INSOMNIA

My hubby went back to work last week and this new job requires him to leave the house between 4:00 AM -5:00 AM. This means no more group Sadhana for a while because I have my child to care for.  I am so trained to wake up at 3:30 AM so here I am blogging at 4:30 in the morning. I do still love this time of the night. I have rested a good amount of hours and everything in quiet and still. So in that respect I still get to enjoy these wee hours of the night. Also, I still can do my own Sadhana, but I am not very self motivated to do the yoga set on my own. I am going to set my daily intention and that is to remain open-minded and committed to creating my reality for this day. I have found this quote which inspired today's intention.

Reality is above all else a variable, and nobody is qualified to say that he or she knows exactly what it is. As a matter of fact, with a firm enough commitment, you can sometimes create a reality which did not exist before.
— Margaret Halsey, American Author

Enjoy!

Halloween is on the way!

 

I love Halloween!  It is one of my favorite holidays.  These days I have to travel outside of my neighborhood to enjoy tick or treating with my kid.  I live in a very orthodox Jewish part of town so we hardly get any trick-or-treaters. We do have a pumpkin patch and halloween costume store right across the street which is cool. Also, the Hollywood Forever cemetery holds the Dios de la Muertes celebration every year. I really enjoy all the painted faces, decorated alters, and revival of Aztec dance.  One of me new favorite parts of Halloween is watching my kid trick-or-treat.  He hates chocolate, weird I know, so he goes door to door, looking at each piece and asking if he received chocolate.  Sometimes he straight out to the person passing out candy that he will only take non-chocolate items. I get a kick out of that.     

Dream Home

My ideal dream home is not a very commonly desired home. Although, maybe that's because people just don't know how cool and affordable this type of housing is. I am referring to a cob house or also known as an earth rammed home. Cob is a building material consisting of clay, sand, straw, water, and earth, similar to adobe. Cob is fireproof, resistant to seismic activity, and inexpensive. It can be used to create artistic, sculptural forms and has been revived in recent years by the natural building and sustainability movements.

Here are pictures of one being built. 

 

I have been planning on building one of these for the past few years now. I think it would be so awesome to build your own house with your own hands. Man has been building his own shelter for as long as we can guess. Now you have to pay a lifetime debt to a bank  just to own a common home. No thank you! These houses are all a fraction of the cost of a manufactured home, plus they are unique, and eco friendly.  Look how beautiful they can be. 

Also, they are insulated from the heat in the summer and harsh winds in the winter with their thick walls. You can set windows facing the sun during the winter to maximize heat collection too. Some people get very artistic as you can see in this picture. 

The inside of these homes are incredibly rad.  I have heard of folks running pipes from a pot bellied stove through the base of their bed (which is made of cob) to have warm and cozy sleep. Ingenious! 
The ways in which you can personalize your indoor space are very broad. Walls can turn into benches, fire places, shelves and even stairs. 

 Here are a couple of my favorite shots of inside a cob home. 

You could build a home like the ones in these pictures for about $10K-$15k or you can just live the American dream and do what everyone else does.  Your choice. 

4 AM yoga?

I get my butt up by 3:30 AM to make it to a local kundalini yoga house as a daily routine. Most people wonder why I would do this?  This daily dedication is called Sadhana. To the Sikhs, the hours between 4 and 7, both AM and PM, are very spiritual hours which offer greater connection with  the divine wisdom and power. Sadhana includes an opening meditation, 45 minutes of yoga, followed by melodic chants and meditation until 6 am. No body cares if you sleep through some or even all of it. Attending Sadhana is free because this is part of the Sikh religion, my first obvious attraction. I actually have grown to love getting up before the crack of dawn.My child and husband are sleeping and do not need anything from me at this time. Also, I get to take care of my body with yoga, and I get to set my intention for the day with meditation. Did I mention it's free? I am not Sikh but I love this part of their dogma. 

Sat Nam!

Public library

I love the library! I am a total library geek. I frequent our local branch every week checking out new books for my child as well as for myself. Today my son and I caught the last half of a story that the children's librarian performed. This is just good, clean fun. I love how I can download audiobooks and DVDs on line too. This is so great! I am just taking the time to appreciate this public service. 

SLS? More like SOS!

Sodium Lauryl Sulfate

Personal hygiene, most of us are regulars at practicing it. But many do not know that more than 90% of beauty and personal hygiene products contain chemicals that actually do us more harm than good. SLS or Sodium Lauryl Sulfate is a an agent that can give a product the ability to perform in ways such as foaming up or removing stains. Most of us would appreciate that, I'm sure. But what about the other gifts that SLS gives such as eye and skin irritation, cell mutation, reproductive harm, endocrine disruption and cancer. Would you still feel clean and better looking knowing this info every time you cleaned your teeth with toothpaste, moistened your skin with lotion, or  soaked in your bubble bath? I feel dirty just thinking about it.  SLS is just one of the many toxic chemicals we willingly subject ourselves and our children to.  There are over 16,000 studies warning us about the dangers of this chemical yet we go on dowsing ourselves with it, trusting that the people pumping this crap out would surely stop if it really was that bad. Sorry to break it to you folks but think again. 

I learned about toxic ingredients back in 2000 when I was working for a well known natural foods market in the vitamin and beauty department. I was lucky to learn so young that I must keep an open eye and read before I add anything to my body. Actually, the older I get the more I need to read the ingredient lists and fine print. It seems that in just about every sales arena there are cheap ass corporations and even small businesses who only give a shit about profit and will cut any corner to make the best buck. Even corners that cut down or diminish the quality of your life or health. If we lived back in the 1800's assholes like this would have been burned at the stake for being the charlatans that they actually are. 

I spend the extra money to avoid poisoning myself. Hell, if I am going to damage my body by putting a chemical in it I should at least get a damn buzz, okay? There are actually other ways of using personal care products which are truly natural and may even save you money. You can brush your teeth with baking soda and sea salt for example. You may not feel minty fresh but your mouth will stay cleaner longer than with most toothpastes. If you are really hurting for that minty aftertaste, grow a mint plant... no really. The stuff grows like a weed and eating it gives you fresh breath plus it aids in digestion. For moisturizer I try to stick to edible oils. Some of my favorites are virgin coconut oil, almond oil, and olive oil. Feel like a salad yet? Deodorant substitutes can be lavender oil, tea tree oil, or any oil that has antimicrobial properties. 

The bottom line is, most people are totally clueless about chemicals like SLS and it will take a long time before people in this country wise up. The Johnson and Johnson family are depending on this kind of ignorance. All we can do is keep spreading the information and hopefully, over time, enough people will care enough to force a change. Until then, I am choosing SLS free products. 

This is the end of my rant. 

homeschool

     My husband and I, three preschools later, have decided that our son is a great candidate for homeschool. Homeschool was not on my radar when I was planing a family. Since I've become a parent things have changed. My son's demeanor changed for the worst when I put him into preschool.  The last school we pulled him out of started suggesting ADD! I couldn't friggen believe my ears.  My son was doing great when he started, six months later he was aggressive and full of anxiety.  This particular school had very little running space and no climbing structure. My sons physiological impulses were thwarted just about  at every move. He was told things like "stop running", "shhhh not so loud" `and "don't climb on that" on a regular basis. He was not interested in the fancy art project the teachers had spent much time on thinking up. He just wanted to play, jump, run, laugh and yell out but was not afforded to do so. None of this was considered in making his assessment about ADD.  My child is a kid who will sit and listen to me read 4 chapters straight of books such as Little House on the Prairie. Let's not forget that this kid is 4 and this particular book has almost no pictures. ADD? Get a life! The straw that broke the camels back was when the neurotic director demanded that we hire a shadow for our son to follow his every move to restrict him even further. We were already paying these people $1200 per month for part time care. Now they wanted us to fork out an extra $400-$600 per week for a professional shadow? We did not have that kind of cash. I decided to pull our son out and to consider home school.  I was worried because I have a career and I am still pursing to achieve my ultimate position as a certified midwife which requires extensive schooling. How would I have the time to support my child and take care of my responsibilities?  My husband works about 12-16 hours a day 5-6 days a week so he could not fill the role as home school teacher.
     I read a book on how children learn by John Holt and another book about what we lose in mass schooling, written by an award winning New York school teacher. This man John Tyler Gatto taught for 30 plus years before he wrote this book and it got my attention. These books allowed me to make sense of my own childhood and adolescents. I struggled in school and hated every second of grade school. At the age of 16, I finally entered an alternative school with about 80 students. I could arrive any time between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.and I could work in any class room I was comfortable in. I could even do my studies outside! I went from D's to A's in 11 months and graduated with the Spirit Award. An award given to the most inspiring student who is an example of what they hope all students will transform into. This school allowed me to understand that I was not an idiot but rather that the mainstream school could not support my learning style. These books allowed me to understand that I was not just a weird, isolated incident in this school system and that actually the school system is what has become quite dysfunctional. My son is already showing signs of not being able to "fit in" to run of the mill "here is what you are going to learn" schooling. Nope, my kid needs to learn at his own pace and his learning content has to be spontaneous and based off of his own curiosity. I had such a transformative experience during my last years of high school in that alternative school. I still miss the teachers there and call them from time to time. My love for learning was born at that school.  I can only imaging what my childhood would have been like if I would have had more options prior to high school.
     After I came to all of this understanding there was no way I could not home school my son. We are just going to have to make the best of it. Actually, I am already enjoying taking my son on field trips and making the world our classroom.  I am grateful that I do not have to stick my son in the "one size fits all box." I hope he thrives and loves learning for his entire life. I suggest these reads to anyone. Even if you do not have kids or if you totally dig mainstream school, you may learn a lot about yourself and how humans learn in general. I know home school is not for everyone but a joy for learning is and today we have many more options on how we can find pleasure in learning.

Enjoy!

Bum neck

My neck has been out for the last two and a half days. Ouch! At night it starts to throb and the pain radiates from my temple to my jaw bone, down through my neck and shoulder. This is a reoccurring literal pain in the neck. This would not be as bad if my life wasn't so awesome and full of responsibility. I haven't been able to see an acupuncturist yet or even a massage therapist.  I will take care of this tomorrow. Here's to another shitty night of sleep.