mindfulness

Heavy emotional stress from anxiety, resentment or depression can drain us of energy. Such delinquent influences also lower your immunity, make you vulnerable to catching colds and flu, and susceptible to premature aging and the development of degenerative conditions. For lasting high energy the energy thieves in your life need to be cornered, collared and dealt a fatal blow. the energy drainer scenario A woman is in a job which she hates. She feels unmotivated and resentful (inner energy-drainers). After work she goes out to drink (alcohol-addiction drainer). Sometimes she drinks too much and this creates friction with her husband (relationship energy-drainer). She feels bad about herself as a result of arguing (emotional energy-drainer). Her poor self-image leads her not to care for herself (poor self-esteem energy-drainer). She eats badly (biochemical energy-drainer). She feels worse and suffers depression. Nothing in her life seems to work and she has nothing to look forward to... You see the pattern. She is stuck in a rut. The energy-drainers have stolen her personal power and she can only see everything in the worst light. Now let's look at the flip side. Energy-enhancers tend to attract other energy-enhancers, creating positive feedback loops and making you feel empowered and in control of your life. Compare the following situation with the previous sketch. the energy enhancer scenario A woman is in a job which she hates. She discovers an inspiring exercise class (physical energy-booster). The class makes her feel good about herself and inspires her to eat better. (biochemical booster). She loses a few pounds, feels better in her body and begins to dress in a more flattering way (self-esteem booster). She meets some new friends whose company she really enjoys (relationship booster). As her self-esteem increases, the people she works with begin to appreciate her more. Her job becomes more enjoyable (work booster). She feels excited about her life and confident about looking for a new job, something she will really love. Identifying your own blockers and drainers, and making the choice to let go of even one or two, sows the seed for more positive feedback loops in your life. It is an important step to take in accessing more core energy and developing your personal power. Sometimes even awareness itself is enough to get the ball rolling. wasting anxiety On an internal level few emotions drain energy like anxiety. While you dash about (either physically or in your consciousness) feeling unsafe and unstable and trying like mad to make everything all right, you deplete your body and your creativity. Where there is anxiety there is a high level of electrical, electropositive magnetic activity and chemical acidity which affect the sympathetic nervous system and encourage feelings of fear, irritability, nausea and headache, as well as an inability to concentrate, muscle pain and insomnia. Even minor attacks of nervousness can dramatically undermine your work performance and make it almost impossible for you to enjoy yourself. Anxiety is frequently related to food allergies. Realigning your diet can help. So can physical exercise which calms electrical and chemical overactivity, replacing it with a more balanced energy, which you can call on, and a feeling of mental and physical well-being. Depression can be a big energy-drainer as well. Sometimes depression develops as a result of blocked emotions which you may not even be aware you are feeling - like grief. Often depression is rather like an anger turned in on yourself to block you from doing harm to anyone else. To break through and release the energy that has been blocked by depression you may need to examine your experience of depression carefully as well as change your lifestyle. Resentment, too, can be an enormous energy-blocker. Anger immediately felt and expressed keeps energy flowing. As adults we tend to swallow our anger, turning it into resentment. Fear can also block energy. In a measurable physical way it freezes you into inactivity and makes all things seem impossible. So can negative feedback loops. When you feel low in energy you tend to attract energy-drainers which in turn attract other energy-drainers and before you know it you find yourself caught up in a negative feedback loop. You feel helpless - a victim of circumstances over which you have no power - and you lack the energy or the incentive to break out of the loop.

Every human being is brimming with creative power. Creativity lies at the core of what it is to be fully alive and vital, so each of us can express our unique visions as gifts to all life. I believe it’s time to set free our indestructible passion to create from the core of our being. I believe that we are all being called to do this, not only for our own sake but also for the sake of all beings and the Earth itself. I am excited about answering the call. Are you? Creativity is a mind-body-soul experience. It demands that you have access not only to your intelligence and to the layers of your psyche of which you are consciously aware, but also to the whole of your being, including what is commonly called the unconscious mind. Most of us have been taught to ignore the unconscious parts of us. To some degree this may be a result of Freud’s insistence that the deepest layers of a human being are a repository of repressed desires that need to be codified, pathologized, and treated. It is this belief that, for better or for worse, has propelled tens of millions of men and women into psychotherapy in the past hundred years. As a result, most of us still live with the lion’s share of our potential for creativity and freedom unavailable to us. Meanwhile, beneath the vast ocean of what it is to be fully human, our creative powers slumber is crying out for us to awaken it. Then, when the founder of depth psychology, Carl Jung, came along, he announced what every creative artist discovers for himself or herself: Freud’s “fearful unconscious” is in truth a realm replete with visions, archetypes, insight, and soul—all of which are fuels for our creative fires. Once we embrace the depths of our psyche and learn to work with them, we can access the gifts they hold and live our lives from a foundation of authentic freedom and power. Jung insisted that a person’s interior life not only merits attention but also calls for dedicated exploration, which is exactly what he himself did and then recorded in his fascinating and posthumously published Red Book. Thanks to more than half a century of exploration, Jung came to see the human psyche—both conscious and unconscious—as an inherently spiritual and fluid medium—a magnificent ocean in which we humans can fish for enlightenment, creativity, healing, and personal transformation. Jung then went on to discover that the dreams, myths, and archetypes that reside in our unconscious are highly personal to each of us. We are also given access to what Jung called the collective unconsciousness; that is, to archetypal realities that are not only personal but also universal. Now this is revolutionary stuff. It speaks of truths few people ever consider, unless they happen to be one of the visionary artists, thinkers, or scientists who discover this for themselves in the course of their work. The men and women who do discover all this for themselves are never willing to buy into the general consensus of what is taken to be reality. They prefer to strike out on their own, determined to enter uncharted territories and discover for themselves what treasures can be found there. Then they tend to bring these discoveries back, using them to fuel their work and transform their own lives as well as the lives of others. Invariably, when someone is courageous enough to question the stuff that the rest of us take to be true, they discover whole new realities. I have a passion to explore the nature and power of creativity from every angle possible in this blog. I hope you will join me through your own journeys.

Authentic freedom develops when you life from the the core of your being. It is all about discovering what you chose to incarnate on this earth to do or to be. Why? Because this brings each of us the greatest joy and satisfaction possible. After all, we can only collect so many BMWs, university degrees, and new lovers. All of these things are nice, but none of them leads to true freedom. Freedom is the birthright of every human being. Deciding you deserve your own is the first step in claiming yours. For many of us this is also the most difficult step to take, for it means deciding to respect and honor yourself enough that you allow freedom into your life. Doing this enables you to bring the very best of yourself to your day to day life—in your family, your community, the earth as a whole. Mind Body and Spirit ARE ONE When people begin Cura Romana, they experience their body as something separate from themselves. Their minds are filled with the false idea that changing their weight and their lives can never be more than a dream. Then they learn otherwise. They discover just how connected it’s possible to become at every level, and how exciting it can be to live one’s life in wholeness. As the program brings together body, mind and spirit in a harmonious way, you begin to experience a natural lifting off and clearing away of limiting beliefs and false notions that have dogged you, bringing a new sense of self-respect and authentic freedom to your life. This process greatly clarifies and expands our experience of the world around us too. For every blinkered view of reality blocks freedom, entraps creativity, limits bliss and disconnects us—not only from our essential nature, but from the Universe as a whole, in all its beauty, wonderment and the power it can bring for growth and transformation of our lives and our world. AUTHENTIC POWER IS YOURS Connecting with who you really are, accessing authentic power, and living your freedom requires that you expand your consciousness in a major way. In this chapter we explore the way that, as human beings, we have a natural capacity to move beyond our limited experience of five-sensory three-dimensional reality—how we can learn at will and with total control to enter the expanded realms of consciousness. In doing so, you begin to learn about your own seedpower—those divine, highly individual soul qualities which are unique to you. WORLD VIEW REVOLUTION The new expanding worldview is called holism. It looks upon the nature of the Universe as holographic. It was named after the work of scientists who demonstrated that living organisms are integrated energetic systems within an integrated Universe. They showed that our brain and body are holographic. Each small part of us, like each part of the Universe, is not only connected to the rest, it actually embodies the nature of the whole within it. The tension between the new holism and the old mechanism—which depended on a belief in separation between spirit and matter, form and substance—is important to resolve if we are to break out of whatever self-imposed prisons still limit our lives. Each of us is being asked to let go of our preconceived notions about what’s real, in order to explore the further reaches of a wider, more exciting and transformative Universe. And for reasons I still don’t fully understand, Cura Romana has become the perfect opportunity for most people to let this happen. DANCE YOUR FREEDOM To experience real freedom you need only allow more and more of your essential soul nature into your everyday experience of life— through dance, through ritual, through prayer, through your work and your relationships, and in your interactions with the world around you—in ever more direct and fearless ways. Such freedom not only brings an immense sense of joy and satisfaction, it’s also self-perpetuating. The more you do of this, the easier and more satisfying it becomes. There is nothing more fun than being who you really are. Learn to dance with freedom, and the Universe dances with you. A true expression of living your mind body spirit truth.

We live in an age where discipline is often looked down upon as something which interferes with spontaneity and freedom - something old-fashioned and stifling to life. We tend to rebel against it. But the kind of discipline needed for daily practice of meditation or deep relaxation tends - far from stifling one's ability to be involved in the spontaneous business of life - actually to free it. At first it may take a little effort to get up fifteen or twenty minutes earlier each morning and afternoon to practice a technique, but you will find it is well worth it. The most common excuse is that you don't have time, but the reality is that practicing twice a day for fifteen to twenty minutes will give you time, not take it from you; for you will find that you do everything with greater efficiency and enjoyment, and that far less of your energy is wasted on fruitless activity. Studies show that every minute you spend in a deeply relaxed state yields a fourfold return in the energy you have in your outer life. connect at the core A daily meditation practice gives access to energy resources from deep within through the process of allowing. Regular meditation helps improve your concentration and focus so that you are able to pour all of yourself into whatever activity you undertake. Anyone who has erratic energy ups and downs and mood swings can benefit considerably from meditating for 15-30 minutes a day. The traditional way to meditate is sitting cross-legged on a cushion on the floor. (Raising your bottom a few inches off the ground helps align the spine and is more comfortable.) You may find it helpful to adopt the Buddhist practice of placing the back of the left hand in the palm of the right one, and it is often helpful to meditate in the same place each time.

It is not easy to live in our 21st century world full of suffering and confusion for many. The challenges we now face worldwide have come about from the long-term rejection and degradation of the Sacred Feminine. The Sacred Feminine is the mysterious source of all life, the wellspring of all creation, and we have forgotten this. Its creative power exists in men as much as it does in women. The Sacred Feminine carries great wisdom, sensitivity, and a tender love for all life. It respects the need for suffering and vulnerability, for deaths and rebirths. It asks that we embrace life and preserve it. In all its wildness, the Sacred Feminine brings to us the ability to unify body and soul, spirituality and politics, the human and the divine. Yet most of us have lost touch with the Sacred Feminine. It’s time to regain it, and there is no better place to begin than to move into the world of women and see what we find there. A WOMAN’S LIFE So great are the demands on women now—many of them self-imposed—that we are often in danger of losing track of our own soul and of burning ourselves out. There is no place for the old female rituals in our lives. In other cultures—among the Native Americans, for instance—women would leave the tribe for a few days each month to enter the soul realms and experience the Moon Lodge during menstruation. There, in the presence of other women, they gave themselves permission to enter altered states of consciousness, to restore their energies, and to express the wildness of their own creativity—a creativity which, at the dark moon time of menstruation, has nothing to do with nurturing or relating to men or to children. We in the Western world have no such opportunity. Instead, many women, unaware of the value of venturing into the soul realms where dreams, instincts and wild energies abound as a way of reconnecting with personal meaning, choose to “control” their moods and cycles by taking hormones—not only to avoid unwanted pregnancies but even to regulate events so that a business meeting doesn't come up in the middle of a menstrual period, when they might not be as rational or socially acceptable as at other times. Then, sooner or later, every woman gets moonstruck. When it happens, the ordinary world in which she has been living is rent asunder. She is being initiated into the wild and wonderful mysteries of the Sacred Feminine. Menopause has arrived. A LOST WOMAN "Isn't it wonderful?" the editor of the woman's page of a national newspaper said to me one day, "Science has finally conquered women's biology.” “What are you talking about?" I replied. "Oh, you know," she went on, "It's great. We don't have to menstruate anymore and we don't have to have babies thanks to the Pill. We don't even have to go through menopause or get old now that we have HRT. At last, women are set free from their biology. I'd like you to write a piece on it." It took me a few seconds to recover from the shock of hearing an intelligent woman voice an opinion so far away from my own sense of what the nature of the Sacred Female is about. I knew there was no point in even discussing the issue. I said that the idea didn't grab me and walked out of the office literally stunned by how carelessly this poor frazzled and confused woman could dismiss a million years of inherited female creativity, wisdom and blood. She had done it with the wave of a hand and the swallow of a pill. Then, almost as an obituary, she had proposed a 750 word article on modern women's new-found “freedom”. At the door I turned to look at her. There sat a haggard 35-year-old who looked 50, hunched over her computer smoking cigarettes. Three years later someone told me she had just had her womb removed. SUFFERINGS OF THE WASTELAND The editor's sense of freedom, like much of the so-called “freedom” we hear about, is certainly of a very limited kind. Since all freedom is won at a price, I cannot help wondering how high a price we are paying and if it is real freedom at all—or is it a new form of slavery dressed up for make-believe? I know too many dynamic, successful women who appear to have everything. Yet, when you sit down with them alone—away from the glitter of their busy lives—they describe feeling out of sync with themselves. A sense of sterility and stagnation permeates their lives, and they carry a feeling of emptiness and even of betrayal, yet from what and by whom they rarely know. Many have aimed for the top and arrived. So now what? Where is the next challenge, the next battle to be won, the next social occasion? Like the editor, they tend to pack their days with duties and appointments, always uneasy that if they stop for a moment they might let somebody down or their lives might fall apart. PERILS OF LOGIC Just as our mothers and their mothers before them embraced the expectations of their culture that fulfillment would come through being a good wife, a good mother or good servant, women now have taken on another cultural stereotype. We have learned to do things logically. We have largely bought into a male stereotype based on the attainment of academic, financial or artistic success. We have thrown ourselves headlong into the male world, and many of us have “made it” within that world's terms. Yet in the wake of our success, we often find ourselves pursued by a confusing sense of barrenness and despair that further achievement in the world, new love affairs or the prospect of a facelift can do nothing to cure. It is at this point that many women, myself included, first hear the call to adventure. It comes as a powerful challenge to leave the ordinary world in which we have lived decades of our lives and set out in search of answers: Why did this happen? What was wrong? What secrets have we forgotten, and what connections had we lost, in our obsession with doing things and our tendency to opt for chemical control of our body's cycles? And what are we missing out on? BACK TO SOURCE How could we, as women, continue to buy into values and ways of living which not only didn’t serve the coming to fruition of our own talents and our capacities for joy, but were inexorably destroying the earth? Where had all our real freedom gone, and our power—not power in the masculine sense of power over, but in the feminine sense of power to? I delved deep into the past in search of archaeological findings and archetypal connections that might give clues to just what as women we had lost, and how any of these lost treasures might be rediscovered. This led me into the realm of myth and ritual. I discovered that the two worlds—the world of science, with all its shifting biochemistry and rising and falling hormones, and the world of myth, peopled with archetypes, symbols, goddesses and rituals—not only met, they are blended within a woman's body and psyche. And where they meet is a cauldron of blood. SACRED BLOOD According to written records, since the beginning of human history, the power of creation was believed to reside in the holy blood that pours forth from a woman's body. It ebbs and flows with the waxing and waning of the moon. Blood has always been credited with magical power and with containing the essence of a person's soul—"one's lifeblood". Medieval physicians believed that a woman's menstrual blood could cure leprosy and act as an aphrodisiac. For centuries, both male and female rituals for receiving the gifts of the Sacred Feminine involved ingesting menstrual blood: It was mixed with red wine and taken as an alchemical drink. Ancient Egyptians, Celts, Persians and Taoists in China all held similar beliefs about menstrual blood, and carried out similar rituals. In Ancient Greece during planting festivals, women mixed their menstrual blood with corn seeds, then spread them upon the earth for fertility. In the 17th century, when William Harvey wrote his famous scientific treatise on circulation, he referred to the flow of blood through the body as the coursing of spiritual power. Even our word “blessing” is derived from the Old English bloedsed, which means bleeding. HARMLESS AND FREE Menstrual blood and the blood of childbirth are the only kinds of blood given freely—that is shed without wounding. Not only metaphorically but speaking strictly from a scientific point of view, human life cannot be created without the blood in a woman's womb. So profoundly did an awareness of the power of a woman's blood touch the lives of primitive people that native words for menstruation carry connotations of spirit, divinity and magic—of the supernatural and of the sacred. Ancient Hindus taught that all life is created out of the congealing of Great Mother's menstrual substance, which had been worked and thickened to form curds or clots from which the crust of solid matter emerges. Their goddess of creation, Kali-Ma, “invited the gods to bathe in the bloody flow of her womb and to drink of it; and the gods, in holy communion, drank of the fountain of life and bathed in it, and rose blessed to the heavens.” INSTINCTUAL SEXUALITY The sexuality of the genuinely free woman is the sexuality of sheer instinct—the wildness of the Sacred Feminine set free. It is she that calls a woman into the secret places of the woods and provokes her to dance naked in wild abandon. Hers is a sexuality to be used in any way she chooses—in union with another; as power to heal the earth and all its creatures in need of healing; or alone to generate the alchemical meeting of male and female within her own body. She will be what she is, she will have what she wants. She is neither passive nor submissive, and her sexuality also has nothing whatever to do with bringing physical children into being. The Sacred Feminine’s eroticism is sheer ecstasy, lived for its own sake, and sheer creativity. She creates in an uninhibited, animated, fiery way, which emanates from the soul of a woman or a man. Such sexuality is the fuel for all creative powers in the world. It carries with it the energy of regeneration and of healing for the world. It is the kundalini power—the rejuvenating cosmic illumination, the power of the serpent, the sacred fire which heals. LIGHT OUT OF DARKNESS As the Sacred Feminine gains entrance into the body and psyche of a woman or a man, it illuminates one dark corner of his or her psyche after another, lifting away all that is old and dead and without meaning, the way kundalini energy rises up within a body to illuminate each of the chakras. Their power becomes the power to leave behind what is dead and useless to make way both for personal rebirth and renewal to the natural world. It is the indomitable creative power that lies sleeping in the consciousness of both men and women. Perhaps more urgently than ever before, the Sacred Feminine now calls to us to remember who we really are, and all the creative blessings we have, which the world around us needs so very much. Never in human history has it been more urgent that we listen and respond, for our own sake and for the benefit of all beings and all living things on the earth.

We are poised at a moment in history where one age is dying and the next is about to be born. Each of us is being faced with a choice. As we sense the foundations of our world shaking, do we withdraw in anxiety and try to hang on to what we once believed to be “the way things should be?” Do we become paralyzed, and attempt to cover our fear with apathy? Or do we embrace the courage being offered to us by a Universe in flux, and, step-by-step, commit ourselves to discovering who in essence we are at the deepest levels of our being and decide to live our lives from there? How do you feel about this? Can you to honor your instincts? Will you choose to face the challenge of entering into the realms of your innate creative power and forging a new life for yourself in the midst of all the chaos, confusion, and deception with which this crazy world surrounds us? I believe we can. The choice we are being asked to make is either joining the “sheep” and conforming to established belief systems, even though they no longer offer a sense of safety that we once believed could be counted on, or taking a chance on discovering our own truth. Of course this means leaping into the unknown for which there is no precedent. What are the rewards of choosing the second possibility? They are immense. This makes it possible for each of us to tap into the immense joy and power of our own creativity and begin to live our lives from it—for our own the benefit, and the benefit of those we love as well as the world we live in. Authenticity—being true to yourself at the deepest level of your being—is the greatest gift you’ll ever experience. It’s all about discovering how unique you really are. This brings the greatest joy and satisfaction possible. After all, we can only collect so many BMWs, university degrees, and new lovers. All of these things are great, but none of them lead to a sense of self-worth, simple joy, and genuine freedom. I believe that freedom is the birthright of every human being. Realizing you deserve it is the first step in claiming it as your own. For some people this can seem the most difficult step to take, because it means coming to respect and honor yourself enough that you allow your unique truths to arise from deep within. In the past seven years I have personally worked with men and women all over the world. When many begin their Cura protocol, more often than not their minds are filled with the false notion that changing their weight and expanding their health and their lives with joy could never be more than a pipe dream. They soon learn otherwise. When they follow their protocol to the letter, they discover for themselves how exciting it can be to live one’s life in wholeness. The program brings body, mind, and spirit together in a harmonious way, and they experience a natural clearing away of limiting beliefs and false notions that they may have carried for years. This process clarifies and expands their experience of the world around them. This is because every blinkered view of reality blocks freedom, entraps our creativity, limits bliss, and disconnects us—not only from our essential beauty but also from the Universe as a whole, in all its wonderment and the power it can bring for growth and transformation for our own lives and for the world. Connecting with who you really are, accessing authentic power, and living your freedom require that you expand your consciousness in a major way. As human beings, we have a natural capacity to move beyond our limited experience of five-sensory three-dimensional reality. We can learn to enter expanded realms of consciousness. This new expanding worldview is called holism. It looks upon the Universe as holographic. Holism was named after the work of scientists who demonstrated that living organisms are integrated energetic systems within an integrated whole. Even your brain and body are holographic. Each small part of us, like each part of the Universe, is not only connected to the rest, it but actually embodies the nature of the whole within it. The tension between the new holism and the old mechanism—which depended on a belief in a separation of Spirit from matter, form, and substance—must be urgently resolved if we are to break out of the self-imposed prisons that have been forced upon us by restrictive rules and conventions. I believe that every one of us is now being called upon to let go of our preconceived notions about what’s real, in order to explore the further reaches of a wider, more exciting, and transformative reality. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, Cura’s Inner Circle has been an ideal opportunity for most people to discover this. To experience real freedom you only need to welcome more and more of your essential soul nature into your everyday experience of life—through dance, through ritual, through prayer, through your work, your relationships, and in your interactions with the world around you—in ever more direct and fearless ways. I have long loved a saying that I first heard when I was twelve years old. It goes like this: “Tell the truth and shame the devil.” In regard to how it relates here, what I’ve been describing is nothing more or less that discovering your own truth and choosing to live your life from it at every level, whether or not it fits with what you have been taught you are “supposed” to do. The more you dare to do this not only brings you an immense sense of joy and natural confidence; it becomes easier and easier to trust yourself. There is nothing more fun than being who you truly are. Dance your unique truth, and the Universe dances with you. The rewards of living this way can be virtually infinite.

Allow an hour for the whole process of taking a delicious treat of a bath from beginning to end. Make sure you have everything you need - towel, loofa or hemp glove, and another towel to use as a headrest. Add essential oils to the water as the bath is filling, using about ten to fifteen drops total of either a single essence or of a mixture for a large bath. Each essence has a different effect on the mind and body (see below).  When you get into the bath, gently scrub yourself all over with a hemp glove or a loofa. Then just relax and soak for a few minutes, letting the heat penetrate your muscles.  Keep a cool cloth nearby to smooth over your face when needed. Let the essential oils work their wonders while you carry out a relaxing and waste-eliminating self-massage.  Water is the perfect medium for self-massage. The heat (remember not to have your bath too hot and stimulating) of the water works silent wonders, and it supports your body so that you have easy access to feet, legs, arms and torso while still remaining relaxed. When your bath is finished, lie down for ten minutes with an eye mask or a piece of dark fabric across your eyes and keep warm. the massage message Self-massage is nothing more than stroking, kneading, pushing and pressing your skin and muscles. Start with your feet. Grasp one foot between thumb and fingers and press in between the tendons, gently at first, then harder and harder, moving from the toes up towards the ankle. Then, using your fingertips and knuckles, go over the soles of your feet. Wherever you find a sore spot, work harder until you feel the discomfort melt beneath your hand. Now do your heel, grasping it between thumb and fingers and working around the area of the Achilles tendon. This is also a good time to make circles with your foot to loosen the ankle joint. Repeat this with the other foot, and then go on to your legs. Lift each leg in turn and deeply stroke the flesh on the back, from the ankle up to the knee. Then go back to the ankle again and repeat the same motions on the side and front of the calf. Keep working and, as you massage a little deeper with each stroke, you will gradually find that any tautness softens. Now go over your thighs with the same movement, and afterwards knead and squeeze around the knee area wherever there are trouble spots, just as you did on the feet. Now knead each thigh and hip. Then go on to your arms. Knead and squeeze every spot you can reach on your shoulders and neck, looking for sore spots and focusing on the areas between joints and muscles. Pay particular attention to the tops of shoulders, where most of us lock away our tension. Grasp this area in your thumb and fingers and insistently ease away any hardness you find there. Finally, go over your ribs, doing each side with its opposite hand. essence alchemy As part of the benevolent bath, choose essential oils not so much for what they can do for your skin as what they can do to expand your consciousness and lift your spirit. Whatever your mental state may be, it has an enchanting antidote from the world of flowers: Negative State Essential Oil Remedy anger: ylang ylang, rose, chamomile resentment: rose sadness: hyssop, marjoram, sandalwood mental fatigue: basil, peppermint, cypress, patchouli worry: lavender feeling jaded: neroli, melissa, camphor feelings of weakness: chamomile, jasmine, melissa irritability: frankincense, marjoram, lavender, chamomile physical exhaustion: jasmine, rosemary, juniper, patchouli anxiety: sage, juniper, basil, jasmine

Like music and meditation, aromatics can be used to alter your consciousness and deepen your awareness. Using environmental fragrances is also a delightful way of lifting your mood and sharpening your mind. A cool whiff of neroli sets your brain racing. Sniffing white rose can nestle you down into the most enjoyable indolence. Immerse yourself in the rich warmth of the ambergris and, even if you are the most timid of creatures, you can begin to feel bold and daring. Tibetan lamas mix an extraordinary combination of herbs and flowers to produce an incense which heightens concentration and centers the mind for meditation. In ancient times, temple prostitutes knew every secret of blending aromatics to create a heady aphrodisiac which was completely irresistible to their worshippers. And astrologers advised their clients which balm to use when a specific planet made particular transits in their chart. The special substances that make all this possible are the plant essences - the light, fine, almost etheric essential oils taken from roots, leaves, barks and flowers of plants in their prime of life. A plant essence plays an important role in the plant's growth to maturity, is forever changing its chemical composition in the plant, and is present in greater quantities in young plants. Many experts in the use of plant essences believe that, in some way that no one has been able to identify, these substances contain much of the life force of the plant, including the basic characteristics of its leaves and flowers that give it a unique character, smell and ability to affect human beings in specific ways. Some plants, such as jasmine and rose, require hundreds of pounds of live flowers to produce even a tiny bottle of the essence. They are very expensive. Other oils, such as cinnamon and basil, are easily extracted and inexpensive. But you should know that the 'synthetic' version of a plant essence (in spite of the fact that its main constituents have been chemically reproduced) does not have the same effect on a person. This is probably because the terpene alcohols, phenols and esters that make up these natural substances have a synergistic quality - they work together to produce an effect greater than the sum of each working on its own. Some natural therapists rely on many plant essences for their restorative and stimulating actions in treatments for skin and hair, as well as for combating cellulite. They are also important constituents in many expensive face creams and lotions. But the way in which aromatic vibrations from essential oils can be used in your environment to alter mood and mind is something quite different from their therapeutic uses, when mixed with carrier oils and spread on the skin in aromatherapy treatments. Oil of geranium, for instance, is a mild diuretic useful in aromatherapy for treating fluid retention, eczema and anxiety. But burn it as incense, or let it diffuse into your environment as a fragrance, and it can make you act with uncharacteristic rashness - an effect quite separate from its therapeutic properties. Aromatherapy is a tool for healing. Aromatics belong to the realm of magic. The best way to discover what its magic can do for you is to experiment with a few of the real essences. Start with six, and then enlarge your repertoire as you get to know the quality and characteristics of each, and as you discover those you particularly like. Because they are natural substances, and highly volatile, they rapidly diffuse into the environment. They just as rapidly disappear or can be replaced by other fragrances. When you choose essences and oils for burning, make absolutely sure that those you buy are natural. The current fascination with aromatherapy has led to the appearance of a myriad of poor quality so-called essential oils, which are nothing of the kind. They are cheap chemical analogues and are currently being sold in chemists, department stores and specialty shops all over. Trying to use them for mind-bending is a grave mistake. They can actually make you feel quite sick, not to mention the unpleasant fact that they tend to infuse into a room and then imbed themselves in the carpets, curtains and furniture with the tenacity of a cheap perfume. Only real essential oils have mind-bending magic. But what a wonderful magic that can be. Cedar heightens creativity Chamomile soothes panic and hysteria Marjoram calms irritability, soothes panic Cinnamon is a natural stimulant Frankincense calms irritability and impatience Neroli is an anti shock aid, and heightens mental functions Basil banishes fear and indecision, and is antidepressant Clary sage clears the head after mental activity Juniper improves concentration, and banishes fear Sage dispels anxiety Lily restores energy Geranium is anti-anxiety Ylang Ylang is aphrodisiac and antidepressant Lavender calms irritability, and soothes impatience Patchouli is an antidote to apathy, and is good against exhaustion Peppermint uplifts the spirit, is good against apathy, and is a mental stimulant Jasmine is an antidote to shyness Sandalwood helps new ways of thinking Rosewood calms an aggressive mind Vanilla heightens nostalgia - especially for childhood USING AROMATICS FOR MINDBENDING * Put 30 to 50 drops of essential oil or oils into a half pint size spray bottle filled with water. (The kind you use to spray plants is ideal.) Use this mixture as a room spray. * Put 8 to 10 drops of essential oils on a small piece of cardboard and place it on a warm radiator. * Put 5-10 drops of an essence on a small plate and put it on top of an aga or wood stove. * Place a few drops of essential oils on a cotton or linen handkerchief and sniff it periodically. (This is a particularly good method if you are in a public place where the air is full of cigarette smoke or the room is stuffy.) * Place 10-15 drops in water which is simmering on a hob. This will humidify the environment as well as scenting it.

Do you ever wonder what it’s like to feel great most of the time? To awaken in the mornings looking forward to each day? To work hard but have plenty of energy to spare at the end of the day for play? To look terrific and to feel good about yourself and your life? To know you have everything you need to meet whatever challenge you may face? Sounds like a utopian dream? It's not. It is something within your grasp—something called quantum health. WHAT IS QUANTUM HEALTH? It is not the same thing as preventative medicine, nor is it medical self-care, or holistic medicine. Preventative medicine is mainly concerned with avoiding illness; holistic health is primarily aimed at treatment—although the treatment of the whole person rather than specific symptoms. Medical self-care aims to make a person able to diagnose and take care of his own minor medical problems. Although quantum health can share in some of the benefits of all three, it goes far beyond them. Quantum health does not focus primarily on disease or its prevention. Instead, its major thrust is a deliberate choice on the part of the person practising it to live at the peaks—to explore the heights—of wellbeing: physically, emotionally and spiritually. The choice for living at the peaks, and making full use of your creative potentials, is one which an increasing number of people are making. This is evident in our growing desire for strength, for high-level fitness, for improving and preserving good looks and for lasting vitality. Where once an ambitious man or woman might have wanted recognition, money and possessions, now these are not enough. Instead we want to make the most of our own potentials in every possible way. Quantum health aims at an enjoyable, challenging and sometimes amusing search for whole-person functioning. As such, it is its own goal and its own reward. The process of moving towards it can be as much fun as the achievements of its ends. THE MASTER GAME Developing quantum health is a kind of game. Like any game, it has its obstacles, its rules, its rewards, its penalties, and a goal. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines game as 'amusement, fun, sport... a diversion of the nature of a contest played according to the rules and decided by superior skill, strength, or good fortune'. The quantum health game is very much like this. In many ways, it is probably the most challenging and rewarding journey you could ever take—a real 'master game'. This is not only because playing to win can keep you looking and feeling great long after the 'losers' have been left by the wayside, but because, like all good games, the play itself can be so interesting. It can also demand considerable skill. Some find the quest for quantum health easy—they seem to have a natural flair for the challenge. Or, without realising it, they instinctively know the rules. Others have to work harder to learn them. Yet often it’s those who have to work the hardest that get the greatest satisfaction from play, and make the most dramatic improvements in their lives. WHAT YOU NEED TO PLAY Information about how attitudes, techniques and practices such as optimal nutrition, relaxation skills, exercise, political responsibility, treats and treatments contribute to optimal wellness. What are you playing against? Time. Perhaps your genes too. Some people find their genetic inheritance an asset to the play. Others have to compensate for what they didn't get at birth with more effort and more awareness of how to make the best possible use of what they have been given. One of the major obstacles to quantum health is the environmental pollution we are all exposed to. To counter it, you need to increase your awareness of its dangers as well as to make good use of agents to counter its effects. These include home-grown foods, herbs, and antioxidant nutrients, which can defeat its negative effect on your body. You also need to take social and political action to ensure that your water, air and food supplies are not further denatured by environmental poisons and radiation. Another major challenge to the goals of quantum health is indifference; the tendency we all have to go along with cultural and social norms. Why not live on fast foods and chocolate bars? Everybody else does. It is easier than seeking out a fresh crisp salad. Why not indeed? Any skilled quantum health player will tell you clearly: That way of eating is part of a lifestyle that will never help you experience radiant wellbeing and peak functioning mentally, emotionally and spiritually. As such, it is better off discarded. WHAT YOU BELIEVE Who are your opponents in the play? There are many. For instance, people who are content to allow time to take its course. Those who assume that, as the years pass, your body, your vitality and your good looks inevitably deteriorate. Chronic illness, they say, is a natural part of growing older. False notions about health are also major opponents. For example, the idea that responsibility for your health rests not with yourself but with your doctor or your mother or the state. Then there’s the idea that quantum health demands too many sacrifices or is not rewarding enough; it might take too much time for too little fun. This is a fierce opponent. But the biggest challenge to overcome is a lack of faith in your ability to play the game. Lots of people just don't believe that quantum health is possible for them. 'We are', they say, 'too old', 'too fat', 'too lazy', 'too busy'. In fact, just the opposite is likely to be true. Learn to play the game, create a quantum health way of life for yourself and all those ‘toos’ vanish, leaving you much more time and energy than you had before. Quantum health is a game you need no previous experience to play. You just start wherever you are now and, step-by-step, build your knowledge and your skills—until in time you can far surpass someone who seemed infinitely better endowed than you at the beginning. Human life is never static. Either you’re getting better or you are getting worse. And, as with any game, how fast you progress and how many rewards you get from playing depends to a large extent on how much fun you find it and how hard you are willing to play. FIELD OF PLAY Most people think of health as a state in which you are not ill. You are free of pain and you show no signs or symptoms of the development of disease. They think health is characterized by the absence of something— namely sickness. So long as this is the case, they figure all is well (touch wood), and go about their business until at some later date when, if their luck runs out, they may inadvertently be struck down. Then their rather tenuous state called 'health' suddenly turns into its opposite—'illness'. Thinking of health in this way is incredibly limiting. The best anyone can hope for is 'non-sickness'. Quantum health players take a different point of view. They see reality differently. They understand that by taking responsibility for how they think and live, brings them a high level of protection from illness. They know that the wellness they are aiming for has positive attributes and brings rewards far beyond the absence of disease. It encompasses a whole new view of reality which honors the peaks as well as the depths. Not content with being 'un-sick', they want vitality, passion, confidence and a sense of freedom to be who they are. They intend to work and play hard. They value authenticity. They seek mental clarity, emotional balance, and spiritual openness which makes it possible to develop creative potentials to the limits. Their worldview includes a belief which, to many people, seems quite foreign: That we are the prime cause of what happens to our health and our life, not blind fate. Without such a commitment to autonomy, no player in the quantum health game can become a winner. With such a commitment, the sky’s the limit. There is no reason why you should not be fit at 90, look twenty years younger than your peers at 70 and feel good about being who you are, warts and all. It is all a matter of developing skills and playing with the knowledge and determination of a pro. A quantum health lifestyle has six major facets to it: nutritional action, physical fitness, stress management, self-responsibility, age control and environmental awareness. QUANTUM HEALTH—KEY TO FREEDOM One morning I went for a run, as I often did, along the cliffs in Pembrokeshire. After running for about three miles, I had a sudden impulse to plunge into the wild Irish Sea and swim back. This was something that I’d never done before. The sun was warmer than usual that morning so I did—running shoes and all. The water was freezing and rough. I had to swim against the tide. An hour later I finally arrived back on our home beach—fingers tingling with the cold and legs a wobbly, as I attempted to make the transition from the water world I'd been moving through to the thinner air-medium of land. But I felt great. I loved the feeling of freedom that this brought me—a strong sense of my own physical limits and a knowledge that they are considerably broader than they were ten years earlier, before I myself became involved in the quantum health game. Why did I do that swim? To prove I could? Not really. I had few doubts on that account. To make myself fitter and stronger? I had no such notions in my head. I did it for the sheer pleasure of it. It was the same impulse that makes children climb trees. Not to get to the top, but just because the trees are there. WHY PLAY THE GAME? The serious answer goes something like this: so you will feel better, look younger, have more energy and live longer. Indeed, all those things are true. But once you get involved in the play, you realize that something much more exciting is happening. You feel exhilarated, vibrantly alive, freer and stronger. And these experiences become a normal part of your daily life. Grasp even a little of these payoffs, realize that they are possible for you no matter what your age or condition right now and you are already half way to your goal. Make this kind of passion a part of your life, and the rules of the quantum health game, which at first needed to be tediously learned, one by one become second nature. By then just playing the game begins to feel so rich and so delightful that you are likely to forget all about its goals. After all, it’s the play itself that your come to relish.