by Bea Garth, copyright 2008
The following non italicized paragraphs below compose a post I just sent to a celiac forum here in the SF Bay Area. I think the remedies below could be useful to anyone that suffers either from full blown celiac or just gluten intolerance--or if you know someone who does.
But first a preamble for those who don't know what celiac is.
As it turns out, celiac (also known as sprue) is a condition that is a lot more common than once was thought. Thirty percent of all North Europeans and Italians have the gene for it and ten percent of the rest of Europe also has it. Here in America they say its as common as high cholesterol--one in 133 people has it whether they are aware of it or not. It takes a stressful experience to bring it out and then you have it for life. It is argued that dementia in old age is often caused by undiagnosed celiac not to mention cataracts, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Basically celiac is a result of certain North European peoples not having made the transition from the hunter gatherer stage to agrarian very well. Some blame the Vikings--who unconsciously made use of this condition to bring on their more wild and violent nature before battle by eating moldy rye bread. Certainly someone who has untreated celiac can become very cantankerous and easily agitated (I speak from direct experience!).
Glutens are found in wheat, rye, barley and to some extent in oats and their derivatives -- of which derivatives now are numerous given scientists and others having figured out glutens make things adhere together more smoothly and easily. The glutenous grains contain gliadins which cause people with celiac to react -- their auto-immune system attacks the villi in their intestines with its concomitant disastrous effects -- causing malabsorption and a variety of severe digestive complaints as well as many degenerative diseases as side effects.
These symptoms can include heart and kidney disease, nervous system and skin problems, depression and even schizophrenia as well as a greater likelihood of getting other reactive auto-immune system diseases such as RA, Sojren's or Lupus. Celiac also creates a greater chance of getting diabetes or cancer. If contracted as a baby or a child(which is what happened to me), Celiac also causes one to "fail to thrive" and not grow. Unfortunately they used to think you "outgrew" this as you got older and they took the children off their anti-gluten diet (as they also did with me at age four and my mother at age twenty)-- not realizing one never does get over celiac although how it presents itself can change.
Glutens are addictive to everyone since they have opiates in them--which is in part why they are so popular. Without them civilization as we know it might have developed very differently since the easily store-able grains allowed us to go off a high meat diet and settle into villages and towns.
It is argued that since no one ate much in the way of grains before 15,000 years ago, no humans are really equipped to eat a high grain diet -- and thus many of the degenerative diseases of civilized peoples are a result of that grain diet. By following a more "paleolithic" diet focused on vegetables, roots and squashes, meat, with some fruit, nuts and soured foods, most people become a lot healthier.
__________________________
Last week I had both the confronting experience of being "glutened" by chance at a supposedly celiac aware restaurant -- the bane of most celiacs -- and by chance discovered some remedies that actually worked for me. This after having gotten shooting diarrhea just from cross contamination from a food handler who prepared my tea after making someone else a sandwich in February -- not to mentions other equivalent experiences since I have gone off all trace hidden glutens!
(Note: Of course the reason I chose to be off all gluten is that overall I am much healthier and more able to be physically and mentally fit. However the down side is that it has made me -- and other celiacs -- far more easily reactive when the offending gluten asserts itself with us even in just a minuscule amount by activating the auto-immune system.)
What happened is that I asked for and got some pineapple and fresh papaya at the establishment I was eating at after I discovered they had put soy sauce in my dish (after I had been assured they wouldn't). I had already eaten about 1/2 my portion--and wasn't paying as much attention as I might since it was supposed to be a "safe" and experienced restaurant concerning the gluten matter. If I had brought along my papain/bromelain caps that would have been the easy equivalent to the pineapple and papaya. As it was the owner ran across the street and bought me some fresh papaya. I also immediately took some pancreatin enzymes I had brought along--a double dose.
Right after dinner my date and I went over to a natural foods store and I bought this new product called Gluten-zyme by Country Life. There was another bottle of a different brand that cost a little more that also looked pretty equivalent. Again I immediately took a double dose. That night I took another dose and two more the next day just to make sure.
Instead of shooting diarrhea I had inflammation in my feet and calves which went down after I took my co-enzyme B vitamins. I wasn't home where I usually have my herbs and most of my stuff so I didn't take dandelion (to clean out the liver), cleavers (to clean out the lymphs), marshmallow root (to soothe and heal the lining of the intestines), and nattokinase or serrapeptidase (to counteract scar tissue in the intestines as well as inflammation) etc. until the next day--I probably should have got some at the store but wasn't feeling quite that rich.
The following day my only other symptom was a small pimple on my face, often a sign of glutening in the old pre pure days before I went off all hidden gluten. I did feel a little depressed (another symptom) but then recovered after going for a long walk and working on clay (clay pulls out toxins through the skin of the hands and feet etc.). I bet going for a sauna would have worked too. Taking the dandelion etc. also helped a great deal.
Another note--in case of shooting diarrhea right away (before you can take action or know you need to), Pepto Bismol tablets or their equivalent work great. They are easy to carry in the purse or pocket or whatever. Another remedy is to make a tea with either blackberry or guava leaves. Meadowsweet I hear also works.
Figuring out that there actually are remedies for chance glutenings like this was a big discovery for me. I keep hearing there is nothing you can do except grin and bear it, but I found that at least for me there are things I can do. I feel like I no longer have to be terrified of going out to eat, especially with these new gluten-eating enzymes out there. I wonder if this could help others? Methinks it would. Please try it in an emergency and let me know if it helps you or a loved one too.
I still think its not wise to court experiences like this, but hey they happen. Especially for someone like me with celiac that is actually trying to have a life outside of my safe cocoon sometimes.
Note: Herbalist, poet and artist Bea Garth is composing a book on the healing effects of herbs etc. on celiac and related disorders.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Fisher Man at Eagle Lake, California
by Lara Gularte,
copyright 2008
Up to his thighs,
he pulls fish from the dark lake,
brings them to the light to die,
nothing slips away.
Some he jerks out of the shallows,
too small, so he throws them back.
Crazed for water,
big fish from the deep
wiggle and twist,
gulp air through their gills.
He cuts off heads,
splits them gullet to tail,
yanks out the life strings,
scrapes scales to skin.
Lemon, sliced down the center,
washed over palms,
between fingers, over wrists
to hide the smell of death.
He tosses the innards into the water.
What he leaves behind will meet the surface
like a bubble of air.
Like the jacket of the lost boy
last seen across the lake crying.
Lara Gularte
First published in Windfall, A Journal of Poetry of Place, Spring 2008.
copyright 2008
Up to his thighs,
he pulls fish from the dark lake,
brings them to the light to die,
nothing slips away.
Some he jerks out of the shallows,
too small, so he throws them back.
Crazed for water,
big fish from the deep
wiggle and twist,
gulp air through their gills.
He cuts off heads,
splits them gullet to tail,
yanks out the life strings,
scrapes scales to skin.
Lemon, sliced down the center,
washed over palms,
between fingers, over wrists
to hide the smell of death.
He tosses the innards into the water.
What he leaves behind will meet the surface
like a bubble of air.
Like the jacket of the lost boy
last seen across the lake crying.
Lara Gularte
First published in Windfall, A Journal of Poetry of Place, Spring 2008.
Friday, April 25, 2008
"Crescent Beach"
by Steve Arntson
copyright 2008
Here is where you'll figure it out
Where it's safe enough and separate, too
Almost a cove
From Chapman Bluff
to the stairs to Ecola's lawns and picnics
But be careful coming there
Be mindful of ankles
the treachery of gulleys
the landslide that includes yourself
On the brushy berry trails
Waist-high shoulder-high
lost as you wanna' be
copyright 2008
Here is where you'll figure it out
Where it's safe enough and separate, too
Almost a cove
From Chapman Bluff
to the stairs to Ecola's lawns and picnics
But be careful coming there
Be mindful of ankles
the treachery of gulleys
the landslide that includes yourself
On the brushy berry trails
Waist-high shoulder-high
lost as you wanna' be
On Propaganda, Free News and the Art of Change
by Bea Garth, copyright 2008
Just thought I'd put in my two cents today. Saw this brief report on PBS. Apparently there is a New York Times article that has revealed that the Bush administration has made a policy of manufacturing the news by handpicking ex generals and such to feed us whatever line the administration deems appropriate. This is supposed to be against various anti-propaganda laws first set up in the 1920's.
Of course PBS only barely covered the story; although they could say they did report it unlike the other major news outlets on TV. However, the McNeil/Lehrer Report on PBS implied the government was just doing its job; they didn't seem interested in looking at the dark side of all this and kept interrupting the reporter from the New York Times. However it was clear to the New York Times reporter (as well as to the observant viewer) that without creating and orchestrating propaganda as the Bush administration did with its hand picked so-called "objective expert commentators" falsely influencing public opinion its unlikely we would have gone to war in Iraq.
This in turn gets me to thinking about how exactly do we create public opinion these days? It seems we as a people have allowed ourselves to be overly influenced by the so called experts trotted out on our news programs. But who are they?
The days of independent journalism seems to have passed. Managed corporate news has taken its place. In my observation the news folks and the so called government experts have been in cahoots to not present us with the real news since the first Gulf War in the early 1990's. I remember back then it being up for debate as to whether it was OK or not to have this more "managed news" that in effect was like propaganda. It was decided back then that it was OK--so instead of pictures of the war we had briefings. The implication was that if they freely reported the news as they did back in the Vietnam era there would be more protests of government policy -- which was deemed both "bad" and avoidable. This is not the old USSR folks! I believe this was right around the old "fall of communism" period of time by the way.
Since then the public has not demanded a change. We have accepted this sanitized version of the news as some kind of "reality" instead of realizing we have actually co-opted Reality.
Reagan had already helped give the final boot by raising the postal rate for small journals. Now in addition we have fewer and fewer independent radio stations not to speak of newspapers and television stations. All large conglomerate or monopoly owned.
Our country was after all founded by its tradition of an informed public by its free press. Its right there in the Constitution for a reason folks. Thankfully the Internet Blog forum is starting to take the place of the now mostly defunct independent journals that flourished until twenty or thirty years ago depending on how you look at it. And certainly the various blogs have made a difference. Though again is it too little too late or not? More has to be done to make it more contextual and real. I certainly hope that this idea of true political change will sweep in in a positive way. With that too we need that change to extend into our news organs. Somehow we need to reinvent ourselves into being a more discerning people again or some could say for the first time.
It is in my opinion also our job as artists, writers, healers and thinkers to help create this change too. We cannot ignore what is going on in the world around us. We after all help create the interior space where the need for change is reflected first in this and all cultures throughout time. We have a connection with our wisdom body that others may lack through our more direct connection with the emotional body, the earth and the soul. At times the responsibility of this can seem overwhelming; but if we take it on one bit at a time it does it does help make a difference -- by creating more space in "inner space." Plus keeping a close eye on what all is going on!
Just thought I'd put in my two cents today. Saw this brief report on PBS. Apparently there is a New York Times article that has revealed that the Bush administration has made a policy of manufacturing the news by handpicking ex generals and such to feed us whatever line the administration deems appropriate. This is supposed to be against various anti-propaganda laws first set up in the 1920's.
Of course PBS only barely covered the story; although they could say they did report it unlike the other major news outlets on TV. However, the McNeil/Lehrer Report on PBS implied the government was just doing its job; they didn't seem interested in looking at the dark side of all this and kept interrupting the reporter from the New York Times. However it was clear to the New York Times reporter (as well as to the observant viewer) that without creating and orchestrating propaganda as the Bush administration did with its hand picked so-called "objective expert commentators" falsely influencing public opinion its unlikely we would have gone to war in Iraq.
This in turn gets me to thinking about how exactly do we create public opinion these days? It seems we as a people have allowed ourselves to be overly influenced by the so called experts trotted out on our news programs. But who are they?
The days of independent journalism seems to have passed. Managed corporate news has taken its place. In my observation the news folks and the so called government experts have been in cahoots to not present us with the real news since the first Gulf War in the early 1990's. I remember back then it being up for debate as to whether it was OK or not to have this more "managed news" that in effect was like propaganda. It was decided back then that it was OK--so instead of pictures of the war we had briefings. The implication was that if they freely reported the news as they did back in the Vietnam era there would be more protests of government policy -- which was deemed both "bad" and avoidable. This is not the old USSR folks! I believe this was right around the old "fall of communism" period of time by the way.
Since then the public has not demanded a change. We have accepted this sanitized version of the news as some kind of "reality" instead of realizing we have actually co-opted Reality.
Reagan had already helped give the final boot by raising the postal rate for small journals. Now in addition we have fewer and fewer independent radio stations not to speak of newspapers and television stations. All large conglomerate or monopoly owned.
Our country was after all founded by its tradition of an informed public by its free press. Its right there in the Constitution for a reason folks. Thankfully the Internet Blog forum is starting to take the place of the now mostly defunct independent journals that flourished until twenty or thirty years ago depending on how you look at it. And certainly the various blogs have made a difference. Though again is it too little too late or not? More has to be done to make it more contextual and real. I certainly hope that this idea of true political change will sweep in in a positive way. With that too we need that change to extend into our news organs. Somehow we need to reinvent ourselves into being a more discerning people again or some could say for the first time.
It is in my opinion also our job as artists, writers, healers and thinkers to help create this change too. We cannot ignore what is going on in the world around us. We after all help create the interior space where the need for change is reflected first in this and all cultures throughout time. We have a connection with our wisdom body that others may lack through our more direct connection with the emotional body, the earth and the soul. At times the responsibility of this can seem overwhelming; but if we take it on one bit at a time it does it does help make a difference -- by creating more space in "inner space." Plus keeping a close eye on what all is going on!
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
In the woods at night
by Lara Gularte
copyright 2008
Shadows move in
light falls to the ground.
Colors fill up the darkness
clots of red, spasms of purple.
My eyesight dims.
Deer trail sinks into canyon.
When night comes alive
it hums, it crawls.
I can hear the deep dead turn,
see roots bulge up from the dirt.
Eyes shine on me
a wet nose touches my hand.
Unwinged, human
I want to save myself from danger
but with no sharp beak or claws
I can’t protect myself
from hungry raptors
a world that gets up on all fours.
In the open meadow
hooves find ground.
Over and over
animals knock on the earth,
leave no tracks.
I follow a thin moon
find new life
in the dry creek bed.
I move slowly over a log
my legs reborn,
my claws deep in the wood.
Lara Gularte
First published in Bitter Oleander, Spring 2008.
copyright 2008
Shadows move in
light falls to the ground.
Colors fill up the darkness
clots of red, spasms of purple.
My eyesight dims.
Deer trail sinks into canyon.
When night comes alive
it hums, it crawls.
I can hear the deep dead turn,
see roots bulge up from the dirt.
Eyes shine on me
a wet nose touches my hand.
Unwinged, human
I want to save myself from danger
but with no sharp beak or claws
I can’t protect myself
from hungry raptors
a world that gets up on all fours.
In the open meadow
hooves find ground.
Over and over
animals knock on the earth,
leave no tracks.
I follow a thin moon
find new life
in the dry creek bed.
I move slowly over a log
my legs reborn,
my claws deep in the wood.
Lara Gularte
First published in Bitter Oleander, Spring 2008.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Old Young Man
by Bea Garth, copyright 2008
I am with a young man,
I am with an old man
--what are the mistakes
I wish to avoid,
what are the mistakes
I will make again?
I am with a man
amongst this tangled wood
we gesticulate and sing
our love rising
like these trees surrounding us.
Is this the young woman I was,
is this the old woman I am becoming?
What wisdom will I share
with this young/old man?
What passions will flame
in this deep rooted fire?
What are the mistakes
we want to avoid,
what are the mistakes
we will make again?
Old new love
-- we want so
to avoid the pain
but neither of us wants
to miss one kiss
or this chance
to remake our lives again:
old young man
with young old woman
in this dance of sweet bliss
and agony.
I am with a young man,
I am with an old man
--what are the mistakes
I wish to avoid,
what are the mistakes
I will make again?
I am with a man
amongst this tangled wood
we gesticulate and sing
our love rising
like these trees surrounding us.
Is this the young woman I was,
is this the old woman I am becoming?
What wisdom will I share
with this young/old man?
What passions will flame
in this deep rooted fire?
What are the mistakes
we want to avoid,
what are the mistakes
we will make again?
Old new love
-- we want so
to avoid the pain
but neither of us wants
to miss one kiss
or this chance
to remake our lives again:
old young man
with young old woman
in this dance of sweet bliss
and agony.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
On Comparing Health Care Systems
by Bea Garth, copyright 2008
I was just listening to Charlie Rose. He had T.R. Reid on who has written an important book about health care. He has examined health care systems in other developed countries and compared their systems to that in America.
As he tells it, despite our health care system being one of the most expensive in the world it is also one of the least accessible (i.e. not affordable) to the public. In France, England, Germany, Switzerland, Japan and even Canada etc. no one goes bankrupt due to financial losses from hospital costs etc. In many cases one isn't even charged. Paying for good health care in other developed countries has become a non-issue.
We often get the impression that our doctors are better, however it apparently isn't true. They just get paid better, as do the insurance companies -- at our expense.
I personally think that fear of what might happen to one when one is old and sick or if one might have a freak accident or disease, motivates many Americans to be more conservative and fearful of rocking the boat than they might otherwise be. I believe our health care system as it is, is one more factor that erodes our basic freedoms as a people. It often makes us duck our heads and just attend to our own business since many of us are afraid, if we don't, we might endanger our jobs and thus our ability to pay for health care -- not to speak of food, clothing, transportation and shelter. This in the "land of the free"!
The whole health care fiasco in this country reminds me of what happened in California when the public utilities were privatized. We were promised how much more efficient and motivated the producers of energy would be and thus how through the market we would end up with lower energy costs. Instead what we got was a cartel of businesses in effect -- where we the consumers got shafted and the producers charged whatever they felt they could get away with.
Now we have a medical system that charges whatever it feels like it can get away with. Thus far we the poor public are at their mercy since health is such a basic need for everyone--and yet our government has no system that watches the costs of the doctors, drug suppliers or the insurance companies.
I saw a segment on the popular television program 60 Minutes roughly a month ago about a charity medical association called Remote Area Medical (R.A.M). The were originally were designed to go into remote areas like the Amazon Jungle. But now 60% of their time is spent going to various cities and rural areas here in America since the need here is so great. At this one stop in Knoxville, Tenn., they treated 970 people, but had to turn 400 more away since R.A.M. only had so much time and resources to give. They operate on a shoestring budget of $250,000 a year. Amazingly, last year they treated 17,000 patients despite their low budget.
Some potential clients at the Knoxville site had driven two or more hours to get medical attention -- and faced being turned away. This crisis we now have with our medical system would never be tolerated in other developed countries! It would be considered a high scandal rather than just another regrettable but interesting incident about "life in America" reported on 60 Minutes.
I certainly hope that our new president, whomever he or she will be, can finally get us on the road to a better health care system like what they have in Europe, Japan or Canada.
Given everything else going down, I just hope it is not too little too late!
I was just listening to Charlie Rose. He had T.R. Reid on who has written an important book about health care. He has examined health care systems in other developed countries and compared their systems to that in America.
As he tells it, despite our health care system being one of the most expensive in the world it is also one of the least accessible (i.e. not affordable) to the public. In France, England, Germany, Switzerland, Japan and even Canada etc. no one goes bankrupt due to financial losses from hospital costs etc. In many cases one isn't even charged. Paying for good health care in other developed countries has become a non-issue.
We often get the impression that our doctors are better, however it apparently isn't true. They just get paid better, as do the insurance companies -- at our expense.
I personally think that fear of what might happen to one when one is old and sick or if one might have a freak accident or disease, motivates many Americans to be more conservative and fearful of rocking the boat than they might otherwise be. I believe our health care system as it is, is one more factor that erodes our basic freedoms as a people. It often makes us duck our heads and just attend to our own business since many of us are afraid, if we don't, we might endanger our jobs and thus our ability to pay for health care -- not to speak of food, clothing, transportation and shelter. This in the "land of the free"!
The whole health care fiasco in this country reminds me of what happened in California when the public utilities were privatized. We were promised how much more efficient and motivated the producers of energy would be and thus how through the market we would end up with lower energy costs. Instead what we got was a cartel of businesses in effect -- where we the consumers got shafted and the producers charged whatever they felt they could get away with.
Now we have a medical system that charges whatever it feels like it can get away with. Thus far we the poor public are at their mercy since health is such a basic need for everyone--and yet our government has no system that watches the costs of the doctors, drug suppliers or the insurance companies.
I saw a segment on the popular television program 60 Minutes roughly a month ago about a charity medical association called Remote Area Medical (R.A.M). The were originally were designed to go into remote areas like the Amazon Jungle. But now 60% of their time is spent going to various cities and rural areas here in America since the need here is so great. At this one stop in Knoxville, Tenn., they treated 970 people, but had to turn 400 more away since R.A.M. only had so much time and resources to give. They operate on a shoestring budget of $250,000 a year. Amazingly, last year they treated 17,000 patients despite their low budget.
Some potential clients at the Knoxville site had driven two or more hours to get medical attention -- and faced being turned away. This crisis we now have with our medical system would never be tolerated in other developed countries! It would be considered a high scandal rather than just another regrettable but interesting incident about "life in America" reported on 60 Minutes.
I certainly hope that our new president, whomever he or she will be, can finally get us on the road to a better health care system like what they have in Europe, Japan or Canada.
Given everything else going down, I just hope it is not too little too late!
Recovering
by Bea Garth, copyright 2008
There is nothing quite like
feeling a little energy again
like life is possible
after a siege, however humble,
like a bug recovering after falling
or almost being squashed.
I still hack and cough
but the rasp is not as deep,
the tiredness not as pervasive.
I start noticing how I haven’t bathed
and my clothes are dirty and disheveled,
the dishes stacked in several piles,
wads of kleenex strewn about like white armies.
This time I finally have the energy
to watch TV with its trips to outer and inner space:
the mean-ness of humanity
overcome in some plot once again
slave inmates trying to get back to Planet Earth
from a work colony in outer space ruled by a madman
enjoying their torture and discomfort
the show intertwined with endless news programs
about the need for change in politics and the mortgage crisis
the war in Iraq led by our wide eyed president
who shoots down funding for alternative energy
so he can continue to subsidize Big Oil
sandwiched between tender pictures
of those whose lives war has destroyed
come in at long last into my living room
as I drink hot tea while the announcer tells me how
the soldiers are keeping more Iraqis safe
and shows me the lucky children
in their brand new wheelchairs our convicts have made
and all I need to do is click on the web for my contribution.
My body itches again in places I shouldn’t have to scratch.
I apply my salve, grateful I have it,
grateful I have a bit of life again
grateful the hacking seems to have abated
grateful my recovery does not involve mangled parts
or memories of raped sisters
from the room next to me
and dismembered children carried in my arms
the lucky ones waiting for a wheelchair or an operation in neighboring Iran.
“At last we have faces for this war!” I announce
to myself and all my Kleenexes,
grateful for signs of becoming well again and hopeful
despite our president with his dirty war
all about oil, fear, power and dismemberment.
“Maybe now we can finally fight our way back to Planet Earth!”
I mumble as I drink another cup of hot tea
and take my spoons of bitter expectorant
and prepare at last to go back to bed.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
It Was The First Sunny Day
By Joan Dobbie, copyright 2008of the year, I was
lying on my back
on the picnic table
talking to Bea
on the phone.
Above me, the sky
was brilliant blue
the craggy old cherry tree
blossoming pink
& filling with birds
of all sizes & breeds.
Below me the lush green grass
I was much too lazy to mow, my
pillow a brick of cement.
We were talking
about men, sex and creativity
telling each other
how special we were
& why the hell didn’t they get it?
Note: the above right sculpture is
"Dragon" by Joan Dobbie, copyright 2008
-- photo by Victoria Ramsay
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Toltec
(musings in the clay sculpture studio)
By Bea Garth, copyright 2008
Today the clay under my fingers sang
at long last
righting the arms and shoulders
of this Toltec like sculpture
putting on ears and a bit more mass
on the back of his head
seeing how strong he is
so centered after all
so Just and Righteous
-- this after signing my tall
rectangular carved story piece
I call “The Fallen Man”
or should I call it “Fall From Paradise”?
It is all about finding a new path,
I think to myself,
even though I still admire how elegant
this old one was even when fallen.
I stand back and can’t help
but see this new figure
has a lot more grit and character;
it gives me hope seeing him like that
--maybe I am making progress after all!
Friday, April 11, 2008
Gluten Free Carob Brownies
by Bea Garth, copyright 2008
(Note: Steve Arntson convinced me I should post some of my better gluten free baking experiments. I can vouch that this one is really excellent. This treat tastes sinfully rich but is wheat free etc., sugar and chocolate free with no artificial additives!) Bake at 325’ F –preheat oven
Mix and sift together the following dry ingredients:
1 cup sorghum flour
1 cup quinoa flour
½ cup tapioca flour
1 tsp. potato flour
¾ cup carob powder
1 tsp. bak. soda
1 tsp bak. pwdr
1 scant tsp. salt
1 tsp. xanthum gum
1 tsp. stevia
Then mix together the following wet ingredients:
½ cup safflower or other oil
½ cup water
1 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup applesauce
Then mix wet into dry ingredients.
Optionally can add ½ cup sunflower seeds or other seeds or nuts.
Oil 8x8” baking pan or a 9” round cake pan. I use coconut oil.
Spoon brownie mixture into pan and bake 20 to 25 minutes,
until you can test it with a wooden toothpick and it comes out clean.
Really excellent to chase away the blues without truly pigging out!
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Yellow Blossoms
by Bea Garth, copyright 2008
Spring, how I love your sweet smells,
your tossed looks. Spring, thank you
for your shimmering yellow blossoms
and bright green sour-grass!
Thank you for the sunshine
and breath of warmth
moving through the light hill air!
Thank you for the black bees
and gray pill bugs, for the delicate eyed
fawn across the wire fence
and even the feral gray cat
that wakes me late at night or early morning
with his howls and screams
in pursuit of my two sweet felines,
making me think of my own love waiting
while I feel my blood begin to move,
the mitochondria starting to flower at long last
like the newly blossomed calendula
and red geraniums
flanking my front door!
Monday, April 7, 2008
Third Beach
by Steve Arntson
first posted on Tribe.net
Ygg's Horse discussion group
February 20, 2008
Dunes dunes and contradictions
Dunes of the Third Beach
dunes in the rain
It is raining on a "Lawrence of Arabia" set
The place is inexplicably flooded
Dunes and ducks familiar ducks familiar shores
Yet paradox is added and the Oregon coast is a pull-apart pastry in the morning
It entertains two identities
The desert the Eden
There are deer in the puddles in the low places
Eyes' rainbows assigned their respective untermittent suns!
Their colors compete with Auda abu-Taye's battle flags!
Deer and the expectation of more
Camels, too and
Of all the times to have it happen
I am deprived of my own essential prayers
Time-being time
Beautiful healthy
Yet someone closed the door
Perhaps the Shadow People
It may be some rainy war
approximating all that Mohammed imagined possible
in a downpour
I wouldn't be surprised to see Omar Sheriff in a yellow slicker
Or T.E. Lawrence trying to keep his pages dry
"The Seven Pillars of Wisdom", perhaps
So make it a temple of slip-and-slide
Color it tan with pines
and buggies getting up speed for a dash to Mecca
Go anywhere west or anywhere east the sands deceive
"Third Beach", she'd said
"Take you there
past Umpqua Lighthouse and the oyster beds
jetty north and jetty south
the waterway of warnings..."
And she did
And in those first moments of Third Beach
Drudgery was forgotten
There was a sense of lifting
And I'd trust that like money for groceries in heaven
Just concentrate
And a desert is entrusted to a rain forest's care
"What are your thoughts?" I thought
Indeed what irony of rainfall informs your fear of desert regions?
What jihad to overrun your campfire's embers only?
Asking it becomes quite clear that Nature is policed
We've had a good look at its constable Light and Dark
And suspects wander
and consider the odds of getting caught
I'm somewhat unavailable myself
The way something has absented itself
and left the sand to the mercy of rainfall
by Steve Arntson, copyright 2008
first posted on Tribe.net
Ygg's Horse discussion group
February 20, 2008
Dunes dunes and contradictions
Dunes of the Third Beach
dunes in the rain
It is raining on a "Lawrence of Arabia" set
The place is inexplicably flooded
Dunes and ducks familiar ducks familiar shores
Yet paradox is added and the Oregon coast is a pull-apart pastry in the morning
It entertains two identities
The desert the Eden
There are deer in the puddles in the low places
Eyes' rainbows assigned their respective untermittent suns!
Their colors compete with Auda abu-Taye's battle flags!
Deer and the expectation of more
Camels, too and
Of all the times to have it happen
I am deprived of my own essential prayers
Time-being time
Beautiful healthy
Yet someone closed the door
Perhaps the Shadow People
It may be some rainy war
approximating all that Mohammed imagined possible
in a downpour
I wouldn't be surprised to see Omar Sheriff in a yellow slicker
Or T.E. Lawrence trying to keep his pages dry
"The Seven Pillars of Wisdom", perhaps
So make it a temple of slip-and-slide
Color it tan with pines
and buggies getting up speed for a dash to Mecca
Go anywhere west or anywhere east the sands deceive
"Third Beach", she'd said
"Take you there
past Umpqua Lighthouse and the oyster beds
jetty north and jetty south
the waterway of warnings..."
And she did
And in those first moments of Third Beach
Drudgery was forgotten
There was a sense of lifting
And I'd trust that like money for groceries in heaven
Just concentrate
And a desert is entrusted to a rain forest's care
"What are your thoughts?" I thought
Indeed what irony of rainfall informs your fear of desert regions?
What jihad to overrun your campfire's embers only?
Asking it becomes quite clear that Nature is policed
We've had a good look at its constable Light and Dark
And suspects wander
and consider the odds of getting caught
I'm somewhat unavailable myself
The way something has absented itself
and left the sand to the mercy of rainfall
by Steve Arntson, copyright 2008
I See What I See
by Bea Garth, copyright 2008
I see what I see. As a child I discovered
pill bugs ball up when I look under rocks and old rotten wood,
water disappears quickly down holes dug in the ground,
the light drifts in layers on a dusty sunlit day,
water bugs hesitate on the surface of a lazy eddy in the creek
the black poly-wogs with tiny legs swim faster than the rest,
ants carry small bits of rice or other discarded edibles,
cats lie in wait for grasshoppers, their ears at attention.
I found too that I can see many selves
reflected from the bathroom mirror
one after the next staring back at me
if I focus long enough with squinted eyes.
I loved to build forts or sit in the grass amongst the trees
listening to the bees and yellow jackets hum
over the drying prunes
and dream of distant lands—present, past and future.
I’d play make-believe or hide and seek with my friends
or become a general and command my troops to victory
in a mock war with the kids down the next block.
I read myths and fairy tales from around the world
and would regale them to Judy down the street
when we’d walk home from junior high school.
I still notice how the wind blows leaves
and the play of light and shadow.
The earth and the seasons
have always been my friends as are my cats.
I love water even though
I could have drowned out in the settling pond as a child.
I still am fascinated with water-bugs
with their long legs gliding on the surface
reflecting themselves in a kind of double helix
as I look up at them when I am submerged underwater.
I still see what I see
even though I know my mind can play tricks
with what is real or not
and I have found this is more than just OK
since I learned long ago
it’s a gift like playing and swimming
to be free to both observe and really imagine.
Note: the painting to the above right
is entitled "The Fertile Sea" by Bea Garth, copyright 2007
Sunday, April 6, 2008
House of Doors
by Steve Arntson
first published in Ygg's Horse on Tribe.net
Feb. 17, 2008
Note: Steve says--"This is a piece written after my first visit to Burning Man in 1996 - it is about an installation that was created using only doors..."
The House of Doors
seemed doors to all your houses
And there was Huxley perceiving something
Huxley at the keyboard
Huxley with headphones
mixin' a set
for a micro-burst of broadcast
from his ready radio room
cozy as a wind-break
We were going to sleep
with a memory of Morrison
singing, "This is The End, my friend!"
End of a root system's supply-and-demand
for wooden doors
making wooden walls
And once within their circle of power
no music is denied you!
All bands are heard hearing Jim's
his coming and going
doors seeming closed upon a crop circle's circle
of knobs
jambs
and keyholes
You enjoy each panel's pale braille relief
Fingertipping and tapping
as if to after the end of the world
Or knocking knocking
"Can I come in, Aldous
do you perceive me?
do you?
do you?"
And he answers
"We're going to keep it cozy for ya'
keep ambient yellow aglow
keep the heat enclosed
and let the cold escape!"
While F Minor spins a turntable 'round
'midst the spaghetti of power cords and cables
memories are gathered
the way a crowd is convened
Each member of the mob a version of recollect
A drought just dying to invade
as a silt so fine
it's through and through
the knothole
the keyhole
A story passed down
Like a whispered text of dusky stars
by the westerlies conveyed
by Steve Arntson, copyright 2008
first published in Ygg's Horse on Tribe.net
Feb. 17, 2008
Note: Steve says--"This is a piece written after my first visit to Burning Man in 1996 - it is about an installation that was created using only doors..."
The House of Doors
seemed doors to all your houses
And there was Huxley perceiving something
Huxley at the keyboard
Huxley with headphones
mixin' a set
for a micro-burst of broadcast
from his ready radio room
cozy as a wind-break
We were going to sleep
with a memory of Morrison
singing, "This is The End, my friend!"
End of a root system's supply-and-demand
for wooden doors
making wooden walls
And once within their circle of power
no music is denied you!
All bands are heard hearing Jim's
his coming and going
doors seeming closed upon a crop circle's circle
of knobs
jambs
and keyholes
You enjoy each panel's pale braille relief
Fingertipping and tapping
as if to after the end of the world
Or knocking knocking
"Can I come in, Aldous
do you perceive me?
do you?
do you?"
And he answers
"We're going to keep it cozy for ya'
keep ambient yellow aglow
keep the heat enclosed
and let the cold escape!"
While F Minor spins a turntable 'round
'midst the spaghetti of power cords and cables
memories are gathered
the way a crowd is convened
Each member of the mob a version of recollect
A drought just dying to invade
as a silt so fine
it's through and through
the knothole
the keyhole
A story passed down
Like a whispered text of dusky stars
by the westerlies conveyed
by Steve Arntson, copyright 2008
Our Mayan World
By Graeme Jones, copyright 2008
First Posted on Tribe.net
Jan. 17, 2008
This is to offer some thoughts on the current American situation in the light of my recent readings on the Mayan calendar. It is popularly thought that the Mayan calendar of cosmic time comes to an end in 2012. It is sometimes surmised that nothing solid can be clearly known about life on earth beyond that fast approaching date. However, I read that the 2012 date marks the beginning of a new world of cosmic time. But not to leap ahead of ourselves, the Mayan cosmology forecasts that the world capitalist system will begin its final collapse in November of 2007.
As a political astrologer, I would want to add that the planetary configurations that mark the heavens in the years circa 2012 bear a strong resemblance to the configurations that began with 1929 and lasted through the 1930’s, before finally opening out into the titanic victory of World War Two and the Chinese revolution.
In 2008, Pluto, the planetary archetype of evolutionary transformation transits from Sagittarius (religious turmoil and massive economic overreaching) into a fifteen year journey through the sign Capricorn. Here is our culture’s mythological winter experience. This is where the American capitalist dream-world collides with the cold heard granite of objective material reality. Debts become due, and organized systems of false consciousness become increasingly destabilized by the tectonic emergence of “reality.” Institutionalized denial of the real cosmic agenda that governs planetary evolution will shatter like a car driven by a drunk, colliding with a solid brick wall. Ouch, what fun!
So there we have it. Thirty years of Reaganism, with Bush’s presidency as the icing on the cake, has gutted the American economy, creating the material conditions necessary for the denouement of the cosmology that has shaped our minds throughout the entire 5,000 years of patriarchy.
When we talk of financial and economic meltdown we fall back upon our experience of the depression of the 1930’s. Serious economic pressure generated an intense universal need for shared relief. This resulted in the emergence of what can be described as “spiritual politics.” It took two distinct forms, and the polarity tension between those two contending visions of spiritually liberating politics drove world politics for a generation. They were Nazi mysticism and Mao Ze Dong’s Chinese adaptation of Marxism.
Fascist spirituality was neurotic to the point of catastrophe, but Chinese socialism was successful, at least to a large degree. So we can see how something comparable must come again. Here we add that the cosmic tides of time are bringing to us the returning feminine essence. This is the great unifying agent that carries us across the bridge from one Mayan cosmic world into the next. The erotic function of the feminine is now lovingly drawing all separated human experience into unity. Culturally and politically this emerges as a desire for democratic Socialism.
Such a great world death, as the Mayan priests knew well, is of course an even greater new beginning. The Mayans call our post 2012 epoch, the time of the emergence of the “galactic underworld.” This means that the cultural experience of cosmic unity emerges from within the collective unconscious. The readers of the Mayan system interpret this to be prefigured in Western spiritual culture by the Christian concept of “apocalypse.” That is the revelation of a core truth that had been hidden throughout the now closing cosmic cycle.
The collapse of American, and world, capitalism is therefore an emptying into an already self-establishing new cosmic culture. And that new epoch is the unified culture of “one world.” It has already successfully established itself in our cultural underworld. One quick example. It has mythically manifested the principle of “dynamic cosmic wholeness” in symbolic form as the galaxy class star ship Enterprise. This is the real reason for the Star Trek TV series’s enormous popularity. “Welcome to the federation” is a mythic anticipation of life in the new Mayan “galactic world.”
ONE WORLD
Here in 2008, this can only mean that the culture of “one world” is now hegemonic in the collective unconscious of world civilization. The culture of liberated planetary unity is simultaneously victorious, and yet, unfolding. In our mythic winter transition crisis it is the new bedrock of all of our shared well-being. But the juicy part is bringing it up into the collective consciousness. Because we are still relating prior to 2012, this new culture is far from yet fully emerged. Its component parts appear to be isolated, sometimes even alienated, from each other. This is largely because the currently ending cosmology invested so deeply in a dualistic alienation between core human opposites, heaven and earth, male and female.
In “one world” culture, heaven and earth marry. This process is now fertilizing all of humanity’s drives for liberation. It requires that we open our languages of salvatory world wholeness. There we find ourselves in a discussion of Christian spirituality and its relationship with its own modern offspring, Socialism. One world culture shifts the ground here by requiring the marriage of Christianity and Marxism.
This is a necessary path because the salvatory Christ is an agent of heaven, but wholeness requires the “prince of the world” join him. As Jung put it, the devil is a therapeutic myth. The point being; the world-view of Marx is the most highly evolved language yet produced by world civilization - that speaks to the alchemy of world whole systems liberation. It is the vital alchemical complement to the European spiritual tradition.
History has shown that we mythologically experience democratic Marxism, or at least the attempt to actualize it, as a psychological foundation for shared sense of liberated one world culture. It follows therefore that this language system can most easily accommodate the higher tantric delights flowing up to us from the numinous “One World.”
But this requires what Marxists would recognize as a major dialectical shift in the collective consciousness of world socialism. Marxist materialism, which is the dominant orthodoxy in socialist philosophy has always been (ever since Engels incompletely interpreted Marx) trapped inside its own dialectic, that is its alienation from its opposite, spirituality and metaphysics.
To update the cultural metaphor, the modern alchemists became alienated from their own Christian spiritual roots. A war was set up by false consciousness; that being the either/or game between spirituality and materialism. But that is a universal symptom of the cosmogenic alienation between heaven and earth. Anyway that’s how I read the Mayan system applying here.
So One World Culture requires a transformative journey into the philosophical outlook of 21st century socialism. Here, the evolving dialectic turns upon itself at a higher level, inside the consciousness of socialism. From emphasizing the material, it now emphasizes the spiritual quality of Socialism. It calls for the promulgation of a structured vision of world liberation that anchors itself in the union of heaven and earth. That is the unity of all spiritual systems of liberation, with Marx’s socialist science of mass cultural and political liberation.
When the universal and the materially concrete find fullness together the alchemical stone is found. That is the work. And it requires the European humanist tradition realize itself in the form of a unified system of thought, a system that holds Jungian, transpersonal psychology as being the essential esoteric center of the entire edifice of socialist political understandings. This new union (including the revolutionary advances it enables in socialist practice) will, in time, be strong enough to hold all of the traditions of world culture in stable, liberated wholeness. Well, according to the Mayan’s at least, such is the emergent power of the new “Galactic Underworld.”
By Graeme Jones, copyright 2008
First Posted on Tribe.net
Jan. 17, 2008
This is to offer some thoughts on the current American situation in the light of my recent readings on the Mayan calendar. It is popularly thought that the Mayan calendar of cosmic time comes to an end in 2012. It is sometimes surmised that nothing solid can be clearly known about life on earth beyond that fast approaching date. However, I read that the 2012 date marks the beginning of a new world of cosmic time. But not to leap ahead of ourselves, the Mayan cosmology forecasts that the world capitalist system will begin its final collapse in November of 2007.
As a political astrologer, I would want to add that the planetary configurations that mark the heavens in the years circa 2012 bear a strong resemblance to the configurations that began with 1929 and lasted through the 1930’s, before finally opening out into the titanic victory of World War Two and the Chinese revolution.
In 2008, Pluto, the planetary archetype of evolutionary transformation transits from Sagittarius (religious turmoil and massive economic overreaching) into a fifteen year journey through the sign Capricorn. Here is our culture’s mythological winter experience. This is where the American capitalist dream-world collides with the cold heard granite of objective material reality. Debts become due, and organized systems of false consciousness become increasingly destabilized by the tectonic emergence of “reality.” Institutionalized denial of the real cosmic agenda that governs planetary evolution will shatter like a car driven by a drunk, colliding with a solid brick wall. Ouch, what fun!
So there we have it. Thirty years of Reaganism, with Bush’s presidency as the icing on the cake, has gutted the American economy, creating the material conditions necessary for the denouement of the cosmology that has shaped our minds throughout the entire 5,000 years of patriarchy.
When we talk of financial and economic meltdown we fall back upon our experience of the depression of the 1930’s. Serious economic pressure generated an intense universal need for shared relief. This resulted in the emergence of what can be described as “spiritual politics.” It took two distinct forms, and the polarity tension between those two contending visions of spiritually liberating politics drove world politics for a generation. They were Nazi mysticism and Mao Ze Dong’s Chinese adaptation of Marxism.
Fascist spirituality was neurotic to the point of catastrophe, but Chinese socialism was successful, at least to a large degree. So we can see how something comparable must come again. Here we add that the cosmic tides of time are bringing to us the returning feminine essence. This is the great unifying agent that carries us across the bridge from one Mayan cosmic world into the next. The erotic function of the feminine is now lovingly drawing all separated human experience into unity. Culturally and politically this emerges as a desire for democratic Socialism.
Such a great world death, as the Mayan priests knew well, is of course an even greater new beginning. The Mayans call our post 2012 epoch, the time of the emergence of the “galactic underworld.” This means that the cultural experience of cosmic unity emerges from within the collective unconscious. The readers of the Mayan system interpret this to be prefigured in Western spiritual culture by the Christian concept of “apocalypse.” That is the revelation of a core truth that had been hidden throughout the now closing cosmic cycle.
The collapse of American, and world, capitalism is therefore an emptying into an already self-establishing new cosmic culture. And that new epoch is the unified culture of “one world.” It has already successfully established itself in our cultural underworld. One quick example. It has mythically manifested the principle of “dynamic cosmic wholeness” in symbolic form as the galaxy class star ship Enterprise. This is the real reason for the Star Trek TV series’s enormous popularity. “Welcome to the federation” is a mythic anticipation of life in the new Mayan “galactic world.”
ONE WORLD
Here in 2008, this can only mean that the culture of “one world” is now hegemonic in the collective unconscious of world civilization. The culture of liberated planetary unity is simultaneously victorious, and yet, unfolding. In our mythic winter transition crisis it is the new bedrock of all of our shared well-being. But the juicy part is bringing it up into the collective consciousness. Because we are still relating prior to 2012, this new culture is far from yet fully emerged. Its component parts appear to be isolated, sometimes even alienated, from each other. This is largely because the currently ending cosmology invested so deeply in a dualistic alienation between core human opposites, heaven and earth, male and female.
In “one world” culture, heaven and earth marry. This process is now fertilizing all of humanity’s drives for liberation. It requires that we open our languages of salvatory world wholeness. There we find ourselves in a discussion of Christian spirituality and its relationship with its own modern offspring, Socialism. One world culture shifts the ground here by requiring the marriage of Christianity and Marxism.
This is a necessary path because the salvatory Christ is an agent of heaven, but wholeness requires the “prince of the world” join him. As Jung put it, the devil is a therapeutic myth. The point being; the world-view of Marx is the most highly evolved language yet produced by world civilization - that speaks to the alchemy of world whole systems liberation. It is the vital alchemical complement to the European spiritual tradition.
History has shown that we mythologically experience democratic Marxism, or at least the attempt to actualize it, as a psychological foundation for shared sense of liberated one world culture. It follows therefore that this language system can most easily accommodate the higher tantric delights flowing up to us from the numinous “One World.”
But this requires what Marxists would recognize as a major dialectical shift in the collective consciousness of world socialism. Marxist materialism, which is the dominant orthodoxy in socialist philosophy has always been (ever since Engels incompletely interpreted Marx) trapped inside its own dialectic, that is its alienation from its opposite, spirituality and metaphysics.
To update the cultural metaphor, the modern alchemists became alienated from their own Christian spiritual roots. A war was set up by false consciousness; that being the either/or game between spirituality and materialism. But that is a universal symptom of the cosmogenic alienation between heaven and earth. Anyway that’s how I read the Mayan system applying here.
So One World Culture requires a transformative journey into the philosophical outlook of 21st century socialism. Here, the evolving dialectic turns upon itself at a higher level, inside the consciousness of socialism. From emphasizing the material, it now emphasizes the spiritual quality of Socialism. It calls for the promulgation of a structured vision of world liberation that anchors itself in the union of heaven and earth. That is the unity of all spiritual systems of liberation, with Marx’s socialist science of mass cultural and political liberation.
When the universal and the materially concrete find fullness together the alchemical stone is found. That is the work. And it requires the European humanist tradition realize itself in the form of a unified system of thought, a system that holds Jungian, transpersonal psychology as being the essential esoteric center of the entire edifice of socialist political understandings. This new union (including the revolutionary advances it enables in socialist practice) will, in time, be strong enough to hold all of the traditions of world culture in stable, liberated wholeness. Well, according to the Mayan’s at least, such is the emergent power of the new “Galactic Underworld.”
By Graeme Jones, copyright 2008
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