Body Food
Watercress is an excellent source of the antioxidants vitamins A and C, as well as vitamin K, an essential micronutrient for bone health. It is also a rich natural source of lutein and zeaxanthin, two carotenoid nutrients that are gaining attention for their ability to protect vision and support cardiovascular health.

Apricots are a good source of disease fighting anti-oxidants and are one of the healthiest and most beneficial fruits available. They are rich in beta-carotene, Vitamin C, potassium, iron, Vitamin A, copper, lycopene, and the apricot seed has an extremely high content of B17 or laetrile which has been found effective in preventing cancer. They are also very high in fibre.

Cucumbers are botanically classified as a fruit. Get unwaxed cucumbers.They contain Vitamin A, for skin health, keeping your cell membranes moist and resistant to cellular damage. Vitamin C, is an effective antioxidant and can be found in abundance in cucumbers. Vitamin C in cucumbers helps support and strengthen your immune system,  protecting your body against infections and bacteria that can cause illnesses. Folic acid is part of the B-complex vitamin group and is important in the production of red blood cells in your body. Low levels of folic acid may contribute to certain types of anaemia, or low red blood cell count.Silica is a trace mineral that is not common in many foods, but is found in high levels inside cucumbers. Silica contributes to the growth and maintenance of connective tissue throughout your body.

Blood oranges‘ red pigment, anthocyanin, is an antioxidant.  Due to its pigments the blood orange contain greater amounts of antioxidants than other oranges. Blood oranges are a good source of vitamin C, like all citrus fruits.  Oranges can also be a valuable source of folate, calcium and thiamine.

Eggplant In addition to featuring a host of vitamins and minerals, eggplant also contains important phytonutrients, many which have antioxidant activity. Phytonutrients contained in eggplant include phenolic compounds, such caffeic and chlorogenic acid, and flavonoids, such as nasunin. Research on eggplant has focused on an anthocyanin phytonutrient found in eggplant skin called nasunin. Nasunin is a potent antioxidant and free radical scavenger that has been shown to protect cell membranes from damage. In animal studies, nasunin has been found to protect the lipids (fats) in brain cell membranes.

Not so Special

Okay I admit it I can be really negative, but sometimes my negativity has a real genesis in flummoxation. I’d run out of tea and went to my local, albeit expensive supermarket, to get some Twinning’s Russian Caravan.  I was on my daily walk and had a $5.00 note in my pocket. I was not sure that was enough but in I tripped, into the land of wallpaper music and fluros. Low and behold the very tea I wanted was on special $4.49. For a moment I was happy. I got to the checkout and the checkout chap scanned the box of loose leaf tea.
”$5.99.” he declared.
I flapped around my $5.00 note and said, “But it’s on special.”
So here’s the deal, the 12 items or less queue was curling around the block and then some and the Checkout Chap disappears, for quite some time I might add, to check the shelf price.
“Obviously not a tea drinker. Doesn’t know where the tea isle is.” I thought.
Finally after a long wait, with the apprehension that the other shoppers were boring holes in my back for holding up the flow of spending, the CC reappears.
“It’s a special only if you scan with your rewards card.” He said. A rewards card is one of those consumer brand faithfulness inducers, Loyalty Cards they call them.
“Hummmm.” I thought, “This is not making me happy.”
For heavens sake I was out for my daily stroll and who carries their cards when exercising, and who reads the small print especially when in large red letters a special price is indicated.  Well, God is good and obviously likes tea drinkers, well this tea drinker in particular, anyway for in the depths of my hoodie a long term resident was found, a dollar coin.  I paid for my tea $5.99, yeah remember when there were cents to actually give real change value.  I destroyed many a purse with the heavy ones and two….
I went home and boiled the kettle and while I was  warming the pot thought it deceitful, a special is a special, and who reads the small print. When you agree on line to purchase this or that, or sigh an insurance do you read all the tiny writing, can you? What with geriatric baby boomer eyes combined with an off hand lazy nature what hope have any of us of overcoming negativity with our simple expectations that things are what them seem.  Ahhhhhhh…..
Please do not misunderstand me I do not need, want or choose to listen to advice on this.  I do not want advice telling me I could have had a win-win scenario if I had asked someone for the use of their loyalty card.  I am okay with a not so happy response in myself.  As I stood there in front of CC I realized that he was tied to the rules of his register in every was as much as I am to my beliefs in wrong and right.  I felt compassion, or what passes for compassion, in the fluro and wallpaper music environs of a supermarket. Compassion for the walls of rules that alienate us from our selves and others.  I choose in that moment to soften my eyes and smile at CC, preparing to shrug and walk away empty handed and it was in that instance that the dollar appeared in my pocket.  I swear to God I had not known of its existence till that moment.

I not only got my tea, I got a laugh from CC, and a sense of the order in my world when I am okay with what is as it is, tea or no tea, that is the question.

The Noble Eightfold Path….describes the way to the end your suffering, as it was laid out by Siddhartha Gautama. It is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing you from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads you to understanding the truth about all things.

The origin of your suffering is attachment to transient things and the ignorance of that attachment.
The end of your suffering can be achieved through unmaking sensual craving and conceptual attachment. Suffering can be ended by attaining dispassion.

There is a path to this end – a gradual path of self-improvement, which is the Eightfold Path.
1. Right view
2. Right intention
3. Right speech
4. Right action
5. Right livelihood
6. Right effort
7. Right mindfulness
8. Right concentration

One of the ways to self improvement is in the company we keep… I quote Anne Bronte who wrote in her book Agnes Grey published in 1847…
“Habitual associates are known to exercise great influence over each other’s minds and manners. Those whose actions are forever before our eyes, whose words are ever in our ears will naturally lead us, against our will- slowly- gradually- imperceptibly, perhaps to act and speak as they do. ”

This life is a complex interwoven thing, where over 95% of out actions, our works, our thoughts, are unconscious, perceived after we express them. Looking back on out activities it is easy to see where we went wrong, where we make an ill considered remark, forgot a kindness, neglected a duty.

With this hind sight we can perhaps choose, that old chestnut free will, to not put ourselves in harm’s way and associate if you can with those whom you esteem and if that is not possible then treat the miscreants and detractors in your life at least with the respect you would give yourself.

My favourite book as a child was Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies. The major spiritual leaders in this water world are the fairies Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby and Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. I think you now understand that my moral compass was formed by principled, fairy tales from a world with very different behaviours from our own. Non the less we do learn by example and we can both be the example and learn by putting ourselves in the company of kindnesses.

I never expected to get old. I never expected to meet myself so stripped bare, so stripped bare of all the things that formerly made up my sense of self. My sex drive, my slim body, my joy in dancing, not so much these days.

I never expected to gain weight and not be able to easily lose it. I never expected to experience pain and feel debilitated for days, cranky and exhausted.
I never expected to look at my face and see almost a stranger, resembling not one member of my family, but then my mother always said she thought I was a changeling.

I never expected to be so inspired by music. I never expected to still be going to massive Indy gigs, like Jack White and Sigur Ros, (Scandinavian super group). I never expected to love opera and getting dressed up. Who’d of thought the hippy would find the sun painful as she aged, yet still retain a love of gardening, Bromeliads are the easiest plants in the multiverse to grow.

These days I walk away from difficult people, so I’m not so irritated by people but I do get more irritated at myself than I ever did. Irritated by my forgetfulness or clumsiness; dropping of a mascara wand, a cup, the soap, a cleaning rag, a pillow case while hanging out the washing and that was only this morning, I’m still in a good mood but only just. On the other hand I have a low, if present at all, tolerance for fools, cruelty, impolite behavour, rude children, rude gestures when I annoy someone on the road.

I never expected to need to feed my soul with trips to the theater, art galleries. I never expected to feel so depressed when I ignore the promptings of my spirit. So what feeds me and gives me a will to live. Creativity, beauty, kindness, genuine intelligence and insight and random acts of kindness.

I had to do a re-certification First Aid course about a month ago. So there I was with a group of strangers sucking a dummy’s face and wondering if the only bit of first aid I have ever had to use would come up in the questions at the end. It didn’t. Once I had to stop a cut from bleeding with pressure, so there you have it. Anyway suffice to say not the most inspiring day and I was glad to get out of there and get on a bus to come home. The bus was filling up and I offered my money to the bus driver, he said in strine, ”It’s pre paid only.” I stood there my mouth slightly open, thwarted in my plans I asked where I could get a ticket. The driver gestured vaguely out of the bus and I sighed and tried to push my way out through the people waiting to get on. A man in a suit, good looking and with a kind face said, “I’ll pay for her.”
“Thank you.” I stammered.
‘’What goes around comes around.” he said smiling.
All the bus passengers were watching and it brought a smile to so many faces and still to this day, every time I get on a bus with my pre paid 10 tickets I think of that act of kindness and smile…

I never expected to love so deeply and for so long this jewel of a planet and its inhabitants, I never expected to become kind but there you have it, the kindness of strangers has the power to inspire love and joy. Keep the kindness, politeness, thoughtfulness flowing and it will be easier and easier to love and inspire love.

10 Ways to Change

The mark of an adult is not being earnest, or taking yourself seriously but to be able to make choices, to be able to inhibit your impulses. The mark of an adult is self control based on self knowledge and the application of that knowledge to improving your relations with yourself, other people and your environment.

Are you concerned about your addictive impulses? Maybe you feel that you’re drinking too much or too often. Perhaps over eating is a habit you’d like to better control. It’s always wise to check with your health professional — they should be able to help you decide whether it is best for you to cut back, control or to abstain. People who are dependent on alcohol, sugar, tobacco, recreational drugs or have other medical or mental health problems may need to ask for help.

The following steps may be helpful in acquiring self knowledge, self management and enable you to make healthy choices:
Write it down. Making a list of the reasons to curtail your habit — such as feeling healthier, sleeping better, or improving your relationships. This can help to motivate you to change your habits. Also make a list of all the reasons why you drink.
Set a goal. Give yourself a realistic time frame to allow the desire to change and the possibility of acting on it to emerge.
Ask for support. You may need to seek the help of a therapist, hypnotherapist, doctor or naturopath. Be realistic.
Keep a journal. Either a visual or written journal. For three to four weeks, keep track of yourself and your feelings.
Slowly, slowly. Once you have some idea of why you do what you do then slowly introduce good habits like drinking more water or exercising or doing different activities or hanging out with healthier people.
Choose. Stop your habit for a few days and sit with your feelings. By now you will have a support system in place and can possibly go through a withdrawal and allow yourself to make mistakes without remonstrating and getting angry with yourself.
Watch for peer pressure. Practice ways to say no politely. Make choices, Stay away from people who encourage you or support you in the habit you wish to change.
Keep busy. Take a walk, play sports, go out to eat, or catch a movie. When you’re at home, pick up a new hobby or revisit an old one. Painting, board games, playing a musical instrument, woodworking — any creative and or absorbing healthy activity.
Guard against temptation. Steer clear of activities, people and places you know will trigger your habit. Monitor your feelings. When you’re worried, lonely, or angry, you may revert to your habit. Try to cultivate new, healthy ways to cope with stress. It’s not forever, you will get stronger and more distance from your habits.
Be persistent. Most people who successfully modify or cut down on their bad habit, do so only after several attempts. You’ll probably have setbacks, but don’t let them keep you from reaching your long-term goal. There’s really no final endpoint, as the process usually requires ongoing effort.

Cause and effect as they manifest in your world are directly related to your belief systems.

What you believe and subsequently feel about yourself, by dint of constant repetitive thoughts and feelings within you generates your behavior, they arise from those thoughts, feeling and impulses creating your world.

The forces of life will give you exactly what you are thinking about, feeling about, not necessarily what you ask for.

You will manifest around you exactly, exactly what you think, feel and believe within. For example, somewhere you may have acquired the belief that you will always have more than enough money then that will be the case.

To change belief systems requires a little self monitoring.

What you believe and think with passion is your next reality and to the extent that you do not get that then you can be assured that underneath there is self doubt as to your ability, worthiness, or lovability or whatever in direct proportion to the degree that you do not get the life, object, financial success, life situation you would love.

For example if you do not believe that anything is permanent, in respect especially to emotional issues. It’s probably derived from pre natal, pre verbal and early childhood experiences and observations. The consequence is you’ll probably behave in a way that makes longer term relationships difficult.

From early experiences you may have acquired beliefs that you were less than loved. I personally remember feeling distain from people as a child and was subsequently bewildered. Now I can behave in a way that, at times, borders on needy or overbearing in relationships which drives people away and of course I might feel rejected and bewildered. If I behaved in a way consistent with the belief that I am loved I would feel and be loved.

If you behaved in a way that healthily nurtures yourself and those around you then a sense of stability, the best we can manifest as a facsimile for permanence in this world, would evolve and grow organically.

For our addictions:
In terms of the smoking/ alcohol/ addiction thing I want you to imagine, the feeling of self worth you will gain from lung and general good health, see yourself still full of vigor after exercise. See yourself standing stable and not breathing with difficulty.

Imagine yourself walking up a mountain in the Himalayas with you lungs still pumping well.

See yourself still alive in 20 years standing tall with a grin from ear to ear as you race through the surf to dive into a wave.

Concentrate on the outcome not the day to day, that’s the start. You already know you can do it and you know how good you can feel about yourself.

It takes one second to change. If you can see the outcome you can become it.

Often I Give myself an exercise, I generate randomly letters and then make up words with those initials and then write a story based on that. Today I thought up the letters D and S. Dull Squids, Dirty Socks, Data Square, Dairy Signs, Drams School, Duty Squash, Despotic Silliness and finally Deployed Suction. I decided on the Duty of Strangers……..
THE DUTY OF STRANGERS
She’d been reading a self help book, found on a library shelf. Under one arm she had a romance, The Duty of Strangers, by Jill Eutard.

The self help book the preserve of strangers to common sense had drawn her in. Richard Billet had written a book, The Sex of Love or How to Gain Erotic Magnetism. She opened it at Chapter 7 entitled Erotic Space and Tension and read, ”Attraction met and chased, repels it away, whereas attraction acknowledged and withdrawn from draws it closer.” Yep that was the problem, the too and fro of attraction and repulsion.

Gwen was a professional woman, trim, the gym played its part, and she ate very little. Her face said it all, she smiled but not with her eyes. If you looked at her eyes and that was nigh impossible as she was uncomfortable with that, you would have seen, a mix of fear and arrogance covering her loneliness.

She wanted people to have a good opinion of her but had no idea how to get people to like her as she’d never really liked or been liked. She was clever with figures, an actuary and well compensated. She liked her job and it took many hours out of her day. Still she was too embarrassed to try to take a self help book about erotic love and a romance past the librarian. She wanted more than anything to find some meaning in her life but one of her greatest motivators for her was the good opinion of others. She did not want to be seen like a loser, like her sister.

She’d seen Gail, recently, slightly limping down the street. It was a shock seeing her, she looked older and her long black coat flapped open at the front revealing her skinny brown legs. Gwen had been in a taxi, slowed at the lights, she saw her sister raise her hand in greeting and a man in a hat loped across the road towards her. A gasp of recognition passed through her. The loping man was a gardener she had used to repave her patio.

She’d been reluctant to have it done as it meant a stranger in her house. A stranger in her house, early in the morning. He could see into her kitchen and see her at her early morning rituals, makeup-less, tea cup in hand. She’d watch him lift heavy objects and without it being sexual had admired his body. She thought she should feel attraction but he was kinda licentious, his eyes slid around cunningly over a red, veiny drinkers nose, still he had strong arms, they made her shudder, memories, memories….

Helplessness young helplessness, strong arms, not moving….she sighed, blinked, turned the water hotter and rubbed her neck, it felt stiff, but it usually did.

The therapist had taught her to take a deep breath and stretch, she’d managed to get off the anti depressants after six months, but the memories came back. Still the garden looked great, her sister obviously knew the guy. So what’d ya know.

She put both books under her arm and finding her library card steeled her resolve, fear of ridicule, fear of being judged, fear of someone talking about her behind her back, sucked the air out of her life. The librarian didn’t twitch a muscle when he scanned the books. A young man kept his face dead pan and smiled with his whole face as he handed the books to Gwen. Poor woman, he thought, pretty face but astringent.

Paul watched the woman leave, her body was graceful but she looked tense around the shoulders. She must have sensed him watching her, she turned and her face coloured and tightened, her eyes propelling blue shards of ice at the boy.

Rather than complimented, Gwen was angry at the boy’s look. He must think I’m such a loser, she thought, fingering the self help book. Actually Paul hadn’t even registered the book’s title, he was a librarian and people took books out. It was not his job to remember or even make an inward judgement on their book choices. Gosh what was that all about, note to self, avoid that woman.

Outside the library Gwen immediately forgot the boy, she was always defensive so this new incident was just normal to her. Paul was a simple gay man, young, pretty, sweet but street wise, you get to be at least a little wary when you grow up in a working class area and go to a school where racism and homophobia was if not rife then at least not unknown.

Paul had been confounded by the icy barb and a little piece of it stayed in his awareness and slightly poisoned his day. That evening his sister came to dinner. His share house was walking distance from the library and the sky roared with reds of sunset as they sat in the garden eating risotto and sipping cold white wine.
“Gosh it’s been a long time since we met like this. By the way this rice is gorgeous. You’ve put a lot of herbs into it?”
“Just the ones you see in the garden, I think it’s the fresh factor.”
“Did you see, the doco dad put out about the vintage cars of America.”
“’Fraid not. Hummm, he’s such a petrol head. ”
“Yep he’s taken up editing with a vengeance, he’s even taking all the old family footage and putting it on a disc, and promising to make a family history.”
“Bless his little cotton socks.”
“Yeah…..”
“That’s the basil, it’s a red variety and behind you my oregano and marjoram.”
“You always avoided the garden when we were kids.”
“I now have a doctor who gives me as much anti histamine meds as I need, to live the life of an iterant gardener.”
“Huh, you are sooo not a gardener Mr Thee-atre.”
“Wha, da ya expect? I’m a fruit.”
“You seemed a little subdued, tired when I got here.”
“Yeah had an odd day, the computer system was slow, the boss-lady was having a menopause moment or 10 and right at the end of the afternoon a sour but sad lady gave me a look of such awful hatred it was chilling.”
“Nothing to do with you, little cabbage.”
“Yeah…”

I had an interesting experience (well interesting to me) a while ago.
I was having a treatment for my back and the practitioner took ages. I’d told him I needed to be away at a certain time. After about an hour I got restless after being really relaxed. I questioned myself and decided that I was mistrustful, as it turned out the guy forgot, I realised my mistrust of someone looking after my best interests was well founded, so I decided to resort to the normal level of my behaviour and assume in others relative ignorance, selfishness, lack of empathy, (nothing I disclaim in myself mind you), and take care of events as they enfold in my life, my self.

Here’s how it is for me. I have a credit card vaguely under control, I am a whiz at booking on line, I get enthusiastic about a play, some music, a film and I ask someone to go. I am a social secretary social A-type, while at the same time being a hermit.

If I say I am going to get tickets or do something I go right ahead, it takes mere minutes, usually. If I fail to get the said item or can’t secure the proposed outing I let the person know. Amongst my friends I have their trust, I have earned it.

I admit to being perceived as flaky at times, as I can renege on arrangements that don’t have a ticket involved due to exhaustion or hermitudeness, but in my defence I usually give hours notice. Such is my way of being, I am pretty reliable and as a result do not often have to put my trust in someone else’s hands. I do not usually allow someone else to look after my interests but sometimes I try it on, like a frock and see if it fits, it usually needs alteration.

I must place a high value on being reliable. In the past I’ve had relationships with really unreliable people and got coped up, adapted I guess, but you know, I feel so much freer, at peace, if you like, being in a world where I can honour my highest values.

Those people who are always right can readily dismiss other peoples’ perceptions and opinions as arising from deranged discernment and ignore the possibility of themselves being wrong or ill informed or ignorant. I remember working with the theatre director Nigel Triffid, as I walked into his rehearsal space for the first time I saw written on a black board in big writing,”THERE IS ALWAYS THE POSSIBILITY OF BEING WRONG.” I took that to heart and it eased away the need in me to be right. I still get to be opinionated, judicious, sharp, astute while allowing for the continual possibility that I may be wrong-a-de-wrong, as in wide off the mark like a midget long jumper.