Austin All Natural

austin * san antonio

October ‘16 ISSUE 126 FREE

BODY * MIND * SPIRIT

Days of the Dead • How Not to Be a Vampire

Enchant

Inside Austin All Natural ATTRACTING MELISSA ETHERIDGE – Dr. Joe Vitale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 ENCHANT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 DAYS OF THE DEAD The art of Kuli CRYSTAL THERAPY Magic – or science? – Brandy Thomas HAPPY B(EARTH)DAY Vibrating to lucky number seven – Laurie Johnson SCARY, SCARY HIDDEN SUGAR – Nerissa Oden AWESMICITY Putting the awe back in Austin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 SOUL CONTRACTS Did you get a curse, or make a deal? – Christina Allen . . . . . . . . . . 16 GOING TO THE MATS FIRs, crystals, and negative ions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 ROLFING Resistance, Keith Richards, and the Golden Gate Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 DETOX Is it necessary? – Kabi Nyoike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 THE WISDOM OF IONIZED WATER Can ORP keep you young?– Marge Captain . . . . . 21 UPCOMING EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 SEX THERAPY What is it? – Morgan Susan Taylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 MERCURY AND HCL – Dr. Matthew Carpenter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 DEAR ASHTARA – Ashtara Sasha White . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 HOW NOT TO BE A VAMPIRE The Heartwaker’s Club, with Zaeli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 PRACTITIONER GUIDE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 publisher/ editor Michael Abedin (512) 879-7299 michaelabedin@yahoo.com www.AustinAllNatural.com

A Letter to Our Readers That country where it is always turning late in the year.

That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. – Ray Bradbury, The October Country

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Ah, Ray Bradbury. A spinner of tales – stories of carnivals and dwarves, rocket men and ancient civilizations on Mars, time-traveling tattoos and the last night of the world. The descendant of a woman tried and convicted as a witch in Salem (who escaped her sentence and died peacefully in her bed in 1700 at the age of eighty-five), he knew the magic spells that words can weave.

Like Robert E. Howard, like Lovecraft and Poe and Ambrose Bierce, Bradbury used words to create worlds – worlds kind of like our own, but different somehow, strange but still familiar. No apps, no 144-character diatribes, no likes or posts, no snaps, chats, or optimizations.

Just words.

String them together just right and they not only tell a story, they create a rhythm, a beat that opens the mind to images and messages.

How enchanting.

–Michael Abedin

T

raditionally, October is the month of harvest, frost on pumpkins, brilliant foliage tumbling from trees, gateway to winter and all that there.

Hereabouts, in the southern half of Texas, it’s more likely to mean the end of summer – if we’re lucky. We can, however, still get into the spirit of October.

Spirits, after all, are what October’s really about. It’s the only month that comes to mind that ends with a holiday on its last day, followed immediately by another holiday on the first day of the next month.

The final hour of Halloween segues smoothly into the first hour of the Day of the Dead as the clock strikes midnight – the witching hour, of course, the hour between day and night, the hour of magic and enchantment.

Enchanted, I’m sure.

Enchanté is an old and elegant greeting upon being introduced to someone, one that can mean anything from delighted to enamored to enchanted. Leave it to the French to be immediately delighted, enamored, and enchanted the moment they meet someone – and a Frenchman meeting a lovely enchantress would probably accompany it with a kiss on the hand.

There’s a joke in there somewhere about enchanted Frenchmen turning into enchanted Frogs – but suffice to say you want to be as polite to enchantresses as you can, or you might find yourself croaking on a lily pad, finding out if time’s fun when you’re having flies.

Enchantment is the gate between the worlds, and there’s no better time to get enchanted than the gateway from All Hallows’ Eve to, well – All Hallows’ Day. (A hallow, btw, is a saint, and All Hallows’ Day was All Saints’ Day, one of the sneaky ways those fun-loving early Catholics had of taking a Celtic pagan ritual and co-opting it for their own churchy purposes.)

That worked pretty well most places, but not south of the border, down Mexico way.

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The Day of the Dead.

They turned it back around, using an old Aztec ritual honoring another kind of enchantress – Mictecacihuatl, the female deity who presides over the dead. They turned it into a big ol’ party, getting together with loved ones who’ve crossed over to the other side with Mictecacihuatl, but who still like to get together once a year to catch up.

Faces are painted, sugar skulls are eaten, flowers and cookies and fireworks abound, and refreshing beverages of the distilled or fermented variety are consumed. Austin starts that kind of partying on Halloween, of course, and if you consume enough refreshing beverages, November 1 can turn into the Day You Wish You Were Dead.

Should you do so, go for the pelo de perro cure, the hair of the dog, being careful not to slur it into pedo de perro – which is the last thing you want for a hangover. (Ask someone who speaks Spanish.)

Where were we?

Oh yeah, enchantments. They’re magical and spooky as well as delightful, which is what makes them so much fun.

West of Austin, out past Fredericksburg, there’s a big granite dome poking up through the Balcones Fault. Enchanted Rock was holy to the Comanche and other tribes – it sang and moaned at night, and they knew what sings and moans in the dark.

Spirits. Geologists say it’s cracks in the rock cooling from the heat of the day, but the Comanche knew better. They knew magic when they heard it singing in the dark, and respected it.

Being respectful is a good course of action when you encounter enchantment. If, say, you’re out at night and the moon is full and a bat or two is fluttering around and the face of a strange and beautiful senorita suddenly appears, there’s only one proper thing to do.

Take her hand, kiss it lightly, and whisper – Enchanté.

SOUL

CONTRACTS Did you get a curse – or make a deal?

by Christina Allen Have you ever wondered why, try as you might, you cannot shift your financial status from living on the edge, paycheck to paycheck? As soon as any windfall comes your way, your car breaks down or your roof needs repair. One thing after another keeps tugging at that hole in your wallet, pulling through it anything that sits there for very long.

While it may seem like you are cursed, sometimes this is the result of a contract you made with your soul, long ago.

let us take their pain or sickness on instead. We may have a contract with Death, asking to die before someone we love does. Karmic contracts bind us to people from past lives, forcing us restore some balance with them before we can move on.

And finally, much like the regulators on U-Haul trucks prevent them from exceeding fifty-five miles an hour, we can put contracts out on ourselves to avoid misusing our power again.

Poverty vows, for example, were a common form of initiation into monastic lifestyles.

The past binds us, until we heal from it.

By choosing a life with few material trappings, the initiate is free to develop a deeper connection to Spirit. In not having to invest in the competitive ego, ever striving for success, these vows open people to humility, as they must rely upon others for survival. This brings them face to face with the benevolence of their Maker. In the streets of India, you still see Sadhus dressed in saffron rags, holding out begging bowls for rice.

While begging in the streets is not condoned in our culture, poverty vows were often made when we joined the Church as a nun or priest, choosing to give up our earthly possessions in servitude. Great lessons come in learning to receive the unconditional love of Spirit. Our things, and the pursuit of them, often distract, rather than empower us.

In this lifetime, however, we may be trying to learn how to connect to Spirit through another means, perhaps as a challenged parent or a responsible partner. But, try as we may, that old poverty vow lies buried in our soul, pulling us forever back into lack.

While the intention may have been good, the consequences of a poorly written contract can create lifetimes of misery.

Strangely, one of the Shaman’s roles is that of a contract lawyer for the soul. When it becomes clear that their client cannot overcome some troubling pattern because of a limiting soul contract, they must go in and help renegotiate the terms.

We would do it ourselves, if we could remember making them, but usually we cannot. We just know something keeps pulling us back into a never-ending pattern we can’t seem to escape.

The gift of the Shamans is that they can track energetic blockages. Through extensive training, they’ve learned how to follow the energy of a wound, or limiting pattern, back to its original source, much as a hound dog tracks a criminal through the scent of a shirt he left behind.

These contracts are imprinted on the soul like reams of governmental red tape. Through renegotiations with Spirit, cutting cords, and removing these imprinted wounds, the Shaman helps remove old soul contracts, freeing you up to live the life you intended to live – this lifetime.

There are many contracts we make that bind us at the level of the soul.

Christina Allen’s work as an intuitive, healer, teacher, and founder and director of the Austin Shamanic Center combines a strong science background (BA Physics, MS Neuroscience) with decades of applied ancient spiritual wisdom (Master Yogi, Reiki Master, and profound Shamanic Healing based on Q’ero Indian traditions of Peru). For private appointments and upcoming classes, call (512) 391-9829, or visit www.AustinShamanicCenter.com

Sometimes they are made in fear. “God, I promise to be a good girl if you will make Daddy stop hitting me.” This works as a child, but as an adult, a “good girl” cannot stand up for herself in the home, or the business world, and speak her truth.

Sometimes we ask God to save someone we love, and

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ROLFING Resistance, Keith Richards, and the Golden Gate Bridge

by Michael Abedin In 1920, Ida Pauline Rolf received a Ph.D. in biochemistry and plunged into the male-dominated field of science and medicine, encountering the kind of resistance you’d expect.

She spent her life exploring body structure, and how resistance to one basic physical law acts on it.

Gravity.

Ironically, the disciplines she explored – homeopathy, osteopathy, chiropractic – were mainstream then instead of alternative, before the AMA took over. She studied yoga and collaborated with other innovators in movement studies, convinced that imbalances in structure place demands on muscles, fascia, tendons, and ligaments, creating compensations throughout the body.

She based her work on one fundamental question – what conditions must be fulfilled for the human body structure to be organized and integrated in gravity, so the whole person can function in the most optimal and economical way?

The system she created bears her name – Rolfing, based on a series of ten restructuring sessions. Austin Rolfers Norma Bell-Bandy and Brianna Bell-Bandy work toward deeper goals with their clients: t *OOFS CBMBODF Releasing old holding patterns, freeing up physical, mental, and emotional scar tissue from life experiences and trauma. t 'SFFEPN PG CFJOH Ease of movement, whether you’re an athlete, musician, or hunker over a computer. A new relationship with yourself and the outer world – and with gravity. t 4VQQPSU A deeper experience of truth, inner peace, and support from others, and from your own operating system – the flow of lymph through the body, the balance of the digestive, circulatory, and nervous systems.

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3FTJTUBODF JT GVUJMF Well – maybe, maybe not. Balanced resistance is a thing of beauty if you’re the Golden Gate Bridge, one of Keith Richards’ guitar strings, or a pro quarterback’s fingers rolling off a perfectly thrown pass.

When the human body and the energies that propel it are in balance, every movement, every thought and emotion, can become a thing of beauty – and the key to that balance is in the network of tissue that supports and propels every part of your being through the sea of energies surrounding it.

Norma Bell-Bandy, RN, co-founder of Austin Holistic Health at 300 Beardsley Lane, is an Advanced Rolfer and Movement Teacher in partnership with Rolfer Brianna Bell-Bandy. Complimentary intro sessions, Awesmic City Expo, Oct. 15-16.

(512) 328-4424, www.BNBRolfingAustin.com

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