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The office will be open 9 to 1 Christmas Eve and be closed Thursday and Friday for Christmas.
Dec. 21, 2014
Holiday Metaphors
Hi ,
 The year is coming to an end and this gives those of us with a philosophic bent a push to look over the last year and check in to see how we are doing with accomplishing our perceived purpose in life. Most of life is filled with the daily business of survival - doing what is necessary to make ends meet and maintain relationships in our life. But what about the rest of the time? Are we unfolding our purpose and becoming what we were designed to become?
I guess I am revealing my philosophic bias by presuming we all have a design we are becoming. I choose to believe that life has a point to it. Without that assumption there is no reason to keep sucking air into my lungs.
The holidays offer us many metaphors about what that purpose is. Metaphors give us a tangible handhold for relating to otherwise rather hazy philosophical goals like becoming more loving. In Christian communities the birth (or awakening) of a fully realized soul - a son of God - serves as a metaphor for birthing full God Realization within ourselves. The baby Jesus serves as the ideal example for us to follow in our own unfoldment. The life of Jesus and his final ending all demonstrate the glory of sustaining a pure and loving stance toward the world, even in the end when we may be vilified and abused. This story is a powerful metaphor for our own personal growth as well as an example for us to follow. It provides a reason for our existence; it gives a point to living.
This story metaphor is repeated in many cultures across the world. I suspect it is built into our very genes because of the seasonality of the sun's daylight. Before recorded history, this time of year every early culture celebrated the return of the sun's light to warm us and light our way. The Winter Solstice, being the shortest day of the year, is followed by each day getting longer and longer. Nature provided us with the first metaphor for change and progression in life with the change and  progression of the light of the sun. Today, a common story in almost every religion and culture includes a reference to The Awakened One. This is someone that radiates the loving light from a higher source living among us as a teacher and as an example of pure love.
From these deep preconscious stirrings in my body in response to seasonal shifts in hormonal rhythms, I feel a purpose to my existence. I feel an evolution that seems imperative to fulfill. I am born a bottomless well of need for loving attention in order to survive. I have come from a place where all I experienced was me and I knew instinctively that my needs would be met instantly without my having to do anything. That wonderful place was in my mother's womb. Then suddenly I was thrust into a world of uncertainty where I have to participate in some way to get my needs met. This is a shock to my system and a condition that I am not entirely pleased with. What is going on now that I have to cry when I am hungry in order to get fed and what's up with this whole wet diaper thing?
Hmm, am I talking about little babies here or old folks in convalescent hospitals?
So what is the purpose of life? On an individual scale that will look very different for each person. But what about on the larger scale of things? Is there a general life lesson we are all here to learn? I believe the holidays speak to this larger lesson. We created the holidays as an outward expression of an internally recognized longing and need for ourselves. We celebrate the story because we want to own the story in our own life. We are here to become that awakened soul that lives as a radiant source of love for all. Our purpose is to grow from that new baby state of a bottomless well of need for loving attention into a radiant source of love to the world. We are here to learn to see the perfection of what is and support its unfoldment into its own radiance.
What does that look like on a practical level? Lets start with moving from that needy baby state of endless consumer into a producer in life. We are here to learn how to create. We begin with just creating simple self-survival instead of depending on others for our survival. This seems to be the basic goal of growing from childhood to adulthood. We are here to learn to create artistry in our life - first the art of expressing our individualized self, then the artistry of harmonizing our uniqueness with the uniqueness of those around us. We are here to learn to manifest our dreams of beauty and accomplishment. We are here to share our beauty and accomplishment with others.
Life is a journey built from sharing and participating with others. We are not designed to take this journey alone. We can not see ourselves and thus need others to reflect ourselves back to us so that we can groom our expressions appropriately. Harmony depends on loving and accurate feedback from others. We can't learn harmony without it.
This is one of the metaphorical stories built into the holiday season. This is why the season is a time of connection and goodwill. The story is about supporting our common goal to unfold our higher purpose - the creation of harmonious expression.
The awakened soul tells us of the higher truth within us waiting to come out. It tells us of the loving goodwill within our heart wanting to manifest in everything we do.
Good Holidays,
David
Colloidal Silver
The flu and cold season is upon us and the best remedy I know is a couple ounces of colloidal silver every hour till it dissipates. Usually for me that is about four hours. We have new 8 ounce bottles of colloidal silver in the office for only $8 - a tiny fraction of the price elsewhere. Plus refills are only $4. Or if you have a large crew to care for we have a limited number of one gallon containers for only $30.
Pick some up today.
Yogurt Update
As promised, I am updating my dairy free yogurt recipe with my most successful recipe yet. Through trial and error I have discovered many things. The most important is that exactly what cultures you use make a big difference not only in taste, but in how the yogurt sets up. I have been using several different cultures available commercially - lactobacillus Plantarum and lactobacillus Reuteri because they are some of the first and most common bacteria in the human gut and secondly I have been using a blend in the product Sibotica from APEX because it has been found in studies to be helpful in combating Small Intestine Bacteria Overload conditions.
So here is the newest process:
Put 11/3 cups of almond flour in the blender with 1 cup of water and blend on high for 3 minutes. Then add 3 more cups of water and 1 tablespoon of maple syrup and 10 drops of supersweet stevia drops - blend a couple more seconds.
Put 1 cup water and 1 Tbs. Gelatin in a large pan on the stove. Mix the gelatin into the water then turn on the heat to dissolve the gelatin while your blender is finishing the almond/water blending. Boil for 1 minute.
Add the almond flour/water mix to the hot gelatin on the stove and cook until it comes to a slow boil. Let it gently boil for3 more minutes.
Turn off heat and let it cool down to about 120 degrees. I usually don't  want to wait for this step so I fill a frying pan with ice and set the hot sauce pan into the ice to cool it down rapidly. Once it gets down to about 120 degrees, add 1 can of coconut milk. Usually the temperature will be about right, but check it with a thermometer. Let the pot cool until it comes down to 105 degrees. A thermometer to check the temperature is good - it should be hot tub temperature. If you are too hot you will kill the active cultures. Pour the mixture back into the blender for the next step.
The typical advice of adding a half cup of the last batch does not produce great results, nor does using yogurt from the store so I open up capsules of the probiotic to mix into the warm milk mixture. Use the blender on low for a few seconds to mix in the probiotic powder. I use about 4 to 6 capsules.
Pour the mixture into two clean mason jars and close up the jars. Place them in a warm area to ferment for 8 to 12 hours. The longer it ferments the more sour it will become. The warm area should be around 100 to 110 degrees. Any hotter and the cultures will die; too cool and it will not ferment.
After your ferment time place the jars in your fridge to get cold. While still warm the yogurt will be soupy (and is still quite tasty), but in the fridge it will firm up nicely.
I find the final product beats the store product hands down.
Enjoy,
David
Ultrasound Physical Therapy
Now available in the office
Tuesday afternoons and Fridays
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