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Each human being is utterly unique. Like the seed of a plant which has encoded within its genetic material the potential for everything it can become as a full blown flower, each of us comes into this world carrying a package of as yet unrealized potential for energy, health, creativity and joy. I believe our purpose on the earth is very simple - to bring as much of our unique spark of divinity - our seed power - into full blown power. Our seed power comprises our physical, psychological and spiritual potential. It is what creates our uniqueness. The fullest expression of it leads to the fullest experience of authentic freedom. It is rather like the brushstroke a zen painter uses to represent a single leaf on a shaft of bamboo. The leaf he paints is totally singular – like no other leaf that has ever existed. Yet within its uniqueness is encompassed universal beauty and life energy of the highest order. So it is with each of us. Within the individual genetic package which is you is nestled your very own brand of seedpower – an essential soul energy that encompasses far greater physical, creative and spiritual potential than you could ever hope to realise in one life time. The more fully this seedpower is allowed to unfold the richer your experience of authentic power and freedom will be. So focused is the energy of spirit within a tiny seed that it opens and reaches towards the light, regardless of what is in its way. Once I pulled up a weed growing in my garden to discover within its roots a marble that had been crushed out of all recognition by the life-force of the growing plant. The wonderful thing about any little seed is that it doesn’t take much for it to develop into the plant it is designed to be: some good rich organic soil, a little rain and a dose of sunlight. For the power and the intelligence that makes growth possible lies not outside of it but within the seed itself. People – you and me, and the woman you saw when you got on the bus this morning - are just like plants. All we need is a good healthy environment which allows our unfolding to take place. painful distortions The problem is that few of us get it. For as we are unfolding - as we are passing through the superbly orchestrated phases of our physical and spiritual development - more often than not our environment does not provide the rich soil, clean water and sunlight we need for full unfolding. More often than not it truncates our development. Then, like a little plant trying to push through depleted soil with too little water and not enough sunlight our growth becomes stunted or twisted. Or like a seedling trying to push through earth with a stone on top of it we develop ‘distortions’. All sorts of things can cause distortions: accidents, illnesses, emotional or physical abuse. Even being raised in a wonderful family if you happen to be a ‘fish’ and the rest of your family are ‘ducks’. Distortions can be physical in nature - a sunken chest or an excess of fat which our bodies create as a cushion against a harsh world around us. They can also be emotional, leaving us with a sense that there is something wrong with us, that we cannot rely on our judgement, that we are unworthy, or incompetent or guilty even though we may have no idea why or how. And they can be spiritual. When we grow up in an environment which lacks an awareness of the interconnectedness of all life, when we feel ourselves to be isolated and living in a boxed-in world of the five senses, then we can end up with a nihilistic sense of life. We feel we have nowhere to go, nothing to do and no purpose in remaining alive. powerful values That’s the bad news. The good news is that, because of the enormous capacity of a living organism to heal itself, most of these distortions can be cleared through such practices as detoxifying the body, through meditation, through shamanic work that brings you closer and closer to your soul. Of course, some distortions can’t be cleared. I recently did some shamanic healing for a young man who had spent the first six years of his life trying to stay alive while all around him the Khumer Rouge threw people into open graves and shot them. I am not sure if the distortions that come from such an experience are ever cleared. They may be like genetic defects which remain with us throughout our lives. They may not, too. For I have witnessed many so-called miracles and learned that the universe moves in wonderful and mysterious ways. But what’s exciting about distortions that can’t be corrected is that, once we come face to face with them, they often bring us a deep sense of compassion and help us define the values by which we choose to live our lives. The young man I worked with has become highly skilled in working with abused children in war zones. I myself would never have been concerned with issues of health and freedom had I not had to struggle in my early life with chronic illness, depression, and straight jackets. the real McCoy Authentic freedom brings a sense of ease in being who you are - distortions and all. It is feeling OK about yourself and being able to make use of your creative power to bring your unique visions into form. It is feeling good about what you have created too. Tap into freedom and you release energy. You feel like you are connected to life with your whole being. You are no longer trapped within what Alan Watts used to call ‘a skin-encapsulated ego’. Freedom gives you easier access to some of the submerged iceberg of your being where creative power and joy live.

Our body and flesh falls victim to the very molecule which brings us life: oxygen. Of course we could not live without oxygen. In the special energy factories of each muscle cell, called the mitochondria, we use it to burn fuel to give energy. But oxygen in the wrong place, or used in the wrong way, can age you fast. For instance, in the presence of certain chemicals in the body, or ultraviolet light, collagen fibers in the skin can oxidize and become cross-linked, rather than remaining in orderly rows. In this way they lose their pliancy and you form wrinkles. When your skin wrinkles, when rubber windscreen wipers harden and crack, and when the hide of an animal is turned into leather by a chemical process, what has taken place is cross-linking as a result of free radical damage which is a phenomenon that occurs in the presence of oxygen and appears to be central to the aging process in the whole body. In effect cross-linking is simply a process in which undesirable bonds are formed in the presence of oxygen. These chemical bonds can be between proteins (as in the case of cross-linked collagen), lipids or nucleic acids which make up the cells' genetic material - the DNA and RNA. Some cross-linking is necessary in order to give your tissues strength and make them sturdy. But inappropriate cross-links which occur in the aging process only increase the risk of cancer, arteriosclerosis and a number of other degenerative diseases such as arthritis. As Johan Bjorksten, one of the world's most famous age-researchers who formulated the cross-linking theory of aging says, `many of these cross-linked molecules lead to agglomerates which cannot be broken down by any body enzyme, but will increase in the cell and gradually crowd out other constituents, thereby causing continued decline in the cell's activity and the ability to cope with stresses'. From an aesthetic point of view - how your skin looks - such a decline in cellular activity implies a slowing down of the reproductive process in the skin as well as the hardening and bunching together of the skin's supportive collagen which makes it prone to wrinkling and to sagging contours. what causes cross-linking? There are a number of powerful cross-linkers which have been implicated in the aging process in humans - chemicals or energy sources which increase the level of cross-linking and therefore the rate at which your body ages. They include ultraviolet light, acetaldehydes, ozone, ketones (which are found in the blood of diabetics and people on a high-protein carbohydrate-free slimming regime), heavy metal ions such as aluminum, lead and cadmium, X-rays and free radicals (highly reactive atoms or molecules which can form toxic peroxides that damage and destroy cells). Many common environmental influences contain chemicals which belong to this list. Acetaldehyde occurs both in cigarette smoke and as a common urban air pollutant. It is a potent cross-linker. So is the aluminum which may be absorbed through regular use of some antiperspirants, and cadmium, a build up of which can occur in your body when you drink coffee regularly. Drinking alcohol spurs the production of acetaldehyde in your liver which can trigger further cross-linking, as can eating any kind of rancid oil or fat, since these react with radiation or form free radicals as a simple part of their metabolic breakdown in your body. Lying in the sun or on a tanning bed (no matter what kind of ultraviolet rays manufacturers tell you have been filtered out) may well be the single most dangerous practice of all to your skin. It damages the genetic materials of the skin cells, the collagen, and the lipids in the cell walls by causing them to undergo several types of free radical reactions including peroxidation and cross-linking. aging and oxygen question Oxygen plays an important positive part in protecting the body from age-related damage too. `Maximum oxygen consumption' is the way scientists measure your body's ability to transport and make use of oxygen for cell metabolism. As you get older this ability decreases at the rate of about 1 percent a year. The lower your oxygen consumption the less vitality you have and the more susceptible you are to many illnesses. An aerobic exercise program followed regularly over a few weeks can recapture 40 years worth of oxygen capacity which has been lost through a sedentary way of life before. Vitamin E supplements of 600-800 IU a day can increase the utilization of available oxygen by as much as 40 percent. avoiding the cross-linkers Before you even consider what kind of nutritional defense you might make use of to protect your body from the cross-linking process, start by eliminating as many of its known causes as you can from your life - like exposure to the sun when your body is unprotected by a sunscreen, cigarettes, drugs and alcohol. Then you are ready to consider how you can make use of what is known about the `cures for the random damage free radicals and cross-linkers cause'. protection - the second line of defense It is almost impossible to live in a twentieth century urban environment and avoid all these cross-linkers. So the second move in combating cellular aging is to consider incorporating into your diet fairly large quantities of substances which have antioxidant properties - substances which have an ability to protect the body's genetic materials, proteins, from age-related damage. A great deal of research done in the past 30 years indicates that there are some very effective substances for doing this. According to many of the most respected age-researchers such as Bjorksten, Denham Harman, Al Tappel and others, eating properly and adding these substances to your diet can minimize the amount of free radical damage to your body. These `age retarders' are often called antioxidants because they have ways of combating damaging oxidative reactions caused by radiation, chemicals and free radicals. Some are substances which occur naturally in our foods, although you would need to take them in much larger quantities to make use of their anti-aging properties. They include catechols which are found in bananas and potatoes, the phenolics - found in grapes - vitamins such as A, E, C and members of the B Complex - especially B12, pantothenic acid, B6, and the bioflavonoids which occur in the white soft inner skin or pith of the peel of citrus fruits - as well as beta carotene and some amino-acids such as cysteine (available in eggs), tyrosine and L-dopamine, plus the trace minerals zinc and selenium. Many age researchers now recommend taking fairly high quantities of the vitamins, minerals, food substances and amino-acid `age retarders' as protection against free radical damage and cross-linking. stay away from the cross-linkers Don't smoke. Stay away from people who do, particularly if you are in an enclosed area or small room. Not only does the acetaldehyde cross-link with collagen, the benzopropyrene (another chemical in cigarette smoke) depletes your system of vitamin C, making it unavailable for the production of new healthy collagen and encouraging skin to wrinkle faster. Stay out of the sun unless your body is protected by a high potency sunscreen which filters out both UVA and UVB rays. Never allow your face to tan at all. Protect it with a total block when you are in the sun. (There are some excellent after-shave tinted moisturizers for men and gel make ups for women which give you the look of a healthy tan if you like without causing damage to skin - or harmless `instant tan' lotions). Beware of unsaturated fats. Not that your body doesn't need them, it does. But in small quantities only. Because polyunsaturates are so very unstable chemically, they easily become rancid (as do shell-less nuts which contain them incidentally). And rancid or highly processed lipids are dangerous. The best oil to use for cooking is cold pressed virgin olive oil, a monounsaturate which is remarkably stable. You can get other essential fatty acids from eating fish, shellfish, game, whole grains, avocados, nuts and seeds. Go easy on the alcohol. Better yet, give it up altogether. Not only does it trigger acetaldehyde production in your liver, it depletes your body's supplies of some of the most important nutritional 'protectors' against free radical damage and cross-linking vitamins C and B1. A glass of wine a day can aid digestion - but if you find you can't stop after a glass (and many people can't), then temperance is probably the best choice. Check on heavy metals. Consider having the presence of heavy metals in your body investigated. This can be done in a laboratory from a small sample of hair. An increasing number of doctors concerned with preventive care are using hair mineral analysis as a part of their diagnostic equipment. If high levels of heavy metals such as lead, aluminum, chromium, arsenic and so forth are found they can be gradually removed from the system by careful use of specific nutritional substances such as vitamin C, pectin - a form of fiber which occurs in good quantity in apples - and garlic oil. Banish deodorants. Avoid the use of antiperspirants containing aluminum salts which are absorbed through the skin. Give up drinking Coffee. Besides causing a build up of cadmium, the caffeine in coffee can cause other age-related changes.

We’ve inherited a fear of the sun. It has developed out of simplistic thinking and a commercially-fuelled set of false beliefs. Here’s the inside story: Ultraviolet light is NOT the fundamental cause of skin aging nor skin cancer. Exposure to the sun is not the main reason that skin wrinkles happen. And here’s some shocking news: The chemical sunscreens we now use to protect ourselves from wrinkles and cancer contribute to both. EXTRINSIC AGING Rough, loose, creviced, wrinkled skin, complete with irregular blotches—it’s known as photo-damaged skin or extrinsically aged skin. It is always blamed on exposure to sun. It is not exposure that causes it; it is the misuse of sun coupled with exposure to mounting levels of destructive chemicals that are the real culprits. To get a first-hand feel for what this looks like, take a look in the mirror at the skin on your bottom. It looks ten or twenty years younger than skin on your face. The difference speaks volumes about what extrinsic aging looks like. How do you avoid it? The ads tell us to smear on more sunscreens. The truth is far more complex. Extrinsic aging means skin damage triggered by external factors—high exposure to UV light from tanning beds or sitting in the sun at the wrong time of the day, chemicals in the environment, and—in many ways—the products you’ve been told to use to protect yourself from them. Mounting evidence indicates that many sunscreens contain carcinogens and that the rise of skin cancers parallels the increase in sunscreen usage Lita Lee, pHD BANISH SUNSCREENS Most sunscreen chemicals which should be protecting your skin from damage actually cause it. They eat up your body’s natural enzymes designed to guard against degeneration. A growing awareness of this in the cosmetic industry has led manufacturers to add free radical scavengers, like vitamin A derivatives and phytonutrients, to their sunscreen products. It’s a bit like sweeping dust under a carpet; this only hides the issue. Chemicals used in sun products and other toiletries do not belong in our bodies. As Rachel Carlson insisted half a century ago, their ubiquitous presence in animal bodies undermines health, vitality, and in this case, beauty too. COSMIC RADIATION The sun produces high energy rays from cosmic and gamma and X rays through longer, lower UV, infrared, microwaves and radio waves. Gamma and X radiation are mostly filtered out by the earth’s atmosphere, although flying in jets at 35,000 feet exposes your body to them in big quantities. This is one reason we need extra antioxidant protection when boarding a long haul flight. When gamma rays—which are also used to irradiate foods and sterilise medical equipment—hit water molecules in a living body, free radicals are generated in large numbers, important enzymes are destroyed and your skin’s natural protective ability is undermined. BREAKING THE WAVES The UV rays—most likely to trigger aging in an unprotected or polluted skin span from 190 to 400nm. They come in three varieties: UVA (320-400nm). Deep penetrating ‘silent-killer’ aging rays. UVA radiation can delve deep into the dermis and wreak havoc with DNA and collagen, triggering degenerative changes especially in light-colored skin, messing up the skin’s enzyme systems and cross-linking its collagen. UVB (200-290nm). Shorter, these guys penetrate more superficially. They can oxidize skin’s natural oils, dry it out and undermine its ability to protect itself on the surface. UVB are mostly responsible for burning. They are what chemical sunscreens try to mitigate in an attempt to prevent sunburn. UVC (280nm and shorter). Highly dangerous to skin. Most of these are filtered out by the biosphere, but you can be subjected to them from most office lighting. FACTS AND FICTIONS Photo aging got its name because it often develops out of excessive exposure to UV radiation. You see it in sun-worshippers on the beaches of Australia’s Gold Coast or California’s Venice Beach. Extrinsic aging mimics the destructive damage all skin is exposed to over time. This damage can happen fast when you hang out too long in the sun, especially between 11am and 4pm. Chemical pollution, long periods of intense physical activity, alcohol, cigarettes and drugs—just like excessive UV radiation—all generate high levels of reactive oxygen species in the skin: Super oxides, hydroxy radicals and hydrogen peroxide. These cause free radical damage, degrade and cross-link collagen, and help produce wrinkles, sags and age spots. Like the rest of these onslaughts, big doses of sun also accelerate the formation of advanced glycosylation end-products (AGEs) to interfere with cellular functions and make skin lose elasticity. However, the notion that sunlight is the bête noir in all extrinsic aging is absolutely untrue. REAL CAUSES Our ancestors were exposed to the sun’s UV rays for over a million years of evolution. The human body is genetically adapted to sunlight, and well equipped to handle it. The exponential rise in skin cancers began in the twentieth century—not in all those years of evolution. What’s happening? Two things. With each decade that passes, we are bombarded with higher and higher levels of chemical aggression in our environment, and forced to handle more electromagnetic pollution. Together they produce toxic build-up in our body, stressing its natural antioxidant systems and undermining our immunity. This triggers degenerative processes, increasing our skin’s sensitivity to UV damage. It also makes us highly susceptible to cancers. Yet we continue to assault our skin with more chemicals in the form of irresponsibly formulated cleaning products, herbicides and insecticides, and to use skin and body care products to deliver yet more chemicals directly to the skin. CHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL The standard protocol for sun protection is to smear on more chemical sunscreens. Selling them is a $3.5 billion a year business, and growing rapidly. We fear aging and skin cancer so we keep buying. Yet much of what we buy significantly contributes to the damage we are trying to prevent. Sun “protection” products come in two forms—chemical sunscreens and physical sunblocks. A few products contain both. Physical block products literally create a physical barrier of fine, non-reactive minerals on the surface of your skin, rather like micro-fish-scales. They reflect excess UVA and UVB back into the atmosphere instead of letting skin absorb it. They are good and not dangerous. Using them is like wearing a hat or a veil so the sun’s rays don’t penetrate at all. No commercial sunscreens have been proved safe. Their chemicals penetrate the skin into the circulation and add to the burden of toxins to be detoxified. Joseph G. Hattersley Chemical sunscreen products—most sun protection products fit into this category—are different. They do not reflect. They absorb UVB and UVA rays, allowing them to penetrate your skin. Many chemical screens these days have begun to target UVA radiation as well as UVB, but the “sun protection factor” (SPF number) you read on a product’s label will have been calculated entirely by how much UVB radiation the chemicals it contains are able to absorb. Unlike physical sunblocks, chemical sunscreens “absorb” the UVB radiation in an attempt to neutralize. They are rapidly used up in the formation of new chemical compounds which your skin then has to find ways of detoxifying from your system. WAY TO GO To protect yourself from aging and cancers, you need to limit your use of chemically-based sunscreens. Better still, throw them out. Go for a mineral-based sunblock, or use one of the new mineral foundations every day. Based on physical agents like titanium oxide and zinc oxide, these products reflect the light instead of relying on chemicals to ‘absorb’ and transmute it. They are safe, inert, and protective. Other physical screens are commonly used by surfers, skiers, cricketers, and tennis players. But choose your block carefully. Unless the mineral fragments have been milled into micro-particles, they can make you look a bit like Marcel Marceau. GET SAVVY ABOUT THE SUN Here are some important things to remember about tanning and how to protect your skin from extrinsic aging and cancers: There is no way to get a safe tan. Never use a sunbed. They filter out UVB burning rays but let the UVA in deep. They are automatic aging machines which increase your risk of melanoma. SPF numbers don’t tell you about UVA protection from wrinkling and aging. Most only deal with UVB protection against burning. For the safest protection from aging and burning, read labels. Shun chemical sunscreens in favor of physical sunblocks—products based on micro minerals such as titanium dioxide or zinc oxide which won’t absorb the sun’s rays or react with your skin. Apply a sunblock a quarter of an hour before going out into the sun. Water resistant products are not what they seem. Their effectiveness is compromised by sweat and swimming. Reapply your sunblock often. If you are or have been using any kind of AHA’s, Retin-A or Renova or any other pharmaceuticals on your face, cover it with a hat as well as a physical sunblock and don’t spend a lot of time outdoors. Never get sunburnt—the damage it causes continues to get worse for 24 hours after the initial burn appears, and when the burn has been severe, can last a lifetime. Think twice before taking oral contraceptives or HRT. Use of these hormone-based drugs is correlated with a three times greater risk of sunburn and skin damage. Take a tip from the Arabs, who know a lot about sun protection. Cover your body well when you plan to spend long hours outdoors. Always wear a hat. Use one of the excellent non-reactive mineral-based makeup products on your face which last all day, look natural, cover your skin and reflect UV rays, while making your skin look fabulous. Devita Solar Body Block SPF 30 Natural, Safe, and Inexpensive Buy Devita Solar Body Block SPF 30 Jane Iredale Mineral Makeup GLOW TIME™ FULL COVERAGE MINERAL BB CREAM Glow Time comes in six great colors, covers blemishes, minimizes pores, disguises wrinkles and smoothes and brightens skin while providing SPF 25 UVA?UVB PA++ Buy Jane Iredale Mineral Makeup

A search for intermittent fasting on Google turns up more than 4 million results. PubMed lists almost 500 research articles on the subject. Great stuff. And, in the midst of all the kerfuffle, websites and books keep popping up riddled with conflicting information and advice. Some of it is useful. Too much of it is just plain confusing for someone seriously wanting to put this eating style into practice. As a result, many people dive into this way of eating with great enthusiasm only to discover that it turns out to be very tough for them to sustain it for more than a week or two, no matter how much they grit their teeth and keep trying. Whether you call this much talked about eating style meal spacing, intermittent fasting or some other name, it is by no means new having been practiced in one form or another for a century or more by those in the know about the gifts it can bring. A T W Simeons, the original creator of Cura Romana, wove it skilfully into meal planning during the rapid weight loss portion of his protocol. On Leslie Kenton’s Cura Romana, meal spacing/intermittent fasting is incorporated both into the Essential Spray+Food Plan part of the experience and Consolidation. Participants learn as a matter of course how, if they wish, they can structure this food style into their way of eating for a lifetime of lasting weight control, high level health, and protection from the degenerative diseases now plaguing our planet. BACK TO THE FUTURE Since Cura Romana is a holistic, science-based no-hunger protocol which brings balance to the control centers of the brain, eliminating food cravings and unnatural hunger, the process of integrating meal spacing into a participant’s life is simple. In fact, it takes place almost automatically thanks to the profound shifts in biochemistry which the program brings about quite naturally. Sadly, this is not case with a lot of people who, on their own and without the benefits of Essential Spray+Food Plan want to initiate meal spacing/intermittent fasting into their life. Many write to me saying that they struggle hard when trying to eat two meals a day without snacks. Some make the mistake of attempting to do this while continuing to eat all the wrong kind of foods. Others report that they fail, no matter what they do. Then, full of disappointment and self-criticism they revert to the ways they were eating before. I passionately believe that the benefits of this eating style need to be available to everyone. What is missing in so much written and talked about is practical information about how to approach meal spacing/intermittent fasting so you can gently ease yourself into it and become familiar by experimenting with an introductory plan. This will make you free to make a choice as to whether or not you want to make it a permanent part of your life. LET’S GET PRACTICAL There are some important questions which need to be answered before you even begin: What’s the best way to approach meal spacing/intermittent fasting? What kind of foods do you need to eat to reap its benefits and which foods should you avoid? What benefits can it bring? And, most important of all, how do you go about gracefully easing yourself into such a dramatically different way of eating than what you have been used to? First here are some important things to get straight: Dieting with calorie restriction—eating less and exercising more—is forever doomed to fail. It just doesn’t work at all for lasting weight loss. The success of meal spacing/intermittent fasting in no way demands that you count calories. The notion of calories-in-calories out is nonsense. So is the belief that you need to eat three meals a day. This has been foisted upon us for generations. It is wrong as is the idea that we need to eat regular snacks. The truth is that your body needs regular periods free of meals and snacks for health and lasting leanness. This need is implicit in our genetic inheritance. As such it is to be honored. Eating too often, which most people do, forces the body to keep up with on-going levels of glucose that are continually shunted into the blood. This creates a relentless inflammatory load which in turn leads to degenerative conditions including obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, and destructive distortions to blood lipids. It also forces your body to age rapidly. Even short periods of fasting daily—from 12 to 18 hours—help keep insulin spikes down, while increasing insulin sensitivity. Metabolic processes gradually begin to normalize, reducing dangerously high blood glucose levels at the same time. For meal spacing/intermittent fasting to work for you—for them to help keep you healthy and lean for life—you must completely avoid convenience foods. They are filled with artificial sweeteners, colorings, flavoring, and hidden GMO components. Eat only real food—fresh green vegetables, wholesome proteins such as eggs, fish, and meat, plenty of good fats such as organic coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil and butter from cows that have been pasture grazed. WHEN TO EAT When it comes to exploring meal spacing/intermittent fasting, success on every level depends on your creating an eating lifestyle that works for you. By the way, when you begin to space your meals wisely day after day this directs the protein hormone insulin—which plays a central role in healthy metabolism by removing potentially toxic excess glucose from the blood—to direct the blood glucose into the liver and muscles where it can be turned into energy, rather than laying it down as fat deposits. Most people leave out breakfast altogether. They choose to eat two meals a day, spacing them so that they allow at least 5 to 6 hours after their first meal, say brunch or lunch, before eating their second. No snacks are allowed. Doing this enables the body to increase its levels of an important peptide hormone—Human Growth Hormone (HGH)—produced by the pituitary gland. Bit by bit it brings gifts such as helping to reduce body fat, increasing muscle mass and enhancing bone density. Of course, this takes time to develop so be patient. The second meal of the day becomes an early dinner, after which they begin their longest period of fasting which lasts through the night. It needs to be a minimum of 12 hours but many people find that once they have got used to their new eating lifestyle, they want to extend their night fast to as long as 17 hours. No snacking, of course. Provided they are eating the right kind of foods, once they establish for themselves the best pattern of meal spacing to suit their lifestyle, they find themselves feeling vital and not hungry between meals. They are also delighted to be looking and feeling better than they would ever have thought possible before starting to eat this way. WHAT FOODS TO EAT Here are foods to choose any meal spacing/intermittent fasting eating style: A good supply of wholesome natural fats like coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil and butter—preferably from grass-fed cows. Top quality protein foods including meat, seafood, eggs and the very best micro-filtered whey if you like to make smoothies. Plenty of fresh green vegetables—preferably organic— both to eat raw and to cook. Some low-sugar fresh fruit such as berries. For vegetarians, Tempeh, miso and other fermented soya products are excellent. If you decide to use tofu, make sure it is organic. More than 95% of soy beans today have been genetically modified. You do not want to put GMO foods into your body ever. For a complete list of foods to eat—as well as those you want to shun forever—download a free copy of my Healthy and Lean for Life. The first part of this book is available free to download from www.curaromana.com You’ll find it at the bottom right hand corner of the home page FOODS TO SHUN The most significant change to human diets in two million years began with the Agricultural Revolution where man went from a carbohydrate-poor to a carbohydrate-rich diet as cereals and starchy vegetables began to enter our food chain. The more these carbohydrates have been refined and processed, the more problems they have caused us. During the 20th century, an overwhelming increase in cereals, grains, sugars and high-fructose corn syrup used in convenience foods have become the major triggers for obesity and chronic illness. In the nineteenth century, we ate between 10 and 20 pounds of sugar per person per year. Today per capita we consume between 150 pounds and 200 pounds a year. So this is little wonder. For more than half a century food manufacturers, intent on making profit, have been producing a great variety of so-called foods by fragmenting and reducing raw material foodstuffs—grains and seeds, fats and sugars, vegetables and legumes—to simple “nuts and bolts” ingredients. Then they whip up these nuts and bolts into the manipulated “convenience foods” which fill our supermarket shelves—from ready-to-eat meals to candy bars, cakes, breads, and cereals. This tuff now makes up 75% of what the average person eats. Because such foods have been whipped up using grains, flours and sugars, junk fats and chemical additives—all of which you want to avoid when creating your own meal spacing/intermittent fasting food style—you will want to steer clear of them altogether to reap the benefits of your new eating style. BEWARE THE PERILS OF CONVENIENCE White flour and sugar-based convenience foods have an ultra-long shelf life. This suits food purveyors intent on making a profit. Yet such packaged foods are little better than junk foods—often devoid of any nutritional value other than calories. Even the fats used to concoct them are not the natural fats that we thrive on. The highly processed fats most of them contain, together with the masses of chemicals used as flavorings, colorings and preservatives, are far removed from the foods your body needs for health. It is little wonder that human beings who eat them year after year—even those in economically privileged countries—do little more than survive. You will never succeed in creating a meal spacing/intermittent fasting food style for yourself unless you get rid of convenience foods from your life. EASE YOUR WAY FORWARD Anyone new to meal spacing needs to experiment before diving headlong into making dramatic changes in how, when and what you eat. So, next week, I’ll give you a simple and easy-to-begin way to help you experiment with creating condensed eating windows in your own life which that suit your appetite and ability to cook. I’ll suggest meal structures and provide you some of my own recipes. It is high time that the many gifts of meal spacing/intermittent fasting to be available to anyone and everyone genuinely wanting to make use of them.

There are many other powerful helpers readily available to give a hand with banishing cellulite. Some of my favorites are: The Cactus Connection Another powerful adjunct to breaking down cellulite and keeping your system clean is drinking the biogenic—life generating—juice of the aloe vera plant. Aloe vera is a beautiful cactus. Used externally, you will find nothing better than pure aloe vera juice as a base for your own anti-cellulite treatment (see below). Used internally, it appears to help detoxify the body in general, enhance digestion so that wastes do not build up in the system, and improve the quality of micro-organisms in the large intestine, which help protect immunity and keep the body clean. But it is useful against cellulite in other ways as well, thanks to its being rich in proteolytic enzymes. These enzymes appear to help with the breakdown of necrotic, hardened, protein-based connective tissue that is essential to eliminating cellulite, although that remains to be proven. It has, though, been recently discovered that aloe vera juice enhances the development of capillaries and circulation in general, reduces water retention and inflammation, and speeds up cellular reproduction in skin. In order to make use of aloe vera’s healing properties, you either have to use the juice fresh from the cut leaves of a cactus which is at least four years old, or it has to be carefully processed at extremely low temperatures to preserve its biogenic properties. Find the best aloe vera juice you can, keep it refrigerated and use it within a month. While beating cellulite, take a small glass of pure low-heat processed aloe vera juice on rising, between breakfast and lunch, and between lunch and dinner, as well as just before you go to bed. Silica Silica plays an essential role in the development and maintenance of cellulite-free flesh. When there is an adequate supply in your body, this brings a high level of support to the metabolic pathways responsible for the production of strong new collagen, elastin and ground substance in skin. A woman’s daily requirement of silica is rather high, at 20-30mg. Organic matter in the soils should, by rights, break down readily available inorganic silica in the ground and render it available to us through the foods we eat. Unfortunately, high-tech farming methods have destroyed much organic matter in our foods, so that our fruits and vegetables are now depleted of silica. Modern food processing then tends to remove even the little that is left. As you get older, the amount of silica present in your body decreases year by year. There is only one, extremely rich source of organic silica known to man: horsetail. Never take powdered horsetail, as it is extremely irritating to the intestines and very little of it will be absorbed by your body. Find a good natural organic silica supplement instead. Most women notice a difference to their hair and nails within 3 to 6 weeks of beginning to take between 2 and 6 tablets of organic silica a day. The benefits on the inside to connective tissue will be happening at the same rate. Plants from the Depths Another source of plant complexes particularly useful in banishing cellulite and re-establishing good body ecology is the sea. All seaweeds—from kelp to dulse, to nori and kombu—are rich in the minerals which your body’s metabolic processes require to function properly. A good supplement of sea plants which have been collected from unpolluted waters and then ‘atomized’, or broken into very fine particles, can offer another source of important metabolic support on any anti-cellulite regimen. Seaweeds tend to have very hard cells walls, and unless these plants are extracted or their cell walls are exploded, much of the metabolic treasure they contain remain unavailable to the body. They are also, of course, delicious to eat. Buy them dried and crumble them onto soups and salads. DIY Cellulite Lotion The active ingredients in the best of the cellulite creams, lotions and oils include a number of potent herbal extracts to help enhance circulation, encourage fat burning, restore integrity to damaged capillaries, decrease water-logging and improve firmness. They include things like silica derivatives, free-form amino acids, herbal extracts from butcher’s broom to horsetail, and even caffeine, which, when applied in the right form to the surface of the skin, has been shown to stimulate fat burning. All of these products need to work with a whole body program, and most of them are expensive. You can make one of your own at a fraction of the cost. It is true it won’t have a sweet cosmetic smell like the others and, because it contains herbal extracts which are brown in color, you will need to be careful not to stain the white bathroom rug when applying it. But it works a treat. Here’s how Take 1 small bottle of aloe vera liquid (350ml). Add to it 25ml of liquid extract of fucus vesculosus and 25ml of kola liquid extract. Shake well. Keep refrigerated. Apply twice a day to cellulite-prone areas of the body after a bath or shower, then, using one of the special anti-cellulite gloves, mits or rollers available in most pharmacies, gently go over those areas of your body.

Deep within you lies a font of endless creativity. The most powerful force for freedom and fulfillment in any life, every human being has literally been made in the image of creation. How freely we are able to allow this sacred creativity to pour forth determines how rich our lives can become. It may even decide the future of our planet. This most sacred creative force can provide us with whatever we need to meet the challenges facing us in a world which increasingly appears to be edging towards chaos. And, just in case you think that when the gifts of creativity were being passed out, they bypassed you, think again. Sacred creative power is by no means only available to those who can write a book or paint a picture. It shows itself in how you think and function, in how you relate to others, as well as how we are able tocreate for ourselves the lives we long to live. Why is creativity sacred? Because, set free, it permeates every aspect of your life, lighting it up with wonder and possibility. Discovering and releasing your unique creative power enables you to turn difficulties you face on their head, transforming them into opportunities. YOUR BIRTHRIGHT Few of us come anywhere near to tapping our creative potential. Too often it is burnt out of us by education, or parental and religious training which teaches us to trust outside authority, undermining our abilities to trust in ourselves. It is time to reclaim our creative birthright. When we do, we discover a sense of purpose. Then we can call forth the support of the Universe to fulfill it. Health improves. We come to look upon our life as a great adventure which goes on expanding, year after year, towards greater fulfillment and satisfaction. Let’s now take a short journey through the mysterious labyrinth of sacred creativity. Hopefully it will inspire you to discover some truths about your own creative potential in all its magnificence. Doing so can carry us out of a life of dry responsibility and duty—sometimes tinged with disappointment, addiction and compromise—towards a pathway to authenticity, personal power, and freedom. SACRED CREATIVITY REVEALED Fifty years ago I first became fascinated by the creative process. I spent 4 years writing my first novel, Ludwig: A Spiritual Thriller. In the middle of the night, I would sit for hours on the floor in a corner of my little study listening to every piece of music Beethoven ever wrote, over and over again, always asking the question, “Where was his consciousness when he created this?” During that period I read a dozen books a week. In the beginning, they were biographies of Beethoven. I took a course in harmony and counterpoint since I knew little about either, and I felt I needed to understand more about how music is constructed. Then, for reasons I could not figure out, I found myself immersed in researching shadow governments and what was really going on in the world behind the façade of mainstream media. I kept saying to myself, “Why on earth are you learning about all this stuff when it has nothing to do with Beethoven?” What I did not realize then was just how incredibly complex and multidimensional every human being’s creative processes are nor how they work to expand and inspire our lives and our goals. For, by the time I finished the last page of my novel, every scrap of information I had amassed from my research, including what I had learned about the shadow world of political control and deceit, had all come together in ways I could never have imagined within the book to make it whole. The experience of all this brought new meaning and purpose into my own life. The bottom line is this: Once you decide to commit yourself to what you long to do or be or make in your life, and then follow it through thick and thin, this not only releases creative energies from within; it transforms your life in wonderful ways you could never have imagined. CREATIVITY: LESLIE’S PRINCIPLES Here is a short list of what I’ve discovered about the creativity within each of us: Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure creative vitality. Our creative dreams and yearnings come from the very core of our being. As we move toward our dreams, we move toward our divinity. There is an underlying in-dwelling creative force seated in the body which infuses all of life— including ourselves. When we seek the creative core within allowing its energy to permeate our body, we call forth sacred gifts and bring their transformative power into our lives. Creativity is the Divine’s gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to the Divine. The refusal to be creative is counter to our true nature and the greatest impediment to a fulfilling life. When we open ourselves to exploring creativity, we open ourselves to the unending support of universal energy. For creativity is always aligned to universal creative power so we can receive its endless gifts. As we open the sacredness of our creativity, many gentle but powerful changes start to take place in us and in those around we love. It is safe to open ourselves up to greater and greater creativity. Cross the threshold into your creative world, and you enter the realm of the imagination—the place in which intention can create reality. In this magical place, most of the day-to-day rules and reassurances that help us feel safe and comfortable fall away to reveal life of a different order—wilder, deeper, more authentic and unpredictable. Here’s how the adventure begins. DOORS OF PERCEPTION Human beings are, first and foremost, creators of their own lives. We do this either consciously or unconsciously. When we create consciously, we envision something close to our soul and then dance with it until out of the union—more like a love affair than anything else—our creations are born. When we create unconsciously, our creations come from a view of life that has been distorted and polluted by conditioning. The secret is to cleanse the doors of perception so that you are able to envision clearly and create what, from the deepest levels of your being, you want in your life. It is the simplest, the most challenging, and the most satisfying thing any human being ever does. What do you want to create? MEET THE DAEMON Take one part vision, mix it with methods for shifting consciousness, and a willingness to meet your Daemon and dance with it. Enter this dance of fire in a state of rapture, sometimes ecstatic and others daunting, but always exciting. In ancient times, the daemon—indispensable to creation—was considered to be a spirit of genius. Like the muse, he or she acted as an interface between you and the divine. Like nature herself, the daemon is neither good nor bad. The Greeks believed each of us was given a daemon at birth as a guardian spirit, useful in connecting earth with heaven. Through your daemon, the transcendent becomes the commonplace. A vision is tempered, honed and shaped. You are asked to fall in love with whatever you want to bring into being. Artistic visions take form. Relationships find new birth. So does everyday life. What do you love enough to want to bring into being? DANCE WITH YOUR DAEMON A willingness to do this, initiates a delicate, all encompassing, erotic process of transformation. It asks that you surrender to the dance, and at the same time maintain awareness of your separateness. This is not a loss of self, it’s a kind of cellular metamorphosis—a remembering through your subtle body who you really are. It touches your bones, your flesh, your muscles and your heart. Out of the depths of this union, destructive energies can be transformed into sheer power for creation. It’s a fascinating process—one to carry you back and forth from the very depths of your soul to the lofty heights of invention. Living it transforms an ordinary existence into a life of passion. WASTE DISPOSAL OK. So each of us comes into this life with the natural capacity to create. Indeed, that is what we are here for and what makes us unique. But our educational system, our parental and religious training—the very hierarchical structures of work and society—too often pollute our consciousness with destructive notions, lack of self-belief and an imprisoning sense of limitation. These things teach us not to be creative, not to listen to our inner voice, not to trust our visions. It is authority we are taught to bow down to. All these false notions distort our natural creative powers and truncate them, leaving us frustrated and often not knowing what is wrong. So we collect more money or lovers, crave more status and long for more holidays—none of which can fulfill the deep longing in every human being to exercise his or her birthright: To create one’s own destiny and realize our deepest dreams. HONOR THE WHISPERS Uncovering and making use of your own creative energies brings a willingness to witness what is happening to you and around you, without passing judgment and without negating whispers from your soul. Each thing you create exists in some form in consciousness before it is ever made—within your own mind to be sure, but also in the collective unconscious. This is what Plato described with his forms, and what Michelangelo knew when he chiseled a hunk of marble to allow the form he insisted was hidden within it to emerge. Creativity demands an abundance of life energy, clarity of mind and emotion, and the stamina to see something you really want to happen right through to the final moment when it does. This energy depends not on age but on aliveness. EMBRACING CHAOS All creativity demands that we enter the realm of chaos. Here the creative intention coupled with a sense of compassion for yourself and for all life, can be used to harnesses chaos and bring to birth what we you dream of creating. Good science (and, these days, little that is called “science” can claim to be valid) has much to teach about the process: Bohm’s explicate implicate order, the quantum leaps of physics, Prigogine’s bifurcation points, open systems, and dissipative structures. These visionaries have themselves made new maps of the mysterious creative process, and can help you make quantum leaps to higher orders of being, greater power, creativity and authenticity. PATH TO WHOLENESS Creativity at the highest order bursts forth from that part of your being in which you are most whole—aware simultaneously on an intellectual, instinctual and physical level. It embraces the presence of the rational thought, but it insists that reason not overstep its boundaries. With active intuition and a feeling of wonder, you enter the passionate creative dance that can become fruitful beyond your wildest dreams. Every time you choose to do this, you gain greater skills in making this fecund state of consciousness a familiar and bounteous part of everyday life. Such is the splendor of the mysterious and sacred power of your own creativity.  

I am fascinated by stories—especially mythic tales. I have an obsession with them. Wonderful myths inspire us, open us to new ideas and help us connect more deeply with the essence of who we are—warts and all. There is one particular myth which I adore. It is not only relevant to a man who can spend a lot of energy trying to understand what the woman in his life wants, it is also valuable to women. This fun story always makes me laugh. Only when the irrational feminine within both men and women is embraced and its will honored can any of us, man or woman, come to live in wholeness. The most difficult task most of us ever come up against is that of accepting the part of ourselves which we find most ugly and loathsome. Yet, locked within what we most hate or fear about ourselves lies the greatest power for our transformation. The tale is beautifully told in the Arthurian grail myth of The Loathly Lady. WHAT WOMEN WANT One Christmastide Arthur rode out with his knights to hunt. By chance he became separated from his companions and found himself at the edge of a great brackish pond. There a knight in black armor emerged from the shadows and challenged him to a fight. Arthur reached to draw his sword Excalibur and call on its power to protect him from all harm. Alas, he had come away from court without it. He could feel every ounce of strength drain away from his body in the presence of the dark and evil stranger who raised his sword and threatened to kill him. Being a responsible king, of course, Arthur told the dark knight he didn't think that killing him was such a great idea - he had a country to rule after all and knights to look after. Where would they be without him? The stranger, bored at the thought of such an easy kill relented and replied, "OK, I won't kill you so long as you return to this place in three days with the answer to a riddle I shall give you. If you fail I shall remove your head in one full sweep." Arthur agreed. He figured that given half a chance and a mug or two of mead, his pals back at the castle would be sure to come up with something. The riddle the stranger posed was this: "What does every woman want?" So Arthur headed home to ask all of his knights and wise men to give him the answer. Everyone from Merlin to a goose girl he met along the road had a go. Each gave him a different answer: "A woman wants beauty," said one. "A woman wants power," said another, or fame, or jewels, or sanctity. None could agree. Time was running out. Finally, although he had done his best to hide from his beloved Guinevere the seriousness of the situation, the third morning arrived. Bound by his word of honor to the Black Knight, Arthur had to face the music. Along the road to the meeting at the brackish waters Arthur came upon an old woman. She sat on a tree stump by the side of the road calling his name. FACING THE HAG Arthur dismounted and approached her with all the courtesy he could muster. For the closer he came the more ghastly this old hag appeared. Although she was dressed in fine silk and wore magnificent jewels on her gnarled and twisted hands, she was unquestionably the most hideous thing he had ever seen—or dreamed of for that matter. Her nose was like a pig's, her mouth was huge toothless and dribbling. What hair remained on her head was greasy, and the skin all over her misshapen and bloated body was covered in oozing sores. Arthur swallowed hard, forcing himself not to have to look away. "My Lord," she said in a surprisingly gentle voice, "Why look you so dismayed?" Summoning up all his chivalrous training, Arthur apologized for his manner, trying to explain it away by telling her he was most unsettled at the prospect of returning to meet his death at the hand of an evil knight because he could not tell him the answer to the riddle, "What does every woman want?" "Ah," said the hag. "I can tell you that. But such knowledge cannot be given without payment". Arthur, hoping once again for a reprieve from death, replied, "Of course Madam, anything you desire shall be yours for the answer—even half my kingdom." The Loathly Lady made Arthur bend down while she whispered a few words in his ear." The moment Arthur heard them, he knew his life and his kingdom had been saved. He was about to leap on his horse again and ride off to meet the stranger when she tugged on his cloak and said, "Now I want my reward." "Of course Madam, what is it that you want?" he asked. "I want to be the wife of your bravest knight and live at your court." Arthur, who only a moment before had felt his spirits soar was plunged into the deepest despair. How could he possibly expect any knight to consent to marry such a hideous hag. And what would it be like to have to endure such ugliness every day at court? WHERE TO TURN "But Madam, that is impossible!" he said. The words slipped through his lips before he could catch them. Aghast at his own lack of courtesy and agonized by having to ask any of his knights, Arthur said, "I beg your pardon, Madam. You are quite right. Come to court tomorrow. There waiting for you will be your future husband." So saying, he mounted his horse and rode off to meet the Black Knight to convey to him the answer to the riddle. When he got back to the castle, Arthur was distraught. The knights questioned him. He confessed that he had won his life from the Black Knight but then told them at what cost and reported his promise to the Loathly Lady. "My very honor is at stake," said Arthur, wringing his hands "unless one of you will agree to wed her." His knights were horrified at the prospect and tried to avoid his gaze. But one—the youngest knight of all—Sir Gawain, the most courageous and purest of heart stood up. "Worry, not my liege," Gawain said, "I shall save you, I will marry the woman no matter what her mien." Gawain did not have long before he rued his offer. The marriage was planned for the following morning and the hag arrived at court. When he looked upon her, even Gawain with all his chivalry did not know how he could go through with the ceremony. It demanded every ounce of his courage. Somehow he managed it. But things got worse. When the festivities were over, the couple were obliged to retire to their chamber for the night. Gawain, unable to face the hideousness of his wife, sat for long hours in their bedchamber with his back to the lady, writing at his desk and praying she would go to sleep without him. Was he to spend the rest of his life shackled to such a hideous monster? THE TRANSFORMATION Long past midnight, as the candle burnt low, he felt a hand come to rest upon his shoulder. "Will you not come to bed now, my Lord?" a voice whispered from behind him. Shuddering with horror Gawain mustered his courage to look at her. To his astonishment there stood not the ugly hag he had married but the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She had golden hair and ivory skin. "Why do you seem so surprised, My Lord?" she said to him. "I am indeed your wife. I was enchanted by a wicked magician. But now the enchantment is half broken by your having consented to marry me and so you see I stand before you now in my true form." Gawain could not believe his luck. "Half broken?" he asked. "Yes, my lord" was the reply. "Sadly I am only allowed to spend half the time in my true form. For the rest I must return to the shape of the same hag which this afternoon you married. And now you must choose, my Lord. Would you have me be my true self at night when we are alone together and the hag during daylight hours?" Gawain, whose mind was flooded with passion at the thought of her beauty filling his bed each night replied eagerly, "Yes, that is certainly how it must be." In the eye of his beautiful lady appeared a tear. "But Sir," she said, "Would you then have me suffer the humiliation of the court who cannot conceal their horror at my ugliness?" Now Gawain, if he was nothing else, was compassionate. He could not bear to bring this beautiful woman a tear of sorrow. "No, of course not," he replied. "It shall be the other way round, of course. You shall be my beautiful wife for the court during daylight hours and the hag at night." But this only made the lady weep the more. "Oh sir, would you then deny me forever the joy and pleasure of your embrace?" She asked. HOBSON’S CHOICE Poor Gawain, who after all was but a man (and man has never found it easy to deal with woman's grief) did not know what to do. After much thought he replied, "My lady, whatever choice I make will be the wrong one. It is therefore for you to choose which you prefer." At the sound of his words the Lady threw herself into his arms in glorious laughter. "In so saying, my Lord, you have given the right answer. You have bestowed upon me what every woman wants—her own way. The spell at last is broken. You will never have to look upon the hideous hag again. I am my true self and it belongs to you forever." Such is the power of accepting that which to ourselves is most loathsome. And great is the power of myth in reminding us of it.

One of the simplest ways of meditating, this technique involves nothing more than just being aware of your breathing. But don't be deceived by its simplicity. It is a potent tool for stilling the mind and regenerating the body. And concentrating your awareness on the breath is not as easy as it sounds. You need to find yourself a quiet place where you will not be disturbed. You can sit cross-legged on the floor with a small cushion underneath you, or you can sit in a chair if you prefer, but your back should be straight. This straight-back position is a requirement for many meditation techniques, since it creates a physical equilibrium which makes calm mental focus possible. Let your hands rest quietly in your lap. count your breaths Close your eyes. Take several long, slow breaths, breathing from your abdomen so it swells out with each in-breath and sinks in again when you breathe out. Now rock your body from side to side and then around in large, gentle circles from your hips to the top of your head. Rock in increasingly smaller circles until you gradually come to rest in the center. Now breathe in and out through your nose quietly without doing anything to your breathing - that is, don't try to breathe deeper or slower or faster, just breathe normally. With each out-breath count silently to yourself. So it goes: in-breath, out-breath `one'...in-breath, out-breath `two'... and so on up to ten, counting only on the out-breath. When you get to ten, go back and begin again at one. If you lose count halfway, it doesn't matter. Go back and start the count at one again. Counting isn't the point. It is a way of focusing your mind on your breath. After fifteen minutes - sneak a look at your wristwatch if you must - stop. Sit still for a moment, then open your eyes and slowly begin to go about your everyday activities again. If you are like most people, the first few times you do the exercise you will find you lose count often and you are frequently distracted by thoughts or noises. It makes no difference. It works just as well anyway. Each time some random thought distracts you, simply turn your mind gently back again to counting the breaths. Distractions don't change the effectiveness of the meditation. The exercise, like most techniques, is best done twice a day, morning and evening. A beginner will usually notice positive results by the end of a week, but they become increasingly apparent the longer you go on doing it. Some Buddhist monks do this exercise for two or three years before beginning any other form of meditation. beyond relaxation Once you are familiar with the practice of deep relaxation or meditation and with all the benefits it can bring you, you might be interested to go on to investigate other, more complex forms of meditation. There are many, for meditation is not a word that is easy to define. It takes in such different practices. Some forms such as zazen or vispassana (sometimes called insight meditation) demand complete immobility. You sit watching the rise and fall of your abdomen as you breathe, and whenever your mind wanders you gently turn it back to this observation. This simply concentrated attention, which can be likened to the `continuum of awareness' in Gestalt theory, is capable of bringing up many repressed feelings and thoughts that have been stifling your full expression and of liberating them. The Siddha Yoga of Muktananda and the chaotic meditation of Rajneesh, where the body is let go to move as it will, are examples of this sort. They often involve spontaneous changes in muscle tension and relaxation and in breathing, and they demand a sense of surrender to the physical body for the release of the mental, emotional and bodily tensions. These kinds of meditation can be particularly good for someone with a tendency to be physically rigid. Then there are the visualization meditations such as those used in Tibetan Buddhism in which you focus your mind on a particular image, fine-tuning it to the specific beneficial energies or influences this symbol carries (the creative imagery techniques in the next section are also an example of this kind of meditation). They have been used recently to cure serious illness and also in the sports world to improve athletic performance. Another form of meditation is that of "mindfulness," where you go about your daily activities simply being aware of each thing that you do, as in Gurdjieff's "self-remembering," shikantaza or mahamudra. These are just a few of the possibilities worth investigating if you want to go further. Each has something worthwhile to offer, and the mere act of learning a new method and the set of ideas and attitudes that go with it can be an exciting experience as well as tremendously beneficial.

My first child was born in a huge teaching hospital in Los Angeles. The labor was long and regrettably not natural. I was given an analgesic during labor and an epidural for the delivery. It was all very cold, efficient and mechanical. The hospital I was in happened to be a Catholic one in which every other woman there seemed already to know the ropes since she was giving birth to her fifth or eighth or tenth child. Nobody bothered to tell me much about what was going on or what was expected of me. My baby was taken from me immediately after the birth and put into a nursery with all of the other babies while I was wheeled off to a private room. Soon they brought this tiny creature to me. I held him in my arms and stared at him in stark wonder. Then at three hourly intervals he would reappear for twenty minutes at a time and I'd hold him in bed beside me until the nurse would come and take him away again. The third or fourth time they brought him to me, he began to cry. I nestled him, rocked him, and spoke gently to him but he wouldn't stop so I rang for the nurse. `My baby's crying,' I said, `What should I do?' `Have you burped him?' `Burped him?' `You have fed him haven't you?' `Fed him? Am I supposed to feed him?` The nurse took him and put him to my breast. His tiny mouth opened and reached for me as if he had known forever what to do. He began to suck with such force it took my breath away. It was like being attached to a vacuum cleaner. I began to laugh. I couldn't help myself. It seemed incredible that such a tiny creature could have such power and determination. He too had a purpose. He was raw, insistent and real. With every fiber of his being, this child was drawing his life and he would not be denied. Tears of joy ran shamelessly down my cheeks while he sucked. There in the midst of all that clinical green and white, I had discovered what love was all about. It was really quite simple—a meeting of two beings. The age, the sex, the relationship didn't matter. That day two creatures - he and I — had met. We touched each other in utter honesty and simplicity. This experience was for me a true epiphany. My life was forever altered by it. There was nothing romantic or solemn about it. No obligations, no duties, no fancy games, and you didn't have to read an encyclopedia of baby care to experience it. We'd met, just that. Somewhere in spirit we were friends. I knew beyond all doubt that I had found something real and real it has remained.