steam for five minutes several times a day to clear his head. Manuka Honey with a little lemon juice is excellent for sore throats. This honey, from New Zealand, is unique in the world. It has been shown to destroy many strains of bacteria including staphylococcus, streptococcus, staphaureus - even heliobacter pylori, the bacteria associated with peptic ulcers. Mix it with a little fresh lemon juice and give it on a teaspoon as a soothing linctus. choose supplements carefully When choosing a multiple vitamin or mineral supplement for your child, be careful. His body has a natural affinity for vitamins and minerals as they occur in Nature and are found in wholesome fresh unprocessed foods, not for the synthetic form. Not all vitamins and minerals are the same. The human body cannot easily absorb most of the synthetic, chemical vitamins on the market. And regardless of what the labels say about being `natural', the truth is almost every vitamin you can buy these days is synthetic, and therefore not very bio-available. This means your body or your child's body can absorb very little of them, because the chemical form of vitamins is so different from the natural form you find in good wholesome food. `Food-state' vitamins are different. They are grown instead of being chemically made, using a unique bio-tech process which allows living plant cells to take up vitamin concentrates and transform them into a form the human body can easily assimilate and use. This means you don't have to go for megadoses to get real benefits. Food-state nutrients are particularly good for children. They are the only kind I give mine. I began with a liquid multi vitamin and mineral when they were babies (plus some extra vitamin C) and then gradually increased the amounts as they grew. At 12 for instance, I gave Aaron two 250 milligram tablets of food-state vitamin C a day with his breakfast along with a food-state multiple vitamin and mineral. During the winter months, I also give him one or two 4.5 milligram tablets of beta carotene a day. So protective an influence can vitamin A exert, and so supporting is it to a child's immune system, that a recent study published in the British Medical Journal states that vitamin A may also play an important role in those with life threatening infections. While on the subject of protection, I would never let my children drink fluoridated water. There is too much evidence that, while it does help protect against dental carries, it has also been implicated in the development of degenerative conditions later in life. I believe it is far better to have a child's teeth painted with fluoride once every 6 months at the dentist if you want, or to give him fluoride toothpaste to use. Then at least it doesn't pervade his whole system. herbs and homeopathy I use only a few herbs. I find that red sage, for instance, over which you have poured boiling water and allowed to steep for ten minutes then let cool for later use, makes an excellent gargle for an older child (or adult) with any kind of head or throat or chest infection. Mint tea sweetened with a little honey can do wonders for upset tummies and flatulence. So can the American Indian herb slippery elm, which you mix with a little warm water and add some honey to (preferably Manuka). With older children in bed with any kind of head or throat or chest infection, I also ask them to place a small clove of garlic - complete with its skin coating - between the cheek and the teeth inside their mouth and to keep it there for an hour morning and night. (Not possible if they are up and about or too young since they might choke.) Garlic kills the `nasties' quickly and efficiently. I use only a little homeopathy, it is all I find I need. I use Arnica 30 for instance. It is good for shock, or any kind of injury or emotional upset. I give two tablets immediately and then two every half hour until the crisis has passed. The second remedy I like is Aconite 30, which I give every three or four hours when there is fever to help in the cleansing process that is taking place. Long ago I put together what in the family is known as `Mummy's First Aid Kit'. There you will find vitamin C, some zinc and beta carotene, herbs and homeopathics, plus a compress or two torn from an old sheet, a couple of unipolar magnets and crepe bandages for helping to heal bruises and sprains. It goes everywhere with us throughout the world and has become so popular as a result of being used by children and adults outside the family that I have been forced to put together several for other people as well. Of course, it won't fix broken legs. And if my child's fever suddenly shot up to 106 in the space of an hour or there was any emergency I felt incapable of handling I would be on the phone in a minute for help from the doctor. But for over thirty years, this little collection of things - together with some hydrotherapy, a good dollop of patience, great respect for Nature's ways and a lot of tender loving care - has been all that was required to see my kids through everything that has ailed them. All I can ever hope to be is a helper. It is Nature that does the real work.

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.

The United Nations Environmental Program calculates that 70,000 chemicals are in common use across the world. Another 1000 new chemicals are introduced each year, polluting the planet and our bodies. Legal loopholes in every country still allow perfumes and other personal care products to be sold containing potentially deadly toxins that disrupt the order of the body’s living matrix and undermine your health. Each time you buy a bottle of perfume, be aware that it could contain any number of poisonous chemicals. There are more than 5000 stock chemical ingredients used by the fragrance industry, which manufacturers are not obliged to disclose on the labels. They are often hidden within a dangerous loophole of “trade secret formulas”. BUYER BEWARE More than ten years ago, the Sunday Times published an article shouting “Top Perfumes Linked to Cancer Scare Chemicals”. The article went on to report that when a Swedish government-accredited laboratory analyzed 34 common products, researchers found that well-known perfumes like “Chanel No. 5”, Dior’s “Poison”, Calvin Klein’s “Eternity” and “Tommy Girl” all contained di-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) or similar chemicals. Commonly used as “plasticizers”, phthalates are dangerous. They are linked to decreased sperm count, early breast development, kidney and liver damage and birth defects. Since then, the situation has become infinitely worse. Phthalates have long been known to be both carcinogenic and mutagenic. They adversely affect sperm in men and disrupt reproductive processes in women. Nonetheless, they continue to be used. Theys are found in other common products as well—body sprays, compacts, and hair mousses—even flooring materials. Now, largely in response to several research projects, the EU has banned their use based on the fear that they may be responsible for genital abnormalities recorded in 4 percent of male babies. Yet they are still be used in fragrance products under the sneaky “trade secret formulas” label. And phthalates are merely a pale echo of the problem—a minute concern—in a much more threatening and complex multi-dimensional and pervasive chemical toxicity which pervades our lives. POISONOUS SEAS In our 21st century industrialized world, we live in a sea of petrochemically-derived chemicals dangerous to health, and life. All manmade chemicals are foreign to living systems. As such, they are potentially dangerous to us. Why? Because, in a million years of evolution, our bodies have never come into contact with them. Our genes are not adapted to handling them. Nor do we have the enzyme systems needed to clear them from our system. Included in the group of potentially destructive chemicals are hundreds of common cosmetic ingredients—from artificial preservatives to fragrances. There are over 7000 ingredients commonly found in perfumes, cosmetics and other fragranced products from household cleansers to baby toys. More than 1000 of these have already been individually shown to produce toxic effects on living systems. It is simply not possible to determine just what blends of substances have been used to produce the product, and what is listed on any label represents only the tip of the iceberg. Companies manufacturing fragrances, cosmetics and toiletries, such as shampoos, are legally required to list the ingredients they use; however, fragrances and trade-secret formulas in these products are considered legally exempt. In effect, manufacturers indulge in stealth by hiding large quantities of ingredients which we have no way of finding out about. SECRETS SECRETS The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics commissioned the Environmental Working Group (EWG) to analyze ingredients in several well-known perfumes and toiletry products made by companies such as Chanel, Armani, and Calvin Klein. They found a total of 38 chemicals not listed on product labels. According to the report: “Among them are chemicals associated with hormone disruption, allergic reactions...in the rank of undisclosed ingredients are chemicals with troubling hazardous properties or with a propensity to accumulate in human tissues. These include diethyl phthalate, a chemical found in 97% of Americans and linked to sperm damage in human epidemiological studies, and musk ketone, a synthetic fragrance ingredient that concentrates in human fat and breast tissue.” Chemical hormone mimics not only carry dangers for male health, being largely responsible for the fall in male sperm count by almost 50 percent since 1940. They are also major culprits behind the exponential growth of reproductive disorders in women—from PMS, endometriosis and fibroid tumors, to infertility, osteoporosis and menopausal miseries. And, here’s the rub: Far more important than the potential harm any single chemical can do, is the dangerous way in which these chemicals can interact to produce far more toxic compounds within our bodies. This important truth still remains ignored by government bodies whose job it is to protect the public. LIVING TRUTHS A continuous interchange is meant to take place between your body’s trillions of cells and the surrounding interstitial fluids. This is how nutrients and oxygen enter the cells and cellular wastes are cleared from them. Wastes are then carried through lymph vessels to be eliminated from the system on the breath, and via urine, the bowels and the skin. This exchange of nutrients and oxygen and the elimination of waste are regulated by subtle electrochemical energies. A build up of toxicity in your body’s living matrix results in poor circulation and electro-chemical stagnation, causing poor cellular metabolism, distortions in the transmission of information, and a breakdown in hormone regulation. When cells thrive and your body is radiant, you have a high level of protection from aging. This continues so long as plenty of nutrients and oxygen get into its cells, and toxic wastes are efficiently removed from them. And, although your body has elegant ways of clearing wastes—including its own antioxidant enzyme system and detoxification processes through the liver and kidneys—chemical and electromagnetic pollution can create the kind of toxic overload that undermines its ability to do the job. AVOID TOXIC OVERLOAD Here are just a few of the most widespread chemicals commonly used in perfumes, makeup, and skincare. By now, every fragrance or skincare manufacturer of integrity should be working diligently to eliminate them from the products they sell. So far few companies are. Parabens: Made from toluene, a petrochemical derivative, these are the most common synthetic preservatives. They are still used in 99 percent of all products. They show up on labels with names like butyl paraben, methyl paraben, and propyl paraben. Naïve cosmetic manufacturers claim parabens are “safe” since they don’t directly cause inflammatory reactions to skin. But these enzyme inhibitors do damage the DNA of skin cells—something easy to verify by feeding placebos to live cells in a laboratory and then recording what happens to the cells via flow cytometry. Research carried out in Japan, Germany and Britain also implicates parabens—which we absorb in significant quantity day in day out—as a causative factor in male fertility problems and breast tumors in women, because it interferes with hormone production and hormone release. Synthetic musks: These have been shown to cause hormone disruption. They accumulate in breast milk and in the umbilical cord blood of newborns. DEA diethanolamine, MEA monoethanolamine, and TEA triethanolamine: These hormone-disrupting chemicals can form carcinogenic nitrates and nitrosamines. They are widespread in the United States and other countries. Hydantoin and Urea—Imidazolidinyl: Two of the many preservatives commonly found in self-care products, these release formaldehyde into the body, where they can trigger skin reactions, allergies, joint pain, dizziness and lowering of immunity. Formaldehyde undermines the life processes of your living matrix. This is why morticians use it to embalm dead bodies. Fragrances in general: Many chemicals used to make artificial fragrances are known to be both toxic and carcinogenic. They affect the central nervous system, and can set off emotional disturbances and behavioral problems in some people. This is a wide chemical group, most of the members of which are dangerous—to some degree—because of the solvents used to disperse their molecules and suspend these chemicals in solution. Where once the great perfumes were formulated from natural products like civet and essential oils, sadly this is most certainly no longer the case. HEADACHES AND FATIGUE Have you experienced a headache or felt sick when passing through the cosmetic area of a department store? I have. That’s why I tend to stay away from these places. Our olfactory mechanisms are closely allied to our limbic system—the primitive part of the brain that oversees our emotions, our behavior, and our memories. The limbic system also rules our basic animal drives and influences our autonomic nervous system, hormones and sexuality. Being exposed to cosmetic counters, or sitting next to people who are wearing poisonous perfumes can make you feel confused, dazed, bad-tempered and deeply fatigued. So can wearing many well known perfumes and using other fragranced products in your home or workplace. It’s far better to make your own fragrances to wear—as well as to make your home beautifully fragrant—out of organic essential oils. Your health and your life will benefit, and this could help protect you from potentially destructive long-term damage to your body. WANT TO KNOW MORE? “Scent of Danger: Are There Toxic Ingredients in Perfumes and Colognes?” Scientific American September 29, 2012. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, Not So Sexy Examiner November 9, 2013 Environmental Working Group December 6, 2007 2 New York Times May 14, 2000 Business Week June 16, 2010 Psychological Science December 22, 2009

Get Your Free Copy Now But HURRY only 2500 downloads available I’ve just finished writing an e-book that is now up on the www.curaromana.com site. It’s called HEALTHY AND LEAN FOR LIFE. In writing this book, I have drawn on knowledge and experience amassed over more than four decades of researching and working in the fields of natural health and spiritual development. Some of what you will read in this book may shock you. Why? Because, since the mid-1950s, most of what we have been told about what is supposed to be a healthy diet has been nothing more than conjecture. Not grounded in solid research, current widespread beliefs about nutrition are not based on hard science but on many unproven hypotheses. GUIDE TO LIFE-TRANSFORMATION This book sets the record straight. It's a guidebook for transforming health as well as preventing and even reversing the Diseases of Western Civilization. It is also a testament to an important truth: Aging is meant to be a joy, not an experience of growing disabilities. It tells how to make this so. My wish in writing this little book is to bring to the thousands of men and women who continually struggle with their health and weight practical, simple information with which we can transform lives. In the pages that follow you will find life-changing discoveries, new ways of thinking and powerful cutting-edge technologies that can help heighten vitality, restore natural size and shape to your body, slow aging and bring greater freedom from degenerative diseases. Here’s a extract from the first chapter: JOIN THE HEALTH ELITE Informed people—among them some Hollywood stars and a growing number of the world’s top endurance athletes—know and make use of information that you will find in this book—stuff that most have yet to discover. I call them the health elitists. Their work requires an ongoing ability to access high levels of energy, creativity, freedom, stamina and good looks. Their goal is to live life at the peaks, no matter what their age. Living this kind of life is no longer the preserve of a privileged few. What I’ve learned in 45 years of researching and working in natural health, as well as mentoring people on Leslie Kenton’s Cura Romana, is this: Each one of us can change our current life experience into one of expanded wellbeing by drawing on the work of visionary scientists and leading-edge clinicians, and taking guidance from the finest pioneers in human health and development. Some of the information you’ll find in this little book stretches back to discoveries made more than half a century ago; other revelations are so new that they may be mind blowing. For the media, nutritionists and the medical profession as a whole have yet to pick up on them in any significant way. Make use of the tools, technologies, information and inspiration you find here. Put them into practice. You, too, can change your life for the better. For, when you supply your body and psyche with what they require to function optimally, your own innate powers for healing become activated and profound transformation begins to take place. GET IT FREE HEALTHY AND LEAN FOR LIFE is available for free right now to the first two thousand five hundred people who download it.  II want to share with you my intention in providing a copy of it free. I would love to know from you what else your would like to see in the book that is not yet there.  Menus? Recipes? More information? About what in particular?  I'm excited about doing this.  In the next three months, HEALTHY AND LEAN FOR LIFE will double in size, incorporating more practical advice about how to use the cutting-edge information it now contains. Then we will be selling it on Amazon and elsewhere. If you would like to share with me what more you would like to see in the book, do click here to download you FREE copy.  I would love to hear from you.

I have long been fascinated by numinous realms which we humans can enter for power, joy and to discover the nature of our unique essential being and let it guide our lives. For thousands of years, artists, mystics, and shamans have known the secrets of expanding consciousness to access spiritual wisdom, creativity, and bliss. These people—which have belonged to a relatively small group in cultures throughout history—knew how to access realms of wisdom and awareness which all of us can learn to move into and out of at will if we so desire. We can all learn to do this by activating what I call the consciousness matrix. This is the interface encoded within our energy fields, our cells and our DNA, which enables us human beings to tap into vast realms of spiritual power and authentic freedom, then allow these gifts to enrich our lives. Developing the skills to do this brings not just the idea but the actual experience of being ONE with all living things including the universe itself. In fact, the ability to do this is our birthright. Learning how to go about it gives you access to genuine spiritual experience. It also connects you to the unique soul energy within, enabling bridges to be built between the core of your being and your day to day life. Finally, this allows you to access your own unique view of reality. It teaches us how to trust ourselves, and introduces us to the exhilaration that comes with living life from the core of our being. ADVENTURE BEGINS All freedom comes from within. Live free and you feel fully alive. It is like taking a deep, spontaneous breath. It is like laughter. Freedom is also full of surprises. There is a boldness to it. You dare to say what you think and feel, yet are not afraid to listen to the words and hearts of others who think differently. So many of us get caught up in a need to conform to the ideal that has been projected onto us by society, our families, our education, or our religion. We long to be free, but do not know what this really means or how to find real freedom within ourselves. We often look upon power as something external to us, so we don’t learn how to trust our own values and spiritual experiences. We become liberated from having to conform to other people’s rules or the slavery of imprisoning ideologies. It even helps us to transmute the life-draining powers of addiction and crippling influences of unconsciously-held negative feelings and traumas which strangle the fulfillment of our dreams into usable energy. The freer we get, the more self-determining our life becomes, and the more exciting. Gone are the days of out-of-control stress and following the latest fad diet or exercise craze. You begin to sense what is right for you and follow your instinct. When huge challenges do arise, instead of appearing to be crushing forces, you can turn them into worthy opponents. You learn that wrestling with them helps you break through to an even wider experience of liberation. To do this we become not only able to live gracefully as five-sensory beings in a three dimensional world. We learn to move at will into multi-sensory and multi-dimensional reality. Then we can draw on the creative and healing power we find there allowing it to infuse our day to day lives with a clearer sense of direction and meaning. TECHNOLOGIES FOR LIBERATION Developing the skills for tapping into the consciousness matrix could not be more important at this moment in history. As we do, we are able to enjoy the highest levels of creativity, discover our own unique values, and access deep levels of truth within so we come to live our life to the full. Then we become able to work with others in ways that honors all life. In the past thirty years, I have studied, taught and worked with methods for expanding consciousness for healing, creativity, and authentic freedom. My goal has been to create programs which draw on the most ancient methods for accessing realms of expanded consciousness, then to marry them with leading-edge physics, biology, systems theory and the rapidly developing science of consciousness itself. I have been determined to discover technologies for liberation which are simple, well tested, practical and which, once you begin to work with them, can be used like a ladder can be for getting us to the second floor of a building and then be thrown away. I was never interested in creating some new system, or psychology or philosophy. I wanted to make something that would help people discover their own inner truth, spiritual perceptions and pathways as the ultimate authorities and then learn to trust themselves. My work with Journey to Freedom and my deep connections with shamanism—which I have studied, worked with and taught for a quarter of a century now, has always been focused on helping myself and others expand our awareness so we can draw on energy from the deepest levels of our being and learn to listen to the whispers of our souls. As we come to do this—slowly but steadily—we discover what real freedom feels like. The membranes of fear or self-condemnation, which surround us, become thinner and thinner so that our real values and desires from the depths of our being can be gradually set free to become the living realities which guide our lives. LISTEN TO THE WHISPERS It is only by listening to what I call the “whispers of your soul” that you learn to explore the consciousness matrix. They will help you discover the magnificence of your own being so you come to experience your oneness with all life. I’d like to share with you a simple, fun and powerful little exercise that I and countless others have used for years. The more frequently you practice it, the clearer do the whispers of your soul become. Practice this simple, pleasant little technique once a day for two weeks and you will sense that a bridge has begun to be built between the deepest levels of your being and your outer life. You discover your own place of silence and natural beauty—a sanctuary into which you can enter and return, no matter where you are or in what circumstances you find yourself. It is here that you can create the space which allows your soul to speak to you from the greatest depths. ENTER YOUR SANCTUARY Turn off your cell phone or take the landline phone off the hook so you won’t be disturbed for the next ten minutes. Sit on a straight-backed chair, or on the floor if you prefer. Take three or four deep breaths through your nose, letting the air escape gently through your mouth on the out breath. Close your eyes. Let your imagination run free. Allow your mind go back to some place in nature which you have seen and especially like. This is a place in ordinary reality, not somewhere from a dream or a story. It may be a place familiar to you, say at the end of your garden. Or it can be somewhere you have visited only once. When you’ve found the place you like, sit for a moment quietly remembering as much about it as you can. Now see what happens when you activate your senses. Just let yourself be right here and right now. What do you see, smell, hear, how does the air feel, how does the earth feel under your body? Do you sense the presence of any supporting energies or helpful beings here with you? If so, listen to what they are offering. Ask your soul to speak to you. These things may surprise you. Now, ask for whatever you think you need in your life right now. Then sit in silence in your wonderful sacred space and without judgment, pay attention to what you sense, hear, and feel. When you are ready, give thanks for whatever friendship or beauty you find around you and say goodbye for the moment to your inner sanctuary, knowing that you can return to it whenever you like. The more often you do, the richer the experience becomes, and the more clearly can you come to hear the whispers. Now, very gently, in your own time, open your eyes and come back into the room. BRIDGES ILLUMINATE This is important if you are to make good use of what you have experienced. Use a notebook to record what you have found— where you went, what you saw, felt, tasted, sensed. Who, if anyone, was there? What happened there? Did you get any answers to your questions? Record both the positive and the negative without judgment. Just let the words flow. Remember, this is not an essay for school. There is no right or wrong way of doing this. I suggest that you practice this exercise for ten or fifteen minutes each day. Then, at the end of two weeks, come back to your notebook and read what you have written. You may discover certain themes that have come up time and again. Sometimes they are things that you would benefit by addressing but have been putting off. Or you may discover something that you have always wanted to do or be but have never dared contemplate acting on. Such are the whispers from your soul. The more you listen to them, the more you will be able to move into the vast consciousness matrix and connect with the oneness of all life with all the possibilities it offers you. The more you connect with the depths of your essential core, discover your own truths and live them, the richer your life will become, no matter what your current circumstances may be.

Have you ever wondered what triggers your hunger? Sometimes even after eating a good meal? Then let me share some interesting truths with you. Hunger signals come from your brain’s appetite control centers. These are meant to tell you when you need to eat. The problem is that these days, control centers in most people’s brains no longer function as they are meant to as a result of the way we’ve been taught to live and eat in the modern world—masses of packaged foods, grains, sugars, and convenience foods filled with pesticides, chemicals, and health-destroying additives. So often we experience false hunger, which undermines health and makes many people fat. More about this in a moment. This false hunger is most of the time triggered by three situations: First, when your body is fatigued and is calling out for energy, you often turn to food in the hope that eating will revive you. Sadly, this seldom works. In fact, for most people, eating under such circumstances only increases your hunger instead of helping you handle it. Second, when your body’s in need of essential nutrients—a vitamin or mineral for instance—or, more often than not, needing a combination of nutrients that you’re not getting from the foods you’ve been eating—this also produces false hunger that is not easy to handle. Finally, when you’re experiencing negative emotions or are under a lot of stress, most people seek comfort from eating certain foods—especially grain-based carbohydrates like breads and pastas or foods full of sugars in the hope that these foods might alleviate their discomfort. The problem is that the very foods you seek for comfort only make you crave yet more carbs and sugars. Why? Because when you turn to grain and cereal-based carbs—from breads and pasta to sweet deserts—these foods create insulin resistance and blood sugar disorders. This leads to ever-increasing food cravings and addictions. These are the three most common triggers of false hunger, which undermines your health, decreases your vitality, and makes you feel lousy. False hunger is triggered by your hypothalamus and autonomic nervous system. More often than not, you are not aware that this is happening as you reach for food. Conventional weight loss diets use all sorts of pills, potions, and techniques in the hope of overcoming false hunger’s trigger mechanisms. Slimming diets tell us we should count calories. They tell us we have to work our bodies hard to keep from getting fat. They urge us to use brute force or willpower to overcome the impulse to eat. Of course, sooner or later, these methods fail. So what’s the answer? You won’t believe how simple it can be. Here’s how to manage these issues. When you feel hungry for no reason, stop and ask yourself if you are really hungry or just tired and in need of a rest...if only for five minutes. Drink a glass of good quality water, breathe deeply, and give yourself a time-out which you deserve. Stay away from packaged convenience foods. They deplete your body of vitamins and minerals, and are filled with hidden ingredients, including flavor-enhancers designed by manufacturers to increase your hunger while undermining year health. Learn simple practices for making stress your friend instead of being ruled by it. Then practice them. Eat REAL foods like fresh organic vegetables, and top quality proteins from fish as well as chicken and animals that have been freely grazed in pastures. Cut the quantities of grains, cereals, and sugars to an absolute minimum. Want to learn more? Download my new very comprehensive free book now (Stay Healthy & Lean For Life). The information it offers can literally transform your health and your life.

Very occasionally when someone goes on an active program of detoxification such as an apple fast for a few days, they have the experience of a severe headache at some time within a day or two, or of feeling moody, or having an upset stomach, a film on their tongue or teeth, even loose bowels. This is a sign that your body is throwing off wastes at such a pace that you are experiencing what is known in natural medicine as a cleansing crisis. In reality, it happens to very few people. If you are one of them, be glad, even though it may be a bit of a nuisance for a few hours; it is actually a good sign. Your body is taking the opportunity you have afforded it through what you are eating (and what you are not eating) of throwing off a lot of debris which you need to get rid of if you are to live at a higher level of health and vitality. If a cleansing crisis does happen, take the time to relax, lie down in a darkened room if possible, and be kind to yourself. Have a cup of peppermint tea - it is very soothing when you have a headache. If you can’t sleep, try a cup of chamomile tea, or eat a banana which is rich in the amino acid tryptophan, a superb natural sedative. Congratulations – it can be quite a feat to be ridding your body of so much old debris all at once. It will pass quickly, leaving you better than ever. caffeine trouble The people most likely to get a headache as part of a cleansing crisis are those who have been drinking several cups of coffee or tea a day. This kind of reaction is triggered by your tissues dumping a lot of stored caffeine into your bloodstream all at once in order to eliminate it from your body. The first time this happened to me I had been in Vienna for six days, where everyone drinks coffee – and very strong coffee too – all day long. Though not much of a coffee-drinker myself, I decided while there to go along with the custom. The day I left the city I got on to an airplane to return to London and my usual way of eating, and was struck down by the most appalling headache which lasted about four or five hours. It was no fun, believe me. But when it passed I was left with the most wonderful feeling of freshness and lightness – the way you feel on a beautiful summer’s morning when there is a light breeze blowing. This sense of lightness is a common one for people who for the first time begin to clear their system of stored wastes. It more than makes up for the headache or upset stomach which can herald its coming. clever compress Something I learnt many years ago from another doctor who uses natural methods for healing, is that if you are experiencing any kind of cleansing crisis, you can help your body enormously by putting a simple cool compress around your middle and leaving it there as you lie down for half an hour. This can also be done when you go to bed in the evening if you prefer. A cool compress stimulates the flow of blood to the area of the liver – another prime mover when it comes to detoxification – so speeding up the release of wastes from the body, and easing any unpleasant symptoms that come with them. Using a compress is also enormously relaxing. Tear a piece of cotton fabric (an old sheet is ideal) into a rectangular piece which is about fifteen inches wide and long enough to go comfortably around the middle of your body (between your armpits and hips). Wet this compress in cold water and wring out completely so it is only damp. Now, using a dry towel (or a piece of wool or thick natural fabric) which is also big enough to go around your middle and to overlap so you can pin it comfortably with a few safety-pins, spread the compress out on the outstretched towel. Now lay your naked midriff on this strip and wrap first the compress around you and then the towel on top, pinning it securely. Pull your clothes or nightclothes down over the lot, and pop into a warm bed for at least half an hour. Such a compress can be helpful not only for sailing through a cleansing crisis, but also if ever you find it difficult to sleep because of worry or stress. kidney power If you find yourself experiencing some uncomfortable symptoms during your apple fast, increase the quantity of spring water you are drinking. When the body’s water level gets too low, your kidneys don’t work efficiently and the liver has to take on too much of the cleansing work on its own. If you tend to retain water, this is often because you don’t drink enough, so your body tries its best to hold on to the water there is in order to dilute any toxicity in your tissues. Believe it or not, you breathe out about 2 big glasses worth of water a day. The kidneys and intestines eliminate roughly another 6 glasses, and 2 are released through the skin. So keep drinking – during a detox and after. We all tend to need more water than we drink for optimum health. It’s a good idea to keep a bottle or two of mineral water on your desk, or somewhere where you will see it often, to remind you to take in enough water each day. Here is a simple formula for working out the ideal quantity of water to drink each day for maximum energy and good looks. Divide your current weight in kilos by 8. (e.g. 58 kilos divided by 8 = 7.25). Round the figure up (to eight) and that is the number of glasses of water you need a day. This is just a base calculation of course. Drinking enough water is one of the most important things you can do day-in-day-out to keep your body eliminating wastes efficiently. Remember that you will probably need to take in more water than your base calculation when you are exercising or if it is a hot day. psychic detox Some people can get a temporary feeling of letdown on a detox. This is usually because the heart, having been stimulated by caffeine and other irritants, begins to beat more slowly, and the false exhilaration you used to get from stimulants temporarily turns into a feeling of being down. It doesn’t last long, and in most people it doesn’t happen at all. Sometimes, however, during a detox it can seem that all sorts of psychic junk suddenly gets released along with the physical toxins you have been carrying around. Feelings of anxiety, worry or guilt may surface with seemingly no reason. They will most likely just be flushed away with all the other junk your body is getting rid of. In the meantime, try putting a few drops of lavender or vanilla essential oil in an oil burner and enjoy their relaxing and soothing properties. Or put one or two drops of either essential oil in your bath and breathe in the fragrance. One of the nice things about this sort of detox is that you often find you think much more clearly after it. Stress does many unpleasant things to the body, one of which is that it can make your whole system acidic. An apple fast alkalizes your system, so bringing it back into balance, and throwing off the byproducts of stress in the process. When you are mentally stressed, your body becomes physically stressed through having to deal with all this toxic waste. Removing these toxic wastes can often mean that your ability to deal with more stress is greatly improved. You begin to see things in a much more positive light and can put what once seemed difficult problems into their proper perspective. relax and revive During a detox it is important to make sure you get enough rest. Think how good you feel after a holiday. It’s usually the one time when we actually allow ourselves to rest - something we don’t do enough of during the rest of the year. Rest is so essential because it is while you are resting that your tissues restore themselves. Without it, your body cannot properly restore damaged tissues. During a detox, your body is working pretty hard in eliminating all the rubbish you have allowed to be released into your system. Give it a break and make time for yourself to relax – and don’t feel guilty about it. Watch your favorite videos, read that book you’ve been promising yourself you’ll find time for, listen to all your old records, or just do nothing. This is a precious time; a time to devote to yourself and your body’s needs. Don’t waste it. During the day, whenever you can, lie down even for ten minutes and just let go. Or practice a simple relaxation/mediation exercise like this one: Close your eyes and watch your breath coming in and out of your body. With each out breath count silently. So it goes like this: ‘In breath… out breath… one… in breath… out breath… two…’ and so on up to ten. If you lose track or find that your mind is distracted, it doesn’t matter at all. Just go back to ‘one’ and start again. Carry this out for ten to fifteen minutes whenever you can find a few spare minutes to yourself. It helps to rebalance your body’s nervous system and can be useful if you have to deal with any negative emotions that surface during your detox.

Pain is what many of us fear most. We all know the misery that can come from a sore back, a throbbing headache or toothache, not to mention children’s earaches. All too many also know the immobilizing pain of migraine. Herbs and essential oils can reach out and help when pain strikes, and without the upset stomach and muzzy heads that over-the-counter treatments can bring in their wake. We’ve all done it—picked up something too heavy or twisted awkwardly—and suffered the pain of an indignant back. Essential oils really come into their own with back pain; use them to relieve muscle spasm and ease your mind. Essential oils of sage, thyme and rosemary all contain thymol and carvacrol, which are excellent muscle relaxants. Rosemary has the added advantage of being anti-spasmodic. Clary sage is also used traditionally to ease the pain of a pulled back. You can mix a few drops of one of these essential oils with a couple of tablespoons of almond oil, coconut oil, or walnut oil. Either massage it into the sore spot yourself, or allow someone you trust to do this gently for you. A warm bath will also help ease the tightness out of strained back muscles. Put a few drops of essential oil of rosemary or clary sage in the bath, plus 2 cups of industrial grade Epsom salts—simple magnesium sulfate—which you can find at a pharmacy in kilo packages or order much more cheaply over the net in big 25kg bags. Allow the essential oils to vaporize on the steam to help you relax all over. Stay in the bath for half an hour, topping up with warm water, to let the Epsom salts do their muscle-relaxing work. Then get out of the bath, dry yourself gently, and crawl into bed or lie down for 30 minutes with a good book. For my family, Epsom salts in huge bags are always in good supply. Aaron and I take an Epsom salts bath daily. It’s a practice which is not only health enhancing but deliciously pleasant.

You know the old saying: “Good things come in small packages.” Well, it’s true. Flower essences are sold in little dark-glass dropper bottles. Open one. You’ll discover that, unlike herbal tinctures or essential oils, the liquid inside—from a chemical point of view—is nothing more than water mixed with a little alcohol. This is the medium in which the vibrational energy of a flower (or a gem) has been preserved. You see, the healing power of a vibrational essence depends not on its chemical constituents, but on the frequencies and energies it carries—the spirit or soul energy of the flowers or gems themselves. ENERGETIC FIELDS Where herbs and essential oils bring about direct biochemical and physiological changes, vibrational essences—rather like homeopathic remedies—influence the body via its energetic fields and electrical pathways. So do acupuncture, pulsed electromagnetic treatments, prayer and the laying on of hands. They can all transmit vibrational life-force energy. Dyed-in-the-wool materialists, still totally unaware of fifth entity physics, are surprised by how profoundly healing such energy treatments can be. Provided the vibrational essence chosen is an appropriate one, its health-enhancing effects are deep and long lasting—sometimes even permanent. Let’s examine flower essences carefully. They are made from living blossoms, harvested at the peak of their vibrational power. They influence our emotional and mental states by changing our body’s own vibrational state as well as altering our consciousness. These changes then filter down to a physical level, where they can do many things: energize, stop erratic eating patterns, clear chronic fear and anxiety and increase self-confidence, to name only a few. They can even—to me most interesting of all—help us align our outer lives and the way we choose live them with the nature of our unique innate essential being. When this happens, not only do we experience natural joy and creativity, we experience a sense of expanding freedom. We find it easier to live life by our own rules. We gain access to our unique authentic power. This helps us become aware of what we feel most passionate about, and empowers us to live an authentic life. VIBRATIONS AND WHOLENESS Flower essence healing is only one aspect of what is now known as vibrational medicine—a form of treatment about which have been hearing more and more as the century 21st century develops. British physician Peter Mansfield, one of its pioneers, describes this rather well in his book Flower Remedies. “Vibrational healing,” Mansfield says, uses “the different energy patterns present in nature to modify the vibrations within living bodies, leading indirectly to changes on the physical plane. This encompasses on the one hand methods which use the vibrations directly—light, sound, magnetism etc.—and on the other, methods which involve the preparation of essences from the source of the vibration, which can be absorbed into the body.” PROOF OF THE PUDDING Psychologists and doctors examining the effects of carefully chosen flower essences report that they are completely safe. They can be remarkably effective in helping patients deal with simple troubles—like insomnia, low energy, and fear of flying—as well as deeper issues. Dr Jeffrey Cram at the Sierra Health Institute in California gave subjects either a flower essence or a placebo and then exposed them to stress-inducing fluorescent lighting for long periods. He found, that unlike the placebo which had little effect, flower essences significantly reduced the muscle tension and erratic brainwave activity associated with stress. Meanwhile, Italian medical researchers who tested the effects of flower essences on patients suffering from depression and anxiety found that a surprising 89 out of 115 anxious, depressed and stressed patients who took part in the experiment were greatly helped by flower essence treatments. MAKE IT SIMPLE One of the best practical descriptions I have come across of how flower essences work, comes from the highly respected American researcher, and flower essences creator, Patricia Kaminski. “Just think about a hologram,” she says. “Each separate part of a holographic picture contains images of the whole. This is how it can be used to recreate a three-dimensional image. So it is with a flower essence. One drop of a flower essence holds within it all the energy characteristics of the flower it was made from.” An essence carries the spirit or soul of the flower in its energetic architecture. It communicates this healing blue-print at a very deep level to the energy fields of a human being using it. VISIONARY DOCTOR The first flower essences were created in the 1920s by a highly respected British immunologist and bacteriologist. Dr Edward Bach had become dissatisfied with the way orthodox medicine so often seemed unable to help patients suffering from both chronic and acute illness. Studying the work of the father of homeopathy, Dr Samuel Hahnemann, Bach discovered that many of his own beliefs about the nature of healing echoed Hahnemann’s findings. Like Hahnemann, Bach insisted that it works best to treat the patient, not the disease. Early in his career, Bach prepared bacterial vaccines then administered them to people homeopathically. The results of his work were widely acclaimed by his peers. They carved out a place of high esteem for him in the medical world. The vaccines he made were widely used—some still are. But Bach was not satisfied. He knew in his heart that there is more to healing than treating symptoms. He was convinced that the most effective healing can only take place at the very deepest levels. Bach knew that mental states like anxiety, worry, unhappiness and fear not only undermine vitality, they compromise the immune system, making us highly susceptible to illness and degeneration. He reasoned that, if he could find methods for clearing such negative states, this might well be a key to preventing and curing both acute and chronic illnesses. No matter what symptoms it presents, Bach insisted that any illness is the result of disharmony deep within. RESTORING HARMONY In 1928, Bach began to explore the possibility that the energy of flowers could do this for human beings. He chose to turn his back on a successful career in London and retreat into the wilderness of Wales in search of ways to help suffering people. Bach fasted, he walked in the hills, he opened his mind and his heart to nature, calling out for her help. His intuitive gifts were greatly expanded by the way he was living and eating and by his having abandoned a sophisticated industrial world for raw simplicity. As he came face to face with one herb and flower after another, he became aware of the vast life-force each carried. He also noticed that the healing energies which each held intensified greatly at just the moment when these plants blossomed. Over the next seven years, he worked with these plants in search of a way of collecting their life-healing energies. Gradually, he was able to identify the unique characteristics of each and to understand the kind of disharmony which they help clear. He formulated a group of 12 now-famous flower remedies known as ‘Twelve Healers’. Later he went on to expand them until finally he ended up with a group of thirty-eight flower essences. They are still today known as the Bach Flower Remedies. HEALING FOR THE MASSES So impressed was Bach by the results he got using these flower essences that he decided to leave behind forever his successful orthodox medical practice to devote himself full-time to their development, as well as to teaching people how to use them. Bach had observed that people were becoming more and more divorced from nature—and therefore from their own essential soul nature as well. He believed that in an industrialized world, flower essences are an effective way to counter the destructive processes that resulted from “desensitization” of people which he saw happening all around him. This was a process which he became certain was central to the development of disease. His flower remedies helped re-establish bonds not only between people and nature, but between a human being’s outer personality and his intrinsic soul nature—his innate essence. Before long, Bach’s beliefs would lead him into serious conflict with the medical establishment—especially his insistence that flower remedies should be available to everyone, not just to trained medical practitioners. LIVE YOUR TRUTH The Bach philosophy is simple. It says that each of us has incarnated on the earth to live out a unique divine purpose—our soul’s destiny, if you like. When we are diverted from doing so, either by our own resistance or by learned thought patterns, trauma, emotional repression, inner conflict, or the influence of others, then our personality is not able to become a free expression of our unique soul energy and we get sick. We become anxious, fearful, irritable and angry, thereby lowering our resistance to disease. In time, depending on our genetically inherited weaknesses, we often end up in pain, ill, and degenerating rapidly. Illness, Bach insisted, has its purposes. It is there to warn us when we are going in the wrong direction—to help make us aware of what needs to be honored in our lives that we may not yet be honoring. To be healed, a harmony between our outer life and our inner purpose needs to be re-established. Flower therapy is a powerful way of doing this. Not only does it release stress and trauma. It can help clear repression of our innate life energy and creativity. Most important of all, it can help us realign ourselves with our essential being as well as with nature herself. When this happens, much illness is healed and many degenerative processes are reversed. FOUR-FOLD WAY To Bach, health is not the absence of illness so much as it is an ability to identify its messages and act on them. This does not mean that we should blame ourselves if we become ill. Doing so would only result in further emotional repression. Instead we need to become aware of whatever emotional discord hides beneath a persistent cold or stomach upset and then be prepared to address it and finally let it go. To Bach, healing is a four-fold process. It asks that we: Recognize that we can overcome all difficulties Realize that illness is an expression of disharmony between our outer life or our personality and our soul Discover the cause of this disharmony Clear the cause of disharmony and strengthen the areas in our lives where the expression of our soul nature has been weak. ALCHEMY OF FLOWERS Bach’s explorations into the healing power of flowers, like the work of Kaminski and other flower essence developers, harks back to the ancient art of the alchemists. According to alchemy, when the four elements—earth, air, fire and water—come together in balance then a fifth substance, a quintessence, is created. This quintessence in turn becomes the healing force for body and soul. Bach collected the dew that gathered on plants in the early morning. This dew, he believed, contained the quintessence he had been looking for. It was a perfect fusion of the four elements. In these sparkling drops, he identified the earth that feeds the plant, the natural air in which it grows, the water element in the dew, and fire from the energy of the sun—on which all life depends for its existence. In his healing work, Bach relied strongly on his intuition when figuring out how to work with these elements in relation to extracting the essential healing body of each flower. For days before he investigated the healing potential of a flower, he would himself welcome into his body the physical and mental symptoms of the condition he was seeking to make a remedy for. Then searching for the right plant, he would place a petal or flower in the palm of his hand or on his tongue, register its effects on mind and his body, and record his findings. Gradually he developed a method for transferring a plant’s healing energy to spring water rather than continuing to collect morning dew. It is simple: You can easily learn to do it yourself. To identify the emotional states that each flower essence helps clear, Bach relied on intuition, as has every natural healer, wise woman and mystic throughout the ages. But being a fine scientist, he also “proved” or tested them out on one person after another until he became clear about their actions and confident of their effectiveness. The best of the flower essences prepared today are made in very much the same way—inspired by intuition, observation, conjecture, folklore, herbal tradition, sometimes even shamanic journeying, where the person expands their consciousness to connect with the spirit of the flower and learn from it. Then, once made, each flower essence is rigorously tested on volunteers and colleagues, the sick and the well, and information about its effects is recorded. DEEPEST HEALING Flower essences have been in existence for almost a century now—ever since the visionary Doctor Bach wandered in the Welsh hills in search of a new way to heal the fundamental underlying cause of all illness—classic splits we all have to deal with sooner or later, between soul purpose and the outer life; between mind and body; between emotions and enforced behavior. It’s at this deepest level of human life that flower essences work their finest magic. They bring greater integration and access to authentic power. They can help us shrug off much of the polluting physical, mental and emotional rubbish that prevents each of us from living out the essential beauty and creativity of our true nature. Bach himself knew that once we heal these splits within, the body’s innate tendency to restore harmony will encourage healing to take place on a physical level as well. That is just how flower essences work. They are gentle yet powerful catalysts. They can not only be used to shift emotional or spiritual patterns which we get stuck in. They can also help us remember at the most fundamental spiritual level who we are, then teach us to allow our unique inner radiance to shine forth. Next week we’ll explore how to connect with the essence of flowers yourself, how to make your own flower essences—it’s simple to do—and all the wonderful ways to make use of them enhancing your wellbeing and enriching your life. See you then...