Maggi Nimmo

What will be your legacy? Immediately the business of mind produces potential products, books, manuscripts, songs, poems. Your deathless legacies. On the other hand, the cascade of your emotions, will imagine the family linage, your children and their children. But what is the legacy of your heart?

Even if you have not had the inspiration, time or talent to produce a creative crop of legacies for the next generation how do we as a society measure each person. How do we individually judge others and more to the point how do we judge ourselves? By what you produce? How you appear? How wealthy you are? Your shoes? Your car? Your taste?

What happens inside your head? What happens when your mind has free reign?
“Oh God how is it that every time it rains I lose my keys.?” Rummaging in the big bag. ”I hate these key moments.” Sighing…
“I feel so frumpy in this..” After seeing an elegant woman.
“That woman is toxic..” While going through a divorce, emotions drive you towards vengeful thoughts and self loathing.
“She’s younger and prettier than me.” Low self esteem, uncompensated.
“What an ugly bastard.” Low self esteem boosted by arrogantly putting down others.

I’m sure you all have little inner voices and habitual, usually first family fuelled, scenarios that ride negative shot gun in your mind and its ego structure, that is, in a way your personality, or your interface with the world. The ego protects itself, it protects its expression because of its familiar (safe) habit of inner negativity or self aggrandisement.

This protection of your ego is based on the swing of low self esteem against arrogant behaviour. You miss the mark of self balance each time, swinging from high to low. But somewhere in there is a character poised between two extremes, a character that does not judge, that questions itself and attempts to act and respond in a balanced manner. Even the most extreme personality has this within them. If you go fast you will oscillate so quickly over the balance point you will miss it each time.

Well you may become peaceful eventually. As you slow your breath and your thoughts, your ego feels like it’s dying. As you move gradually through controlled and conscious breathing to fewer and fewer thoughts and measured responses, your mind/ego may attempt to attract your attention, it may pull out all the bells and hooters to prevent you stopping and try to draw your attention away from stillness. In fact that is exactly what happens, and it’s extremely distracting and addictive to ride the waves of your mind instead of experiencing the quiet but profound truth of who you are in balance.

Reactions and self righteous behaviours counter balance your low self esteem. Who you are is worth exploring, Just sayin….

So back to the question. What is your legacy? When you are gone what will be your lasting effect? My father died 10 years ago and I don’t think of him often. He was a business big wig and had no friends and did not ever gain the affection or respect of his children. He gained their fear and attempted resigned compliance. His legacy may carry itself into an inner rigidity in my personality unless I find a way to have true love for his gifts to me. His intelligence and a talent for drawing. On good days I am open and gracious and bad days I’m just as irritated and isolated as my dad. And don’t get me started on my emotionally tattered mother.

Do you love, rather than mollycoddle your children?
Do you treat yourself as important? Do you value your own opinions and thoughts enough to fight for them?
Do you respect others opinion, creeds?
Do you support and challenge yourself in a balanced manner?
Can you stand poised between what seems real and what actually is?
Can you tell the truth when asked and not before that?
I’m full of questions today and as a teacher of mind said, ” Your life is only as good as the quality of the questions you ask.?”

The only true legacy is love. When I was a child my main aim was to walk on sand without leaving a footprint, I could do that but not because I was light footed but because I walked where the sand and sea met and my footprint was washed away before I took another. I was able to walk on the earth, unmarked, only at a point between solid and liquid. Your mind is like that, what you think of as real and solid can only really be understood if you embrace a reality greater than your individual existence, this gives you the perspective to be poised on understanding knowing that you really don’t. Open to real earthly possibilities while acknowledging the ocean of imagined potentials.

Your legacy depends on your ability to balance what you can do with who you could be knowing that the vastness of life encompasses all its expressions in both good and bad.

Get over yourself…
There are numerous excuses that people use to not do things that are possibly good for them. But how would you know unless you tried them?
I met a woman today, she was in full panic mode, sweating, elevated pulse, red in the face, wild eyes with dilated pupils and babbling. She had lost her keys, and her old dog was shut up in the car. I let her use my phone to ring a friend and gave her a glass of water. I asked her to breathe without heaving her shoulders. While we sat I asked her if she ever just sat and relaxed by breathing slowly.
She said, “ Ahhh you’re the yoga teacher. I have a friend who comes to you.”
I asked, ”Have you ever done any yoga?”
Her answer, “I’m too inflexible for yoga.” I said nothing.
So let me reply in full here….

Excuse number 1 for not doing yoga. I’m not flexible enough… Even on superficial examination this is just silly. Even if you know little about yoga you probably realize that there is most likely some stretching involved. No yoga teacher worth her/his salt is going to force a stiff person to over do a stretch. Extending your range of motion by stretching is not only relaxing but improved your experience of life. Saying, “I don’t want to stretch because I have never tried it,” is just resistance to change, and change is inevitable. If you don’t change with the times you cease to be able to adapt and the degree to which you can adapt on any level is an indication of your health.

Excuse number 2 for not doing yoga, I’m sick… Look fair enough if you have a communicable disease like TB or a respiratory infection, or stomach bug, don’t come to class. Yoga has some amazing relaxing postures and healing practices. Breathing practices that can dry up the runny nose, cleansing practices that can rid you of sinus congestion, mobilizing torso movements that dislodge mucus, and quiet relaxations and nerve calming practices that help heal you fast. Even if you’re not feeling well you can stop and allow your body to heal. Ask your yoga teacher to suggest or show you some gentle healing practices. Illness is no excuse for not doing yoga, you can do it at home even in bed.

Excuse number 3 is I have a sore back. Spinal problems are not an inhibition to practicing yoga. You may not be able to do certain things, many postures, in fact but even with spinal injuries you can explore your range of movement and explore what helps, what helps you deal with the pain. You know as well as I do that certain yoga forms are not appropriate if you have an injured back, but there are certainly many yoga therapy techniques that can improve spinal function. A stiff back means your back is weak and it may be that you can spend your yoga practices improving your strength and that will in time lead to improved flexibility and function. Ask you teacher to suggest some yoga therapy individuated for you.

Excuse number 4 I haven’t time to do yoga. Humph this is the least valid excuse of all. Yes you may not be able to get to a class, but you can find time to little yogarette practices during the day. A long conscious breath at the traffic lights, a quiet mental rest sitting on the bus, Passive stretches in bed before rising and before going to sleep. Supine hip openings while sifting through your thoughts. Standing shoulder and upper body stretches and mobilisations after sitting at your computer for longish stretches. I’m not suggesting you become super efficient and fill every busy moment with more business, I am suggesting you are aware that some moments lend themselves relaxing interactions with yourself.

Excuse number 5, I’d be bored. I did meet a youngish woman the other day, who said to me.”I could never do yoga, I’d be soooo bored.” Well maybe, you would maybe you wouldn’t, how would you know unless you tried it. It’s a lame excuse. Everyone learns differently, some people learn by watching, others by listening, others by being shown and adjusted physically, every yoga teacher and yoga form is different, there will be someone who can evoke your interest in yourself.

Excuse number 6, it’s against my religion. Phew… I’ve said it before now I say it again, yoga is NOT a religion, though some individuals with inclinations that way may treat is as such. Yoga is a practice to teach you to be more human, not more spiritual. It enables you to be responsive to life rather than reactive. It enables you to meet and realize your full potential as a man or woman. Yoga advocates no one God or sect, it embraces and helps atheists and the religiously inclined. It is an electromagnetic practice that causes you to be balanced and aware, more real if you like.

Excuse number 7, I’m too old to do yoga. Yoga means to join opposites, to yoke together the sun and moon, to focus on something is to concentrate, the union of the concentrator and the object of focus, a type of union. You’ve been doing yoga all your life. As you get older the Ayurvedic physicians say you get drier and unsteady and some sort of relaxation, concentration and joint mobilisation is highly recommended, yoga perhaps. It’s never too late to become more aware and comfortable in your own body.

‘Nuf with the negative and think up all the reasons it’s good to practice yoga…
1.it improves your posture
2. You feel calm and relaxed after yoga
3. Your body has less pain during the day
4. You project less of your stuff onto the world, you observe what is as it is
5.You eat well so your body is healthier, if it’s not well nourished you are aware of that even more so during your yoga practice
6. You love more easily, because you have more gratitude in your heart
7. You know your self and can be alone without needs or agitation
8. Your balance is better in every way
9. You can manage stress, lower blood pressure and increase your whole body’s circulation
10. Yoga improves dancing/walking/other exercise forms
11. Your organs are massaged and any adhesions prevented or alleviated
12. You are stronger, with stronger bones
13. Yoga helps to prevent rapid aging
14. You become more aware and responsive to your body’s changes
15. You have an improved attitude to life and others
16. Your concentration is enhanced
17. Your cholesterol levels can be managed
18. The slow, deliberate movement of yoga poses coupled with the gentle pressure exerted on your joints provides an excellent exercise to relieve arthritis symptoms.
19. The stress relief associated with yoga loosens muscles that tighten your joints.
20. Yoga practice can help control some of the side effects of menopause. For example bridge pose can help reduce hot flushes
21. Your body tends to have a more neutral pH. Acidity in your body predisposes you to cancer and other illnesses

That is not a definitive list perhaps you’d like to add more, suffice to say, yoga rocks…

I have a bad attitude to ageing. In fact I really don’t know how to go about it. In my work I’ve observed that certain physical, energy and mental changes take place. Those changes vary with climate, genetics, family culture and the degree of self care undertaken in your life.

The problem is not that you can’t anticipate how you will age, you can, but you can’t anticipate the misadventures, accidents and stresses you will experience or their effect on you as you get older. I met a woman in my travels, an American woman about 50 who had big hair, really big hair and a pretty decent set of shoulder pads and Harry-high-pants flared jeans and platform wedges. She was a living homage to the 70’s. So whatever had happened to this woman she remained in the persona of her younger self. She looked strange but was very healthy.

There has been some studies of elderly patients who when put into an environment totally reflecting their younger era, the music, the furniture, even the use of language, start to show physical, emotional and mental improvements. Their grip strength increased, knee pain lessened, they were happier. They de-aged.

Now don’t get me wrong I’m not advocating a retro return to the fashions of your younger selfs, god forbid, though in saying that fashion and music all seems to recycle. But in this day and age we are so much more free to wear what suits us, is comfortable or appropriate to our situation. I take exception with shoulder pads though, I’m just not going to honour Dallas/American football chic.

A few nights ago I was walking back from the Chinese New Year parade in the city and I passed a gaggle of young girls all wearing thongs and coloured runners standing outside a shoe shop, they were squealing with delight, “Oh my god, I so want those.” said one plump beauty drooling over a pair of vertiginous heels with silver studs. Mind you she was wearing flats and was at ease. While only a few minutes before an older skinnier version of her actually was hobbling clinging to her male companion down the steps to the railway station. The long term effect of heels? Well they are more than implicated in the onset of arthritis, back problems, neck pain and it only gets worse the more you wear them but of course some people adapt and then can’t wear flats.

As you age you can become more acidic and this predisposes you to tiredness, illnesses and ennui. The counter action, drink more water and eat more vegetables.
As you age your muscles can get weaker mainly due to mis and under use. So exercise more and do weight bearing exercises.
Over time your body can stiffen as your joint oils thicken. Well a good warm up daily, stretches, fish and fish oil, krill, vitamin e vitamin d all help to maintain joint integrity.

You know all this I’ll warrant and maybe you already act on most of these, ever so sensible, actions but the real essence of anti-ageing is how you relate to yourself. I know a ute full of men who though they have aged don’t seem to have noticed. They still wear the big tee shirts, of their youth and only relate to the songs of their adonis-selves-age. They cruise through their days ignoring their signs and symptoms of ageing and imbalance until a crisis erupts. Then they become really bad patients, just wanting a quick fix, a pill, an op. Opening the way for quick fix snake oil merchants and baby-boomer anti-aging products and regimes.

Ultimately there ain’t no quick fix to aging. As you get closer to death life becomes more precious, each breath worth taking. It’s not the reverence of the crone for her once was maiden self I’m advocating. What I’d like to see is a balanced response to life’s curve balls. I’d like to see you developing a considered life.

I’d like you to teach your children that effort, self care applied to youthful bodies pays dividends in older years. How do you get a child to understand age? So here I am older, watching the crazy enthusiasms of youth, the hormonal breeding rush of the middle years and the attempts at second winds of your later middle age and I put on a piece of music, loud, and dip into its rhythm and forget who I am and let the gods listen through my ears. I have no idea how to age well. Yes anti inflammatory herbs, foods, supplements help, yoga helps, fun helps, a good laugh helps but what helps most of all is just allowing the experience of life to be whatever it is and cultivating your ability to care for yourself and cultivating your mind to ask the right questions. An unexamined emotion or belief leads to its over expression or repression and there in lies the way to illness.

You are an amazing being, each breath is a gift. Breathe but don’t hyperventilate, breathe evenly, breath in, wait, breath out, wait. You will find more answers in the space between your breaths than in the act of breathing. As you become older you can consider such things without the mad rush of adrenalin, or the cascade of hormones skewing your beliefs and thoughts. Getting older is bound up with the getting of wisdom and less energy to waste on anger, blame and judgement and that is its greatest blessing…

When I write these little missives I wonder sometimes where I will begin. I am flooded with sensory perceptions, inundated with beliefs, memories and acquired impressions from my past. These floods, torrents of experiences can act as starting points and each leads to a different conclusion. I am influenced by marketing, films, music, the moon cycle etc. Pushed and pulled chemically by what I eat and drink. My posture can also mediate my behaviour. If I stand tall within three minutes I am flooded with testosterone and I feel confident, If I am feeling dejected and as a result carry myself in a hunched, self effacing manner I flood myself with a bucket full of hormones that cause me to be hyper alert, agitated, even restless, anxious and eventually exhausted.

I am interested in balance, in neutrality. I am interested in coming into each moment without reacting. Viktor Frankl wrote that, “Between stimuli and response there is a space.” With reflexive reactions there is no space. That space that sense of inner peace or balance is your access point to the sense of you, as you truly are.

You are not your reactions, though they may compel you, if left unquestioned and unchallenged. That space is where your freedom resides. The development of that sense of space is your freedom to choose, it is the cultivation of free will. That freedom to choose comes with a price. If you to have a chemically neutral blood and cell pH, the healthy equilibrium where your cells are most balanced, you need to eat a healthy mix of foods and drink lots of water. If you eat healthily you will have a well nourished brain, hormone system and hydrated tissue. In that state you heal from injuries more easily and can make well balanced decisions. Chemicals, like alcohol, sugar, trans fatty acids don’t do your ability to choose, your free will, any favours. The price: to be free you need to be self regulating.

But I am not telling you anything you don’t already know. So why is it so difficult to put aside those things that derail your health, like snacks, addictive people, dramas etc.? The real question is not what to do but how to do it. The real answer lies at the heart of each of you and there is no generic answer but there are guidelines. Some of you will need more help to be balanced, some of you will flounder and remain like fish out of water flopping from one drama to another and some of you will find a little balance and then some more until you feel as if you are making progress.

In a beginners yoga class I rarely teach breathing techniques, but I suggest students modify and quieten their breaths in class as well as outside class. I don’t teach breathing exercises per se because often a beginner has enough trouble paying attention to their body and identifying what they feel as opposed to what they think and emote.

Think back to you as a teenager, your beginners mind if you like, and see yourself through time in the various stages of your life; progress, growth and insights, more or less.

Four things that help you be balanced
1. Quiet self time, for example warm baths, walks, swimming, early to bed
2. Lots of water
3. Herbs and minerals. For example, parsley tea for the bladder and urinary system, Saint Johns Wort for agitation and mild depression, Boswellia and Zinc for inflammation
4. Yoga and meditation

You may not pay attention to the moon’s cycles. Well I think that you do so at your own peril. At the full moon we can see the illuminated face of the moon and at the dark moon we can’t. The moon moves in a slightly elliptical orbit and that creates the very obvious pulls on our tides. King tides are common at the full moon. Of course the full moon is dramatic, people are observably, to those that observe, odd, restless, nervous or downright contrary at the full moon, often behaving excessively. They have more accidents and are more careless, accident prone, if you like.

One of my teachers said, ”If you want to lead an extraordinary life do the opposite to the common man.” That means in terms of the full moon be less excessive, take some time for quiet reflection.

The dark moon is a different animal altogether. The dark of the moon is traditionally the last three days of the lunar cycle, immediately preceding the new moon at the time when the night sky is dark. You may have noticed you are feeling a little tired or feel lazy over the last few days. Maybe you feel distracted and less focused. I find myself drawn to creative pursuits near and around the dark moon.

There appears to be less energy available for daily business and meeting the expectations of others. Yet I find that it is not only a time of natural inner quiet, possibly heading into inertia, it is a time when I connect to others in a peaceable manner without any neurotic projections into the future. I am present as long as I can stay focused on being in the present moment by such activities as writing, regulating my breathing, paying attention to my feelings and communicating them clearly and calmly.

In these days of phone apps keeping in touch with the moon’s phases is easy. The app I use on my iPhone is called MoonPhase, but nothing beats going out and looking, especially at sunset when a magnificent crescent moon hangs in the violet sky near the first star. It always take my breath away and I do stop.

Yoga is traditionally practiced according to the phase of the moon both the full moon and the dark moon have quieter practices. Often your menstrual cycle can be timed by your attunement to the moon’s phases. In a balanced cycle ovulation often occurs at the full moon and menstruation at the dark moon.

You will always be subject to influences, be they eating patterns, familial, social, terrestrial, lunar. Solar flares, humidity, barometric changes all influence you. If you take the time to observe what is happening and how it does affect you, you can make choices as to how much you allow any external pressure to push you into behaviours that are not necessarily in your best interests. Make today the end of your cycle of unaware behaviour and allow yourself to choose how you respond to stimuli. Victor Frankel said, ”Between stimuli and response there is a space.” In that space you have choices. A reaction has no spaciousness. Reach out into yourself and find the space to choose who you are.

My yoga Facebook page, Flying Warrior Yoga and Healing has a recent post about the salute to the moon, a lovely yoga sequence that is great to do on the dark moon. Have a like moment when next you’re on Facebook, there will be some great post about the mudras and announcements about a posture and breathing workshop coming up soon on a Saturday morning.
Here is a link to the free e-book on yoga and the Salute to the Moon (Chandra Namascar): http://www.google.com.au/search?q=heart+of+moon+yoga+power+pack&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&client=firefox-a

Stillness
Excessive thinking is the cause of most, if not all of your disease. Breathing and thinking are connected.
Your stressing mechanisms, the adrenals, the vagus nerve, your autonomic system that hypes you up or calms you down are connected to your thoughts. Pay attention to your breath and rest in the spaces between breaths and your thoughts still. In fact it is difficult to think in the space between thoughts, all you can do is relax.
Try this:
breathe in stop, wait and drop into a relaxed moment notice that when you relax the thought or thoughts you were experiencing have momentarily stopped
then exhale and repeat a few times
when you are comfortable with that, and that might take a few breaths or a few sessions over a few days, then exhale and hold your breath out and drop into a relaxed moment. I find that the most profound mental and physical changes take place.

To over come your resistance to stopping may seem hard and you may feel hard pressed to put the time aside to relax or meditate, but all you need is the space between breaths occasionally to connect with stillness and healing.
The only thing your body is attempting to do is regenerate and heal but you get in the way and resist the stillness that is half a breath away.

The Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, (a yoga text) is a love song between Devi and Bhairava, suggests about 112 ways to achieve stillness,

“When the ingoing pranic air and outgoing pranic air are both restrained in their space from their (respective points of) return, the essence of bhairava, which is not different from bhairavi, manifests. (the negative and positive pressures of your body become neutral)

When Shakti in the form of vayu or pranic air is still and does not move swiftly in a specific direction, there develops in the middle, through the state of Nirvikalpa, the form of Bhairava.” (the pressure or stressful forces in your body quieten into enlightened stillness because they can only go in that direction)

So now the quiet before the End-of-the-World-Has-Not-Happening-Party, for the acronym savvy it’s EOTWHNHP which is Elvish for there will be tears before bedtime… not really I just made that up.

Suffice to say 2013 rings itself in with a plethora of new films, the Hobbit (more Orc, Troll and Goblin action that you can wave a wand at), Quartet with Maggie Smith and Billy Connolly looks promising and Skyfall with Daniel Craig (sigh) and Ralph Fiennes (sigh) looks like a must see. Not only have I seen from the beginning every Doctor Who episode from 1963, I have seen every James Bond Movie from Dr No in 1962 to Quantum of Solace in 2008. Now here’s a New Years resolution I can keep, I promise by all that is holy and all that is good and for that matter all that is tinted and tainted (we don’t like the B word) to watch all the new Doctor Who episodes and go to all the new James Bond movies. It surprises many people who have the impression that I am somewhat highbrow and reassures them that I am as plebeian as the next woman with my proclivity for Okay Magazine and am a paid up member of the Joan Rivers fan club.

The Sugar Sagas continue under the great scudding clouds of this Friday. The custard was my undoing at the Christmas table, up to that point in time I was happy to munch my way through the seafood on offer but we all have our weaknesses. I was thinking to make a list of my strengths and weaknesses and in that accounting found that they balanced each other. Some examples:
My weakness for custard balanced against my ability to totally ignore chocolate except the occasional 85% Lyndt
My weak knees balanced by my strong back.
My strong personality balanced by sensitivity that drives me to yoga and meditation.
My bluntness balanced by my polite and only if you ask nicely common sense.

All in all having had hardly any sugar over the Christmas period no mean feat, if I do say so myself. This of course was all made easier by my strange stomach which was reacting to maybe sugar, maybe custard, maybe champagne. I trust your day went well and your time with loved ones was peacefully spent.

2013 and Flying Warrior Yoga starts Tuesday January 15th.
Please familiarise yourself with the Foundation work of Eric Goodman:

We will be exploring the Yoga Tandavar, the dance of the warrior expressed in movements of both your hands (Mudras) and body positions (Asanas) especially the archer poses: sitting (Akarna Dhanurasana) and standing (Virabhadrasana)

This is a graceful integration of the torso with slow controlled leg and arm movements, very meditative and as one student said of the beginning practices introduced in November 2012, ”My heart feels really open and free.”

To walk this earth well your torso and spine require sturdiness and strong legs. To express your soul your heart needs to be open and your arms and hands graceful and expressive. This is given with the grace of the Tandavar, the cosmic dance, the dance that brings alive your true expression.

As expressed by Leonard Cohen in his latest CD Old Ideas.
“He will speak these words of wisdom
Like a sage, a man of vision
Though he knows he’s really nothing
But the brief elaboration of a tube

Going home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
To where it’s better
Than before

Going home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without this costume
That I wore

I trust that your New year celebration is fun and safe and that 2013 sees you on the mat, evoking the holy seer within.

Regards and love Maggi.

Sugar Sagas Continued….
Super market shopping takes on a whole new level. The writing on the labels of any processed food is tiny, so I wonder about, feeling distinctly middle aged, with my reading glasses perched on my nose. When I see someone I know I peer over the top of my glasses my eyebrows shoot up to extend my range of vision and I look like a surprised Mrs McGoo, followed by the nose crinkling to re perch my specks on my snoz. So here’ s what I look for:
Agave Nectar
Barley Malt Syrup
Corn sweetener
Corn syrup, or corn syrup solids
Dehydrated Cane Juice
Dextrin
Dextrose
Fructose
Fruit juice concentrate
Glucose
High-fructose corn syrup
Honey
Invert sugar
Lactose
Maltodextrin
Malt syrup
Maltose
Maple syrup
Molasses
Raw sugar
Rice Syrup
Saccharose
Sorghum or sorghum syrup
Sucrose
Syrup
Treacle
Turbinado Sugar
Xylose
Anything with an “ose” on the end is suss.
The main thing that turns on your appetite is Fructose so don’t eat over ripe fruit.

Phew, this is not easy but I so enjoy my vegies and protein that the loss of sugar is fine. I do eat an occasional apple or peace of stone fruit or an irresistible mango.

A high red meat diet makes me crave sweets. The Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners say meat is yang, dense, heavy and masculine and attracts to your appetite its opposite the Yinness of fruit or sugar or even honey, light, sweet, watery. Sooo it’s probably a good idea, and here’s the good news, to stick to white meats and fish, so the Christmas turkey is A-okay.

The effect so far of my sugar freeish diet is happy digestion and elimination with all the things that implies. My skin looks fresh and I definitely feel hydrated. The most amazing thing is mentally how steady I feel. I am able to concentrate and seem to have more stimina. I am less stiff in the morning on waking and my joints are not so stiff. It’s win all the way for my health and made my choices in restaurants easy. “Would you like to see the desert menu madam?” means I don’t have to perch my specs on my eyse and do my Mrs Mcgoo impersonation in public. Really it ruins the effect of my careful coiffure and makeup. If anyone believes that then good luck with Santa getting through your security locks.

Have a fabulous and safe Christmas New year and Holiday.

Sugar Sagas
As you may well remember I have been banging on about the poisonous effects of sugar, for now you’ll just have to take my well educated, and unrefined word for that. Sooo really could I have picked a worse time to foist my views into the ethers. Well nooooo, when you think about it, the silly season is upon us and moderation in all things, even moderation, the middle path where you have neither too little or too much, the path of Goldilocks, “It has to be just right,” has all but flown the mental coop. Oops there goes another hangover…

Well, let’s look at the Goldilocks Path,”It has to be just right.” This applies to your blood it needs to be a slightly alkaline pH to function properly and if it becomes acid, due to sugar, lack of water, eating takeaways etc, your body goes into over drive to make its blood pH normal and the continued attempts to do so drain your life force…. Enough already, suffice to say sugar amongst other things is especially bad for you… End of story..

But its not the end of the story it’s the beginning because sugar is addictive and a return to normal internal chemistry is full of cravings, emotional lows and flat days….Its sooo tempting to just reach for the honey or a cake. Now I’ve just had some frozen cherries just to see what effect they would have on a sugar free system and the effect of the fructose was almost instantaneous but the flat effect 30 minutes later was unpleasant enough to give me pause. Cherries, for gods sake, well it’s true my system was unused to simple sugar in any form and because you are buffered by other foods the effect usually ain’t so obvious. I wanted to experience the raw effect of a simple sugar that was healthy and all I can say is, be careful, even the healthiest of sweet foods causes a strong reaction chemically that affects your mood and possible behaviour.

So little bears, I know you love your sweeties, but really. You care for the planet but still pollute with cars and plastic, even though you recycle, is it enough? Probably not, but it’s a beginning. Action of any sort must begin with you, in your family in your community, then maybe globally, but it begins with you. If you wish to clean up your environment start with your own bloodstream and body. It takes will, its takes self questioning, it takes thought and effort. When you are able to keep your blood clean, look to cleaning your streams, rivers and oceans….golly the end of days is neigh, or not, and it’s like your mother said always have clean blood or was that wear clean knickers, I can’t remember I’m thinking about how to not think about the remaining frozen cherries in my freezer..

Sugar, the slow killer…
Even though I am a relatively calm, and in some respects an enlightened person, today I felt like slapping someone. In the suburb I live in, over the last few years, there has been a prolific amount of breeding. At 3:00pm on weekdays the mothers collect their children from school. The street is crowded with skate boards, backpacks, yoga gear that has not seen a mat and the crowds gather outside the quick fix food shops.

I had a dentist appointment otherwise I would not have been in the street at the feeding frenzy. But there I was. I tried to put blinkers on and not look. Small children eating buttered and pink iced buns, buns that were bigger than the children eating them, their faces sugared with sticky icing and their stomachs starting to churn to digest the sugar and simple starches.

I didn’t want to think about the inflammatory effect of the habitual use of such foods. Blood vessels get roughened and fats start to accumulate clogging arteries.

Add to that, the use of Trans Fatty Acids (manufactured fats) in such foods, and you get hardened arteries. In fact there is evidence of the beginnings of arterial sclerosis in many infants after being fed manufactured baby foods that emulsify and texturize foods with trans fatty acids.

Sugar especially fructose is now recognised by the medical fraternity at a major cause of heart disease as well as diabetes, inflammatory conditions, obesity amongst other serious diseases. The Trans Fatty Acids and sugar both harden and irritate your tissues, your arteries, they produce acidic bodies that make you prone to cancer, immunity deficiencies, arthritis etc.
(This is a short essay, brilliant and worth reading:
http://myscienceacademy.org/2012/08/19/world-renown-heart-surgeon-speaks-out-on-what-really-causes-heart-disease/
This is a longer YouTube video, but its worth listening to/watching, You will probably re think what you are eating and have a better appreciation of the politics of Sugar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

These small children eating buns almost larger than themselves were not being fed well. Yes children have a sweet tooth but that does not mean we feed them sugar creating sugar addiction and sugar expectations. Children can go into demand mantras that wear their parents down. Sugar addiction, impulsive eating, etc are as hard to cure as heroin addiction especially as we cannot entirely avoid sweet tastes in our daily life. I really had to clench my fists and zip my mouth and say nothing, do nothing while I watched children becoming over time obese adolescents, riddled with hyper tension cause by sugar, low body image, eating disorders….aaaagggggh.

My point is your children deserve better. Children are your responsibility, it it part of your duty of care to model and teach them good eating habits. It is part of the job description of being a parent to say no to your children when they go into I want sugar mantra. My god people your children are worth taking care of.