Body's 4 Methods of Elimination

I watched this great video about how to eliminate acid from the body and why it is a big problem.

Here are some simple notes that help me check to make sure I'm taking care of all the areas that I need to in getting waste out of my body.

4 methods of body elimination:
1. Breathing--lungs (we would only last about four minutes if we didn't take in fresh oxygen and eliminate our carbon dioxide)
2. Urination--kidneys (if we don't urinate, the toxins leach into our connective tissues and fatty tissues)
3. Bowel movement--colon (at least once a day)
4. pores--skin/lymphatic...  (Need to sweat it out)

Rice Experiment

After reading a very interesting book about water and a man's journey to document the water crystals when frozen, I was thinking a lot about the power of words--bad and good. The author of the Hidden Messages in Water had mentioned a rice experiment when he had said nice things to one jar of cooked rice and negative things to another identical jar of cooked rice. After a few weeks the nature of the rice had changed in the second jar with the negative words, but the jar with positive things said was still vibrant and beautiful. The author also said the same thing happened with other similar experiments in which rice wasn't used, but positive and negative things said to two identical things. What I got from the book was that words are powerful and that the greatest are love and gratitude--which he said were the most beautiful water crystals he has ever seen (and photographed) when he experimented with those two words and water. Those and many other crystals are documented with photos in his book. Very interesting!

My friend had also mentioned she'd heard of a lady who did this experiment. plus, I remembered something similar about the effects of various music styles played to plants in an experiment, when I was researching a writing paper on music, back in college my freshman year.

So...that said. Three times is a charm (how many times i'd heard about this stuff from varying sources). so  I decided to take up the task and try my own experiment.

I did.
Here is the cooked rice in two jars. Both were treated exactly the same and just sat enclosed in the jar for a full month. We labelled one jar "thank you" and the other "stupid."

3 weeks

3 weeks

  Although we didn't just say those words. W also said nice and happy positive things to the first. But for the second we said lots of negative things and always scowled at it.

Ethan and Paul were so cute and felt so bad saying mean things that they frequently just glared and thought the words, instead of saying them. I however didn't feel bad saying "stupid rice, I hate you. You are ugly." And the like.... :) although eventually I did as a friend suggested and said "you stink" instead of stupid, because we don't use that word in our house and Ethan started saying it more once we got in the habit for the experiment. (Luckily he is back to not using it)

5 weeks

5 weeks

After one month we opened the two jars. It happened to be on thanksgiving when the Cooleys were with us to. So they can vouch for the stench of the second "stupid" one. It stunk pretty bad and was totally mutated to where it looked like a pile of goopy liquid. While the first one was still almost the same as when we had put it in, except it had a slight smell of just starting to Germantown, but barely. It really was very fluffy and happy--pretty in my mind.

Happy Thanksgiving...when we opened these.

Food for thought...

• So...what do you think? 
• What are the effect of your words?
• Do you want to take up the trial and do your own version of this experiment? 
• What negative words or thoughts do you harbor--towards others? or even towards yourself!
• Is it time to change negative thoughts and words... or try them out on this experiment and see if they have a real visible effect over time?
• If you have negative words, they first stem from negative thoughts.
• Thoughts are powerful. Don't limit yourself or others. You can be anything you put your mind to if you don't label yourself or accept others negative labels of you.
• Everyone has great potential. How can we praise and help others see theirs.

I hope that I can remember the power of words and thoughts...not just negative, but that we can use them to build up and beautify--to perfect things and people to a more perfect state...or the opposite (changing the nature of the thing or person to a state of glum and , wel....bloop like the rie.  Hmmm.....

Interesting, no?

OVERVIEW OF THE SEVEN CHAKRAS

I've been learning a lot about Eastern Medicine which much is based on sensitivity to energy. A large part of energy work deals with chakras, or 'wheels of light." They are real vortex-like energy centers along our body that have been documented in studies. They are there with varying energy frequencies, hence each is represented with various colors (colors are at varying frequencies, much like music notes are too--it's not rocket science though so many seem baffled by this). 

Here's a cool self-test and explanation for each chakra, so you can understand yourself better.

I copied and pasted this lady's website post about chakras because she's LDS, I've heard her speak a few times and she has been doing chakra energy work for 20+ years. She has developed a sensitivity to energy frequencies (as various areas of eastern medicine have). She can actually feel the energy from each area when she helps others with healing. (think of a food connoisseur developing their sense of taste...but hers is sense of frequency/vibration) This is her chart...

Father Thomas Keating says, “We are kept from the experience of Spirit because our inner world is cluttered with past traumas. As we begin to clear away this clutter, the energy of Divine Light and love begin to flow through our beings. ”  

SO in working with chakras, she helps people deal with past issues to clear up the negative energy that affects the chakras (and associated areas with each) and gets them working fully so they are at full energy. She says that not showing forgiveness is the biggest blocker of our chakras and that through the atonement Christ's light can deeply penetrate all chakras and bring full energy restoration. And she said that being hard on ourselves and trying to be perfect, without getting out our emotions, is a huge problem in this process because we have to allow ourselves to feel the emotion and then deal with it in a good way. (prayer helps us release and then get grace to work through it--He makes up the difference. Otherwise we just bury our feelings and they reap problems in our body)

So let's look at Spiritual Armor:  Ephesians 6

found on google search

• Helmet of Salvation
• Breastplate of Righteousness
• Loins girt with truth
• feet shod with Gospel of Peace
• Shield of faith
• Sword of Spirit/Word of God

Food for thought: 

• How do you release your emotions: prayer, journal, close friend, etc?
• What issues are you holding on to that can be cleared to help your chakras be balances and be most effective in bringing greater life to your whole body? 
• If you don't know...ask Heavenly Father to help you see what you can work on to best have His light within you. :)
• Do we allow our children time to release and vent in good and appropriate ways or do we cut them off and stifle their emotional outlets?
• there are also chakra points that aren't energy centers in and of themselves--but are amplifiers of sorts--located in the palms of the hands and the feet! Interesting, huh?
• Idea for next topic study...spiritual armor
• Beam or mote in your eye? (maybe your "third eye" chakra?)
• LOVE and GRATITUDE are the two most essential qualities to develop

Knitting 101 for Adults

I just learned to knit and these are the things I used to get me started. But feel free to google youTube videos for these basic elements to learn. I looked at a few to get a feel for different ways to do the same stitches, since there are different styles of knitting (European, continental, etc.). Once I found what felt comfortable for me then I could knit something bigger and more complicated. But stick with these small things first until you get them down.

Make sure you have a simple set of two needles. A short size nine set is fine. I like wooden needles.

The process: see the helpful video for this process and the knit stitch (doesn't show purl)

1. Slip Knot
2. Cast On (there are many ways to do this, so don't be thrown off by different methods)
3. Knitting Stitches: 2 basic stitches are KNIT and PURL
4. Cast Off (finish stitches--take off the needle)

For help learning purl stitch, watch a youtube video [those from CyberSeams (very visual, but not too descriptive to burden you down), or the New Stitch a Day Video (his are very informative and detail oriented) are good]

Patterns of Knit and Purl
Once you know the basic knit stitch and the purl stitch (which is like a reverse knit stitch, with the string in front), then you just put them together in varying patterns. The basic 2 solid patterns are
Garter (knit stitches every row)
Stokinette (alternating rows of all knit stitches, then all purl stitches, etc.)

A great first project is a basic scarf
You can just continue knit stitch all the way, or you can alternate knit one row and purl the other (I prefer the look of this). Make it as long as you want.

Then try a Wash Cloth
Learn to increase and decrease (add or take away stitches to vary the shape (make triangles or a little butterfly, etc.)

Then try a simple slipper... (one with only two needles, nothing fancy. some need four needles)
Learn to vary the knit and purl stitches to make a pattern, including how to make ribbed.And have fun embelishling with MaryJane strap and button or crocheted flower.
Here is a good pattern that is similar to what I use...
http://bevscountrycottage.com/maggieslippers.html

Next step: Cable

Top Classics List for Children and Families

Here is a list of classics for young children/family reading. (from www.TJed.com)

• Aesop’s Fables
• Andersen’s Fairy Tales
• Beauty and the Beast
• The Besty-Tacy Series
• The Bible (click here for suggested passages for young children)
• The Blind Men and the Elephant
• “Casey at the Bat”
• Charlotte’s Web
• Chicken Little
• A Christmas Carol (can be scary–use discretion or paraphrase as needed)
• Cinderella
• Dinotopia Series
• Dr. Seuss books
• The Emperor’s New Clothes
• The Story Of The Other Wise Man
• The Gift of the Magi
• The Giving Tree
• “God Save the Flag”
• Goldilocks and the Three Bears
• The Goose that Laid Golden Eggs
• Grimm’s Fairy Tales
• “The Highwayman”
• Hansel and Gretel
• Jack and the Beanstalk
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
• “Lincoln, The Man of the People”
• Little Boy Blue
• The Little Engine That Could
• The Little House Series
• The Little Red Hen
• Little Red Riding Hood
• McGuffey’s Readers
• Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes
• “Paul Revere’s Ride
• Perloo The Bold
• Peter Pan
• Peter Rabbit
• The Pied Piper of Hamelin
• Pinocchio
• Pollyanna
• The Princess and the Pea
• Puss in Boots
• Rapunzel
• Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
• Rip Van Winkle
• Robin Hood
• Rumpelstiltskin
• Rudyard Kiplng’s Just So Stories
• Sleeping Beauty
• The Song of Hiawatha
• Snow White
• Tales from the Arabian Nights
• The Three Billy Goats Gruff
• The Three Little Pigs
• The Ugly Duckling
• Tom Thumb
• ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas
• The Wind in the Willows
• Winnie-the-Pooh
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz