The Eden Magazine

December 2020

EDEN T h e

Magazine

GAY

BROWNE PERSONAL ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH ADVISOR, WRITER, & FOUNDER OF GREENOPIA

HEALTH CARE DECISIONS,

YOUR QUALITY OF LIFE DEPENDS ON IT

by Kimberly Best

HUNTER OF THE PINE

by Teal Swan

2020

ENDING WITH A NEW BEGINNING

by Lavandala, Marco Nunzio & the Team

FINDING JOY

IN THE RHYTHM

OF LIFE

by Phyllis King

THE HUMAN COST OF THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY'S DEPENDENCE

ON PALM OIL

by David Bass

Table of Contents 8

Always More in Arches & Enlightment

GAY BROWNE

By Dina Morrone

16

34

ALWAYS MORE IN ARCHES & ENLIGHTMENT

By Turiya

22

REMEMBERING DREAMS

By Serge Kahili King, Ph.D.

26

LOBSANG CHUNZAM BUDDIST NUN & FOUNDER OF LIMITLESS

16

36

30

HUNTER OF THE PINE

By Teal Swan

34

THE HUMAN COST OF THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY'S DEPENDANCE ON PALM OIL

By David Bass

36

Remembring Dreams

UPHEAVAL & CHANGE

By Robbi Simon Jacobson

40

40

I LOVE YOU FOREVER & EVER SHAMS, UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

By Dr. Margit Gabriele Muller

42

WHISPERS OF HOPE A FRIENDSHIP PACT

By Bertie Simmone

46

22

FINDING JOY IN THE RHYTHM OF LIFE

By Phyllis King

46

Cover Photo by Arna Behar

10th Anniversary 60

HEALTH CARE DECISIONS

By Kimberly Best

70

70

2020 ENDING WITH A NEW BEGINNING

By Lavandaia, Marco Nunzio Alati & the Team

74

TIME TO MEDITATE

By John J. Murphy

80

JOURNEY INTO THE HOLIDAY SEASON WITH EASE & PEACE

By Shelly Wilson

74

86

YOUR FUTURE SELF IS WAITING FOR YOU

By Sasha Gary

88 A DAY THAT CHAMGED MY LIFE

88

By Lang Charters

98

WILL YOU BE JUDGED?

By Nancy Yearout

80 86

100

THE RESIDUAL EFFECT OF CHILDHOOD TRAUMA ON ADULT RELATIONSHIP

By Jayita Bhattacharjee

Perception, Seeing is not Believing

98 100

3 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

EDEN T

H

E

Since 2010

MAGAZINE

The Eden Magazine is a free online publication that focuses on spreading compassion to all Sentient Beings living in a healing and peaceful world FOUNDER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MARYAM MORRISON EXECUTIVE EDITOR/ CONTRIBUTING WRITER DINA MORRONE COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR/ CONTRIBUTING WRITER ALEXIA MELOCCHI BRAND AMBASSADOR MARIA ELENA INFANTINO COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST GLORIA KISEL-HOLLIS CONTRIBUTING WRITERS SASHA GARY PHYLLIS KING JOE SANTOS, JR. ANGELA DUNNING NANCY E. YEAROUT MICHAEL WHITE RYAN MARCO NUNZIO ALATI JAYITA BHATTACHARJEE TARA-JENELLE WALSCH MARGARET TOMASZEWIC CONTRIBUTING STYLISTS + MAKEUP ARTIST EDWARD HAKOPIAN GRAPHICS & PHOTOGRAPHY GREG DOHERTY ISABELLE RUEN SHERI DETERMAN ARTIN MARDIROSIAN WEBSITE

www.theedenmagazine.com 325 N. Maple Dr. Po Box 5132 Beverly Hills, CA 90209 To purchase a copy visit us in www.theedenmagazine.com

Eden Magazine is a non-profit monthly online magazine. We aim to create a better environment where we live among other living beings in peace and harmony. We support artists that their work matches our criteria. If you would like to submit your artwork, article or/and your photography for our future issues please contact Maryam Morrison at; maryammorrison@theedenmagazine.com The Eden Magazine reviews article content for accuracy before the date of publication. The views expressed in the articles reflect the author(s) opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher and editor. The published material, adverts, editorials, and all other content is published in good faith.

4 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

DINA MORRONE

Maryam Morrison

VITO TROTTA

MEET OUR TEAM

Photo by ISABELLE RUEN

Discover the path to a peaceful life among other living beings. We are all made of vibration and light in the universe to manifest our energy around all livingness.

ARTIN MARDIROSIAN

EDWARD HAKOPIAN

MARIA ELENA INFANTINO

ALEXIA MELOCCHI

GLORIA KISEL HOLLIS

TARA-JENELLE WALSCH

ANGELA DUNNING

NANCY E. YEAROUT

SHERI DETERMAN

GREG DOHERTY

MICHAEL WHITE RYAN

MARGARET TOMASZEWIC

ISABELLE RUEN

6 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e February 2020

SASHA GARY

SHELLY WILSON

JAYITA BHATTACHARJEE

JOE SANTOS, JR.

MARCO NUNZIO ALATI

PHYLLIS KING

7 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e March 2020

g

ayBrowne

Personal Environmental Health Advisor, Writer, & Founder of Greenopia

By Dina Morrone Author of Living With a Green Heart. Gay has made it her life’s mission to educate people on how to lead a greener, healthier life, and how to leave a lighter footprint on this earth, and the book is a guide to educate and implement.

When her son was diagnosed with ailments attributable to astounding levels of toxins in his body, Gay set out on a journey that led her to become an environmental pioneer. In 1994, even before the US Green Building Council established the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) guidelines for environmental building verification, Gay created what she calls “an optimal personal environmental health space.” She began designing and constructing the first completely environmentally responsible home of its kind. She’s also the founder of Greenopia, a company dedicated to achieving personal and community environmental health through small and large habit and behavioral adjustments. Greenopia is a comprehensive best-selling series of city-by-city guidebooks listing local eco-friendly resources.

"Environmental issues have long been a concern for millions of people, but it is easy to feel disempowered and overwhelmed.

In With a Green Heart," Browne shares a roadmap for making incremental changes that will ultimately affect cumulative environmental change. She shifts the conversation from large-scale environmental issues to individual ones that promote personal environmental health.

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By Dina Morrone

9 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e August 2020

Gay, thank you for your time. You are a Personal Environmental Health Advisor. Please tell us what motivated you to choose this path?

Three events in my life influenced my decision to focus on a career in environmental health.

First, I was born an asthmatic, so there hasn't been one moment in my life when I haven't thought about the quality of the air around me.

Whether it's walking into a forest or a hotel room, I hold my breath as I cross the threshold, hoping it will be a 'safe' place to breathe. *According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1 in 13 people have asthma. More than 25 million Americans have asthma. This is 7.7 percent of adults and 8.4 percent of children. I hope my work will help raise awareness and create cleaner air policies for all of us and fund new research to treat this condition better.

Second, I spent six summers, in my mid-teens and early twenties, canoeing in the areas of the Boundary Waters, with my high school history teacher, Tom Grunwald. He was a real mentor to me and taught me the importance of having nature in my life.

During those years, the water quality in the lakes went from drinkable and pristine to undrinkable and poisoned by acid rain. The degradation of something I deeply loved hurt my young soul and made an impression on me. That is still one of the primary reasons that drive me today to protect nature.

I probably would have become a park ranger if my parents would have allowed it. I worked in Yellowstone one summer and have spent 25 years hiking and fishing in Montana and Wyoming. My favorite place is to be out in nature, somewhere.

The degradation of something I deeply loved hurt my young soul and made an impression on me. That is still one of the primary reasons that drive me today to protect nature.

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Third, when my oldest son was having some trouble learning to read in 2nd Grade, I was advised to look into his heavy metal levels. Dr. Murray Clarke, a homeopathic doctor, one of the significant mentors in my life, ordered some testing, and I subsequently learned that Alex had very high mercury levels. I was devastated that much of this mercury was transferred from me to him while he was in utero. After chelation, his learning issues subsided, and now he has an MBA and flies his own light aircraft, but it was a big wake up call for me as a new Mom and scared me into action. Learning first hand about the effects of invisible toxins in young children, I became a Mom on a Mission. That mission was and has become my life's work. To educate individuals on the invisible toxins in our environment so they can make safer choices for themselves and their families, creating a healthier world for everyone.

Post-Covid, I will be addressing this issue with corporations in a more significant way. Their transparency and safety is a key factor in the fight against toxins.

Also, you are a founder of Greenopia. Please tell us more about it.

After learning about the number of toxins in our daily lives, I had the opportunity to rebuild the house where my then-husband and I lived. With the help of Mary Cordaro, a bau biologist, I turned it into one of the original green homes in Los Angeles, 1994 (pre-LEED). Working hand in hand with Mary and our great contractor, Chett Hoover, I developed a sizable Rolodex of green building resources. People started calling to ask me who and what I used to build a green home, and one day, a friend suggested that I consider creating a business around greening people's homes. Since my earlier career had been in print publishing, creating a guide book seemed like a pretty reasonable idea. After my youngest child went off to nurseryschool, I rented a little office in the building next to her school and started developing the business plan for Greenopia.

Ferris Kawar, my first research director, and I built the research model with college interns walking door to door, asking businesses what they were doing to be green. A few years later, we had this research professionally scrubbed and rebuilt by The Bren School and later hired our second research director, Doug Mazeffa, from that project. Doug took the database and built it into the excellent criteria based research model it is today. It's being refined to add to the social consciousness of our decade.

Greenopia has just signed a deal with Dean Berg of Path To

Green Home and Belissa Rojas to merge companies and launch an environmentally responsible and socially conscious App in the 4th quarter of 2021. This App will help individuals find safer, greener, and more socially responsible choices in their daily lives. It will also give a daily score and feed of data that will go back to their city. This data will help cities better quantify how green their residents are and what they can do to lower their carbon footprint and create healthier cities. The most important thing we can do is to help individuals understand how their choices affect themselves and the planet.

If it's not toxic for you, it's not toxic for the planet.

Individual actions do count when it comes to climate change.

After a 15-year successful career in advertising and public relations, how did you decide to pivot and become an environmentalist?

Beyond the experiences I had as a child, building a healthy home and helping my son heal, the pivotal moment when I decided to go from ad sales to environmental advocate happened after lunch with John Adams in 2005.

John was CEO of NRDC at the time, and he invited my then-husband and me out to lunch, where he proceeded to tell us about climate change and a movie that a friend of his, named Al Gore, was producing called The Inconvenient Truth.

After hearing this story and the work of NRDC, I was hooked and have been on that path ever since. That one lunch changed my life forever.

Every day, we see the negative effects of climate change on our planet. Is it too late to turn things around?

I am a stubborn optimist" about everything but particularly climate change. I think we have the chance to slow it down, but it will take everyone working together to get the results we need. Corporations, big businesses, and countries have created massive campaigns, but most people still think their actions aren't important. I hope that Greenopia's new App will help people measure their daily impact and direct them to ways in 11 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

which they can lessen their impact and not make them feel like they are giving up their freedom or quality of life.

honey bee colonies in the US died in 2018, according to significant sources.

Please tell us more about your latest book, Living with a Green Heart.

Living With A Green Heart is the story of my journey into the world of environmental health. It is a prescriptive handbook for keeping your body, home, and the planet healthy in a toxic world and how to do it with a social conscience.

When I began to change my life, I was overwhelmed and confused so, what I created is a step-by-step green heart action plan for myself and my readers. If health is our most important asset, I feel people should have the opportunity to become aware of the challenges in their environment and then be offered solutions in the same place. I sometimes wonder why people spend inordinate amounts of time studying investment options for their 401Ks but not the options surrounding their health and well-being. I am not a scientist or a doctor, but I have become a very savvy researcher in environmental health because it interests me intensely. After meeting John Adamas, I got very depressed when I learned about climate change, its impact on our lives, and the role corporations have had in this issue. I decided to write this book to create hope for myself and others, to get a little control over our future. I am uncomfortable in the role of being preachy and don't like preachy people, so I tried to present the material in my book in a way in which readers could choose what and when it was important to them.

This statistic freaks me out. Bees have a major impact on our food production and supply because they are pollinators. A third of global farm output depends on pollination, mainly by honey bees. Albert Einstein said variants along the lines of "...If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left.

Freedom of personal choice is really important to me, especially when making a lifestyle change but, I wholeheartedly feel that the choices I make shouldn't hurt anyone else. "Loving your neighbor as yourself" was a value that my parents taught us, and I still believe in it today, perhaps more than ever before. As an environmentalist, how do you feel Bees are important for our planet?

I have not studied bees, but what I do know is that 40% of the 12 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

There would be no more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, and no more man. Bees are one of many insects that are in decline due to urbanization and mass farming practices that have upset the balance of soil and nature. Don Smith, from Kiss The Ground, and founder Ryland Englehardt, have amassed a wonderful group of young people across the US that are advocating for healthy soil. They and Paul Stamets, the world-famous American mycologist, are great people to contact if you're interested in knowing more.

Both of them had movies released last year, Fantastic Fungi and Kiss The Ground.

I highly recommend watching both movies.

We are racing towards being always more dependent on a cell phone, WIFI, and technology. What are your thoughts on this?

I didn't grow up with cell phones and therefore look at them as a tool to communicate, especially during working hours and when trying to reach my children, who are far-flung these days, but I don't live with my phone.

I don't like to use my phone at night or on weekends. I have a big issue around privacy and the usage of personal data. I try to do most of my shopping in local stores and not respond to ads online. I am not a fan of social media. I let my children know that when I was growing up, your personal life was special and personal, not something you broadcasted to the

public. Not using social media has probably hurt my public profile and book sales; however, I just haven't been able to find a way into that space with the appropriate messaging. It feels like what you put out one day is already forgotten by the next, and it's always a contest to see who's more beautiful or has more followers. It feels like people's lives and their thoughts are being devalued in search of something better. It feels a little disposable to me. Like 'fast fashion' that is here today and gone tomorrow, it just adds to the clutter in our lives.

Also, people don't think about this, but every time you send an email, it uses a tiny bit of electricity that has to be fueled by something. That something is a natural resource. This affects climate change. Electricity isn't free just because you can turn it on with a flip of a switch.

I am also very concerned about EMFs and the physical effects of prolonged exposure to them. I have always kept my bedroom EMF free, so, at night, my phone lives in the bathroom, just far enough away to hear the alarm but not close enough to disturb my sleep. I devoted a whole chapter to EMFs. Who is your favorite author?

I like to read, and I like to write, so I like words, and I like stories and different authors for different reasons. I like some authors because of their content and others for the way their words sound when they're strung together. When I learned to write, my creative writing teacher always told me to read my writing out loud. If it sounded good out loud, it was well written. There is a rhythmic cadence to the spoken word, and that should be reflected in writing. I used to read out loud to my kids every night when they were young, so some of my favorite authors are of those children's books that I liked to read with them: Rudyard Kipling and The Jungle Book, Shel Silverstein and The Giving Tree as well as The Dr. Suess Series.

The most recent book I read and couldn't put down was The Overstory by Richard Powers. It had both good writing and good content. As a nature lover, this book hit home hard for me.

Are you a vegan?

After almost ten years of being a vegan and falling off the wagon, I have found the best diet for me is a plant-based diet. As such, I eat mostly plants but occasionally fish and meat once in a blue moon. I am very careful about what fish I eat as a lot of the fish in the Pacific has some levels of radiation from Fukushima. I originally became a vegan when I had a brush with cancer around 50, and my doctor said that switching my diet to include more plants and cutting out sugar would help prevent cancer. Once I started eating that way, I found it agreed with me. I also think less meat can help the planet. I am a big proponent of Meatless Mondays.

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What is your favorite dish?

That's a hard one. I'm not sure I have a favorite dish, but I do have favorite foods, green smoothies, bran muffins, yogurt, and granola with blueberries, bananas, and flaxseed. I love warm oatmeal cookies and banana cream pie.

Is there something none of your friends or family know about you that you'd like to share with them and our readers now?

One day I want to have a treehouse where I can go and sit and write and read. I always wanted one as a child. I love cozy spaces.

Special Thanks to my children Alex, Colin and Katie, I couldn't do this work without their support and unconditional love.

Arna Behar for the Photography.

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Photo by Al Romo

Always More in ARCHES AND

ENLIGHTENMENT

By Turīya

Enlightenment goes on forever. There is always more to explore in the endless play of consciousness. During my second trip to Arches National Park, this became even more apparent.

In May of 2013 on my first visit to this special place of power, Enlightenment awakened and everything changed. The energy of the Mother flowed through me and I dissolved, and along with it all doubt and any need for validation. The infinite Joy and Peace I had chased for most of my life became a permanent state of being. Even when annoyed with the trials and tribulations of daily living, unreasonable joy permeates my mind as if teasing my ego, constantly revealing the truth of non-dual Reality.

Although there was this sudden flash, for over 15 years prior to it, I had experienced a sense of coming and going. Sometimes for months all that existed was a non-dual state of enlightened consciousness, and then I would be back, trapped in the world of suffering. This stage of quasi-awakening went on so long that I gave clinging to Enlightenment. All I wanted was to be of service to others, and even in that I knew I was merely an instrument being played. When the coming and going stopped, and there was full dissolution, it didn’t feel like a big deal. There was recognition that This – the ineffable – has always been. Like many others have said, it was like waking from a dream.

Three years after this irrevocable Awakening, I invited a group of fellow students to meet me in Utah for a retreat. Opposition greeted each of us on our journey; however we all made it to the little town of Moab by sunset. Over the course of the weekend, we explored Arches, discovering places

I had not found on my first visit. Even now there are many more areas waiting to be visited; like Enlightenment, there is always more in Arches!

On our first walk to Broken Arch, dozens of blooming prickly pear cacti greeted us with yellow and purple flowers. At the Arch, we sat on a shaded flat area as the wind began the first of many sand-blasting purifications. The stress of the opposition we faced in our travels disappeared, leaving only shining joy. The world, with all of its worries and plans and schemes fell away from each of us. The energy of the Divine Mother supported us, hugging and cradling us in her arms, fully accepting all aspects of our being.

That night, we visited what I call the Temple of the Eye. Steps lead up to a massive Arch overlooking the valley. When sitting inside, it faces another Arch, which appears like a portal with a river of pure creation pouring forth from its opening.

As we began our walk up, I asked if the others were ready to see God. We meditated well past midnight as the clouds played with the moon and stars. At one point, the clouds parted, leaving a hole the same shape as the Arch we sat under. Stars twinkled through this sky eye like tiny pupils reacting to light.

Focused on each chakra one at a time, I observed the movement from unity to individuality and back to unity. When I had trouble observing the third eye, I realized the eye cannot see itself. The earth, moon, and stars were my body and the wind my breath. Without a mirror, I could not see Myself, so I moved on to the crown. Waves of emotion pulsated through me, bringing tears of joy to my eyes as I felt all of this as me; I was being reborn thousands of times in an instant.

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At some point during all of this, God appeared in the form of four women who were laughing and giggling at first, but grew quiet as they approached us. Startled yet relieved, one of them spoke with me about how they were feeling some fear about being there alone in the dark. I told them we were meditating and enjoying the wind, and invited them to join us. One of them apologized for disturbing the peace.

I laughed and said, “not at all!”

We were one, and I loved the play of creation standing before me. Some in our party were a bit cranky about being disturbed, especially when the women started taking selfies around the one student who most wanted them to leave.

Soon they went on their way and we returned to the silence within the roaring of the wind.

A new level of connection to this powerful place continued to grow within me the next day. We returned to the temple area, but this time we went to the Portal Arch. I sat outside, waiting for an invitation to enter this most holy space.

When the time was right, I climbed up the rocks and passed through into another world.

At the top, the most beautiful puddle I have ever seen greeted me like a precious gift from God. A tourist walked by, so rather than let the emotion overpower me, I stifled a sob and took a picture of the puddle. I laughed at this new awareness of the exquisite beauty of this world that pulled such uncharacteristic sappiness from me. Later a student told me she had the same reaction to that simple puddle of water in the desert.

Photo by K. P. D. Madhuka

Although I had visited this place three years before, it was completely different than I or my companion at the time remembered. Before, there had been only a large boulder with steep drop-offs on all sides. Now there was a path leading down to the valley and a stone bridge crossing to the huge formation marking the other side of the valley.

Remember: No matter how profound a shift in awareness you experience, there is always more. Don’t cling to the high experiences; simply enjoy them and let them go. Continue to practice, allowing Life to teach you even more.

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Despite a latent fear of heights, I was drawn to cross the narrow bridge. As I sat in meditation on the other side, I merged into the womb of the Mother. Energy flowed into my heart – everything: the light, the dark, the fear, the anguish and sorrow, and the joy of everyone and everything streamed into my chest. The energy passed through the channels and gathered at my second chakra, building and building until it connected with the kundalini in the first chakra and burst.

It flowed up the central channel and exploded out my third eye as the river of creation I had seen the night before. At the same time, energy poured out the crown like a fountain, returning the energy to my heart keeping the cycle going.

Ecstasy beyond bliss fails to express what it felt like to be that cycle of creation and destruction. The feeling remains with me even now as I write these words.

Later that day, we moved over to the Cathedral; a complex of Double Arches which creates the sense of being in an ancient church. We climbed over the rocks, as some of our party scaled a wall to perch inside a smaller arch. Children scampered around, delighting us with their ability to pick the lines of travel up and down the rock walls without hesitation.

One of my students invited the kids to howl like a wolf with her. After a moment of confusion, they joined in, creating a chorus of howls and laughter echoing in the chamber.

As the sun set, we sat like Buddhas inside a mandala, each on our own private throne in the Cathedral, while the remaining tourists took pictures. With the descent of darkness, we meditated and waited for the moon.

Silver light appeared behind a large rock formation which resembled a giant Ganesh. The clouds parted behind his right ear as the moon began to shine. The wisps of cloud remaining took on ethereal shapes: a phoenix, a baby dinosaur, then a huge wolf with piercing eyes surveying us. The moon and clouds danced, revealing a peek of the silver orb, then hiding her in the shadows. She revealed her full light as we readied to leave, as a parting gift, before dark storm clouds swallowed her whole.

Following the path back to the cars, we walked in complete darkness with the thin beams of flashlights to guide us. Only a few feet of the path could be seen in front of me, reminding me of how life is like that: we don’t usually get to see very far ahead; all we are given is a light to show us where to step next.

At the retreat house we took a moment to express one thing we were thankful for during the trip. To my surprise, the student who had objected to the selfie-taking women said he was grateful for their presence. The experience allowed him to shave off a bit more of the bondage to the ego, letting him be more at ease with things that disturb his peace. This change provided an excellent example of the sense of friendliness and openness I hoped we would all bring back to the world. Each of the students grew a little deeper into Light over our short four day trip. I feel enormous gratitude to have been honored to be with these remarkable students of Light and share this beloved space.

While I have left Arches, Arches has not left me. The wind is my breath; the earth, moon, and stars are my body. As the play of consciousness continues, there is always more to explore. And for now my next adventure is one at home, where there’s a body to rest after all the over-exertion, dishes to wash and laundry to fold.

Remember: No matter how profound a shift in awareness you experience, there is always more. Don’t cling to the high experiences; simply enjoy them and let them go. Continue to practice, allowing Life to teach you even more.

Turīya teaches Trikaya Buddhism, a practice consisting of meditation, applied mindfulness, an excellent sense of humor, and respect for all who seek Truth. Wisdom and techniques from traditions such as Vajrayana, Zen, Bhakti Yoga, and Mysticism are unified in this American form of practical Buddhism. The flexibility of this path allows methods to be shared based on the needs of individual students.

Turīya founded Dharma Center in 1998 to share Trikaya Buddhism with the public. In addition to teaching, Turīya is the author of several books, including Unreasonable Joy: Awakening through Trikaya Buddhism (release date: October 27, 2020), as well as Worlds of Power, Worlds of Light: Meeting an American Buddha, and Peace with Pain: Your Guide to Life in a Malfunctioning Body (by Jenna Sundell) She also teaches through her blog: www.turiyabliss.com and on www.Facebook.com/Turiyabliss and Instagram and Twitter @turiyabliss.

Classes and Offerings: Learn more about Dharma Center and our class schedule at www.DharmaCenter.com Discover more about Trikaya Buddhism: www.trikayabuddhism.com 19 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

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H

OLLYWOOD CLOSE UP

NEW FAVORITES & MUST HAVES

By Vito Trotta

We live in a world where looking our best and feeling confident is just as essential in everyday life as it is in front of the camera!

Vito Trotta

Freelance Beauty Contributor vitotrotta.com IG: vitotrottahair

This amazing liquid Eye-lie-ner is a must have for my good friend and Emmy winning make-up artist Debbie zoller. She loves the precision superfine tip to get that perfect signature Lady Gaga eye line! Its one of many favorite products debbie uses on set from haus labs. all products are vegan and cruelty free in this glam make up line brought to you by Lady Gaga.

Haus Labs liquid eye-lie-ner| $20 | Hauslabs.com

I started using this rich neck creme a few weeks ago to see if it would help with the fine lines and wrinkles in my delicate neck area. After two weeks of use i noticed a substantial difference, the fine lines started to soften and overall my neck looked more youthful. This is one of my new favorites that i will be using regularly in my skin care routine .

Jan marini juveneck | $92 | Janmarini.com

This shampoo and conditioner duo from nature lab is fast becoming a favorite among my celebrity cliental . At first the beautiful packaging caught my eye, then after i started using it on set with my clients i was pleasantly surprised at how quickly it improved the condition of the hair.

This line is one of my new favorites.

Nature lab repair shampoo & conditioner duo | $28 | Naturelab.com

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Dreams

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By Serge Kahili King, Ph.D.

L

et’s look at different methods for remembering dreams, from the simple to the serious. First, though, don't expect to remember all of your dreams, or even all of a particular dream. Part of that has to do with the first method for remembering that I list below, but I also believe that some dreams are experiences that simply cannot be translated into written language, in the same way that no words can describe Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. You might also remember that you had a dream, but nothing would come back when you tried to recall it. Many times I have held pen in hand over my dream journal with a dream in mind and a complete inability to write down anything about it.

Photo by katerina plotnikova photography

Remembering

An excerpt from Dreaming Techniques

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Dreams with a lot of emotional or energetic content are quite often remembered easily, and sometimes for an entire lifetime, even if they aren't nightmares. But the Dream Techie needs to remember a lot more than those occasional special ones. Here are some methods to help in remembering dreams.

Changing the Wake Pattern. It's a fact that most dreams often fade away quickly after waking up. I have developed two conclusions about that fact. One is that the content of some dreams just doesn't translate well into our usual perceptions of experience. My other conclusion, supported by numerous experiments, is that a great many of our memories are associated with our body position at the time of the experience.

In a similar way, dreams can be more easily remembered after you wake up by assuming the same position you were in when you awoke.

Even memorable dreams will fade quickly if, like many people, you immediately turn over, sit up, or get out of bed when you wake up. Frequently, I have been able to bring the memory of a dream back just by resuming the position I was in at the moment of being aware of being awake. The point is that even dream memory is often related to body position.

Dream Description. If you wake up during the night after a dream you want to remember, give it a brief description and put some emotion into it as you repeat it several times. I had a very involved dream that featured Kirk Douglas and a bookstore, so I repeated “Kirk Douglas and a bookstore” about half a dozen time with feeling before going back to sleep. I was able to recall that dream easily in the morning because the phrase came back to me, and the effect lasted for several days.

Another way is to give it a name, like detectives do with their cases. You might come up with something like “The Dream of the Orange Spider,” or “The Dream of the Sinking Ship” that would help you remember it in the morning.

Affirmation. I have found that if I confidently affirm to myself that I can remember the dream after a fadeout on awakening, this also helps to recall the dream.

forgot the towels. I notice that I am losing hair on top of my head and it seems related to the stone (I did have a chrysocolla stone taped to my forehead all night as an experiment).”

Change Direction. An odd method that I have used successfully may work for you. It's based on the idea that aligning yourself with the magnetic field of the earth can have many beneficial effects. What it has done for me is to evoke very vivid dreams, which makes them easier to remember. In this method you sleep with your head toward magnetic north and your feet toward magnetic south (it isn't automatic, because curling up breaks the link). Some people have found that a different orientation works better for them.

Journaling. By far, this is the most effective, tried and true method for remembering your dreams, used by all the great dreamers. My own journaling began in 1971 and was quite intensive into the 1990s, then less so as I finally decided that I no longer wanted to wake up after each and every dream, and then more so again as I began to write this book.

All it takes is a pen and a pad of paper next to your bed, AND the determination to record whatever dreams, parts of dreams, and half-awake thoughts you have during the night. You can do it as I did for many years, which was to write down in detail each and every dream I could remember by training myself to wake up after having a dream. Or you can do as I do now, which is to scribble keywords when I do wake up during the night and then do a fuller recording in the morning while having a coffee.

The first way provides a far richer source of dream information, because even though some dreams will still only be remembered in snatches, others will be so long and detailed as to merit being turned into a novel or short story. The down side of that, of course, is a lot of interrupted sleep. Using the keyword method I don't remember as much, but there is still a lot of fascinating stuff to work with.

The Crystal Connection. I have experimented with putting many types of crystals (and even magnets) under my pillow or taped to my forehead before going to sleep. It doesn't always work, but very often it increases the number of dreams I remember and their vividness. This one is my favorite that is still vivid after more than forty years.

Serge Kahili King, Ph.D., is the author of many works on Huna and Hawaiian shamanism, including Urban Shaman and Instant Healing. He has a doctorate in psychology and was trained in shamanism by the Kahili family of Kauai as well as by African and Mongolian shamans. He is the executive director of Huna International, a non-profit worldwide network of individuals who have edicated themselves to making the world a better place.

He lives on the Big Island of Hawaii. http://www.huna.net

“I am on a bus, apparently returning from the laundromat with fresh laundry. A small piece of chrysocolla is taped to my forehead and a woman on the bus looks at me oddly. I start to get off the bus, but have to get back on, because I almost

Dreaming Techniques by Serge Kahili King, Ph.D. © 2020 Bear and Company. Printed with permission from the publisher Inner Traditions International. www.InnerTraditions.com

Relaxation. Purposely relaxing your body in bed or in the shower will often work, too.

24 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

Venerable Lobsang Chunzom is a Buddhist nun and worldwide teacher of meditation and philosophy in the Je Tsongkapa Tibetan tradition. She is a licensed Creative Arts Therapist specializing in dance/movement therapy and founder of Limitless Health Institute. She completed a three-year solitary meditation retreat.

Drawing from a wealth of knowledge and personal experience of meditation and movement, Venerable Chunzom is compiling written works to be published soon. limitlesshealthinsitute.org Please tell us about yourself and how your life path led you to be a Buddhist nun and a worldwide teacher of meditation and philosopher?

Young, curious, and with an open heart, I set upon a journey to deepen my knowledge of the connection between body and mind in general and its interdependence on other people and the environment. This seamlessly led me to the ideas found in the classics of Buddhism. Then I realized: it isn't enough to read philosophy books; we all need a teacher to help us understand the books. That is the beginning of any pathfinding a teacher. The teachers I met gave clear presentations of commentaries written on the teachings of Lord Buddha Shakyamuni; for example, texts by masters such Je Tsongkapa. The more I studied and practiced bringing the written word and meditations into action; the decision flowed easily: I felt that to live a lifestyle as a monastic was the best way to help others.

Lobsang Chunzom Buddist Nun and Founder of Limitless Health Institute

There are not many places for Buddhist nuns or monks in the USA to live in a community together. I was ordained in 1999 in New Jersey, at the 1st Kalmuk Buddhist temple, Rashi Gempil Ling. I went to India to celebrate this new millennium with a pilgrimage to walk on the roads where the lineage began and embodies the traditions.

While studying, it is important to contemplate the ideas learned in meditation, so I did many retreats and also spent hours discussing content on the debate ground. The depth of this philosophy is best comprehended if it is embraced every day and becomes the journey.

At Limitless Health Institute, all our health and happiness programs are based on these ideas. Once everyone in the world has a good, healthy life with enough resources and an abundance of life tools that can help in any situation, they will have happiness that lasts. This is the path forward.

Once everyone in the world has a good, healthy life with enough resources and an abundance of life tools that can help in any situation, they will have happiness that lasts. This is the path forward.

26 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

How can we practice being mindful of a spiritual path in our daily life?

It is a misunderstanding to think that a spiritual path is separate from our daily lives. What would be the purpose of having spirituality/religion in one's life if it didn't affect and influence the activities we do, any thoughts we have, and the emotional wellbeing we experience all day long?

A clear mind that is conducive to concentration and increases our ability to focus with clarity and precision is achieved through practice and training. Once a person reaches that watchfulness over the way we interact with others, then we can identify if our worries, regrets, and negative thoughts are influencing our daily life. If a spiritual path does not lessen the number of negative emotions every day and give reliable solutions to having a good life, then what's the point?

Can you share a story with us that changed your life as a spiritual teacher?

The only way to be a teacher of anything is to be humble and do the hard work to become a living example of whatever you teach or offer as help to others. For me, the idea of embodying thoughts and methodology in Buddhism was going into a 3-year retreat of silence, which changed my life as an individual and as a teacher. Contemplation in solitude allowed an internal perspective to develop that wouldn't have happened in the same way. It takes time to gain mental fluency, strength, and clarity – so that any tiny personal realization can then be used in one's work in the community, with family, and especially in business. There is no way I could have started LHI without these internal and external methods coming together for me. The retreat gave me the opportunity to merge these two worlds.

The story that changed my life as a Buddhism teacher is embracing that connection every day in every action.

In your opinion, what is the key to lead a conscious life?

With knowledge-based in ancient books from thousands of years ago, opinions have been time-tested and proven with logic over and over by the masters that guide us, and then by oneself as you practice. A centuries-old tradition that is still effective and useful today is to develop a compassionate heart and to perform acts of kindness based on philosophy. How I think, act, and communicate with others determines how successful I will be in my own life.

In meditation and logic, we often struggle to understand the difference between the mind, consciousness, and thoughts. Thoughts are mental and are part of what consciousness is composed of.

From the point of view of the Abhidharma school of thinking, when I look at a cup, the first instance of awareness is eye-consciousness seeing colors and shapes, not yet identifying the object like a cup. In the next instant or so, my thought watches my mental awareness, and my mental awareness becomes aware of a mental image of colors and shapes. Then, in the next moment, I am aware I see something that I call 'cup.' It is then that I know I am looking at a 'cup.' awareness that you are thinking, and then awareness of the thinker thinking about the object of focus. How does the knowledge of this mental process help out in everyday life?

In meditation and logic, we often struggle to understand the difference between the mind, consciousness, and thoughts.

Thoughts are mental and are part of what consciousness is composed of.

27 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

Every time I walk into a room, if I could hold this truth, then the colors and shapes my eye-consciousness picks up can be interpreted in different ways; for example, as I step into the room, I see a blue stick, and at the moment after, I call it a 'pen' and pick it up with my hands. As a dog walks into the room, sees the blue stick, she calls it a 'chew toy' and picks it up with her mouth. The question is, who is right? We would call this the emptiness of the object.

This applies to people as well. You walk into a room with a friend, and you start to read the people in the room from your point of reference, examining everything from physicality to personality. The question is, who is going to be right? Both neither, or one? The key here is to reflect that the way I label people and things is completely dependent upon me. I will see and experience those people and things around me how I think about, act towards, and talk to others.

We can clearly see how developing the mind's capacity not only means acquiring knowledge but also the process of learning to analyze and realize how things truly work so we can effect change in our lives and the world: this is the integral piece here.

The coronavirus crisis has thrown a curveball into the social lives and schooling of kids of all ages; the stress of the unknown affects school children of all ages; how can our children overcome this fear?

Several of Limitless Health Institute's programs address this issue: Song Connects Us is a program where students use the power of working together to improve social-emotional skills as they write songs expressing their young lives' feelings. As students adjust to the world of remote learning this school year and in years to come, Song Connects Us

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helps them to express and communicate within the virtual environment. Students share all their hopes, anxieties, and experiences of school and life in the midst of a health crisis. This supports students' academic progress by held during comfortable connecting online, so they are able to restore the personal connection that can be lost in remote classrooms.

As well, LHI Inner Essentials is a series of powerful classic meditations that strengthens wellness and is an innovative way to help all people take care of the inner essentials of life during this pandemic.

What is your advice to our readers to be more grounded and to find happiness?

There is nothing better to ground us than love! An easy to do bodhichitta meditation is to walk or just stand still focused on balanced alignment, feet connected to the ground, arms relaxed with open palms, eyes gazing to the horizon. Imagine standing on the edge of the ocean shore and looking out to the horizon; let your eyes go as far as you can, and imagine you can see someone across the ocean on the other side of the planet. There is someone like me across the sea; it's not too hard to imagine. While you stand there, there is sunlight in your heart, and it radiates out, glistening on the ocean waves, and goes across to someone across the sea. Just say, Hi! - light up their day with a burst of sunshine.

The presence of your love is touching the ground, and that foundation supports the heart opening with loving thoughts. What keeps you grounded in your compassion and love for others! Set your motivation in this way: "I want to love everyone equally."

You are a licensed Creative Arts Therapist specializing in dance/movement therapy and founder of Limitless Health Institute; please tell us more about your work.

At Limitless Health Institute, we follow operational principles, develop business relationships, and design programs that embody this great knowledge. In this manner, this timeless philosophy becomes accessible to our staff, clients, and community in practical ways.

The spectrum of ways our participants have to gain greater health, especially through creative structures, opens the pathway to a deeper union of mind and body that brings about a person's wholeness.

This integrative therapeutic framework offers a fresh approach to established methods by connecting streams of knowledge to enrich the mind's movement of life.

This keeps the teachings alive in the minds of people who seek happiness and wellbeing for themselves and others. If we don't take personal responsibility to share whatever we know and understand, in whatever way we can, then the teachings will disappear from the world. At Limitless Health Institute, we share and understand the teachings with others through our programs so that the books and teachings will continue to live on in the world.

Please tell us how being in a retreat can help to find peace within ourselves?

Any time you quiet down your life, maybe by keeping silent except for prayer recitation or staying away from computer work and online communications, our thoughts become louder and more unruly! You can imagine the war zone in your thoughts: things pop up from 10 years ago that might have been a negative feeling. So a retreat does not guarantee peace of mind.

What creates peace within would be another whole article discussing the ancient concepts of two foundational meditation tools: sheshin—the alarm that goes off in the mind as we go off our meditation object — and drenpa, or pulling the mind back to the object. These are absolutely essential to every successful meditator.

But I can say that it's crucial to train the mind to focus and concentrate on meaningful ideas that can help others find peace. We can do this on a daily basis, whether we're trying to keep a nice peaceful house with those close to us or being pleasant with people you see on the street. Only if you do, these things will retreat give you peace within. If you bring peace to others on the busiest city street or have an argument with your partner, you will find peace within.

Sure, a retreat can help us to train the mind, to deeply examine our lives, to observe our thoughts and emotions closely, and to find practical solutions. With that being said, we must think of others' benefits every moment in retreat. The whole point of the retreat is to make a change in ourselves and in the world. That gives us the deepest sense of peace: to know that we are doing something great for the ones we love.

The spectrum of ways our participants have to gain greater health, especially through creative structures, opens the pathway to a deeper union of mind and body that brings about a person's wholeness. This integrative therapeutic framework offers a fresh approach to established methods by connecting streams of knowledge to enrich the mind's movement of life.

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30 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

OF THE

HUNGER

PINE

By Teal Swan

Hunger of the Pine centers on Aria Abbott, who has drifted through the foster system for most of her life.

When she finally finds herself in an abusive home so unbearable, she has no choice to run away. Sleeping on the streets pushes Aria beyond any suffering she has felt before; the only thing worse than seeing no escape is the knowledge that no one in the world cares enough to try and find her. She soon meets Taylor, an LGBTQ homeless young man with a charismatic smile and a dream of fame, fortune, and the sunshine of LA. Swept up in his energy, Aria and Taylor board a greyhound bus and never look back. In this bright new world, Aria will discover a whole community of people living in the shadows, in the margins of society. As Taylor follows his dreams, Aria follows her heart. But she will discover that it isn't always clear who you can trust, that strangers can be kind, or treacherous, or sometimes as familiar as your own reflection if you're willing to look hard enough.

Swan, who frequently speaks on her own abusive childhood and trauma, hopes Hunger of the Pine will help readers see past just the label of “being homeless” and examine the why behind so many – especially youth— are on living on the streets today.

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T

he valleys and plains they passed along Highway 40 though dry, gave more of a lonely impression of open ocean than of land. The sun seemed to be fixed on life, sucking the water from everything. The main streets of the old western towns were littered now with impermanent chain stores. Absent of a building code, it looked as if the businesses that came there had all snagged themselves on the destitution, unprepared for the kind of customers who leave their Christmas lights on all year long. Since the beginning people had been coming to the West, mistaking the impression of endlessness for opportunity.

In her naivety, Aria had expected to see cowboys herding cattle on the plains, but the people who would be driving those cattle, growing gardens or canning their own food seemed to have been swallowed up by the wave of modern society and left behind by it. Now the cowboy, who once conquered the Native American, found himself conquered, his life made obsolete. To Aria’s dismay, they lived in trailer parks or houses that were falling apart on the outskirts of what could hardly be called cities, living on cigarettes and chew and easy-access television. Instead of working the land, they worked on oil rigs or metal shops or corporate dairy farms because it was all they could afford to do.

The West was conquered barely over a hundred years ago and still, Aria could see it was already full of a hardwon, gunshot, broken history and the kind of wounds that never heal. But beyond the hot crackle of the grasshoppers, she found there to be a slow, heartbreaking beauty; a vastness that could never be possessed.

They traversed an unpeopled wilderness where the night sky was so dark, the stars were a bright, white dust instead of interspersed lights, not just those which could outshine the nebulous glow of the city. There were sunsets and wildflowers. Animals outside cages, people outside metal and glass. A violent dance of nature, where life itself was distilled to its raw, original self.

The bus had driven through the night. Aria was staring at a man in an army uniform sitting three rows up from her. She caught herself wondering about his life, creating possible scenarios about where he was going and why. Scanning the rest of the occupants of the bus, she felt out of place amidst the rows and rows of blacks and Mexicans in front

32 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

of her. Not that the bus felt like a safe place to be in the first place, but when the racial coin was flipped, she always felt as if one wrong move would bring centuries’ worth of resentment for what her forefathers had done crashing down on her head. She felt outnumbered. Even so, Aria loved the way that so many people with so many different stories, most of whom would never cross paths in a lifetime, could all end up as if by fate in one place and on a temporary odyssey together.

Aria felt the bus slow and diverge from the highway when it pulled in for a morning meal stop on the day they were due to arrive in LA. It was one of 19 stops they made along the way. The turbulence it created woke up most of the passengers, including Taylor, who had been sleeping for nearly the entire two-day ride. His eyes opened, as if he were coming out of a daze. He sat straight up and looked around with a childlike movement that said “are we there yet?”.

They had pulled over at a gas station that was conjoined to a Burger King. The driver announced that they would have 30 minutes before they were expected to be back on the bus. Promising Taylor to meet him back on the bus when she was done in the bathroom, Aria rounded the corner into one of the aisles, hoping to be hidden from view by the conflux of passengers perusing the shelves. She picked up items, assessing them one by one, hoping to appear normal, like every other customer. When she was sure that the people manning the counter were sufficiently overwhelmed with customer purchases and she was out of view of all of the security cameras in the room, she disguised her action as best as she could and picked up two honeyflavored granola bars, concealing them in her jacket pocket.

She felt disgusting. Disgusting for stealing and disgusting because she had not found a way to shower in too many days to count. At first she wandered into the bathroom to see if there was any way to wash herself there, but the constant influx of passengers made her decide against it. She stood in the hallway where the bathrooms were located, trying the few different doors that were there in the short spaces of solitude between customers entering the bathrooms. The first door turned up nothing but a storeroom full of boxes of unopened products. But the second turned out to be a utility closet. In the brief moment it took to glance inside, she saw that there was a sink there. Aria closed the door to pretend again that she was up to nothing long enough for a man who was headed for the bathroom to disappear inside. Then she opened the door again, snuck inside and locked the door behind her.

The cement floor was stained brown from years of heavy use. All around her, in some form of organized chaos, were cleaning products and tools, a collection of brooms, two ladders, a rolled-up hose and empty buckets thrown on top of one another. The yellow handle of a mop projected from the deep porcelain washbasin affixed to the wall. Rust stains had tainted its original color. Aria had collected three empty water bottles in her time since running away from the Johnsons. She had been using them for everything from gathering water in drinking fountains to filling them with hot tap water to keep her warm at night, to placing them on the ledges of windowsills to catch the light in a way that comforted her. She found it almost farcical that something she’d never thought twice about would be one of the things she now treasured the most. Looking down to confirm that there was a drain in the center of the floor, she pulled the bottles from her backpack and began to fill each with water from the faucet. Still afraid to be discovered, she rushed to strip naked and place her clothes up on a high shelf, out of reach of any potential water spray. The water, not intended for the human skin, was freezing. As fast as she could, refilling the bottles again and again, she soaked herself with it. Tiny goosebumps began to rise up to meet the water.

Aria briefly looked for soap with which to clean herself, but only discovered a jug of solvent cleaner, intended for cleaning floors. She considered whether or not it would be dangerous for her skin, but decided to take the risk.

She soaped herself vigorously, including the length of her hair, which she stuck under the faucet of the sink. She hoped that the force of the water would do a better job of washing the suds out than the trickle from the water bottles would.

When she was done, she patted herself off as fast as she could with sheets of paper towels she found on a roll sitting on the shelf beside her and squeezed the water from the ends of her hair with them. After pulling her clothes and shoes back on, she put the damp bottles back into her backpack.

Aria stood there, holding on to the straps of her backpack and listening to what was happening on the other side of the door for a time, before deciding to exit. When she did, no one noticed. Aria didn’t know whether that was a relief or whether she wanted them to notice. On the one hand, she did not want to get in trouble. She hadn’t wanted them to catch her there. On the other hand, the ease with which she was going unnoticed made her nervous. She was beginning to feel invisible, as if she were a ghost. She was beginning to slip through the cracks in between people’s caring.

Hunger of the Pine released on Oct. 13, 2020 and will be available at www.hungerofthepine.com and at all major retailers.

Teal Swan is an international speaker, best-selling author, and a survivor of severe childhood abuse. Today, having integrated her own harrowing life experience, she inspires millions of people around the world towards truth, authenticity, freedom, and joy. Swan is also the author of six internationally published books, the creator of hundreds of frequency paintings, as well as the popular "Ask Teal" YouTube series, which currently has more than 80 million views and almost one million subscribers.

For more information visit www.tealswan.com.

33 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

The Human

Photo by Nazarizal Mohammad

Cost of the Beauty Industry’s Dependence

on Palm Oil

By David Bass, Co-Founder of Peet Bros.

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has no regulations about human rights or labor treatment, so if you're buying products with palm oil, "sustainable" or not, you're buying into this system.

T

he next time you open your makeup bag, peer into your bathroom cabinet or examine the shelves of your shower, check out the ingredient labels on the items you find. You'll start to notice a trend: palm oil and its derivatives are found in over 70% of beauty products, not because it's some miracle solution for ageless skin, but because it's a cheap filler that allows skincare, cosmetic, and hair care companies to cut costs and keep profits high.

While these companies maximize their earnings, someone else pays a steep price—and that someone is all of us and the planet we call home.

It's clear that palm oil is destroying our planet and countless lives. But we also know it's hard to go a day without it. Due to the growing awareness of the palm oil problem, corporations have dreamed up over 500 other palm oil names to hide behind on ingredient lists. Even the folks behind many "eco-friendly" brands have a hard time keeping track of the countless ways palm oil has infiltrated the industry. The good news is that there is simply no reason to use palm oil from a performance and quality standpoint. Everything you use now can be made palm oil-free, and it's time we demand that companies switch for good. We've done it at Peet Bros. with our 100% palm-free skincare, and a small group of dedicated brands has been able to do it as well. The more people who become aware of palm oil's environmental and human costs and choose to support the companies dedicated to removing the conflict-ridden ingredient for good, the more we can show the industry leaders that a world without palm oil is possible.

80% of the world's palm oil is produced in Malaysia and Indonesia, where every hour, 300 soccer fields of rainforest are burned to the ground to support palm production to keep up with global demand.

Greenhouse gasses are pumped into the air as these precious forests are destroyed. Critically endangered animals are losing their habitats— the orangutan has seen its population cut in half in the past 10 years alone. At the current rate of deforestation, all of Indonesia's rainforests will be destroyed in less than 15 years. All for an ingredient that does nothing to make your skin soft.

But the human cost of this all-too-common ingredient is seldom acknowledged. Human rights violations are rampant in the $65 Billion dollar palm oil industry, where the majority of the plantation workforce is made up of foreign laborers who are subject to passport confiscations, often work without contracts, are given arbitrary fines and penalties, are paid well under the minimum wage, and face sexual harassment, physical threats, and abuse by plantation managers. Shady brokers charge desperate workers thousands of dollars to get jobs, forcing the workers to pay off the debt before they have any chance of leaving the plantations. Exploiting vulnerable people to do this dangerous work is a form of modern slavery, adding to the mile-long list of reasons to say NO to palm oil. Unfortunately, "sustainable" palm oil

Photo by Jorge Franganillo

As makers of palm oil-free bath and body products, we spend a lot of time educating folks about why palm oil is a problem. Over the years, this education has focused on the well-documented environmental devastation caused by the palm oil industry. And for a good reason!

Awareness of the damage being done to our planet is enough to make many people say no to palm.

35 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

WOMEN'S

EMPOWERMENT

Talaya Thomos Founder of The Moovment

Tell us about yourself.

I am a mom of two. My twenty-one-year-old daughter is in school in Montreal and is passionate about all things human rights. My nine-year-old son is a wild child who loves life and would never want to go to school if we didn't make him; he wants to run around with no shirt and climb trees. So I guess you can say both of my children take after me!

So much of who I am today rooted in the place I grew up - Boulder, Colorado. I fell in love with the mountains and being outdoors, and I realized that the movement was at my core being at a very young age. Growing up black in Boulder, a town with a predominantly upper echelon of whiteness, came with its own unique set of challenges.

What is the movement for you?

One of the things that have always been at the root of who I am as a person is a physical movement.

I've always been a body/movement teacher. I grew up a sprinter, running track and competed in junior Olympics and racing every summer - it's always been an integral part of my life. Growing up in Boulder provided me a lot of access to the movement, and I was able to really be in my body - yoga was a part of our gym curriculum, but I didn't even know it was called yoga then. I wouldn't know how to navigate the world without movement, and it has been fundamental in shaping my life and everything I have created.

36 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e Decemberr 2020

How and when did you decide to become a yoga instructor?

I never decided to become a yoga teacher; it really chose me. What I had decided, back in 2011, was to change the course of my life. I worked at a hedge fund and found myself at a crossroads between raising my son and giving my all to a company that really needed me and relied on me from the very start. When my son was born, I realized I couldn't do both, and I had to make a really difficult decision to end my career with that company. Uncomfortable in the uncertainty, I asked the universe, "what's next?"

At that time, I was a pilates, kickboxing, and spin instructor, so I took to looking on the internet for what else was out there in the movement world. That was when I came across a yoga teacher training program and said YES! It was one of the most synchronistic things that happened in my life, and at the time, I had no idea it would capture all of me. I fell in love and never looked back.

The practice of yoga answered so many questions I had as a kid. I've always been attracted to spirituality, and even when my parents stopped going to church, I kept it up all throughout high school and started a youth group.

And what really kept me there was the singing, sense of community, the sense of belonging - a sense of something greater than us, and a deep calling inside of me that said we are more than our bodies.

So, to me, naturally, yoga brought all those pieces together. And then it helped me work through so many of my own blocks and step into my power. I wanted that for so many other people, so becoming a yoga teacher came from a really heartfelt, genuine place for me.

You spearheaded the Steamboat Movement Festival for six years. Tell us about how that got started and what it was about.

Let's see; it was 2014. At the time, I was obsessed with yoga, teaching classes anywhere I could, and looking for avenues to get more involved in the yoga community. A friend of mine told me there was a group of yogis trying to organize a yoga festival, and I offered my help. I remember meeting the group in a fancy restaurant in Steamboat, and something clicked.

Right then and there, I just knew I was in the right place at the right time for the right reason. The moment really changed my life, and I have been in service to it ever since. That initial experience makes me think about Martin Luther King's speech, "I had a dream," and I wonder if, really, the dream had him?

The original vision of the festival was to bring people together in an outdoor environment to convey movement. Steamboat is a naturally beautiful place, geologically rich in natural sulfur and mineral springs. It's a place where the outdoors and nature are celebrated. We wanted to put Steamboat on the map of yoga events and melanin-rich voices onto a stage. We wanted to bring the melanin bodies to the yoga and wellness world.

Kristen Rockford has been my yes woman with this. While the Steamboat Movement Yoga festival was initially her idea, she supported my vision wholeheartedly. She loved my dream of making yoga accessible to the less privileged, non-white communities, and so we formed a very strong allyship that sailed away into what today is The Movement.

What is The Moovment?

The Moovment is a platform for creating justice and social change. It's a community in which we can find unity and equality amidst our differences. The yoga industry has

space and power to take the lead in anti-racism by adopting a culturally-rich growth mindset that is geared towards accessibility. It is time to start creating opportunities for BIPOC & other marginalized populations to be seen, felt, and heard in the world, in yoga studios, magazines, on social media, in workshops, and in festivals. That is what I hope The Moovment will enable and bring to the table.

Our value of unity, envision, transformation, and love permeates from the foundation of the event.

Unity - because we dream of seeing a world where people can live in peace and harmony despite their differences. The people in our world today are deeply divided by political polarization, yet we still yearn to be connected, and we continuously seek connections to bring us back together. No matter a person's ethnicity, race, gender, body type, age, and abilities, we are all on this tiny blue planet amidst the cosmos. Just as the earth holds us together in all our beauty so we can hold each other in acceptance of our differences, One love.

Envision - because we believe in new possibilities for ourselves and the world around us. We envision a world that is inclusive of difference, a safe place for everyone to live up to their fullest potential, and create a positive, supportive environment for all to thrive in. Our purpose is to empower, uplift, educate, and inform. We aim to create a culturally rich yoga and wellness community that celebrates, supports and fosters unity across all cultures, ethnicities, belief systems, sexual and gender orientations, ages, abilities, and body types. We wholeheartedly believe every expression of the human experience holds great value and is deserving of representation and inclusion. As cliche as it may sound, it's true: the world is full of possibilities, and the human potential is infinite.

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Transform - because we know it in our hearts to be true that change comes from within. We transform our hearts, our bodies, minds, and spirits through movement, radical imagination, and open dialogue. A famous American anthropologist in the 1970's said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Transformation starts with me and you.

Love - because it transforms from within and allows us to find deep connections with ourselves and those around us - is what enables empathy and acceptance to flourish in the most beautiful ways. Love is the path to healing humanity, and we infuse love into all we do. We care deeply about our team of presenters, partners, and the community we are growing.

What inspired you to create The Moovment?

The quick answer is I got frustrated with the yoga community. At the end of the Steamboat Movement Festival 2019, I was frustrated because I was working hard to show people what yoga is really about, and I couldn't understand why everyone else in the community couldn't see what I was seeing.

I was mad because I couldn't believe they would support events that promoted drinking events over wellness. I was angry; they couldn't see the event that is supposed to bring wellness to people's lives was in decay because of drug and alcohol abuse. The small mountain town I was living in has one of the country's highest suicide rates per capita. Then, I knew that if we wish to embody yoga's lifestyle and philosophies fully, then yoga as we know it must change.

So, I sat with these feelings for a bit and listened to what may come. Then the pandemic happened. My immediate response was, we need yoga! And when I looked online, I was amazed at how quickly yoga became available. So, I made a post of every option one can find for free yoga and thinking there's something to this - access is a huge problem, but it doesn't have to be. Yoga is a powerful tool we can use to support us and heal as a global community, yet it's not fully shared.

Then, the incident with George Floyd happened, and those words he said, "I can't breathe," resonated deeply with me. I 38 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

felt like he called out to the universe, and every single person on the planet could hear him. His words resonated with all of us; we could all feel it. We all know if we stop breathing for long enough, we die. At that moment, with his last words, George Floyd connected us on such a human level; it was really powerful. In yoga, breath is the foundation of the practice. So, it solidified my inclination that we ALL need yoga now more than ever.

I've been working on this thing for the past six years has never been more relevant; I have been preparing myself for this moment the whole time - you never know why you're doing what you're doing until that moment of revelation comes.

What Moves you? What is important in your life?

Waking up every day knowing I am a part of something bigger - a movement and community that is uplifting humanity and changing the world and really working towards justice and equality.

What should people expect from The Moovment 2021 and beyond?

We stand for something big - it's not just an event. It's a platform for change. We're providing access to wellness and physical movement for all bodies and all walks of life. I strongly believe we can brand and own yoga with an accessibility model - which means no more $20 classes. There are business models out there whose intention is to serve a billion people, and I say, why stop there? Let's serve 7+ billion people with access to wellness. I'm not looking to be a millionaire; I'm looking to serve billions of people with wellness and access to it. That's really what The Moovment is - helping the world shift toward inclusion, unity, equality, love, and acceptance. And that can look like whatever we want - what we build into that will grow from inclusivity in education, the economics of togetherness. There's so much of what we can build into a model that is based on upliftment, betterment, and the healing of humanity. So, I guess you can expect Moovment 2021 and beyond to be a safe place to learn and grow with a fantastic community of like-minded humans. I am looking forward to sharing it with the world and hope to see you there.

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I Love You Forever and Ever, Shams, Until We Meet Again

I

By Dr. Margit Gabriele Muller n 2001, I joined the Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital in the United Arab Emirates. Unfortunately, the falconers were not used to a woman as veterinarian. Because I was a female pioneer in an Arab world, they didn’t accept me—and even refused to let me touch or treat their falcons.

Their rejection was devastating. Every day things got worse, and I wondered why I had taken this job. After six weeks, when I arrived home one day, I was exhausted and disillusioned from another deeply frustrating day. My landlady, Heidi, called to me from the entrance of the compound where I lived. As I moved closer to her, I saw a shadow walking slowly toward us.

I bent down and saw it more clearly: It was a thin, dirty bundle of fur that was supposed to be a dog. I looked at him and felt as if he were saying, “Yes, this is me. I’m a three-year-old Golden Retriever mix. I don’t have a name, but I’m a nice boy. I’ve been roaming this area for eight weeks, ever since my human threw me out of a moving car.” (I learned these facts later.)

He inched closer, step by step. He stopped short in front of me and looked up. I imagined him saying, “Oh my, you look even more tired and exhausted than I am. Is there nobody to take care of you? Yes, this is the right place for me, I can take care of you.

I am the leader of the pack! I’m looking into your beautiful dark brown eyes, so soft and gentle. But I see a hint of sadness and loneliness in them. Please take me, and I will make your life a happy one. I’m so tired of sleeping under trees and fighting with other dogs and cats for food.”

How could he read my soul? I wondered. The dog put his head on my knee. He had beautiful kohl-framed dark eyes, but no hair above his eyes or on the left side of his neck. His ribs stood out under matted fur. He looked deep into my eyes as if he wanted to say, “Please take me in. I can see the pain in your soul. I will do everything to make you happy. You will never regret it.”

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I saw the promise of happiness in his eyes, and this was breathtaking. I couldn’t look away and decided on the spot to keep him. I named him Shams, the first Arabic word I learned, which means “sun.” He suffered from various diseases. For the next six months, I cooked chicken and rice for him (and for me) every day to heal him.

Shams recovered fully and became the most beautiful dog that walked the earth. He became my best friend, trusted confidant, and greatest support.

Six months after joining the Falcon Hospital, I was promoted to manager. I continued to face acceptance problems, not only with the falconers but also with the hospital staff. As they were all men, they found it almost impossible to accept a woman as their superior. I fought for my survival and acceptance, and felt very much alone, but Shams helped me.

It was as if he was saying, “I feel so sorry for Mom when she comes home and is close to tears. She sits down, put her head in her hands, and doesn’t move. Twice she packed her suitcase, and I got very scared that she wanted to leave.”

Shams would snuggle closer, put his paw gently on my knee and his head in my lap. He would look deep into my eyes and soul as if he were saying, “Be patient; things will improve with time. Just be strong and carry on.”

Shams was my reason to keep fighting and refusing to give up. To see his face in the morning lightened every difficult day. Each day, it was as if he were saying, “Mom tells me all her worries and problems and I’m here to help her.”

When work seemed like hell on earth, Shams brought happiness back into my life. Only after emergencies arose and falcons survived my surgeries did the falconers and my team start to slowly build trust and confidence in me. Shams and I had happier times now. He became the sunshine and treasure of my life, without whose help I would have never succeeded.

He lived to the “Methuselah” age of seventeen years and gave me happiness beyond measure. I saw in his eyes his last words to me: “Our bond is so strong it can never be broken.

I pray every day to God and thank him that he brought my Mom to me. I will wait for you in heaven; I know one day I will be united with you again. I love you forever and ever.”

And I love you forever and ever, Shams—until we meet again.

Dr. Margit Gabriele Muller is author of Your Pet, Your Pill®: 101 Inspirational Stories About How Pets Lead You to a Happy, Healthy and Successful Life and the accompanying workbook. She is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine with more than twenty-five years of experience in the field and is a sought-after speaker and Certified Life Coach. Since 2001, Dr. Muller has been the Executive Director and Chief veterinarian at the Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital in the United Arab Emirates. Under her expert leadership, the hospital has become the world’s largest falcon hospital, as well as the world’s leading center for falcon medicine. A member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, UK, the Association of Avian Veterinarians, USA, and the Bavarian Chamber of Veterinarians, Germany, Dr. Muller is also the author of Practical Handbook of Falcon Husbandry and Medicine and Modern Veterinary Practice Management.

She lives in Abu Dhabi with her five dogs and several other pets.

Shams was my reason to keep fighting and refusing to give up. To see his face in the morning lightened every difficult day. Each day, it was as if he were saying, “Mom tells me all her worries and problems and I’m here to help her.”

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WHISPERS OF HOPE A Friendship Pact

I sprang to my feet and began to shake Dorothy. I screamed, “No, you can’t move! Tell me you’re not moving!” But when I felt the tears touch my hands, I knew it was true.

“Mama said we’re leaving right now!” Dorothy replied, swallowing hard. “Promise we’ll be friends forever,” she begged. “Promise!”

“I promise.” I felt my eyes burning. “I really, really promise.” I hugged Dorothy and could feel both our hearts pounding wildly. Then each of us licked our right thumb, slapped it into the palm of the left hand, made a fist of the right hand, slapped the butt of the fist into the palm of the left hand, and then we slapped each other’s hands and shouted, “Friends forever!”

As Dorothy was running back toward the hedge, I turned my head to look at her one last time, and she was looking back at me. “Friends forever,” I whispered to myself. As I watched her run toward her house, I thought I would never forget the fun we had, and I was sure I had seen how scared she was as she looked back at me. I looked across the road and saw Old Tony watching us. For a moment, I wondered if he could talk Dorothy’s parents into staying. I decided he couldn’t. I turned and ran into my house.

Photo by Briana Tozour

I didn’t listen to the music from the Blue Room that night after the news. I didn’t feel like dancing or singing. I lay in my bed instead and thought about Dorothy and the fun we’d had. I thought about how frightened Dorothy had looked when she turned back to look that last time. I wondered where Dorothy had been all afternoon. I wondered why she had not come out to play. We could have gone to The Vines.

By Bertie Simmons

I

t was in early September when I got that strange feeling again. I was sitting on my front porch, thinking about the stories Dorothy had told me and wanting to do something to change the bad things that were happening. But what could a ten-year-old do to make the world better? I wondered.

Suddenly, Dorothy charged through the hedge and ran through our front gate and onto the porch. “We’re moving tonight,” she sputtered breathlessly. “Girl, we’re moving! I don’t want to move!” she cried.

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One last time. I thought about the signs, Colored and White. I thought about the white boys with the two-by-fours. I thought about bad things happening to people. I thought until I fell asleep from exhaustion.

Later that night, I was awakened by a bright, flickering light through my window. I sprang from my bed and rushed to the window, where I saw fiery tongues of flames leaping into the darkness. It was Dorothy’s house! Figures in white hooded robes were running to get into a pickup truck, its engine revving. They were all laughing. As they sped away, my parents

rushed to the front porch where they were joined by Old Tony in his long johns. I ran to the porch screaming, “This isn’t funny! Stop laughing!” While they all talked about how awful it was that the house was burning, I was lost in my own thoughts. I wondered if this is what Mr. Fred was talking about when he said that I would pay for going to the back of the store with Dorothy. I wondered if it was my fault that they burned Dorothy’s house down. I stood at the window and watched as the fire spread to the tall grass where I’d first met Dorothy. Dorothy’s terrified face flashed before my eyes. I watched and wondered until there was nothing left but smoking embers. I now knew what my mother meant when she said she felt “empty” at times when she was lonely. I finished the night in fitful sleep, dreaming of fire and the sadness I felt because Dorothy was gone.

The next morning, I arose just as the sun was peeking over the tops of the trees beyond the still smoldering embers. I slid out of bed, got dressed, and sprinted across the yard.

I turned my body sideways and slipped through the hedge. The fire had burned the grass, so I had a clear view of where Dorothy’s house had once stood. I ran past the embers to our secret place, my heart pounding, my mind exploding with thoughts that I could not understand.

“Dorothy and I always felt safe in The Vines,” I whispered to the wind as I ran. Once I had reached the big oak tree, I grabbed the familiar Y limb and was about to lift myself onto it when I noticed a folded paper tied with a piece of twine to Dorothy’s side of the Y. I quickly untied the string that held the note, unfolded it, and read the message Dorothy had left for me. She told me she did not come out to play that last day because she had been too sad. She told me to stop getting angry about stuff and to stop worrying so much about things I couldn’t change.

We would be friends forever, she wrote.

I read the note over and over as memories flashed through my mind like the black and white picture shows I saw every Saturday night at the movie theater.

But this picture show was different. This picture show was a private showing that could be viewed by me alone because it was a story about me and one of the best friends I had ever had. As the film ended and the reel spun wildly in my mind, I smiled, licked my right thumb, slapped it into the palm of my left hand, made a fist of my right hand, slapped it into the palm of my left hand, and then slapped into the wind as I whispered, “Friends forever!” And I meant it. I never saw Dorothy again, but throughout my life, that summer with her informed my beliefs, intentions, and actions as I, in my own way, worked tirelessly to give hope to the hopeless.

For 61 years Dr. Bertie Simmons, Ed.D. author of Whispers of Hope: The Story of My Life, was a dedicated educator in the Houston Independent School District (HISD). Simmons came out of retirement to serve as principal of Furr High School in 1999. During her more than 17 year tenure, she was instrumental in revitalizing the school and creating transformational opportunities for some of Houston’s most disadvantaged students. Known as a visionary and a change agent who can bring out the best in her students, the high-energy educator maintained that upbeat and infectious attitude to reach and inspire her teachers and students with her passion, knowledge, dedication, and maybe even the occasional rap song or two.The first of Simmons’ seemingly countless honors came in 1965, when she was named the HISD Teacher of the Year. That distinction was followed by many more, including HEB’s Best High School Principal in Texas award in 2011 and KHOU’s Schools Now Spirit of Texas award. In addition, Furr was one of only three schools in the nation identified for the College Board Inspiration Award in 2011 As evidence of Simmons’ indelible impact on Furr High School, education advocate and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, wife of the late Apple, Inc. CEO Steve Jobs, recognized Furr High School as a recipient of a $10 million grant through the XQ Super School Project. Simmons’ school was one of 10 selected from nearly 700 schools nationwide for “reimagining high school education.”

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Abundance Corner

By Phyllis King

in the

FINDING JOY

Rhythm

OF LIFE

T

Photo by Al Battison

here are no two ways about it. It does not matter if you are rich, or poor, thin, or fat, young, or old; the life of a human being is full of hardship and challenge. Whatever our circumstance is will determine the nature of our challenges.

Make no mistake. Their life challenges everyone. The best way to view the challenge is with acceptance and gratitude because all our experiences are meant to give us something we need or that will expand our reality. We only feel pain when we resist our challenge in the present moment. This is the burden the mind and ego bring to our experience.

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The onset of COVID gave us all a wonderful opportunity. That opportunity was and is to see what we believe is true about ourselves.

We get to see how our beliefs serve or deplete us. Are we fear-based or trust-based? Those who rely heavily on the external for stimulation and validation have struggled the most during this time. These types of struggles are filled with the “stuff” that creates more abundance if we allow them to do so. Once we understand this truth on a deep level living with joy at all times becomes natural. When that becomes our natural state of being, we become more magnetic, and benevolence, and joy follow.

What does all this mean? How do we let a moment like COVID expand our world when seemingly everything outside of us is contracting? We begin by remembering that we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

We are an awareness choosing to participate in emotion, thought, and form. Secondly, we want to practice looking at life as theatre. Theatre is full of tragedy, happy endings, sad endings, and complexities.

In the theatre of life, we are watching ourselves, and other human beings play out our karma, live our beliefs and revel in our thoughts and emotions on a grand stage. Those who develop the quiet discipline of recognition of life as theatre, using their awareness to watch life find great power, strength, and joy.

Why is this? When we practice sitting in our awareness, rather than our thoughts and emotions, we begin to become empowered like never before. We recognize who we are and who we are not.

We no longer identify with thoughts or emotions as us.

They are simply things we are doing with our energy.

Our power no longer comes from external sources but from the collective consciousness.

Lastly, the way we evolve is through the challenge. It is through surmounting obstacles and stretching ourselves we become more than we were yesterday. The absent challenge, we stay the same, and we deaden ourselves to universal life force energy. It becomes more and more difficult to create outcomes or realize our dreams.

As much as we protest when a challenge is invited or put upon us, it is still a challenge. It is difficult. For many of us, our very trust in life can be called into question.

This is the journey of the soul.

In the human experience, we search for happiness and 48 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e Decemberr 2020

comfort. It is the measure of our success. The spirit is searching for evolutionary experiences to expand the whole and contribute to consciousness at large. Understanding our true relationship to consciousness is the key to joyful living.

The dance of duality asks us to participate in life in such a way that does not invite more trauma to our experience and that does not create more karma for our future experiences. The dance is also to learn how to sit inside the space where our soul lives unencumbered and free.

Gary Zukav called this “The Seat of the Soul.” From this place of pure awareness, joy is always available to us.

We see the drama of life in a vastly different way. We interact with life in a vastly different way.

This does not preclude us from having empathy for those suffering or in pain in our world.

We do ourselves a disservice when we deny the depth and dimension of our experiences. They are never meant to be one dimensional. Focus on what you can control and pull your energy away from things you cannot control. See health and wellness for yourself and the world, and practice sitting in pure awareness as much as you can. This is how you become magnetic and gain influence. This is how you attract what you need and want in your life. This is how you can maintain joy throughout any rhythm life presents to you.

I wish you the happiest of holidays and a beautiful new year. With love and gratitude.

Known as the Common Sense Psychic (tm), Phyllis King has worked with tens of thousands of peoplein 25 countries. She is known for her practical and down to earth approach. She has been featured on, ABC, CBS and NBC TV, radio programs across the country, and has been published in over 70 print and online publications.

She has four books, including Bouncing Back, Thriving in Changing Times, with Dr. Wayne Dyer.

Her latest book The Energy of Abundance is available in bookstores now. Phyllis holds a B.A. in Sociology. www.phyllisking.com

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UPHEAVAL & CHANGE Finding Real Security in Uncertain Times

By Rabbi Simon Jacobson

H

ow do we cope with the upheaval? Unlike personal tragedy and loss, which affects individuals' lives and those close to them, upheaval is a large-scale disruption that imperils communities, destabilizes nations, or even endangers the entire world. Suddenly, the underpinnings of our security — personal safety, economic well-being, our very lives — have been sabotaged.

Photo by Ian

At such times, when the foundations of our world seem to be collapsing, it is difficult to avoid being overwhelmed by fear and uncertainty. We ask: What is happening? Will the world ever return to normal?

How can we prepare for an unknowable, unpredictable future? Can we regain our equilibrium and overcome our feelings of alienation? The questions come faster than the answers, which may not come at all, and we grow disoriented and fearful. We may even become paralyzed, unable to gain a perspective on the events that have overtaken us or to regain control over our fates. In such a difficult situation, what can we do?

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To live meaningfully, we must face upheaval directly and not retreat into fear or denial. Even the direst experiences are part of life's purpose and mission, and we must struggle to accept them in this spirit. We do not welcome calamities and may even challenge G-d to allow them, yet part of our challenge is to get beyond our anger, fear, and pain to unearth possibilities for growth.

Even when our way of life appears to be in jeopardy, we must school ourselves to detect in upheaval the seeds of transformation.

Before we can learn from the cataclysm, however, we must recover from the shock and restore some sense of safety and security. In times like these, we need to seek comfort and strength from the people closest to us — family, friends, and community. The hand we extend to calm and comfort our fellow human beings helps to ease our suffering as well.

HOW CAN WE COMPREHEND UPHEAVAL? Once we ensure our own safety and the well-being of the people close to us, we can begin looking beyond the immediate crisis to comprehend the upheaval and what it means for us. When we see the larger picture, it is possible to learn and grow from our experiences. We may find that we resist taking these steps, that we are blocked by a second fear, deeper and more profound than the one associated with the terrible events: a fear of the unknown.

Fear and uncertainty are necessary, even healthy, parts of the growth process. Upheaval on a national or global scale is a sign of change. Just as the great cataclysms recorded in the Bible — the Flood, the Egyptian enslavement, the Exodus — represent stages in a grand, Divinely ordained historical plan, so are the ruptures of the geopolitical fabric in our own times. When we feel disoriented by what has happened — even if we experience panic and pain at first — we are acknowledging the profound changes taking place around us. It is disturbing to find ourselves suspended between a past that has been swept away and an unpredictable, unformed future. At such moments, what we see is destruction and disorder, and we cannot comprehend how today's upheavals are beginning to usher in the future. But they are.

When catastrophic changes create disruptions to the everyday fabric of our lives, we can fall victim to them, or we can seize the opportunity to seek signs of the changes that follow troubled times. What we discover will lead us to an entirely new vision.

WHAT BRINGS US TRUE SECURITY? In times of upheaval, we are given the rare opportuni-

ty to perceive directly and with certainty, what is true and real in our lives. As a result, we notice two crucial things. First, we see through the fragile, ineffectual material comforts we often rely on for our senses of security. Faced with a crisis, we immediately recognize that it is folly to depend on such insubstantial things for our safety and survival. Second, as we glimpse beneath the surface of our material realm, we begin to discern the outlines of a more enduring world, where we can locate a pillar powerful enough to support and protect us. We discover, in other words, the source of security that is both permanent and eternal.

Our selves — our true selves — consist of two components: a body and a soul. Happiness is possible only when we bridge these dichotomous entities when we nourish our souls as much as we do our bodies. True security is only possible when our material lives are rooted in and connected with our spiritual one.

The instant disaster strikes, we perceive with terrifying clarity just how mistaken we were to devote our lives to the pursuit of purely material ends. By rediscovering our inner purpose — and synchronizing the goals of body and soul — we can get back on course. To do so, each of us must ask: What do I stand for? What are my priorities? What should my purpose be? What would make me feel secure in this world, no matter what happens? The questions we ask in times of upheaval — and the answers we give — are probably the most critical of our lives.

In overcoming our terror, we answer the challenge of defining our true beliefs, who we are, and the values we live by. At such moments, we have an opportunity to discard old patterns of behavior and outfit ourselves with new ones.

In overcoming our terror, we answer the challenge of defining our true beliefs, who we are, and the values we live by. At such moments, we have an opportunity to discard old patterns of behavior and outfit ourselves with new ones.

Our selves — our true selves — consist of two components: a body and a soul.

Happiness is possible only when we bridge these dichotomous entities when we nourish our souls as much as we do our bodies. True security is only possible when our material lives are rooted in and connected with our spiritual one.

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FAITH IN TROUBLED TIMES When the times are uncertain, and values are in flux, we need, more than ever, our absolute, spiritual foundation.

Whether or not we are aware, each of us was sent to this world with a unique purpose. Our calling is an expression of our profound and intimate relationship to the Eternal, to G-d, and it is this mission that anchors our lives.

Throughout even our most difficult moments, our purpose never wavers; this helps us to find our way when all the familiar signposts have vanished.

There is something paradoxical about the capacity of times of upheaval to raise our spiritual consciousness since catastrophic events can also pose great challenges to faith.

Yet the power of faith is undeniable. Sometimes it expresses itself through actions that seem to have nothing to do with faith. Where do people get the determination and willpower to persevere against overwhelming odds? What drives them, in times of crisis, to unfathomable and unexpected acts of heroism? What is the source of our empathy and compassion?

The answer to all these questions is faith — in a higher purpose, a more perfect form of justice than human institutions are capable of. However, we refer to it; faith infuses us with the certainty, will, and resolve that good can overcome indifference and evil. The path may be long, but faith helps us to recognize that for all of us, life is a process that leads to redemption, a process in which loss leads to renewal, suffering to growth, and death to rebirth.

Faith is a power we cultivate, but it is also a gift that we receive. It is the soul granting us the ability to celebrate life, reconnect to the Eternal, and our lives' absolute purpose.

This power is especially precious when life threatens to become unbearable; it enables us to refuse to become victims and realize that even if we cannot understand why terrible things happen, we can respond to them with humanity, hope, and dedication build a better world.

WHAT ACTIONS SHOULD WE TAKE? To sustain faith and hope and to perfect the spiritual potential that stirs within us, we must channel faith into action. Here are some suggestions: •

Designate a time each day to study Divine wisdom and contemplate the larger questions of life: Why are we here? What is the real purpose of our lives? What provides us with true and permanent security? Open your soul and emotionally connect with G-d.

•

Pray for all who suffer and for your own needs. Pray for the strength to move forward, to rebuild and create a more sensitive world.

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•

Give more charity than you had previously: money, time, and expertise. When we act charitably, we open new passages through which blessings can flow into our world.

•

One by one, start eliminating the little evils in your life: envy, anger, hate, gossip, speaking ill of others, and all other pettiness to which we often succumb.

Seek guidance in the texts studied by our ancestors.

•

Talk to your children about the disquieting changes going on around us in the world today. Encourage them to share their reactions and express their fears.

•

Seek community with other people, especially at times of great stress. Ask older people who have endured difficult trials in their lives to relate their experiences. Invite friends into your home, comfort one another, and work together to build a stronger community.

The answer to all these questions is faith in a higher purpose, a more perfect form of justice than human institutions are capable of. However, we refer to it; faith infuses us with the certainty, will, and resolve that good can overcome indifference and evil.

By translating faith into action and drawing strength from the community, we can anticipate the future with hope and give ourselves a meaningful role in bringing it into existence. Then the darkness can be seen for what it is — temporary and transformative — and we can begin to regard ourselves as agents of hope.

From "TOWARD A MEANINGFUL LIFE: The Wisdom of the Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson" by Simon Jacobson, excerpted with the author's permission. Copyright 2017

Rabbi Simon Jacobson shares emotional, psychological, and spiritual skills to help people live their most meaningful lives. An "engaged sage" with an open, empathetic, and non-judgmental approach, he provides clarity, solutions, and new perspectives based on timeless teachings. He is the author of the best-selling book "Toward a Meaningful Life" and Founding Dean of The Meaningful Life Center. Learn more at www.meaningfullife.com.

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ICE BREAKERS IN THE ARCTIC:

LET’S TALK INUIT SAFETY

Photos by Annie Spratt

Commentary by Martin Robards & Beverly Maksagak

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A little-considered impact of warming temperatures in the Arctic is the increased activity of ice breakers.

Martin Robards, Regional Director for the Arctic Beringia Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society, and Beverly Maksagak, Manager of the Ekaluktutiak Hunters and Trappers Organization, write that ice breakers potentially pose a threat to traditional Inuit ways of life.

Robards and Maksagak write about the Proactive Vessel Management (PVM) initiative, which last year brought together communities, industry, and vessel operators find solutions to issues of concern on Arctic waterways.

This post is a commentary: the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

The solitude of the north is changing. George Angohiatok noticed this quite graphically a decade ago when, after returning to Iqaluktuuttiaq (or Cambridge Bay, as it was renamed by settlers), he observed an ice breaker moving through the same frozen waterways he had travelled by snow machine the day before.

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If the vessel had smashed that open lead through the frozen veneer of ice a day earlier, he would have been cut off for at least a few weeks until the ice refroze. George wonders whether, even with his headlights, he would have detected the steam that signals the transition from ice to water in winter through his goggles.

The growing presence of ice breakers worries George. His Inuit ancestors moved east across the Arctic coast of North America thousands of years ago.

Since that time, the waterways have been their highways, both in summer and winter. Traveling between camps and villages, the Inuit have followed the wildlife at the heart of their food security.

Photos byJames Rathmell

This story originally appeared in "MONGABAY” It is republished here as part of The Eden Magazine partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global journalistic collaboration to strengthen coverage of the climate story.

The caribou herds of the far northern islands—the Dolphin and Union herd and the Peary herds—also stride out onto the sea ice during their migrations between summer and wintering areas. The herds contribute heavily to the Inuit’s essential needs—providing both a source of “country food” and clothing with fur that is warm beyond compare. In the past elders have used the leg bones for carving and to build shelters.

These are the types of questions that were addressed a year ago by the Proactive Vessel Management (PVM) initiative, part of Transport Canada’s Ocean Protection Plan. The initiative was designed to bring communities, industry, and vessel operators together to proactively find solutions to issues of concern on the waterways.

The Ekaluktutiak Hunters and Trappers Organization (HTO) conducted a workshop in October 2019 that brought together federal agencies representing shipping and wildlife, ice breaker operators, the mining industry, and local hunters.

Based on maps of hunter travel and research on caribou migrations, annual ice conditions, and vessel routes, workshop members mapped the times and places where threats to caribou or people could occur. They sought solutions balancing food security, traveler safety, risk to caribou, and local and national economic development needs.

Use of the sea and ice by people has been relatively predictable over past millennia. Harsh winters and only a few months of open water warded off all but the most determined visitors. Even a casual read of Pierre Berton’s The Arctic Grail provides a clear picture of just how challenging these areas are. Unprepared visitors throughout history have perished.

Through the International Maritime Organization’s new Polar Code, operators in the Arctic must plan voyages to avoid impacts to Indigenous Peoples, but can only do so through the documentation of times, places, and mitigation measures that work.

But things change. The powerful Finish Polar Class icebreakers MSV Fennica and MSV Nordica passed this way in October of 2015, returning home from supporting oil exploration off Alaska in the Chukchi Sea; both vessels capable of ramming their way through ice a meter thick unassisted.

As a result of the workshop, a Notice to Mariners will now be published each year that includes these details for vessel captains and operators. Mariners can avoid the riskiest times when people and caribou are using the frozen waterways around Cambridge Bay. They coordinate with local representatives on what to do if transit is unavoidable.

In 2017, the ice breaker MV Xue Long (Snow Dragon) passed by in August. While not a winter transit, it was a clear demonstration of the increasing interest and capacity of the Chinese to explore Arctic waters.

And Russia just launched the first in a new generation of what are the largest and most powerful nuclear-powered icebreakers, Arktika, capable of traveling through ice up to 3 meters thick!

For example, if ice breakers are present, informing local communities of their presence, reducing speed, and maintaining a single channel to minimize damage to the ice that can take weeks to reform can all help avoid a catastrophic situation for caribou and people.

The convergence of technology, loss of one third the summer sea ice over the past two decades, and both economic and political interest have led the Arctic’s frozen backwaters to be targeted as highways between the Atlantic and Pacific—but also as the most efficient way to serve a growing number of mines and oil and gas developments, Bulk Carriers—those vessels serving the mining industry for transport of ore—have alone increased their Arctic travel by 160 percent between 2013 and 2019!

The Notice to Mariners, penned through the efforts of the Ekaluktutiak HTO, has provided a local voice in avoiding impacts from these new global visitors. Hopefully, as the Arctic gets busier, these conversations can grow and find common ground solutions wherever they arise.

The Fennica and Nordica travelled with a local observer and ice pilots guided by 30 years of experience. But as things get busier, what will become of vessels entering these frozen waters with less on-board experience of the north? Or without an understanding of Inuit and wildlife passage across the sea ice?

Martin Robards is Regional Director for the Arctic Beringia Program at WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society); Beverly Maksagak is Manager of the Ekaluktutiak Hunters and Trappers Organization.

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Photo by Kelly Sikkema

HEALTH CARE DECISIONS Your quality of life depends on it Advanced Directives & End of Life Decisions

By Kimberly Best, RN, MA

“Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death, but a good life to the very end.” ~Atul Gawande, “Being Mortal”

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J

ust as there are important legal documents that you should get in order before the end of life, it is important to consider and document healthcare decisions before finding yourself in a position where such decisions need to be made. Thinking deeply about your wishes surrounding healthcare and discussing these with your significant others, as well as formally writing them down, will help ensure that your needs are met, and your desires are respected. This can help avoid a great deal of pain and confusion for you and your loved ones.

Here are several important documents that you should consider to document your end-of-life healthcare decisions legally. As with the previous chapter, It is important to note that this chapter is not legal advice but is information meant to give you an idea of where to start.

DOCUMENTS 1. Advanced directive These days, when you go to the hospital or even to your doctor, one of the first questions you are asked is, “Do you have an advanced directive?” An advanced directive is a legal document that tells your doctor and family what kind of medical care you want if you can’t tell them yourself. That is, if you have been seriously injured, are in the advanced stages of a disease, have severe dementia, are in a coma, or for any reason that you can not speak for yourself, you have already made the hard decisions about what kind of care you want.

Your advance directive describes what kinds of treatments you do or do not want and what you want your care to look like. This can include whether or not you ever want to be put on a machine to breathe for you, if you want to be fed through a tube in your stomach if you are unable to eat, what kind of comfort measures you would like for pain control if you are dying, at what point you might not want to be transported to a hospital for more care, whether you might want to die at home, and whether you want to be an organ donor.

2. Supported Decision-Making Supported Decision-Making may also be included in your Advanced Directive. This articulates who you wish to help you make decisions regarding your healthcare, especially if you have a disability.

“My agent will work with me to make decisions and give me the support I need and want to make my own health care decisions. This means my agent will help me understand the situations I face and the decisions I have to make. Therefore, at times when my agent does not have full power to make health care decisions for

me, my agent will provide support to make sure I am able to make health care decisions to the maximum of my ability, with me the final decision maker.”

3. Durable Power of Attorney (DPA) A durable power of attorney (DPA) for healthcare is the document that names who will make decisions for you if you should become unable to do so yourself. It is critically important to have had conversations with this person (or people) to make clear what your wishes are regarding what you want your health care treatment to look like.

4. Physician orders for life-sustaining treatment (POLST) Physician orders for life-sustaining treatment (POLST) are a set of orders by your physician or an advanced practitioner that gives directions for your care if you should need emergency care. Often, POLST is done for people who are diagnosed with a terminal illness.

It is filled out by your doctor after having a conversation with you about what kind of treatment you want if you become seriously ill. The doctor (or other advanced healthcare provider) writes Physician Orders, directing that your wishes be carried out when you are unable to speak for yourself. Its purpose is to provide medical orders to emergency personnel based on your current medical situation. This may include whether or not to start CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) if you are found not breathing or without a pulse, whether you should go to the hospital for treatment, whether you should be put on a breathing machine, or whether you should be made as comfortable as possible where you are. It is important to note that a physician or advanced practitioner must sign this form in order to be carried out.

5. Do not resuscitate order (DNR) A do not resuscitate order (DNR) may be part of an advanced directive. This is a request to not have CPR done if your heart stops or you stop breathing. A doctor can write this order.

QUALITY OF LIFE: WHAT MATTERS TO YOU? Now that you know some of the health care decisions that you should be thinking about making before you are in a position to need them, we have to consider the hard question: How do you make these decisions?

Though this decision-making process is deeply personal, here are some considerations to guide you.

First, you need to decide what is important to you while you are alive. What are the things you like to do? What gives quality and value to your life? In other words, what kind of quality of life is important to you?

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Quality of life can be defined by being as healthy as you can and living as meaningfully as you can under your specific circumstances. That meaning is defined by you.

An important thing to keep in mind is the “under the specific circumstances” part of the definition of quality of life. Of course, all of us would like to be perfectly healthy, able-bodied, and of sound mind, but that is not the point of thinking about what kind of quality of life you want. Instead, think about things that you absolutely cannot imagine life without, even in imperfect circumstances. Is being able to eat solid food important to you because food gives you joy? Will you be able to sacrifice other comforts as long as you can go outside on a sunny day, because you can’t imagine a life without nature? Or are you willing to endure any physical pain as long as you have your mental capacity and can recognize your loved ones? Where do you want to live? How much treatment, testing, blood work, therapy are you willing to undergo? In other words, think about what makes life worth living to you, what is most important to you, what makes life fulfilling, satisfying and joyful, in order to get to the heart of the quality of life that you need.

these conversations ahead of time. We need to be willing to be realistic in our expectations. We are going to die. We can not stop that from happening. Understanding that aging and death are inevitable helps us live as fully as possible, up to our last moment, rather than spend our precious time and energy fighting the inevitable. We need to make peace with our death in order to live fully and without regret.

Of course, making these decisions is extremely difficult and makes many people uncomfortable. We don’t like to think about ourselves in a weakened, vulnerable state. Ultimately, in making these decisions, we must come to an understanding and conversation around our own mortality. We must be willing to have honest, open conversations with our loved ones about what is important to us, what our fears are, and especially what realistic expectations are, given our prognosis.

You see, here is the reality: We are all dying. We are all dying! (Go ahead, try saying it). When we are aware of this fact of life, when we accept it, we can plan for that death so that we may put death behind us and live our lives fully.

In so many situations, and especially at the end of life, denial is the biggest enemy. Time and time and time again, I have seen people faced with a serious diagnosis, accident, or injury to themselves or a loved one, and they spend so much time stuck in a place of fear and disbelief. When this happens, decisions are made out of a place of weakness, panic, and fear. Families are torn and agonize over making decisions that they have not been prepared to make, and in their ambivalence and unknowing they often choose treatments that result in painful procedures that have very little chance of results that improve a patient’s life.

In order to make decisions from a sound, authentic place, with clarity and knowledge, we need to have 62 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

Kimberly Best, RN, MA is a professional mediator focusing on conflict coaching, family and elder mediation. She holds a master’s degree in conflict management from Lipscomb University. She spent her early career as a registered nurse in intensive care, trauma and emergency medicine where she gained valuable experience in the medical system. A mother and grandmother, Best currently lives in Franklin, Tennessee where she runs her mediation practice, Best Conflict Solutions. To learn more please visit www.bestconflictsolutions.com and follow her on Twitter, @kabest05.

RECLAMING YOUR TRUE SELF

By Angela Dunning

A Way Through

I

t's been my experience that I find the most meaning in experiences and life when going through dark times. Which confirms to me that such experiences are absolutely essential, both to our own growth and healing and to unearthing the meaning to life itself.

Personally, such dark times have come frequently, leading me again and again downwards in a descent into the darkness, where I fumble around, struggling for a period, before finally re-emerging once more, and always, always I return with newfound wisdom, truth, and understanding deep in the marrow of my bones. I know why I had to go through that, and I return a lost part of myself every time, even if just one small shard.

Right now, we are being taken on a collective descent into the darkness.

Like our ancestors before us who experienced plagues, huge wars, religious inquisitions, and enormous periods of changes in consciousness, we are being plunged into the chaos of Hades and Pluto, the Gods of the Underworld. And boy, is it dark. A the same time, many people are undergoing their own descent on a personal level, for example, if they have recently lost a loved one, or suffered some other loss or trauma, or who are already struggling with either physical or mental health issues.

Such times are doubly hard, and it takes an awful lot of inner strength to keep yourself afloat during such intense periods that feel like they are never going to end.

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While there is a lot of good advice out there with tips for keeping yourself grounded and balanced during times of crisis, I'm going to add to that by way of focusing on the ultimate way of staying tethered to ourselves: That of holding onto our own personal thread.

As I've written about previously, knowing our own Soul's Golden Thread and its unique patterns is essential to help us steadily keep moving forwards towards the unfolding of our individual soul's path. I have recently been reading James Hillman's book 'The Soul's Code', where he outlines his Acorn Theory. It's truly an astonishing read and tips everything you might have previously thought about your own journey and background on its head.

Instead, he firmly plants the idea that, like the humble acorn, we are each born with an inbuilt pattern/blueprint or code of our soul, which chose the life we are now living, including choosing our parents, place of birth, circumstances, and so on. Our lives unfold according to this innate soul pattern so that we are moving towards becoming who our soul has chosen for this lifetime.

What's so refreshing and healing to read is that the soul not only speaks to us through its affirmations when we move in the right direction but, it also communicates to us via its "No's." So that, when we feel great resistance to something, some direction, job, or career path, we can see that it is our soul who is guiding us away from that so that we may turn towards another direction altogether. Such relief can come from realizing that our resistance to a particular career choice, person, situation, or location is our soul's way of helping us really stay connected to its thread, and if we are wise enough to listen, then we can instead follow the natural unfolding of our soul's pattern.

Many psychologists and religious philosophers remind us that our pain and suffering is always a result of going against our true way; our Tao. And, as Hillman reminds us throughout in his book, once we listen and go the other way, the way our thread is gently pulling us towards, our suffering ceases immediately.

The most sure-fire way then to keep ourselves grounded, balanced and sane during such immense periods of sudden upheaval and change is to keep connected to our unique acorn's pattern, as it's very easy to become disconnected and untethered during such times. To keep hold of our thread, lightly but firmly enough to steady us. And the best way to do this is on a daily basis. To find some quiet space each day that is solely committed to our soul, particularly if we are caring for others, working on the frontline, or are struggling in some way, then this daily practice becomes even more vital.

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In the darkness, our soul's light remains lit, always. Believe me; I know this for sure. Even in my most desperate descents through depression and grief, my soul always shines a light in the darkness, often in the form of a healing dream, which then provides me with the essential thread to grab hold of and pull myself back up. This light often comes in our dreams, when our ego is unguarded, and the soul can push through into awareness. But it might also come when out in nature, when reading, writing, making art, planting flowers, standing with your hand resting gently on your horse, sitting stroking your cat, or playing with your child. Suddenly, a shaft of light penetrates, there is some understanding of what is going on and the meaning behind your present experience. The darkness's necessity is made clear again, and the light makes it more bearable by offering a glimmer of hope and healing, always healing.

The most sure-fire way then to keep ourselves grounded, balanced and sane during such immense periods of sudden upheaval and change is to keep connected to our unique acorn's pattern, as it's very easy to become disconnected and untethered during such times. To keep hold of our thread, lightly but firmly enough to steady us.

So, watch your dreams during these strangest and most turbulent times. Even if you don't understand them, just pay attention and nurture healing images and feeling states that arise in your dreams. Keep connected to your thread in whatever way works for you: Write, paint, sew, read poetry, walk in the sunshine, listen to inspiring podcasts, do your meditations, watch moving programs and films. Essentially, allow your soul to be touched and stirred back into life. And let that eternal spark warm you as we all walk side by side through this current period of darkness, truly into the unknown.

Angela Dunning is a regular contributor to The Eden Magazine.

She is the author of The Horse Leads the Way: Honoring the True Role of the Horse in Equine Facilitated Practice.

Angela writes regularly on Facebook: www.facebook.com/thehorsestruth/ and Patreon: www.patreon.com/ angeladunning.

You can learn more about Angela and her work helping people and horses at: www.thehorsestruth. co.uk.

Oxygen Plus

Oxygen Plus is the only portable recreational oxygen worldwide that's manufactured in a clean room at FDA-registered facility. Why does this matter?

It matters because our oxygen is responsibly made, with the highest production and safety standards – giving you peace of mind every time you take a deep breath of Oxygen Plus.

This holiday season it's even more important than ever to maintain optimal health and wellbeing. Perhaps you'll breathe a little easier with Oxygen Plus (O+) in tote. A great stress reliever and all-natural energy boost, Oxygen Plus - which is 99.5% pure recreational oxygen available in various-sized lightweight, handheld canisters – is a truly refreshing holiday lift. Plus, it easily ships straight to the front door of your loved one who may be far away this year.

Oxygen Plus natural energy and recovery is effortlessly inhaled through the nose or mouth, helping restore depleted oxygen levels to optimal levels. When the season needs more cheer, inhale O+s wellness benefits for both mind and body – which include improved energy and performance, and decreased stress levels. Designed for daily use, you can breathe O+ oxygen at work, at home and while on the go to help you feel, think and perform at your best.

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Oxygen Plus gives one penny of each canister sold to groups and causes to help solve our global air quality crisis.

Oxygen Plus, inspired by the negative stigma of medical and supplemental oxygen in our world, wanted to make the world a healthier place to live and breathe. After years of research on the benefits of supplemental oxygen, Christine Warren-the company’s Chicago-born, Minnesota-dwelling pioneer - became committed to the mission of educating others and making a tangible difference by creating recreational oxygen products that – unbeknownst to her – would one day lead the new product category.

Before the creation of Oxygen Plus, many people would associate oxygen with uncomfortable, awkward, and embarrassing cannulas for sick people. With her team, the O+ Founder began envisioning the creation of oxygen products that were sleek, portable, easy-to-use, and consumer-friendly. An additional inspiration and drive for the company stems from its belief that everybody deserves the right – and access – to breathe well.

Oxygen Plus may help improve cognitive performance, helping enhance the performance of both memory and reaction time.

In 2003, the visionary business woman gathered “a room full of geniuses” together who were the first to believe and proclaim that Recreational Oxygen - also called canned oxygen or portable oxygen in a can - could be the next bottled water. Oxygen Plus, Inc. (O+) was formed, and its first product – the O+ Elevate Pack – was launched, winning the best new product award at the International Spa (ISPA) Convention & Expo in Las Vegas. Ever since, the vision of Oxygen Plus has been to be the company leading the development, manufacturing and marketing of portable recreational oxygen for wellness-minded persons worldwide.

Equally important to the company, O+ has supported many individuals and health-and-wellness causes in the past, and will continue to do so. The first consumer-friendly recreational oxygen company on the market – and the leader in the category ever since – Oxygen Plus is proud to be regarded as the most innovative and dedicated recreational oxygen company in the atmosphere. oxygenplus.com

An independent study from the UK found Oxygen Pus helps athletes improve their performance by reducing lactic acid up to 24% when using the oxygen immediately before, during and after exercise.

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Photo by Elia Pellegrini

By Lavandaia & Marco Nunzio Alati & the Team

2020

ending with a new beginning

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2020 is coming to a closure, allowing new cycles and new spirals to open up and evolve. This extra-ordinary year has brought many gifts and many challenges to each one of us, propelling us to enter a new space/time, a new beginning, a new era. That is why, now more than ever, it is necessary to have and maintain a firm consciousness oneself within our heart and our brain. A higher frequency will then be generated through our true self with this practice. What we take away from this last year is truly up to us. It may be a whisper of courage in our heart, a seed of hope planted in our soul, or the gift of the rediscovery of the authentic self.

Also, during this unique "funnel," before even talking about relationships and defining human relationships, there must be authentic communication with oneself. Only through our authentic self can we discover our uniqueness so that biodiversity can become a crucial resource.

However, becoming who you are is not an easy task. It takes great courage and love for oneself.

Only once we truly love ourselves we can love the Other.

Learning to love each other means learning who we are and recognizing what is ours from what is not ours.

Rediscovering our authenticity also means understanding the games of others that influence us. By understanding this, we do not need to try to change others or change their games, only recognize what resonates with us, what allows us to express who we are designed to be, without the influence of outside games.

It is time to restore harmony within ourselves. Harmony of soul, mind, spirit, and body need to work together before we can truly work with the collective, the community. "Culture" is the cultivation of "UR," of light, of the community. Always remember, the Other within the Culture is You. You must consider the substantial difference between the individual soul and the collective soul. We create the world, and then we forget. Constant dedication to the truth is required. You must be aware that letting go of the judgment of others may bring uncertainty and fear within you. Fear then creates inhibition of action, which consequently generates imbalances in our body and may lead to disease.

Always remember, as this new year comes upon us, we are not our name, our character, our ideas, our conditioning, or our fears. Instead, we are spiritual beings and now, on the very last month of 2020, is no better time to become aware of it. Become aware of it, in the uttermost gratitude, and so it is!

We leave you with a powerful Rudolf Steiner's affirmation to help you go through your journey of rediscovery and exploration of YOU. "May the lining of my aura grow denser. May it surround me like an impenetrable vessel against all impure and selfish thoughts and feelings. May it open only to Divine wisdom."

LAVANDAIA (Paola, Marco and the Team) Lavandaia's mission is to provide clarity and awareness to those who decide to embark on a serious journey towards the discovery of their deepest self, with humbleness and inner courage. The pioneer and founder of Lavandaia is a gifted woman named Paola. Her loving patience, firmness, and wisdom are a source of resonance and inspiration for hundreds of people, as well as a distinctive trait of the life she chooses to embark upon and live. As Paola receives deep and profound messages from Mother Earth and what she calls "The Sky," Marco and Lavandaia's team translate them into written compositions and opportunities to share this Timeless Intelligence.

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Buddha Board

This blank slate offers you a chance to paint away the daily stressors that sap us of our creativity and energy without needing a long list of supplies or a lengthy chunk of time.

Simply grab your board when things start to get overwhelming and let the act of putting brush to tablet absorb your focus. Water “paint” in the abstract, make a picture, or give shape to your feelings. As the water evaporates you’ll be left with a clean slate and a clearer mind.

Buddha Board Highlights:

• Designed with a sleek, modern aesthetic • Reusable • Quick to set up • Painting is truly MESS FREE • Encourages mindfulness • Doesn’t add to your digital footprint • Taps into your creative side • Fun for all ages • Helps kids explore the creative process judgment free • Perfect for relieving stress at home, in the office, or when traveling • Original Buddha Board measures 12” x 9.5” x 1/4”

Take care of yourself, and you’ll help take care of the world with a little help from Buddha Board 72 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e November 2020

Photo by Ksenia Makagonova

Time to Meditate

By John J. Murphy

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W

hen I return home, Judy is sitting on the couch with her eyes closed, tiny sounds coming from her mouth.

“What in the world are you doing?” I ask, sitting on a chair across from her.

“It’s a Taoist meditation,” she says without opening her eyes. “I learned it from Nicole.”

I watch her curiously. “How does it work?”

She opens her eyes, which are warm and welcoming.

“Well, it’s basically a mind-body connection. There are five different sounds or mantras that connect with what the Taoists call the five vital organs: the kidneys, the liver, the heart, the spleen, and the lungs.

There is also a sixth mantra for the aura, or energy field, around the body. Each of these sounds has a frequency to it that relates well with the vital organs and aura. For example, the sound ahh relates well with the heart. So, by taking a deep breath and focusing your mind on a healthy, happy heart and then exhaling with the sound ahh, you are calming and nourishing your heart. That’s the mind-body connection.”

“Really?” I replied, careful not to sound too skeptical.

“So, you’re using your mind to help your body.”

“Yes, exactly. Nicole said that a lot of people struggle with meditation because their minds wander, especially when they’re busy or stressed. It jumps all over the place.”

“Boy, can I relate to that,” I offer, reflecting on my day.

“Anyway,” she continues, “this technique allows you to focus your mind on one thing at a time, and that one thing is vital to your health.”

“Like your heart,” I reply, thinking now about my high blood pressure.

“Yes,” she says excitedly. “You should try it. It is very calming, and if you sit very still, you can feel the vibration flowing through your heart. That’s what the Tao is all about. It’s about flow. It’s about aligning with Source Energy, or God, which is all positive, and allowing goodness and peace into your life.”

If you sit very still, you can feel the vibration flowing through your heart. That’s what the Tao is all about. It’s about flow.

It’s about aligning with Source Energy, or God, which is all positive, and allowing goodness and peace into your life “And this is consistent with what we’re learning in ACIM?” “Yes, for the most part. Even though ACIM teaches us that we’re not a body and that the body is neutral, we still have a body to take care of—while we’re in human form. And it’s consistent with the law of attraction as well. When we release resistance and defensiveness, much of which is subconscious, and we connect with Source Energy, we channel this sacred energy through our bodies to one another. It is all about connecting and harmonizing and getting out of our own way, as you like to put it.”

What are the other sounds?” I ask.

Judy looks at her notes. “Well, the sound for the kidneys is fwee. And keep in mind that the kidneys also relate to the brain, the hair, the skin, the ears, the bones, and the hormonal system. So, you want to visualize healthy flow through all these body parts. Also, you want to repeat each sound six times. The Taoists consider this a sacred number.”

I wonder how in the world they came up with that.

“The sound for the liver is sshh, almost like you are telling someone to calm down or be quiet,” she continues. “It’s a very calming sound, almost like the ocean surf. And this doesn’t just help the liver. It helps the eyes, the skin, the ligaments, the tendons, the intestines, and the immune system.”

“Sshh,” I repeat, visualizing a clean liver.

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“The mantra for the spleen is whhoo,” she continues. “And it helps with blood flow, immunity, the pancreas, harmony, balance, and overall relationships. It also helps with cash flow,” she adds with a grin.

I nod, repeating the sound.

“Next is the lungs,” Judy says. “Which are obviously vital. And the sound for the lungs is sss, kind of like a snake hissing.

When you repeat this mantra, it helps to visualize your lungs being power-washed with pure, clean oxygen flowing through your body.”

“Ha.” I am somewhat amused. “A mindbody power-wash.”

“And the last one is shee,” Judy says. “This mantra is intended to help us relax into God’s light, letting go of all resistance, denial, resentment, criticism, and judgment.

I have been visualizing my chakras opening and God’s light shining through me and illuminating me.”

force of resistance. I guess that’s the programming we have to delete.”

“Well, if you ask me, I think we’re on our way to some fascinating experiences.”

Judy smiles, her eyes now darting back and forth as she gazes into mine. It feels like she can read my soul. Finally, she gets up and speaks. “I guess the first step is to become aware of the ego thought-system and our attachment to it, along with all its drama and conflict.”

We don’t fight the ego. We recognize it. We can even humor it. And then we detach from it. We let it go.

This is an excerpt from Miracle Minded Manager by author John J. Murphy, available through Beyond Words Publishing.

This is an excerpt from Miracle Minded Manager by author John J. Murphy, available through Beyond Words Publishing.

“Interesting stuff,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “I’ll have to try it.”

We don’t fight the ego. We recognize it.

We can even humor it. And then we detach from it. We let it go.

“Nicole is very clear on the power of meditation and mind over matter. She even cited several university studies proving the benefits of meditation on the brain and hormonal system. These are just methods to help us become more present and aware. And when we do that and let go of illusions and distractions and ego attachment, we flow with more creativity and sacred energy. It’s truly profound.”

“Yeah, the only problem is the ego thought-system,” I reply. “It thinks this is ridiculous.”

“Of course it does. It feels threatened by this awareness. It exposes the ego’s insanity and delusions. Nicole said this is normal.

The ego is defending itself.”

“Yeah, well, I can hear it in my head right now, telling me how crazy this is. I can actually feel my attachment to it, with all its fear and doubt and skepticism.”

Judy nods. “I can too. It’s like a defensive

76 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

John Murphy is the founder and CEO of Venture Management Consultants, Inc., a firm specializing in creating lean, high-performance work environments.

As a business consultant, John has worked with some of the world’s leading organizations, including ADP, BMW, Chase, the Michigan State Senate, the CIA, and the US Navy. He is the author of more than nineteen books and has trained thousands of people from more than fifty countries. He lives in Palm Beach, Florida.

John is an author of Miracle Minded Manager: A Modern-Day Parable about How to Apply A Course in Miracles in Business Learn more about John J. Murphy by visiting his website: https://www.johnjmurphy.org.

THE WAY I SEE IT

By Joey Santos, Jr.

Photo by Martin Grandchamp

And, this was

( is ) 2020!

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standing? Yes. Will it expect nothing less than 100% from all of us as we give up to God, look at our loved ones, care for our planet and ourselves, so we can be strong and determined to live and learn from what is right in our hearts?

Yes. Trust and believe our best life has yet to begin. After so many losses in '20, maybe a good resolution will be to live and give the best of ourselves, every day and every way, especially for those who can no longer.

Well, I think we all can agree that it has been one helluva year! The good news? We are almost done. Whatever the reason, the universe, its' stars, its' planets, our earth, our people, and our government have given us a ride to remember! What have we learned from it? What's our "takeaway? For me, I focus on the lesson. I know this is all for a reason.

We, individually and collectively, have to acknowledge at least that much. What we do to process these experiences will determine our healing. And not just ours but the worlds' and beyond. It's the time to think before we speak, walk before we run, and pray with each day. So much has been thrown at us at once! And from every direction. I feel, for the first time in a long time, a sense of hope. With all of the anxiety and frustration we have been going through (much brought on by uncertainty and confusion), having a sense of direction and a renewed sense of purpose is refreshing and peppered with the thought that "the light at the end of the tunnel" may, in fact, be a guiding, healing light attached to something greater and more powerful than a mere freight train is long overdue!

Photos by Kelly Sikkema

Coming into a new year is always filled with great expectations. We set ourselves up every time with many of the same resolutions."I'm joining a new gym," "I start with my trainer next week," "I'm going vegan," or how about, "I decided to go blonde," or here's a good one, "I'm divorcing my Husband to marry my Girlfriend." I have heard them all. I've been guilty of making a few false promises myself. And not out of intent either. I genuinely, as most of us do, fully intended to keep them.

But, alas, life and every other excuse have gotten in the way. 2021 will require no New Year resolution from me.

What it will require is sheer gratitude and an energy, based in faith and purpose. Will it require patience and under-

Happy New Year... ( well, almost )

Joey Santos Jr. was raised in NYC, Malibu, and West Hollywood Hills.

He is son to Film & Television Actor Joe Santos.

His Mother, Mary, was a former Showgirl who became a "stay at home Mom," Joey's Grandfather is World-Renowned Latin Singer Daniel Santos, and his Grandmother Rose was a Business Woman who owned Nightclubs in NYC, Havana, Miami, and LA. She also started a Record Label and a Film Studio. Early on, Joey worked as an actor. He had a recurring role in NYPD Blue's, as Officer Aiello, and also performed on stage doing live theater.Joey embarked on a singing career, recorded a couple of CDs, and performed in various venues throughout the US. His ultimate passion, however, was the result of following in both his Grandmother's and Mother's footsteps. He became a Restauranteur (Co-owned the El Mocambo in LA, Owner and Chef of JoJo's Americana Supper-club in Saugatuck, and JoJo's Juke Joint in West Hollywood). This experience would lead Joey to embark on his own very successful private business of catering/hosting events for the Hollywood elite.

For the past four years, he as been Private Chef to Brad Pitt. Since 2016, Joey writes a monthly column, "The Way I See It " for The Eden Magazine. He is teaming up with life-long friend (Literary Agent) Alan Nevins, to develop a PodCast called, "Two Guys From Hollywood" where they will talk about everything you always "didn't want to know!"

79 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

The holiday season can be a very stressful time for a lot of people. This stress may involve shopping for gifts and the associated financial aspects as well as the interaction with family during get-togethers.

If you feel anxious and tend to dread the holiday season, take a moment to breathe in deeply and let go of the lower and heavier vibrational emotions of fear, worry, doubt, regret, guilt, shame, anger, frustration, etc. and breathe in the higher vibration of love. Allow yourself to acknowledge those individuals and situations that are triggers for you as well as those people, places, and things that push your buttons so that you can clear those triggers from affecting you anymore.

When you notice a tightness in your jawline and recognize that you may grind your teeth or clench your jaws, this can be an indication of holding in the frustrations. It may also mean that there are words you are not expressing. It could also just mean that you are stressed, or perhaps, it is all of the above. If you realize that you are not expressing yourself fully, you may be guided to at least say what you need to telepathically/energetically if you feel that you are unable to verbalize the words at that time.

In those instances that you feel annoyed, bothered, or triggered, at that moment, state aloud or in your mind, “This bothers me. This is affecting me. I feel annoyed.�

Express whatever wordage that would apply. In doing so, you are choosing to clear the energy at that moment rather than allowing it to build.

Journey into the Holiday Season with Ease and Peace

By Shelly Wilson

80 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

Recognize that it is absolutely necessary for you to honor yourself and what YOU are feeling, especially during the holiday season. Consciously choose to acknowledge any emotions you are feeling and then release them. You are in control of your thoughts, words, actions, emotions, and reactions. You choose how you wish to perceive an experience and how you wish to respond to it. Remember, each individual has their own unique human life experience.

Ways to Reduce Stress.

Here are a few tips to energetically assist you in having a stress-free holiday season or simply assist with reducing stress: Tip #1 - Be Present Focus your energy on being present and in the NOW at this very moment. Allow yourself to become fully aware and completely present right here, right now.

Being present involves living in the moment rather than focusing on the future or dwelling in the past.

Focus on living, being, and breathing at the moment. Being present also entails being present with those in your presence.

Tip #2 – Breathe Take a moment to breathe in deeply and exhale anyone and anything that no longer serves you (is good for you). Be mindful of your inhalations and your exhalations. Two to three times a day for 2-3 minutes, take a moment to pause in order to clear your mind and open your heart. Visualize yourself breathing in emerald green healing energy, then exhaling the pain, hurt, fear, frustration, worry, and doubt. Release it and let it go. We breathe naturally and autonomously. This is a reminder to breathe consciously.

Tip #3 - Ground Your Energy Grounding your energy keeps you present and at the moment. It completes the energy circuit and anchors your energy to the earth below. Keeping firmly planted energetically helps prevent feelings of fuzziness or spacey-ness that can often disperse your personal energy. Staying hydrated and visualizing your legs as tree roots growing deep into the earth are simple ways to ground your energy. Working with grounding crystals, such as hematite, smoky quartz, black tourmaline, jet, or obsidian, are beneficial, too.

Tip #4 - Center Your Energy Centering your energy involves finding that calm spot deep inside yourself that is eternal being-ness. To center your energy, take a few deep breaths and bring awareness inward to the central essence — that place that is peaceful and serene no matter what the external circumstance. Think of the phrase, “Calm, cool, and collected” as you exhale and smile. By centering your energy, you are able to attain peace within more easily.

In doing so, you are more likely to respond rather than react to your external circumstances.

Tip #5 - Release and Receive Release feeling obligated to reciprocate when someone

gives you a gift. Allow yourself the ability to receive without giving. Honor yourself and what you are feeling, but there is no need to hold onto the feel bad or guilt energy. Simply receive and sincerely say, “Thank you!” If you are the giver, release the expectation that a gift will be reciprocated. Be mindful of the intention behind giving.

Tip #6 - Give the Gift of You If you typically exchange gifts with a friend, family member, or co-worker, you may be guided to do something different this year. Many individuals do purchase what they need when they need it, so you may choose to forgo giving a material gift and instead give the gift of you. Plan an excursion or get together and spend time with someone you love. You may also want to volunteer your time or donate to a favorite charity or worthwhile cause. Perhaps, you may bake a special treat or create a handmade gift. These thoughtful gifts and the gift of your presence is immeasurable and greatly appreciated.

Tip #7 - Express your Gratitude Gratitude is an expression of thankfulness. The simple words, thank you, extend far beyond their utterance.

They are an acknowledgment of appreciation. Acknowledging and expressing gratitude for all you are thankful for radiates this energy out into the universe and returns in more blessings.

Honoring yourself every day and not just during the holiday season will create a ripple effect throughout your life. Rather than isolating yourself, consciously choose to honor yourself. Remember, your mental/ emotional well-being is a key aspect of your physical health. Consciously choose to journey into this holiday season with ease and peace.

Shelly Wilson is an author, intuitive medium and conscious creator who is passionate about helping people wake up to their greatness. She supports others as they navigate their own journey into consciousness to experience aliveness. Shelly’s books, 28 Days to a New YOU, Connect to the YOU Within, Journey into Consciousness and Embracing the Magic Within are available in paperback and eBook. She is also the creator of Cards of Empowerment and Clarity Cards. ShellyRWilson.com EmbracingTheMagicWithin.com

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Greetings of the Season

Photo by Ray Hennessy

Best Wishes for a New Year

82 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e October 2020

Let vision come and insight.

Let the future stand revealed.

Let inner union demonstrate and outer cleavages be gone.

Let love prevail.

Let all men love. ~ Master DK

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animal to an uncertain fate and walking away from him as if it was a coat that was out of season and needed to be discarded. Already in hypersensitive mode, I became very emotional and immediately posted a Facebook Live saying what we at The Eden Magazine had seen and pleaded for someone to save him. The video went viral, and the next day the dog was picked up and adopted - a massive sigh of relief. It was going to be a happy Christmas after all. But destiny had other things in store for Patojo. Though adopted, he was returned to the shelter after four days due to a temper issue. But Patojo had already chosen his human pack, in Maryam Morrison and me because due to a strange moment of fate, a friend noticed he was back at the shelter and was on Death Row as he had tried to bite the Shelter staff.

The sad reality is that one time too many dogs are put down in such shelters because they are overcrowded, and any sign of a hard adoption journey becomes a death sentence for the helpless creature. And so, Maryam and I hit the phones, trying to reach anyone we know to save this creature that was put in our path and had chosen us to champion him.

A RESCUE

CHRISTMAS STORY

By Alexia Melocchi

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away...

This is how all fairy tales start. This story, though, does not have a pretty girl as a protagonist. It has a handful of women, who are beautiful both inside and out, as sidekicks. It is not a fairy tale. It's as real as it gets. And it is one to bring us hope in happy endings and in the mission of all breathing things, including the mission of an Australian Cattle dog originally named Patojo who went on a 12-month journey to find his family.

It was close to Christmas time last year when the owner and Editor in Chief of The Eden Magazine, her husband, and I made a trip. One that is done yearly over the Holidays, to a high kill shelter in Los Angeles to drop off food, blankets, and toys to the hundreds of abandoned, surrendered, and found animals living inside cages, waiting for their chance at human love and compassion.

That day was a rough one, as we witnessed once again the reality of overcrowded shelters and the fragile fate of so many helpless animals. As we prepared to leave the premises, we saw a man about to go inside with a dog. As soon as the dog spotted us, he was ready to jump on our legs to be petted and play. It turns out this horrible human was surrendering the 84 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

By another blessing of the Universe, the Eden Team found a Rescue Group to take him on, and he was saved in the nick of time, in early January 2020, mere hours before his ultimate end. Patojo became Jasper, and for the three months that followed, he lived with a trainer while the Eden Team and I did fundraising non-stop to pay for his training and board. Then the pandemic hit, and Jasper, who already was getting restless and had developed a tendency to nip (this breed is a hunting breed and very protective of who they think is their master), became a challenge. He was adopted again and returned to the Rescue group after a few short weeks.

The match was not exactly right. Jasper likes to be outdoors and is a very active dog, so his new family's search continued.

For months it became impossible to schedule a meet and greet.

Social Distancing Rules and a lockdown did not help Jasper. Yet Jasper had a way of always getting another chance. Even when the funds to pay for his board had almost run dry, he was determined to find his ultimate home. While with the trainer, by another twist of fate, he indirectly saved another dog. A senior that had been surrendered from a long and lonely life at a shelter. A woman called, looking for Jasper. After a few questions, it was clear she was not the right fit for him. But it was because of that call that she found the senior dog at the shelter and received the Rescue Group's assistance to get him out. Jasper was clearly on a karmic mission to make an impact on many lives, even lives he had never met before.

In May, Jasper was adopted again by a woman who lives in Oregon. She saw his picture on the website of the Rescue group and wrote him a letter telling him she was ready to give him the love he never received, and he would never ever be abandoned again, no matter what. As Jasper had another nipping episode (caused by a visit at the vet where he was touched in an area of prior abuse), a decision to accept the adoption offer for Oregon was made quickly.

Jasper is now Cookie. He is with a new owner, and though the initial months were relatively smooth, he faced more challenges. There is love between Cookie and his new mama. But sometimes love is not enough if life throws you curve balls. And Cookie was thrown another curveball. His owner moved to San Diego, in a small place. And while we all thought his forever family had been found, we were contacted with a crisis. Cookie was nipping more and more frequently. The trainer he had received was wrong (made him more aggressive), and now we were faced again with the scenario that Cookie might be returned to shelter and death would be inevitable.

And that is where his pack, his human posse, came to the rescue, pardon the pun once, again. Thanks to the networking of Maryam Morrison, the facilitation and care of Manuela, who had been one of the donors of Patojo/Jasper/ Cookie, and by yet another serendipitous moment, lived in San Diego, a family who wanted to take Cookie, was found. They had a big yard and were going to be an ideal match. However, Cookie's mama changed her mind, and once again, Cookie was in limbo. No longer feeling the love he so wanted to receive, and the safety and the sense of belonging, Cookie became moodier. But exhausted from the nearly one-year journey, its human posse was close to giving up on him, but we never did. This dog was not done with his life by any means.

And then, just like in the movies, magic happened, and it became clear that the way this dog was not a tragedy but a fairy tale. Because of more networking by The Eden Magazine publisher, a foster that lived in San Diego was found. Her name was Melody, and she had experience with the breed. Melody and ROCKY (his last and final name) met. And it was love at first sight. They spent their first day together at the Beach. We all think it was the first time Rocky has seen the Ocean. Rocky had the best play date ever. So much that Melody quickly decided to adopt him.

I am reminded of the final scene of Pretty Woman when

Richard Gere goes after Julia Roberts, and he says, "What happens when Prince Charming rescues the Damsel in distress?" and Julia's character says," She rescues him right back."

Rocky had a way and a destination. His destiny was to travel states, go on many car rides, meet all kinds of people, and by showing us how precious life is and how we must never give up on love, he rescued us all back. And I know that Manuela, myself, and Maryam will always be his human pack.

Merry Christmas from all of us at The Eden Magazine.

Alexia Melocchi is an accomplished film producer and world wide distribution executive and the partner of Beverly Hills based LITTLE STUDIO FILMS. Alexia Melocchi has an experience of more than twenty years in Hollywood and has produced 11 award wining movies and 3 documentaries that were shot by merging film makers that she has personally discovered and mentored.She also acquires on behalf of her international distributor clients films and television shows from all over the world for release in the Middle East, Italy, Greece, Spain, Canada, South America and Germany. She attends all major film festivals in the USA and abroad and has been often invited as an expert panelist on the Film Business for high profile film and television conventions.

Alexia is fluent in five languages and is the proud mama to 3 rescue cats.

She supports environmental and animal causes , meditates daily, and is an avid reader of spiritual and self helps books.IG @lexybella @LttleStudioFlms www.littlestudiofilms.com 85 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

self is waiting Your future

Photo by Laura Chouette

for you

86 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

By Sasha Gary What does your future self look like? Have you thought about where you want to be 5 years, 10 years, 20 years from now? Visualizing where you want to be, who you want to be—seeing yourself living your life to the fullest, in total alignment with your highest self. How are you going to get there?

You have to work towards your future self each day.

Your future self is who you decide you are; then you work towards that highest version of yourself every damn day. What does he or she look like, act, where does she live, how does she dress, what is she doing in her career, and start living life today and show up as that version of yourself? How is she feeling? Is she vibrant, laughing, dancing, having fun, gardening, and doing with her spare time? Who is she spending her time with?

In current day life situations, I ask myself what my future self would do in this situation, and it's been interesting to see the answer. What would my future self do in this situation with this guy who doesn't really value me? She certainly would not entertain him the way I am doing right now.

As I work toward my next level in my life and business, I have to ask myself, how will I get there? I asked my future self what would she do? She would step up her training, her health routine, meditation, mentorship, and self-development. She would focus on her goal and do everything to get there, and not let anything or anyone stand in her way. Listening to my future self advice, I wake up everyday living that, changing those habits and leveling up to meet my future self.

It can be a very uncomfortable process to push yourself past your limitations in order to reach your highest self, but it is completely worth it. Start by writing a letter to your future self. Write about that time period; write what it would be like, what you have accomplished, and what life is like at that moment.

By working towards your future self each day, it brings hope, optimism for the future. You are not focused on the past. The past is over! It's wonderful to live in the present moment, and I am a big believer in being present, but as we look forward to our future, you can have a vision that is so strong no

one can shake your belief in who you are and where you are going.

People who connect to their future selves regularly live a healthier life; they have a better perspective on where they are headed, they exercise more, they take better care of their health. No matter what age you are, you can connect to your future self, whether that is in your twilight years or just a few years away. The power of connecting to your future self is so rewarding and self-fulfilling. There is a great deal of love, a connection that you feel towards your future self: more kindness, compassion for where you are in life.

My future self and I have had tea together; she's held me and told me how to get where I wish to go. I've looked into her eyes, and she is comforting, happy, full of love, and joy. Focusing on my future self and stepping into her, blending together who I am today with my future self. It's a very powerful meditation.

You can join this practice into your daily life as often as you like. It's very fulfilling to look at the future with hope and optimism. There are amazing future self meditations you can listen to and follow along with the story it's very powerful. When you visualize your goals as if you have already achieved them and your mind doesn't know whether that is true or not, so if you see it, you can believe it and achieve it. Your future self is waiting for you!

Sasha Gary is Gratitude Life Coach. actress, and writer at www.balancedbellasonline. com is a 16 week online health program for women that shows you how to implement small sustainable changes one by one to help you with whole food nutrition, self-love and a conscious movement. Sasha is a yogi of 25 years, a crystal healer, and an avid sound bowl meditation participant and lives in Venice California!

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A DAY That Changed MY LIFE

Photo by Pagie Page

By Lang Charters

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purposes? (Romans 8:28 New American Standard) 88 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e Novermber 2020

Red Rock Canyon, in the desert just outside Las Vegas, is a stark yet beautiful landscape. It features few plants or trees but is littered with vibrant, burgundy-colored rocks varying in size from pebbles to boulders and even plateaus.

Jagged mountains, many of them in the distinctive dark red that the area is named for, curve around the park on three sides, forming a bowl of sorts so that almost every vantage point gives good views of the mountains. As I hiked the trails on November 10, 2008, with my fiancée, Kate; my three-year-old daughter, Lara; and Kate’s son, eight-year-old Leif, we spied rock climbers scaling cliffs in the distance, a common sight in the park. It was the kind of day you dream about and remember fondly for the rest of your life.

Kate and Leif had come to visit Lara and me for a long weekend in Las Vegas, my current duty station as an air force officer. Kate was a successful and smart thirty-twoyear-old. At the time, she had been in banking for about ten years, starting as a teller and working her way up to bank branch manager. Kate had captured my heart for numerous reasons. She had a smile that lit up her face—the kind that subconsciously makes a person think the room has just gotten brighter. Whenever I saw her grin, it made me want to do likewise. She had hazel eyes that were soft yet intense at the same time. Those eyes looked into mine and seemed to gaze into the depths of my soul. Kate’s eyes combined with her mind to notice more than the average person. For instance, she asked, “Why is it at restaurants, a customer gets charged extra for adding something to her meal but does not get a discount for taking items out?”

Kate and I viewed the world in similar ways. We both wanted to help those less fortunate. We liked Mexican food, loved to eat dinner at a good sushi restaurant, enjoyed wine, laughed at the same parts in movies, and had become close friends. We lived in different states, but we talked on the phone for two or three hours every night, intimately getting to know each other. Kate’s boy, Leif, was everything I could hope for in a stepson: smart, kindhearted, eager to learn, and very well behaved.

He was the kind of boy who follows his requests with a respectful please and is sure to show his appreciation with a thank-you.

Because of our long-distance relationship, Kate and I saw each other only every few weeks, and we had spent time together with both of our kids on only a couple of occasions, which made this visit extra special. During the weekend, we laughed, kissed, held hands, played with the kids, ate at the Cheesecake Factory (who can turn down dinner followed by great cheesecake?), watched movies, and had an excellent time together.

Most picture Las Vegas as a pretty hot place, but on a fall

day like November 10, the weather was practically perfect.

The temperature was in the sixties, and the sky was sunny after raining the night before. So it was that following my usual morning run, Kate and I took the kids to Red Rock Canyon.

The park was covered with rocks, boulders, and larger formations painted magenta by nature. In places, they were stacked one atop another, creating a series of rocky hills and valleys. Most of these formed fairly gentle inclines, and as we walked, we passed several other groups of hikers.

We strolled around the park while taking pictures and enjoying ourselves. “I like your yellow tank top,” I told Kate.

Kate was the designated photographer, so at one point, the kids and I got a little ahead of her, and one of us— no one remembers which—spotted a cave that was a short hike away. We all took a look and readily agreed that we wanted to explore it. I set about searching for a good path to take to it while Kate and the kids stood back.

At the time, we were on a large, flat plateau that was big enough that although the kids stood near the center and could see the formation’s edges, they couldn’t see down to the ground some thirty feet below. At the edge of the plateau, and a step down from the main surface, lay a path leading to the cave. In other words, the hollow was around the corner to the left, at the end of the trail.

89 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

Kate and the kids stood in the middle of the formation on top while I went to the side to get on the trail below.

I sat down and put my feet on the ledge. As I stood, my feet unexpectedly slipped out from under me, dropping me back on my butt, which pitched me forward. It was not a violent, vault-into-the-air movement but a completely-caught-off-guard type of spill with a forward momentum that pitched me swiftly toward the edge of the ledge. I tried to plant my feet, but they kept sliding on the rocks that were a little slippery from the previous night’s rain. I frantically attempted to grab the nearby rocks to halt my progress, but my hands could not find a good enough purchase. Skidding on the rock and loose dirt toward the edge of a cliff, I couldn’t do anything to stop my momentum. I soared out into empty space.

The Creator of everything is assuredly beyond my comprehension, but that doesn’t mean the Divine’s and my understandings of goodness are of different natures or kinds. It means God’s goodness is better and bigger than I can comprehend.

I flew off the cliff and fell headfirst like I was diving into a lake— only there was no water to soften my fall. My body built up quite a bit of speed as I plummeted those thirty feet. My head crashed into a ten-foot-long boulder with such force that my sunglasses exploded into a shower of fragments around me. The impact bounced me backward like a ragdoll, smacking the back of my head with a crack. I had numerous broken bones in my face, a badly broken right wrist, and multiple other injuries. I lost consciousness nearly immediately and lay dying on the desert floor of Red Rock Canyon.

Why did this happen? Why did I end up surviving when I should have died? Why did I survive while others die from similar tragedies? I don’t know, but I am convinced of a couple of things. First, it was not God’s will or actions that caused me to fall off the cliff. I believe God is love, and love is good and does no harm.

The trauma of falling so far and hard that I should have died was not good for my family, friends, or me. The Creator of everything is assuredly beyond my comprehension, but that doesn’t mean the Divine’s and my understandings of goodness are of different natures or kinds. It means God’s goodness is better and bigger than I can comprehend.

Second, as I hope to show in the following pages, although God doesn’t micromanage the universe and directly cause everything that happens, Jesus does and will bring good from our successes, tragedies, and everything in between. One could even say that is the message of the cross and Easter Sunday. God took the worst thing ever-Christ being killed on a cross-and turned it into something amazing: the defeat of sin and death.

The questions are these: Will we open ourselves up to receiving and seeing the possibility of beauty coming from our darkest moments and deeds? Will we surrender and allow ourselves to fall into love?

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Lang Charters is a retired Air Force serviceman and is currently working on a doctorate in spiritual formation.

He lives in Poulsbo, Washington, with his wife, Lisa, and daughter, Lara, while using his Master of Divinity to help people grow into greater aliveness by teaching yoga.

To learn more, please visit www.lightlovelang.com.

LANGUAGE OF SPACE

By Michael White Ryan

H A P P YNESS HUNTERS

Sport of the Century

In this article, some of the words are misspelled; it is deliberate by the author as it adds character and depth to their meaning.

92 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

S

cientific data informs our happiness is good for our health and well-being; simultaneously, we are still thinking about what is missing. In a world that nurtures human cravings, the goal for happiness has become a sport for the mindless, which one eventually pays for, with more than money! As feelings come and go based on one's need for connection and acceptance, fleeting happiness embodies a sad reality. It's that social medium existence. Especially considering all that this world, this planet, this human race has to offer, is now moving beyond the vision of the thinking human. One could say the depths and heights of JOY are obsolete, lost by the wayside, blinded by a need to be, something, anything which presumes connection.

Happiness has become the sport of this age and we are living its illusion whole heartedly.

Following in the footsteps of the great, the successful, the entrusted, those we admire and wish we could be, is nothing other than delusional fascination. By copying another human being's list of must have necessities, is a consistent repetition of past events, with supposingly, believable assumptions, one will move forward in life. Existing on a never-ending scale of, constantly being jacked up by anything new that gives life some sense of meaning or purpose. Resulting in any desire for personal evolution has just left the building. Without awareness, one has now given over to surviving within one of the many organized systems which demands full acceptance.

Has the human race left their intelligence out in the rain and given over to being a following, as a lesser creature?

The pressure from the social, mainstream media has become extremely powerful. Thanks to brilliant marketing strategists. Leaving us with bucket loads of consequences, having birthed a timebomb of mixed messages. And that is, being fearful to avoid expressing one's inner thoughts and feelings have become so scary for any individual to function outside of any of today's so claimed acceptable norms. Thus placing the individual on the verge of becoming its own extinction.

When one discovers their selfmade prison,

one begins a search.

Their passage is born, did only arrive through the individual, lost, then found.

Disrespected words, long lost in a time-warp within all dictionaries of disguised definitions, are now surrounded, encouraged by new meanings. Words like, Leaving, Lollypop, L-go-rhythm, Love, Leverage not to leave out, we are all in this La La La together. It's topsy-turvy time, on this merry-go-round, hunk of rock. Thanks to the thought-out-thinking's of our official-creatives. Let us imagine a new change; let's go build more new band-aids by those who led the last charge. Have we been sold out again?

2021 is fast approaching. When in this coming time-paradigm, new statistics will open different consumables to live a better, healthier you. Sold through the same logistic phrase, we are doing this for the greater good; we put people, you before money and profits. Yep, there is no doubt we need more words delivered as a personal stimulus for the mind. It's a mental gift to grow and develop that never seems to address the real issues. As the motive behind any action always remains hidden, out of sight, behind false yet believable logical reasoning's!

It's the same old, same old slogan follow the chicken the egg has no meaning.

Dare I say it, who will ask the question, will the need for happiness become mankind's next official addiction? It's really not that far-out when you consider today's increase in personal stress, after one's existing imaginary security and safety fell off the rails.

Humans are discovering their lack of ability when dealing with all the uncertainty surrounding the stability one has been educated to believe, become accustomed to.

Let's face it, Television became the greatest salesman, and now the internet has taken over. The ability to think for one's self has been invaded by statistics, manipulated to drive an idea, a solution, a product, a way of life in a certain direction. We have become a conforming people, and why, because connection provides gives one a greater-feeling of acceptance.

And those books that were manipulated to be NY number1 best sellers tell us how to behave, that our feelings never lie. Now living within the spiders-web, www, we have been captured.

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Do we want happiness, yes? Please be mindful; it is only a bus stop along the way. It was never intended to be the terminus of our journey. It seems humans are destined to fluctuate between stress and happiness; it's a never-ending cycle, around and around we go. The old nursery rhythm of the "Here We go Round Mulberry Bush" song is a great example.

We all do as each-other does, and when our numbers reach critical mass, we all collapse due to no opposites or difference. We crash and burn because we have over-done-it, like over-consumption. Now unaware we are sick, physically, mentally, spiritually.

Have we moved into living a virtual lifestyle, being something without it being real?

The difficulty is, if you don't comply with acceptable boundaries, you will be classed as different; if this is you, then you definitely want to find your tribe. If you don't, one's emotions of non-acceptance may begin to eat away from the inside, creating a non-pleasing outside appearance, and the white jacket just might be your color.

They say Death is the creator of new beginnings. Of course, we are not talking about death. It's a metaphor defined as leaving one's past stuff behind, removing the chip on your shoulder, never to allow again past experiences to dominate, infiltrate one's future. Fortunately, there are many techniques designed to overcome an issue. Settle the breathing, close eyes, move to a state of calm, and center one's self. Imagine water washing over and through you, removing taking what temporarily ails you. When all feels good AND relaxed, move your body in some form, walk, run activate the self.

Now you're back to moving with your past, in-time.

Blame has now become the norm. It's our go-to way of dealing with all areas of our present-day existence, when one does not want to, refuses to acknowledge responsibility for one's actions. It's another temporary, momentary fix, which guarantees we remain exactly as we were before the experience. Just so we can have the pleasure of reliving the issue at a later time in the future.

In this mundane world, one thing always remains precious, and that be one's life. Birthed from the

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moons-essence, this is why our feminine aspect exists. First and foremost is the way we thinkfeel within"about ourselves thus far. We are the mother of our outward masculine actions, the behaviors we show up as while traveling this length of our time. Change is our constant, standing beside us in every direction.

One's knowledge of self is the greatest barrier needed to be vanquished if one is to ever succeed beyond those presenting self judgements.

Like the trees that reach out to embrace us, we also branch out into the world, living off the oceans of experience; never do we remain the same after each encounter. What has made it so difficult to grasp is our lack of ability to see the real essence of life's interactions, tis the memory that remains. One's level of awareness has not yet caught the change-up.

If anything, that last piece should shake up your noodle.

2020, we have come to the end of another cycle. That is, if cycles do exist, or were they devised to keep us, make sure we remain inside the circle? Tis the season for our Happyness Hunter to emerge, a sport to amuse us as time moves forward without us. The question, is your happy place only a state of mind?

If so, take note, we are much more, far greater than the mind?

Until we meet again, much blessings and joy in 2021.

Party on dudes!

Michael White Ryan is a co-founder with his wife Pamela Edwards of Language of Space.

They are leaders in sustainable business growth via Performance Design and Performance Code.

Sustainable design encompasses both Western and Easternphilosophies including advanced Feng Shui principles, \ Environmental Design, Buildings, Alternative Health, Business Advisory Consultants and 20 plus years as entrepreneurs.

Recognized in the top 100 globally and are Americas Leading Feng Shui BusinessConsultants.They are on faculty at CEO Space International one of the oldest business organizations in America today, currently operate in 7 countries and reside in Australia. www.languageofspace.com

95 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e November 2020

BRETT SOLOMANO Hollywood Stunt Driver is Successful in his World Record Attempt

by Reversing a Tractor Trailer Non-Stop as Part of Distracted Driving Awareness Month

The event's purpose was to help raise awareness about the dangers of distracted driving, which helped to kick-off "Distracted Driving Awareness Month" in October. Texting and talking while driving is one of the leading causes of car accidents in the United States, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

O

n September 30, Hollywood Stunt Driver, motivational speaker, and Australia native Brett Solomano attempted a Guinness World Record by reversing a tractor-trailer, the longest distance ever. He successfully drove backward 54.48 miles (160 laps) around Turner Field - Gold Lot in Atlanta, Georgia.

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More than 700 people are injured in distracted driving crashes on a typical day, states the National Safety Council. Most people are not aware that in 2018, there were 400,000 people injured in motor vehicle crashes, with 2,841 of them fatal due to not paying attention to the road. Among those killed were 1,730 drivers, 605 passengers, 400 pedestrians, and 77 bicyclists—source: NHTSA.

• • • • •

vehicle's dashboard system Update social media Check or send emails Take selfies or film videos Input destinations into the GPS (while the vehicle is in motion) Call or message anyone else when knowing that person is driving

According to Brett, "If somebody's driving near you while using their cell phone, these people are not looking out for your safety, let alone their own. That is one of the biggest reasons why you always need to be extra vigilant while on the road."

Because of these grim statistics, and in support of this worthwhile cause, Solomano is encouraging drivers to donate to the National Safety Council, the nation's leading nonprofit safety advocate, for their work in keeping drivers safe on the road.

He wants individuals to "Take The Pledge" to "Just Drive" and not be distracted while getting behind the wheel.

The distracted driving event was well received by road safety advocate and crash survivor Jacy Good.

In the past, she was on her way home from her college graduation ceremony when a truck crashed into the vehicle she and her parents were driving in. Her mother and father died that night, and Jacy suffered multiple injuries, including a TBI (traumatic brain injury). She had to re-learn how to walk and talk all over again. Her story serves as a heartbreaking reminder of why people shouldn't be pre-occupied while driving.

When taking the pledge, you agree that you will not: • Have a phone conversation either handheld or hands-free or via Bluetooth • Text or send Snapchats • Use voice-to-text features in the

Jacy now gives talks to schools, communities, and corporate events to remind people about the importance of staying focused on the road while driving so that they don't have to live through the terrible experience she did.

97 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e November 2020

HIGH ROAD TO HUMANITY

By Nancy Yearout

Photo by Dom Aguiar

WILL YOU

BE JUDGED?

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With so much unrest in our society, today it is fairly easy to become either cynical, frustrated, or mute worldwide.

It seems easier for people to lash out at each other and say things that may be hurtful instead of keeping their thoughts to themselves. Why has a green light been turned on to make it ok to judge another human being? How have we become so callous and unfeeling to what is going on around us? The big question is, why is it that we want to say and judge other people’s choices?

I felt the yearning inside my heart and soul to write about judgment, as there seems to be a lot of it going around these days.

One of the most eye-opening observations in recent months is how we judge each other. I have pondered this question, “how did we become a society that does not accept each other for their individuality, for who we truly are.” The question then is raised, what is so scary about being our true authentic selves?

This message of No-Judgement! Needs to get out to the world, as we have all been guilty at one point in our lives of being judgmental. Some of us realize it’s not an attractive trait early in life and others learn this life lesson down the road. The important thing is that we all become aware of what we say and how we treat each other. We are all different, yet we are all the same. We are all living beings full of thoughts, emotions, and love.

Those who don’t learn this lesson and continue to judge others, let it be known that they will be continued to be judged themselves.

It’s important for me to share a couple of important passages with you that have stuck with me over the years.

The Holy-Bhagavad-Gita 2.63 reads: Anger leads to clouding of judgment, which results in bewilderment of the memory. When the memory is bewildered, the intellect gets destroyed, one is ruined.

We are just now waking up to the fact that we are all individuals yet energetically connected.

History has proven that when we all don’t look, act or speak like the folks around us, we often stare, criticize, turn our heads or judge that individual. I feel maybe this occurs from the fear of the unknown. Our words are so harshly spoken and often when not even realizing that we are doing ourselves as well as the other person pain and energetic harm.

We have neglected to teach our children, our peers by example, that the inside of ourselves, our soul, and our life energy is what counts because that is who we truly are. Many of us are just now becoming in tune with this thought process. The material world has dazzled us for some time now, but 2020 is an awakening—a time when we see clearly what is important in life. We begin to ask ourselves, what is essential, what‘s in our hearts? The material stuff loses its luster after a while, but our warm hearts continue to beat on.

Not one of us is perfect; that’s why we are here, to learn.

As we become more loving, compassionate, and light, we elevate our souls and the souls around us who come into contact with us. Every interaction that we have makes an impression, an energetic impression, whether good or bad.

We need more good energy than bad right now.

We are just now waking up to the fact that we are all individuals yet energetically connected.

Nancy Yearout is an Psychic Reader, Intuitive Life Coach, Author and Inspirational Speaker. Her religious and spiritual work has enabled her to help many people to live the life they desire!

Nancy feels inspired to share the wisdom and the messages she receives with others. Her real-life experiences are shared each week on her Radio Show/Podcast, High Road to Humanity where insightful, spiritual guests share their story. This is Nancy’s way of each sharing new insight about raising the vibration and consciousness for all of us to create a healthy, Loving and kinder people as well as a safe harmonious place to live. My Credentials: Sales Coordinator for General Motors Corporation, Sales Manager for multiple, Owner and Qualifying Broker of The Harville Estates Real Estate & Development LLC, Owner of Energy Girl Publishing LLC., Author of, Wake Up! The Universe Is Speaking to You, Author of Monthly Contributor to Eden Magazine, Motivational/Inspirational Speaker, Intuitive Personal Coach Intuitive card reader, Energy Healer, Radio Host/Podcast High Road to Humanity.

Today she is happily married to the love of her life.

Nancy Yearout Hosts a Radio Show/ Podcast every week on Toginet radio and iTunes called High Road to Humanity.

Visit her website www.NancyYearout.com or her Podcast www.Highroadtohumanity.com 99 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e December 2020

Photo by Rene Bรถhmer 100 THEEDENMAGAZINE.COM e November 2020

THE RESIDUAL EFFECT OF

CHILDHOOD TRAUMA on Adult Relationships

By Jayita Bhattacharjee

C

hildhood trauma has an invisible impact on adult relationships. Children who have been exposed to neglect, domestic violence, traumatic loss, bereavement, sexual abuse go through unseen pain, and the shock of it has its major carry-over effects, transferred into adult relationships. The conception of fear symbolized, and gradually it begins to actualize into their adulthood. Those cataclysmic events had a major collision with the emotional health of a child as he/she was growing up, and their minds were shattered with the concussion of the traumatic blast, and nothing ever was the same for them anymore. Their vitality was killed at a premature age, and it became struggling for those sufferers to navigate through the shock of that childhood and grow in all capacity. They floundered mentally as their minds were clouded in great confusion. That traumatic childhood came down the most alarming way, and every relationship that dawns in their lives startles from a reeling shock.

As those children walk into adulthood, they go through a PostTraumatic Stress Disorder and have major difficulties in creating their own personal identity, developing a healthy self-perception, memory and consciousness, and emotional adjustment, a pessimistic view of life, challenging relationships with other people. The development of one’s own identity seems to be a complete blur to those children as they are looking into the future in utter stupefaction, and society can sense it.

Their befuddlement manifests in their encounter with others. But identity development is an integral part of healthy, normal development, and it transpires across the entire lifespan. Their distinctiveness, singularity, the sense of selfhood, the proper integration of emotions and intellect, everything suffers a breakdown. Their basic awareness of feelings shakes inside; hence they could not develop any solidity. The earlier the traumatic shock has been inflicted, the profound is the impact.

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Struggling with the aftermath of the developmental trauma and selfhood development becomes majorly challenging as they are dazed with the terrifying revelations of how a trauma that happened years back still can impact them. Their sense of confidence is extinguished, and they begin to grapple with life.

Therefore, the adult consequences of that age-old shock are manifested through depression, eating disorders, behavioral issues, difficulty in personal relationships, professional development, identity development, obsessive-compulsive shopping, substance abuse. It becomes a life- long wrestle, an invisible tussle with one’s own heart and mind, that the world knows nothing about.

The developmental trauma that lies unresolved creates a chain of complications that lead to a spiral of problems. Their identity mainly then revolves around being a survivor in the journey of life. Their minds are centered upon maintaining a safe distance with others so as to create a safe niche in every relationship, and in doing so, they stay away from opening up, giving themselves completely, wholly in any relationship.

Before even the relationship unfolds, they do not give themselves a chance, and they do not give others a chance. So they cannot grow from any encounter that ever comes along their way. They become rigid and develop such a stern rigidity that they identify themselves as a traumatic self throughout their adulthood, and they can hardly break out of their shell and learn to be flexible and inclusive of others, fearlessly. People who grew up with a traumatizing childhood dissociate themselves from their heart and soul, their external environment, and in the process, they disconnect themselves from anything and everything that can be contributory to their emotional growth. Fear takes the place of love and faith, and their minds become unsettled and wandering around in anticipation of what betrayal is lurking around the corner. They only recognize what has happened to them in the remote past, and they become incapacitated to recognize what can happen in the future if only they can let go of the fear and let courage come in. In the process, the possibilities stay folded as they clutch tightly to the doubts and insecurities. Life becomes a smoky

haze to them, and still, they prefer it that way.

Throughout childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, it stays as a residual fear which haunts them, sometimes for their whole lives.

Those adults have a feeling that they had a loss of childhood. They try not to remember that distressing childhood. To them, it is like a swathe of those early days that stays best as a blank chapter in their lives. They become selective in choosing what to remember and what to block out. Somewhere along the way, to create the character behind the name, a person needs to go back in time and remember in detail the story, which began from their childhood to their adolescence all the way up until adulthood.

But they fail to remember the painful early years, and they would rather prefer it stays blur. It could have been a beautiful autobiographical narrative, but this blurriness creates the missing chapters in their story. As a result, the character is never fully formed with a meaningful coherence, and the identity is undeveloped.

If they introspect and choose to seek therapeutic counseling, they may rediscover and recreate those missing pieces anew, so they create a wholesome self.

The missing pieces were probably linked to a dissociation due to painful memories, and as they are put together, they reattach, leading to a complete sense of identity. What stayed incomplete for so long now finds its healthy completion.

The adults who carry their traumatized childhood into adulthood are prone to destructive relationships that fit with their identity of the traumatized self.

They may eventually end up being around people who are emotionally unsupportive for them, or controllers, narcissists, or they may see themselves as the ones destined to rescue people with whom they have a romantic relationship. Ultimately, it compels them to question their understanding of selfhood, the clarity of their senses, and traps them again into their old identity of ‘traumatized self ’, while barring healthy, new identities from creating the roots.

Often, those adults display an avoidance towards having a meaningful relationship with someone.

They attempt to stay away as fear clogs their minds.

The developmental trauma that lies unresolved creates a chain of complications that lead to a spiral of problems. Their identity mainly then revolves around being a survivor in the journey of life.

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When emotions were never prioritized in the family of the traumatized person, they struggle in blending emotions with their identity.

They live under the impression that staying in isolation and escaping from closeness with people is the best way to live. They have a sidestepping tendency whenever it comes to any prospective relationship.

They live as cautious beings with careful eyes. As a result, they cannot be the authentic pathfinders in their lives; they are fearful of becoming the floaters, rather choose to stay as the vigilant ones. They grasp it as a self-protective measure, which ultimately impairs their personal development, and their adult identity is compromised. They develop a distorted perception of unworthiness and self-condemnation, thinking that others deserve better whereas they deserve less. But behind all this lies a story of abuse and neglect that ultimately led them to the clutches of fear. They fail to appreciate themselves and hope.

Faith becomes faraway notions to them. Trust becomes a complicated concept for them.

They try not to have moments alone with themselves, as any time spent connecting with their souls leads them to the walk down lanes of the distressing past. The trauma that once defined their childhood stays as a defining component, even in their adulthood. They skip the reflections of their childhood with parents, siblings, and others as it pushes them towards the management of painful memories that they are not capable of handling. In the process, they escape being with themselves. They hold steadfast again to their rigid traumatic identity, the sense of victimized self, unwilling to emerge from that as a pathfinder in this journey of life.

When emotions were never prioritized in the family of the traumatized person, they struggle in blending emotions with their identity. They do not leave any accommodations for their feelings. They create a willful distinction between emotions and identity. This creates instability as they cannot read strong emotions or predict when they are going to appear, let alone manage them. As they are always on the runaway from the very concept of emotions, and they become fearful of being emotional. So, they are never fully themselves. There develops an emotional dysregulation, which propels impulsive decisions and blocks any chances of developing healthy relationships with others. Being like this, they may experience emotional numbing or may be capable of feeling a selective spectrum of feelings while excluding the rest. This leads to a hurdle in forming

personal relationships with others as emotions are an integral part of building closeness with someone.

With the fears clouding their minds and eyes, reintegrating emotions into the identity though essential for growth, can be very challenging for them.

They are beginning again. It may very well be a daunting task to walk beyond the identity of a traumatized self and to rebuild a sense of new self, but it can be promising, and the chances have not died out once the person decides to be on the road to recovery.

From there begins the process of identity formation anew. Flexibility comes in as one acknowledges the past elements of darkness, and this acknowledgment fills their eyes with a light that kindles adult development. The sense of self, albeit slowly, emerges this time with a glint of courage and confidence, trust and hope, leaving the recollections of a traumatic childhood behind. To grieve over what happened all those years ago is to make space, to begin again, to say ’yes’ to what can come, and to give oneself a chance for reconnection.

Jayita Bhattacharjee was born in Calcutta, India and later on pursued education from University of Houston in Economics, she had chosen her career as a trustee and teacher.

Her Indian residence is in the vicinity of the famous Belurmath.

Currently, she is settled in Tampa, Florida. Her love for writing on a journey of heart and soul was hidden all within. Looking at the moments captured in love and pain, joy and grief, the hidden tragedies of life...it was a calling of her soul to write.

Her books "The Ecstatic Dance of Life', " Sacred Sanctuary", " Light of Consciousness", "Dewdrops of Compassion" are meant to shed light on what guides a person to respond to the mystical voice hidden inside, to soar in a boundless expansion with the limitless freedom of spirit."It is in the deepest joy that I write with every breath of mine."

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Lily Rose had grown up listening to the story of her adoption many times. She loved hearing about the telephone call from social ser­vices, the hand-me-down clothes she was wearing—which Carrie Ellen still kept in a dresser drawer—and meeting her parents. She liked knowing the origin of her name, that “Lily” was the name on her birth certificate while “Rose” was the name of Carrie Ellen’s mother. When she was three, her parents had told her she was adopted, which she took to mean that they had paid money for her. “How much did your parents pay for you?” she liked to ask other children.

Lily

Rose

By Deborah Robinson

Love has set the tone for most of Lily Rose’s young life in Cumberland Falls, high in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. But her perfect world falls apart when her beloved adopted parents are tragically killed and she is sent to live at Red Rose Farm, in the Bluegrass. Lily starts high school and meets her first love, who introduces the idea of a much bigger world to Lily. This relationship spurs her to pursue the grit and glamour of the New York fashion world and a marriage that will nearly cause her demise.

Lily Rose follows Lily as she grows into a New York fashion icon and battles abuse, power struggles, and infertility. In the shadows, we learn about the young woman who gave Lily up and how they will collide.

Lily Rose is about love and marriage, infidelity, infertility, and identity. It also calls into questions the old adages blood is thicker than water and nothing is more important than family. Will Lily Rose ever find what she has been searching for? And most importantly, will she be able to stay true to herself in the process?

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Lily never wondered about her life before that, or where she had come from, even though now, at age seven, she was old enough to know what being adopted really meant. All she knew was that Carrie Ellen and Alexander were her parents and that she loved them more than anything in the world, along with Rebel, her German Shepherd.

Sitting in class at the end of the day, Lily thought about how Rebel would be waiting for her by the schoolhouse door as he always did. At 2:30, when she emerged, he ran to her and jumped up, pushing his warm muzzle as close to her as he possibly could without knock­ing her down. She threw her arms around him, kissing him and coo­ing, “Rebel, my good boy.

Thank you for waiting for me.”

Then they walked up the street two blocks to her daddy’s veteri­nary office right off Main Street, where an assortment of dogs, cats, and even a bird waited with their owners. Lily was known as the vice president in charge of “Pet Soothing.” She put Rebel behind the counter in his bed for a nap, then went around the waiting room, playing with the animals who seemed especially nervous and talking to their owners.

“Now what seems to be the problem here?” she asked a man whose cat was cowering in the back of its carrier.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” she assured a woman as she stroked the head of her dog, who had an injured leg.

Although she was only in the second grade, she had learned from her father the valuable lesson of treating both people and their ani­mals with respect and kindness.

“Lily,” Alexander said, coming out of his office. “Don’t forget that your mama wants you home soon.”

“Yes, Daddy,” Lily replied obediently.

Photo by Engin Akurt

She was only allowed to spend an hour at her father’s office on the weekdays and a half-day on Saturdays because Carrie Ellen was afraid she would become too attached to the animals. Occasionally an owner would leave a dog or cat behind, and it would inevitably make its way into the Long family. Now they had six dogs.

Since Lily was an only child, her parents let her have as many pets as she wanted, but there had to be some limits.

Lily and Rebel continued on their way home, and soon they arrived at the Long family homestead at the top of the hill on Weeping Willow Lane, so-called because of the two giant weeping willow trees in the front of the yard. A stone path lined with orange African tiger lilies led up to the house, a 1920s white colonial with a mahogany front door and shutters. The wraparound porch, which had been added in the 1950s, looked inviting with pots of blue hydrangeas, white rocking chairs, and a front porch swing that many generations of the family had at one time or another qui­etly swung in on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Behind the house, a back lawn led deep into the hills filled with pine trees that Lily’s great-grandfather had planted years ago.

To the east was the majes­ tic Black Mountain that looked toward Virginia and beyond that the rugged Blue Ridge Mountains surrounding the Longs with the most scenic views imaginable.

Entering the front door, Lily hollered, “Mama, we’re home!”

“Well, I can see that, Lily. I was just fixing you an a fternoon snack.” After giving her a hug, Carrie Ellen placed a plate of choc­olate chip pecan cookies and a glass of sweet iced tea on the oak kitchen table. “How was school today?”

“Josie Collins stepped on the back of my shoe when we were in line, going to the playground.” Lily stuck out her white tennis shoe, which indeed had a black mark on the heel. “The teacher had to stop the line so I could put my shoe back on, and Josie laughed at me.”

“Did you say anything to Josie?”

Lily furrowed her brow. “No.” “Why not?”

“I didn’t want her to get mad. Josie is popular and has lots of friends. I want to be her friend, too,” Lily admitted in a small voice.

Carrie Ellen put her arm around Lily’s shoulder. “Don’t fret so much about it. I’m sure Josie was just joking.

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Now, let’s go pick some flowers for dinner.”

Lily followed her mother to the garden, but her stomach contin­ued to churn over what had happened at school that day. Why hadn’t she said anything to Josie?

Why hadn’t she told the teacher? Instead, she’d let Josie laugh at her, as her face grew hot and flustered. As was her habit when she was worried, she chewed the insides of her cheeks. Sometimes she bit down so hard that her mouth bled and sores formed. Carrie Ellen repeatedly asked her why she did this to herself, but Lily could only shake her head and run away. She didn’t know why she was compelled to hurt herself, and her mother didn’t know how to make it stop, so they just didn’t talk about it.

After gathering a bouquet of old-fashioned pink tea roses, light green hydrangeas, and multicolored delphiniums from the garden, Lily and Carrie Ellen arranged them in a Tiffany vase that Aunt Martha had given Carrie Ellen for Christmas. Lily always looked forward to visiting Aunt Martha and Uncle Grant at their horse farm near Lexington. With its white fences and large barn, it was just about the prettiest place she had ever seen. She couldn’t wait until she was old enough to spend summers there—Uncle Grant had promised he would teach her to ride—when she could walk out in the morning and see that the grass really was blue.

While Lily knew her mother looked forward to when Lily could get to know her only relatives better, she also dreaded it because she would miss her daughter dearly. Carrie Ellen and Lily were as close as a mother and daughter could be. There was nothing more Lily liked than to be by her mother’s side, helping her make clothes, cook meals, or tend to the garden.

Everything Carrie Ellen touched was a declaration of love for her family, for her house. As she arranged the flowers, she positioned the blooms lose and lovely, brimming with life. Lily thought they couldn’t have looked better than if they had been painted in a picture.

“How do you know what colors go together?” she asked.

Carrie Ellen gestured out the open window to the panorama of the mountains in the distance. “Look at nature, and God will tell you,” she said.

Although she squinted until her eyes crossed, Lily wasn’t sure if she was getting God’s message.

“Now,” Carrie Ellen said, “help me set the table before your daddy gets home from work. Unless he has an emergency, you know he likes to eat right on time.”

ed until he set down his fork, patting his belly with satisfaction before she spoke up. “Daddy, can I please take piano lessons? I’ll practice and work really hard.”

Lily got the dishes from the old pie safe and started setting the table. “When Daddy gets home, can I ask him about taking piano lessons?”

Placing his napkin on the table, Alexander pretended to think about it. “I’ll tell you what, Lily,” he said. “You can learn how to play the piano if you make me one promise.”

“Haven’t I always told you to never ask your daddy, or any man for that matter, anything until after he eats?

Then, see what kind of mood he’s in. After Daddy’s done eating, and if he seems to be in a good mood, then you can ask.”

Lily nodded vigorously, her eyes wide. “Of course, Daddy. What is it?”

Lily nodded without really understanding, but she squirreled this piece of advice away for the day when she imagined that she would have a husband of her own.

When Alexander walked through the door, he was greeted with the pleasant sight of family life. Carrie Ellen, wearing a blue floral housedress underneath a handembroidered apron, dusted off her hands and pushed her brown curls from her glowing face. Kissing him on the cheek, she asked, “Alex, honey, did you take good care of all those dogs and cats today?”

Lily came skipping up behind her and hugged him around the waist. “Daddy, I’m so glad you’re home. I taught the dogs how to howl all at once. Want to hear?”

Alexander sat down at the kitchen table while Lily lined up the six dogs with their tails wagging. As she proceeded to sing off-key, they began to bark in a variety of tones, culminating in a full-throated howl. Laughing, Alexander could only give them a standing ovation, smiling broadly but privately, hoping that the performance would end soon.

After they sat down for supper, Lily Rose reached for her par­ents’ hands to say grace, as they always did before each meal. She did the honors on this night. “Dear God, Thank you for our food, for Mommy and Daddy, Aunt Martha and Uncle Grant, and our entire family, including Rebel and all my other pets. Please keep us all safe. Amen.”

“Amen,” Carrie Ellen and Alexander echoed.

Carrie Ellen started to pass around the chicken and dumplings, green beans, and creamed corn. For dessert, there was a pineapple cream pie waiting in the kitchen that she had baked earlier in the afternoon.

“That you teach your pets” —he indicated the dogs lying around their feet under the table and winked at her— “how to properly sing.”

“Yes!” Lily exclaimed. “Thank you so much, Daddy!

Alexander’s eyes met Carrie Ellen’s over the table, and both of them smiled at their daughter’s enthusiasm and their good fortune. They truly felt blessed now that their family was complete.

The Long family chattered happily as they finished their meal, and the sun slowly set behind the towering mountains.

Excerpted with permission from Lily Rose by Deborah Robinson.

Copyright 2020 Skyhorse Publishing.

To purchase: https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781510764057/ lily-rose/.

Deborah Robinson is a fashion and lifestyle expert regularly appearing on the fifteen top media markets nationally and on cable talk shows. Previously, she was the national spokesperson for Petite Sophisticates, a retail chain of 350 specialty stores. She appeared regularly on national and regional

television, as well as QVC, offering wardrobe and lifestyle trends. She was a contributing editor to Homes & Lifestyles Magazine and Palm Beach Style Magazine, and a regular fashion reporter for the WXIA NBC affiliate in Atlanta, GA. She was also the national fashion coordinator for Sarah Coventry, the largest costume jewelry company in the world. She lives in Palm Beach, Florida.

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