Day 5

So I started taking the herbs today. There are 4 bottles – Colonaid, Digezaid, Gentlelax and Livafood. The first one contains psyllium, which is the best fibre you can if you need help to be regular, cascara, black walnut, fennel, Turkish rhubarb, slippery elm and cloves. At least 3 of those herbs I know to be for killing parasites and worms in the body.

Digezaid has peppermint, pineapple, papaya, kiwifruit, ginger, cayenne and licorice. With all those fruits in it, you would think it would taste good, but no.

Gentlelax has psyllium again, slippery elm, guar gum and carob. I’m not sure what those are for but I think at least one of them is to help balance blood sugar.

And finally Livafood has barley grass, bilberry. NZ kelp, dandelion, milk thistle and golden seal.

Detox Day 1-4

My detox has started, but not very well. According to the instruction book in "Brett Elliotts Ultimate Herbal Detox," (hes from Tauranga) I was supposed to cut out bread, wheat, rice and anything with sugar on the first day, meat on the second day, and any other processed food on the third day.

I unfortunately attempted to start on boxing day, but there was too much leftover food from Christmas and I ended up feasting on it all (minus the bread), meat, potatoes, salad and dessert. It was delicious.

Monday was slightly better, except for lunchtime where i was eating at my auntys. Her husband was badgering me about how bad a detox is and how I should go see a doctor who can prescribe me drugs rather than my chiropractor. I told him I don't believe in drugs. He told me I need to go to a doctor. I got mad at him. I ended up eating their meat and cheese and vegetables (but still avoiding the wheat and crackers). They also offered me some Christmas shortbread. It was delicious.

Tuesday was good. I went to the fruit and vege shop on the way home and bought a lot of cheap apricots, plums, pineapples and mangoes to snack on. They were all ripe and sweet. Especially this mango, pineapple and yoghurt smoothie that I put together. I loved it.

However, in the afternoon I went to visit my friend where I ended up eating a heap of her Christmas chocolates that she very kindly offered me. They were also delicous. I should take a leaf out of the french womans book and only eat scrumptious quality food in small amounts (rather than trying to stuff myself with budget rubbish that doesn't hit the spot). I love chocolate. Its pretty much impossible to resist.

Today was the best day so far. I had fruit and vege juice followed by an apricot and orange smoothie this morning, salad and vege stir fry for lunch and nuts for my mid afternoon snack. However I still have a few hours to go before bedtime and I'm just hoping I can avoid trouble.

On the good side, one of my flatmates is also doing a detox at the moment, which is great because theres no junk food in the house to tempt me. And my other flatmate is vegan (though she's tramping in the Ureweras at the moment) and the other flatmate thats about to move back in is also wanting to eat more healthily. So thats a good thing all around.

Christmas day

“Small but enjoyable” would best sum up this years Christmas celebrations. My sisters in-laws were all visiting family members in Queensland, and my Aunty’s family had a get together with all my Uncle’s side down near Wellington. So it was just me and my immediate family minus my working brother (suck to work today). It’s a bit weird, since my parents split up and divorced when I was a teenager, but they seem to be on friendly terms at the moment, especially since their first grandchild was born. I doubt they’d ever be together again but when I think about it, it is slightly weird seeing them interact together.

We intended to get together at lunchtime and have a swim before lunch, but it was too overcast and windy to venture into the chilly water, so we ended up rearranging parts of Aunty’s house (its fun doing things for people while they’re away) and eating copious amounts of food. My stomach is not happy with me at the moment. Good thing I’m going to do something about that tomorrow.

Detoxing again

I went to see my Chiropractor/health practitioner on Tuesday and she told me something I found very intriguing and relevant. I’m not sure why this was the first time she ever picked it up since I’m quite sure it was a problem for at least a year, but I’m just glad she picked it up. She goes around testing points on my body that pertain to particular muscles, organs and bones to see where weaknesses and structural issues lie and then presses either on the part that needs work or a point that is tied to it eg neurolymphatic points. Often this is quite painful.

On Tuesday she told me that I had a blocked valve in my stomach, the one that links the small and large intestine. She massaged it, which seemed to release a small amount of tension residing in that spot, then she found the lymphatic release point for that valve, which was on my right knee, it was so sore I yelped and squirmed and tried to get away from her (a bit hard when you’re lying on a table high in the air). She said that a blockage in this area is linked to lower back pain, a sway back and a congested stomach. I said “you just described me to a T.”

The thing I do wonder though, is that I’ve had a sway back since I was 14yrs old, so I’m wondering what came first, the blocked valve or the back pain. The congested stomach has only come about in the last couple of years, I thought it was because of stress. Well intentioned women are constantly asking me when I’m due.

I purchased “Brett Elliotts Ultimate Herbal Detox” from my chiropractor, she recommended it. Brett Elliott is a naturopath from Tauranga, he combined about 23 herbs into capsule form and you take the herbs over 10 days and its supposed to clean out your large and small intestine as well as your liver. I have high hopes for this cleanse. Another good thing is that my sister has bought the detox as well and so we’re going to start it together. Well, I start my preparation on boxing day, she’s starting on the 1st of January but we’ll probably finish about the same time. So the next 2 weeks of my blog will be my updates on how the detox is going.

Dreams

I’ve had several dreams over the past couple of weeks where the main theme was bad people coming after me trying to kill me, and me spending the entire portion of the dream that I could remember on waking attempting to elude their clutches.

If I were to go with my friends interpretation – she said it means there are subconscious beliefs that are holding me back from attaining good health. If I were to take that idea a step further it could mean that there are subconscious beliefs holding me back from attaining my optimum potential in multiple arenas of my life – financial, spiritual, social you get the picture.

According to my dream dictionary, being chased may indicate feeling stuck or threatened in my daily life. Being pursued and unable to get away suggests a fear of being overrun by ones impulses. Monsters indicate repressed emotions, anger, hostility and fear. Possibly needing to confront something or someone in one’s waking life. Running can indicate trying to get away from painful feelings one doesn’t want to face.

One thing my counselor used to get me to do was to ask myself a question and then get my subconscious to write down the answer. I took her up on her challenge and then took it a step further. I discovered that when I wrote the question with my right (wrong) hand and then answered with my left hand, all sorts of information started coming out of me that even I wasn’t consciously aware of. I think that exercise might be in order again here. I think I’ll try it the next time I’m fasting.

Thoughts on birthdays

For my birthday this year I decided to not want or expect anything. I tend to resent the fact that I have to not only share my birthday with Christmas and all the hoop-la that goes with it, but also with my twin sister. I don’t begrudge her her birthday, just the fact that I have to share mine. It would have been awesome if the doctor who delivered us hadn’t insisted on making sure we were born on the same day – since all the clocks in the hospital were on a different time and I was only born 15 minutes before midnight, with my sister 9 minutes before that, it would have been easy to find a room with a clock that would give us our own separate birthdays (and still be twins.)

Granted, it wouldn’t have been easy growing up and trying to explain to all the people (who never believed us anyway) how I could have a twin I looked nothing like and be born on different days (are you still a twin if you’re non identical and born on different days?- what a curious line of thought) they used to ask us, or rather tell us that we didn’t even look like sisters, and that since we had the same last name maybe we might be cousins.

One thing it did teach me growing up was 1) the stupidity and rudeness of people to call you a liar to your face and 2) it doesn’t particular matter what anybody else thinks since I’m usually right, and I know what I’m talking about.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine recently about “what impresses you.” She’s been trying to convince me to move to Oz and marry someone there. I told her that I don’t find intelligence impressive, since I’m already super intelligent and therefore I don’t think that highly of it. She thought I was being up myself, but I wasn’t, I was being factual. Actually I think God gave me lots of flaws to keep me humble – like poor short term memory, lack of awareness & common sense, and inability to read non verbal cues. She is also highly intelligent but she is very impressed by smart people. I said I’m more impressed by strength of character and good traits like confidence, humility and kindness. I like mental stimulation as much as the next person with a high IQ but I guess the CCNZ theme sunk into my subconscious “Character is higher than intelligence.” Didn’t stop me getting Dux though.

My new favourite place

I’ve never thought of Australia as a beautiful place, mostly because of the yellowing look of most of the trees that I saw there on all my previous trips abroad, however, this last trip I was happily proven wrong.

I planned a trip over to see my friend Hollie for her 30th birthday, but I told her I didn’t really like Sydney, even though I did want to see her. She said, well that’s alright, we’ll just go up to my parents house, they live at Smiths Lake near Forster-Tuncurry.

It is one of the loveliest places I have seen in Australia so far (greenery-wise). I just like the bush. Australian bush is very different to the one at home but I liked it (which surprised me, but there you go). The house was surrounded by trees and we were 5 minutes from the beach and 5 minutes from the lake. I had cicadas outside the window at night and birdsong waking me up every morning, it was awesome. The first night I was there I had a dream that there were monkeys outside my window but when I heard a kookaburra for the first time its laugh could definitely pass for a monkey cackle.

Apparently Smiths Lake is named after Joseph Smith as a bunch of his descendants settled in that area, and it’s a stronghold of the Reorganized Church now the Community of Christ. They were telling me about a person up in Queensland that one of her brothers met on his mission. They must be a really close descendant of Joseph Smith as they had an 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon with Joseph Smith’s name in it (whether his signature or not I’ve no doubt that book would be worth a lot of money, if they ever wanted to sell it).

I got to see a kookaburra in the wild for the first time, rosellas, bats flying overhead at nighttime, a lizard, wallabies and goats. Theres apparently koalas that live there as well but I didn’t get to see any. We were about 4 or so hours out of Sydney although it took ages to get back into the city. Sydney is my least favourite city in the world so far, but Lakes district NSW is my new favourite place in Oz

Going Vegan

I was really sick last week, and I got talking to my flatmate about how she’s vegan. It sounds like a good idea to me, but I told her it seemed like something that would be too hard. She said mentally its hard, but its not that hard, and its quite cheap too, given the skyrocketing costs of meat and dairy lately.

Then I had a blessing from a family member which told me to eat more food, more healthy food, more grains and things with fibre.

Since I’ve known for the last year or so that my body is intolerant to dairy (it makes me phlegmy) I thought I should put my knowledge into a practical application and cut it out for a while and see how I feel and if it does anything for me.

So I’ve started on a vegan diet, I’m going to test it out anyway. Its much easier than going raw where I was always ravenously hungry with nothing to eat. Today is Day 5.

I’m still detoxing I think, but I feel better than I did last week when the right side of my face was massively swollen and sore. Oh yeah, I went to the dentist and he told me I need a $2000 root canal and crown replacement, and asked me multiple times how I was going to pay for it. I will not be going back to him again.

I don’t know if I will end up long term vegan, but I think that it would probably be a better thing for me personally, health wise. My chiropractor told me I have excess toxicity in my system, that’s gotta be coming from somewhere right? The chemicals I’m intolerant too are all found in drycleaning, so possibly my work uniform is poisoning me. She’s giving me a herbal concoction to take for it, will see how that goes as well.

Change Point

When I was 11, my teacher told my mother at a parent teacher interview that I should learn French, as it was a handy language to have in the future. Over the summer school holidays I picked up a second hand book with French in it and tried to practise reading it out loud (undoubtedly my pronounciation would have been awful). When I was 12 I started learning French, I continued it into high school, and when I changed to a school that didn’t teach French I learnt it by correspondence. As each year went by I would tell myself, just one more year, then I’ll stop, never intending it to continue past high school.

My mother always told me that she had taken French when she was young, but she couldn’t remember any more than a couple of phrases. I figured I would end up like that. However when it came time to pick uni subjects and I really had no idea what I wanted to study or where I wanted to end up, I discovered that my Uni had a specified program (one with no major) called Science International, where you could team up science subjects with any one language.

So French and chemistry were the basis of my further 3 ½ yrs learning at a tertiary institution. When I finished, I decided to go serve a mission for my church. I was hoping to get called somewhere where I would be able to speak French. September 11 happened just after I sent in my papers. Everyone told me I would get kept somewhere close to home (my sister was hoping for Wellington) so I was hoping for Tahiti. When my call came it was about the furthest place on the planet that it was possible to go, 11hrs time difference between here and Switzerland.

I loved Europe, once I got used to it. It did take some getting used to. When I got home I got a job at a lab in Tauranga, thanks to one of my old Chemistry professors. Then I got a job teaching Tahitian missionaries at the Training centre in Hamilton.

Then I started looking for a permanent job, and it just so happened that Air New Zealand was looking for French speaking check in agents, right at the time that I was looking for a job. I went for a group interview (one of the most nerve-wracking interviews I’ve ever experienced in my life) and came out the other side with a new job and a move to a new city. Then when I applied to transfer back home, the key factor in their decision to hire me was the experience that I’d already had in my job in Auckland.

My point to all this, is that one little decision when I was 11yrs old, has influenced so many things in my life up to this point that I find it hard to believe. I probably wouldn’t have the job that I have now, or even live where I live now. I’m sure I would have studied something entirely different at Uni (probably humanities, which was what I was also leaning towards).

Nearly everytime I go away on holiday, I run into people, who speak French. Usually they’re quite surprised to find someone who speaks their language so far from home. My life has been enriched in so many ways by the ability to speak a second language. It has also taught me about the huge impact that the little things can have on our life, further down the track. Who would’ve known that from such small and simple things, great things could come to pass?

On my mind

So I went two days on fruit smoothies and vegetable juice, then I went two days on water, and by the end of the water day I was over it. Well, actually what happened is my flatmates decided to have a delicious combined dinner and I was so hungry that I decided to finish my fast early. Talk about lack of will power.

I thought about it though, and I decided that four days is better than nothing. Also yesterday at church someone read out a quote about not fasting for thirty days, 24 hours is good enough, and the Lord will hear the prayers of a sincere heart. Technically I wasn’t doing it for revelation I was doing it for health purposes, but my clothes feel looser in any case which is quite nice.

I’m currently living in a 7 bedroom house, we did have 7 people, and we’re now down to 5. One is planning to move home soon so then we’ll be down to 4. The rent is going up to $450 next week which we’ve decided is too much, so we’re now looking for a more manageable 4 bedroom house in a decent area to move into. Definitely not Ham East coz that’s a dodgy area, especially around the Uni, houses are always getting ripped into around there.

We found a cute villa house in between the lake and town, haven’t seen the inside yet but it looks great from the outside. I’m guessing that its occupied by students who are leaving soon because the date its being made available is just as uni exams begin. I hope we can get it.

My nephew nearly drowned on Saturday at the pools, apparently I was meant to be watching him. I couldn’t see him though, owing to my short-sightedness, so I saw him heading over to the other side of the pool but couldn’t see him after he started descending down the steps into another pool (which was over his head and he can’t swim). Luckily the spirit yelled at my sister who was engrossed in an argument some people were having somewhere else “wheres your son?” which caused her to look around and see him under the water and go and yank him out before he started inhaling water into his lungs. Both of them got a big fright. I felt bad.

I’ve started doing pilates. Its making me a lot more flexible than I used to be. Also zumba, because my flatmate has the dvds. It feels nice to think onto paper/a computer screen occasionally. Then I can clearly see where my heads at.

My mini ephiphany

I had a mini epiphany yesterday. Sometimes with all the information in your head, there are lots of random facts, but then sometimes two unrelated separate ideas might come together in a particular way to provide enlightenment which is astonishing.

I was thinking about the 40 day water fast one of my friends recently completed. She originally intended it to be only two weeks, but then amidst priesthood blessings and prayer, felt to continue what she was doing, and 40 days later when she finished, she got a whole lot of revelation about what she was to do in her life.

I didn’t find out about it until after she’d finished (good move not telling people – they tend to not understand and make fruitless unhelpful comments). Her skin now looks really radiant, which is the thing that I noticed first about her, also she lost weight although that wasn’t her goal, her goals was to be healthier.

Anyway I was trying out a new green smoothie variation I hadn’t tried before – tamarillo, peach, banana and spinach (seriously delicious), when it hit me. Jesus was 30yrs old when he began his ministry which he preceeded with a 40 day fast. And I am also 30, therefore I’m the same age that Jesus was. It seems like a small thing, but it hit me really strongly. Do it. Do it now.

Emergency Preparedness

I was at a workmates wedding last Saturday when I first heard about the Christchurch earthquake – one of my other workmates mentioned that the airport was closed, and I had no idea what they were talking about (that seems to happen to me quite a bit.)

My first thought was for the people I know in Christchurch who would have all been affected by such a major event. I was in their city a few months ago, doing the tourist thing, taking lots and lots of photos and I wondered how different it would all look now, since all the news footage they have been showing looks like it has been taken from exactly the same spot.

My next thoughts were about how well prepared I would be in case of such a disaster. I have bits and pieces of a 72hr kit, but they’re not located in one place, and I have no idea how I would get to them in an emergency. One lady I know recommended making a poncho with lots of pockets filled with supplies which you could grab in case anything happened – a good idea if you’re likely to be carrying children or other things out of the house in a hurry.

Over the last few years I’ve been trying to declutter the things in my life, it doesn’t help that I have a tendency to hoard, but I have gradually been clearing things away. When I was young we didn’t have much and I got installed with the idea that people are more important than things. I have a small room at the moment, which helps me remember that I should get rid of all the things I don’t use on a regular basis – much easier said than done, since I have a lot of stuff that has been in storage for the last few months. I probably don’t need most of it, but I have an emotional attachment to it.

If it was all destroyed in a fire or earthquake, I don’t know that I would miss it, since I probably wouldn’t remember what was there. Really I should just get rid of it all. I don’t know whats stopping me.

My 10 favourite feelings

In no particular order:

The “aha!” moment
When your mind clicks and your heart resonates and you just know something is right, because you can feel it

The elusive, hard to describe soul-filling feeling akin to elation but not that. I myself have experienced it only twice in my life.

Peaceful calm – inner and outer, like when I was at my yoga retreat last year. We were in a beautiful wooden house and the lounge was shaped like a hexagon with windows all around four sides. The house was surrounded by bush with a view of the ocean, with no tv, no radios, no cellphone coverage, so quiet. We meditated a lot. It was bliss.

Wonder and delight at a new human being – watching them see the world for the first time, and finding joy in their experiences.

Laughing with friends at private jokes and secrets that nobody else understands

Feeling special and loved (my mission farewell, I never heard so many nice things about myself in my life).

Falling for someone.

Mass enthusiasm – the high of being surrounded by people who are happy and cheering. I figure being a spectator at a sporting event could be like that, but my most memorable experience of it was at a Tony Robbins conference in Sydney. At the beginning of each session they had dancers and music and do everything they can to get everyone hyped up, moving and feeling good. I’ve never seen or felt anything like it in my life. The excitement was infectious.

Inspiration
When you put pen to paper and feel like what you’re writing is not so much coming from you but through you, like an unseen being from an invisible world is guiding your creation.

Awe
Seeing something greater than myself that evokes humility and admiration.

Unrighteous Dominion

The scriptures tell us that we are both significant and insignificant, made in the image of God, his sons and daughters, while at the same time being lower than the dust of the earth, or even ‘a little lower than the angels.’ So where do we stand really in the scheme of things?

We are made to have dominion over the beasts of the earth. Does this mean that the beasts don’t matter? That they have no feelings and are insentient beings? Does ‘dominion’ mean domination, or something else, more akin to stewardship?

I was reading a magazine article this morning about how animals are more intelligent than we give them credit for – (really? How much credit to people give to animals?) - I thought it sounded really arrogant on the part of humans considering we really can’t see into the mind of animals, we can only guess based on their behaviour.

Apparently a lot of people cite “moral belief” as a major factor in becoming vegetarian, which I would take to mean the belief that its cruel to kill animals. The word of wisdom, depending on how you read the particular verse that relates to meat, either says ‘don’t eat meat except in times of famine,’ or as my friend said to me when we were having an argument about meat, “Read the word of wisdom. Meat is good.”

She wasn't listening to me when I told her about the famine part, then our other friend reminded us that they didn’t have fridges back in the day when the World of Wisdom came out, so they could only eat it in winter when it was cold and wouldn’t go rancid in the sun. She said that since we now have fridges its ok to eat meat all year round.

I can’t claim to be a vegetarian, but I don’t eat meat hardly ever, maybe a couple of times a week. The article talked about this primate, related to an orangutan but I can’t remember the exact name of the species, which can talk using pictures on flash cards. Can even form simple sentences using the words. Uses and understands past and future tenses. Was raised by humans and has used these cards since it was little. Uses the words ‘be’ and ‘happy.’

The “awareness of self” test, where the animal is shown a mirror and they either preen or touch themselves rather than reaching out to the creature in the mirror. Only monkeys, dolphins and elephants passed this test, suggesting that they have a higher level of intelligence than other creatures, such as cats, rats and houseflies.

There has been a lot over the last year or so, about cruelty to animals, inhumane murders of dogs and such and it got me thinking, about the unrighteous dominion exerted by humans over the entire animal kingdom, and whether or not our feelings of superiority over them are justified. I don’t believe it is.

One of my favourite stories

The Old Fisherman by Mary Bartels
Taken from the Instructor May 1968

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs room to outpatients at the clinic. One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking old man. “Why he’s hardly taller than my eight year old,” I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face – lopsided from swelling, red and raw. Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and theres no bus till morning.” He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon but with no success. “I guess its my face. I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments…”

For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me. “I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.”

I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch meanwhile, Then I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. “No thank you. I have plenty.” And he held up a brown paper bag. When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn’t take long to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body.

He told me that he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury. He didn’t tell it by way of complaint; every other sentence was prefaced with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going.

At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the childrens room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little old man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favour, he said, “Could I please come back and stay the next time I have to have a treatment? I won’t put you out a bit – I can sleep fine in a chair.” He paused a moment and then added, “Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don’t seem to mind.”

I told him he was welcome to come again. And on his next trip a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought us a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so they would be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4am and wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this.

In the years he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery: fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and how little money he had, made the gifts doubly precious.

When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next door neighbour made after he left that first morning. “Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away. You can lose roomers by putting up such people.” And maybe we did, once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him, from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.

Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse. As she showed me her flowers we came to the most beautiful one of all; a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old, dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, if this were my plant I’d put it in the loveliest container I had. My friend changed my mind.

“I ran short of pots,” she explained, “and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting in this old pail. Its just for a little while, til I can put it out in the garden.” She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven. “Here’s an especially beautiful one,” God might have said when he came to the soul of the fisherman, “He won’t mind starting in this small body.” “But that’s behind now, long ago, and in Gods garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand!!”

Maturity

I went to institute last night, where we had a discussion about maturity and immaturity, and the characteristics of each. Stephen Covey talks about dependence, independence, and interdependence as a maturity continuum. Dependance being “you take care of me, you do this for me, I blame you for the results,” namely the way a child behaves towards their parents. Independence is the paradigm of I – I can do it, I am responsible, I can choose. Interdependance is the paradigm of ‘We’, ie we can do it, we can cooperate, we can combine our talents and abilities and create something bigger together.

We didn’t talk about Stephen Covey last night, but we did talk about the two in relation to selfishness and unselfishness. Dishonesty, mocking, not taking responsibility, blame/victimization, judgemental and easily offended on the immature side, and honest, owning up, proactivity, accepting differences, being able to laugh at oneself, giving others the benefit of the doubt on the mature side.

We did a quiz on how we would react in the face of particular circumstances, eg if someone said something offensive, or if we were cut off in traffic, and it occurred to me that I’ve regressed in the last few years. I used to have a much more lenient attitude towards people who annoyed me, especially crazy drivers.

I would suppress my emotional reaction to the situation by discussing possibilities in my head, eg maybe theres an emergency at home and that’s why he forgot to indicate before he swerved into my lane, because he’s busy thinking about what he needs to do once he gets there. Maybe that person just got their restricted, or they’re new to the area and that’s why they were in the wrong lane, coz they don’t know where they’re going and Auckland traffic is confusing anyway.

Lately I just find myself getting annoyed in situations that wouldn’t bother me before, and yelling at people (they can’t hear me of course) and being delighted when people overtake me (while going at the maximum speed limit) and then I come around a corner and see that they’ve had to slow down due to a massive plodding truck. Vengeful and over aggressive. I’ve become much less patient and more apt to judgement and anger, which, while feeling justified, doesn’t really help my outlook on life.

So this is my new goal for the next week. I’m hoping that if I practice it for a while, it will once again become a habit. Everytime I get annoyed at someone, look for a logical madeup or hilarious reason, why they would be doing the thing that they’ve just done. One that paints them in a better light than “what an idiot.”

Gut Instinct

I've been reading a very intriguing book this week by a french man, Pierre Pallardy about ones abdomen being a vital tool for preventing various health issues, being the "epicentre of life."

Apparently he intuitively suspected what research has now confirmed - there is an independent nerve mass in the gut which helps regulate your system, produces immune cells, molecular neurotransmitters and interstitial cells, just like the upper brain.

He attributes all kinds of ailments back to a malfunctioning abdomen - fatigue, digestive problems, IBS, insomnia, headaches, diabetes and ageing.

A persons two brains need to work in unison, or chaos in the gut and upset in the mind will occur. Theres some sort of interconnectivity between the two, via the vagus nerve, and emotional disrupts can sever the link they have. Which goes a long way to explaining why lots of emotions such as stress and anxiety can be felt first in the gut. A number of health workers have told me that my digestion/liver are not working efficiently, so the book was like a godsend for me.

His recommendations were quite simple, and i'd heard most of them before:
- deep abdominal breathing, getting oxygen into the gut to aerate and massage the intestinal organs
- eating slowly in a peaceful environment
- exercising at a moderate pace to improve the mind-stomach connection
- abdominal massage and locating tension in that area
- being tuned in to your body

A couple of weeks ago my chiropractor told me my vitality was low due to an emotional component (anger and hate). I'm going to try what Pierre says and see if it makes a difference to my current state of wellbeing.

Talking in church

This week I have a speaking assignment at church about the Book of Mormon. I'm the last speaker, which I think means I should write a really long talk and be prepared to cut it into a really short talk, just in case everyone else goes overtime, or someone doesn't show up. Fun fun.

I've never had to give a 20 minute talk on anything, but since I am, I think the BoM is probably the easiest thing to talk about. Sometimes I wonder how I got a testimony growing up in a semiactive semifunctional home. But looking back, I think that the gospel offered me the things I was lacking in my home life - security and a feeling of peace I couldn't find anywhere else.

Even now reading the BoM i still get that feeling of peace and reassurance. My BoM reading has been haphazard at best over the last year or so, and I've noticed a definate decline in my spirituality, which is something that I'd like to rectify. The answer is simple I just need to do it.

The Strangeness of Dreams

Having weird vivid dreams lately - & some of them feel like deja vu. Last night I dreamed I was on a hiking expedition which headed underground - literally. Through caves, rocks, squeezes, stalagtites & stalagmites, and finally came out through an underground waterfall. Also had the creeped out feeling that someone or something was following us as we travelled.

I've been having lots of dreams lately about the bush - beautiful scenery, I wish I could remember it better. This one recurring place that I've never seen before in my life but i'd like to go there. It has an awesome deep swimming hole, linked to a river heading downstream on one side & a waterfall feeding it on the other. It had a great picnic - meadow on the other side, sloping steeply down into the water. I think in my dream we came across it accidentally while heading somewhere else.

Going to see Inception tomorrow. Maybe thats why my minds been dwelling on dreams.

In the eyes of a child

A few days ago I went with my sister, brother in law and nephew to the Miniature Train rides, which operate once a week in Hamilton. Staffed by volunteers, they operate rides around a small park complete with bridges and ponds, with varying size miniature trains – including one that operates on steam.

We took a picnic lunch with us, sat around and chatted and watched the trains going past. My nephew was so engrossed in the sight of the trains rolling past he kept being distracted from his food and having to be cajoled by his parents to eat some more.

After lunch we all hopped on board the train for our first ride, our tickets were clipped and we were off. Its been so long since I was on a little train, I can barely remember what it was like – I remember going on a miniature train when I was a kid around Hamilton Lake, I think it used to operate every summer until it eventually got closed down.

My nephew loves trains. It was so great just seeing his face after he got off, looking so happy and alive and excited. And it reminded me how great it is going with someone to see something for the first time.

When you go sightseeing with a child, and they’re seeing something for the first time, so enthusiastic and open to everything they’re experiencing, and you get to have fun along with them. If I were to contrast that to the way that jaded cynics behave – immune to magic though its right there around them, really that’s not the best way to live life.

Theres a Creed song I really like, its the only song of theirs I know, called “With arms wide open” and its about how the singer wants his son to have an open heart, to enjoy all his experiences in life, and greet the world with open arms.

In Context

At high school I never wanted to study history. So I took geography instead – I liked the idea of field trips and geography led to plenty of excursions. My understanding of history was that it was all hideously boring names, places and dates.

At Uni I took a paper about French history, which was a lot more preferable, since I already had a vested interest in the topic, and all the lectures were in French. The only other history I knew was religion focused – the Bible, the Gutenberg press, reformation, protestants, settling of America and the like.

I came across a thought at the family history fair I attended recently, by Anne Bromell, that you “should learn social history, or you won’t know why anything happened -… why people moved country.”

So even though I’ve always thought history was hideously boring, I’m trying to place my ancestors lives into the context of the times in which they lived. Hopefully if I learn more about the places that they grew up in, it will give me more insight as to why they emigrated to strange and foreign shores.

For example, one of my ancestors families – George and Lucy Mansfield, I thought that they had moved here for more money and a better life for their children. But I found out in some notes I came across recently, that the Dr told them that a sea voyage would be good for the husband, who was apparently quite sick. I seriously doubt that the boat they picked to come on would have helped his condition.

The Atrato, one of the earliest steam ships to come here, had over 700 passengers on a 350ft long vessel, and about a third of the passengers were children. Sickness broke out on the ship and several kids and 1 adult died. The ship was delayed for sometime in England while some technical difficulties were ironed out. Having to occupy several small children who were cooped up in a small space could not have been very enjoyable, especially when all the kids were getting sick. They did all make it here safely in the end, but to top off their troubles, when they arrived in their new homeland, they learned that Lucy’s mother had died while they were traveling on the ship.

At the moment I’m learning about 18th century rural England and the peninsula war (4th ggrandfather), Canada in the 19th century and the Maori wars (3rd ggrandfather), WWI (great grandfather) and WWII (grandfather). Having people that I know of, in particular world events makes me feel much more connected to the story.

Believing or not

A couple of weeks ago at work, I was reading one of the newspapers that happened to be in the staff room, and came across the horoscopes, which I don’t always read, but I decided to have a look at mine on this occasion and one thing jumped out at me. Something along the lines of “one of your projects will receive a much needed boost this week.” Which surprised and intrigued me, and I was immediately thinking ahead to what it could be. My main project that I’ve been devoting time to lately is the book that I’m writing about one branch of my ancestors.

Even though I don’t believe in horoscopes, sometimes I read them retrospectively and they have come true. But then that could easily be a matter of subconsciously filtering out anything that didn’t apply.

Fast forward a few days, and my Mum texts me that great aunt Dulcie has passed away and her funeral is the next day. Great aunt Dulcie, who I’ve only met one time last year, was 97yrs old and the last of her generation in the family. She was my great grandfathers first cousin, he died in 1962, so she pretty much outlasted everybody. I think it would suck to outlast all my own generation, but good on her.

I wanted to go to the funeral, which was in Tauranga, but not by myself, so after much disgruntled back and forth it was finally arranged that me, my Mum and aunty would all go to the funeral together.

Even though I felt sad for her nephews and nieces and grandkids that genuinely really missed her, she had had a full and great life and obviously it was her time to go. She was a nurse in WWII and worked as a midwife in China, and lived in several different parts of the world including Norfolk Island where she retired, before moving back to NZ and getting married (twice). At the funeral I met several members of the family who are all working separately on the family tree, exchanged contact details, it was great.

Then we decided to drive out to see my grandma’s sister, and talk to her. It was so good seeing her, she told us stories about her and her parents and the family and I showed her some of the things I’d put together for the book. So my horoscope was right, I did receive a help towards my project. But a one off correct statement in there does not mean that they’ll get it right every time.

The Health and Safety Killjoy

Its very important to have your health, and be safe in life, otherwise theres really not that much to look forward to. But sometimes I wonder if its gone too far.

When I was a kid there was a huge jungle gym in my school. It seemed huge at the time, at least 3x the height of an adult, but its gone now. It came complete with firemans pole about half a metre out from the main structure, which I could never quite bring myself to slide down. It wasn’t the sliding down part that scared me, it was the necessity of jumping from the platform out to the pole. I never quite had enough confidence for that leap across.

Anyway the awesome jungle gym is gone – even the huge obstacle course that ringed the school field has been demolished. Out of health and safety concerns. And what do they put in its place? Brightly coloured plastic creations, low to the ground, harmless and safe.

Nobody wants their kids to get hurt, the schools, councils and families don’t, I get it. But personally, I think its part of being a kid to get hurt. You fall down, you get up again, you continue, you’ve learnt something. Why are they trying to make life so tame?

I think its sad that they’re trying to sterilize kids, protect them from every little possible thing that could go wrong, wrap them up in cotton wool, so to speak. How is a kid supposed to learn anything when all the potentially bad choices are taken away from them? No wonder kids get bored. Theres nothing outdoors to challenge, excite and stimulate them. No wonder they turn to computer games.

Elusive Moments

My high school physics teacher told us one time, that whenever you see a double rainbow, one of them will be reversed in colour. Ie red on the outside and purple on the inside. I saw a double rainbow at work yesterday and remembered what he’d said. It was beautiful. If I hadn’t been in the middle of helping customers I would have grabbed my phone and taken a photo with it.

The other day I was on my way home from work when I saw an exceptionally brightly coloured strand of rainbow (rapidly fading) in between Mt Pirongia and the Temple. It was awesome. I pulled over the side of the road to take a picture with my phone but it was too small and my phone didn’t really pick up the colours properly. So then I took another one only to find out I had no space left on my memory card and would have to delete something first. That took a few minutes – so hard deciding what to get rid of – and by the time I’d finished the rainbow had faded and the moment was gone.

Looking after yourself

Love your liver and live longer

So goes the slogan for the Liver Cleansing Diet book by Sandra Cabot, an Australian lady. Apparently if you suffer from obesity, high blood pressure or cholesterol, liver disease, gallstones, digestive problems, irritable bowel syndrome, allergies, or chronic fatigue syndrome, chances are your liver needs a break.

The liver weighs 1-1.5kgs and is basically the bodys version of a water and waste treatment plant, taking in everything, sorting it, modifying it until its safe to be let loose. However, due to excessive pollution, chemicals in the air and environment, eating rubbish food, alcohol and so forth, the liver becomes overworked and unable to do everything that it needs to do.

My chiropractor told both my sister and I that we should do a liver cleanse, so we have jointly decided to to the liver cleansing diet together. Week one wasn’t too bad. She basically tries to wean you off certain foods that aren’t helping, like red meat, dairy, junk food and processed foods. Halfway through week 2 and I had a blowout day, but I’m going to get back into it tomorrow.

The next 4 weeks will be more challenging, as they require cutting out all meat and egg yolks. Not sure what the purpose of eliminating egg yolks is, but I’ll have to finish reading the book and see if she mentions why.

Eight weeks is not too long anyway. And it seems like one of the simplest diets I’ve ever come across anyway. No counting stuff and weighing everything, no hunger cravings. Its brilliant.

Movement and Grace

When I was sixteen I was getting ready with my siblings and cousins for our school ball. We had a few group photos first, and then the individual shots were taken. One of my siblings told me my butt was sticking out. That was the start of my sway back. Lordosis is the technical term for it.

Nobody has ever really told me what causes it – whether it’s a deformation of the spine, or the muscles holding the spine, whether its fixable or whether I have to just keep putting up with it indefinitely. All I know is that it means my lower spine is curved too much and my back muscles go into spasm on a regular basis. And lately my back has been stiffening up when I try to sit and stand. I feel like an old woman.

Over the last ten or so years, I have tried a number of things. A chiropractor who xrayed me and then smashed my spine into place 3x a week for a goodly amount of money, Alexander Technique classes, Massage, Naturopath, Iridologist, Muscle Testing, more Chiropractic sessions, Pilates, Yoga and Bowen Therapy.

Out of all of them, yoga seemed quite promising, as did the Alexander technique. I have found a new chiropractor who my sister recommended, and I really like her. Last week she did muscle testing on me, and found out I have excess levels of several chemicals in my bloodstream, meaning that my liver isn’t doing a good cleanup job at the moment.

I also went to a bowen therapist last week who also does reiki and some other techniques. She said my left side is a lot tighter than my right. She loosened up a lot of muscles in my lower back, which felt like heaven, but it only lasted a few hours, then my back insisted on undoing all her good work. I could actually feel the muscles twisting themselves back into knots. Theres something compensatory going on there but I’m not sure what its compensating for.

I went to field days in Hamilton, where this guy tried to sell me some dvd’s about learning to move like a child – because children move with perfect grace and in harmony with gravity. He made some comments about chiropractors which I didn’t appreciate, since I like my chiropractor, and I couldn’t see or make a judgement on the value of what he was trying to sell me, since I know nothing about the “Milicich” method.

On my "To do" list

I’ve heard the phrase “Bucket list” thrown around a lot lately, clearly the movie has had some impact on people, and Jack Nicholson does do ornery rather well.

For myself, I have two very different bucket lists that I’m working from in my mind. The first one is the public one, the one I throw out to anyone who will listen, about the things I want to do at least once, sometime in my life, common things like Travel to Paris and go through the Louvre Museum, go for a hot air balloon ride (hopefully that one will be accomplished sometime in the next year), go for a helicopter ride, learn Spanish and maori and go for a boat cruise around the Pacific (theres one going in June next year, if I can save up that much money).

I remember having a conversation with some girls while I was at uni about all the things we wanted to do, see and experience and one of the girls put forward the idea of going to Oxford or Cambridge university. I didn’t think anything of it until I ran into her a year or two ago to find that she had done just that – spent a year at one of those universities. Good on her I say.

Then theres the other bucket list, the one that I don’t talk about for fear acquaintances and critics will try to talk me out of doing what I want to do. I shouldn’t put so much stock into what other people think, because they won’t ever have to walk in my shoes, but when their negativity towards my goals comes from a place of concern for me, I tend to end up feeling guilty about the things I want to do.

One of the goals I have in the back of my mind, which I want to do, mainly because it would be so exceedingly difficult for me, which would make it so worthwhile, is to do a 40 day fast solely on water. As much water as I want but just water. No I’m not claiming superhuman status like Jesus or other religious leaders. But for me it’s the ultimate test against myself, proving to myself that I would do it. That’s nearly 6 weeks of no food. If I could discipline myself to abstain from food, I think I could discipline myself to do anything I wanted.

I would never have conceived of the possibility of doing such a feat, but I have went to a seminar of a man – Don Tolman, who not once but twice fasted on water for 40 days. He went away into the mountains to do it and when he finished he drank 1L of pure fresh grape juice and ran the equivalent of a marathon, which was all documented by a film crew. I should try to find it on the net, come to think of it. He did say that its harder for women to fast long term.

I’m not sure what the difference is between fasting and starvation exactly, I think that they’re probably similar except that one is voluntary and the other is not. I would think that the outlook for the two would be different – one being more positive and the other looking towards death.

Don also had an alternative to the long fast, which was 20 days on water, in order to allow any parasites and worms living in the body to die, followed by a mega cleanse – bentonite clay alternating every hour with psyllium and flax seeds for 12 hours on the 20th day.

Fasting is not the only thing on my secret bucket list, but it’s the one I keep coming back to again and again. Its just so do-able. Really the only thing stopping me from doing it – is me.

Internet

The downside of moving cities that I never thought about before I moved here, is that I no longer have internet access. And nobody I know does either. Which completely sucks.

I missed writing in my blog. I took to writing lots of things on my laptop, which sadly is not connectable to the internet due to an incident with a friends small daughter.

Asking questions of the internet is a great thing. At work all internet access is blocked, except the work intranet, online banking, and the NZ Herald which has become my only link to the outside world over the past month.

The end of the rainbow

I saw a rainbow on my way to work the other day (new job, different scene, a lot more fog) and the thought that flashed into my head was "One more year" one more year at least til the second coming. Its the main sign that stands out in my mind from numerous lessons about the second coming. I think signs and wonders in the heavens was another one. I'm not sure exactly where in the scriptures it says that there will be no rainbows before the second coming (does that mean there will be no rain?) or if it was just an idea that someone came up with from their own interpretation of the scriptures. I had a quick look, but couldn't find anything in the topical guide.

In seventh form physics we made rainbows using hoses out in the school courtyard and made the observation that a rainbow would only appear (above and around the water stream) while you were facing away from the sun.

A rainbow is caused by the refraction of light which have been split according to their varying wavelengths, since all different colours have different wavelengths and vibrate at different speeds. Crystals will also refract light and split them into their individual colours. Speaking of which, I think they should take out the colour Indigo. Nobody really knows what it is. If asked, i would guess its like a dark blue verging on purple. There may as well be 6 colours in the rainbow.

I really like double rainbows. They're a rare commodity, but very lovely. I tried to take a photo of one once, but it turned out terribly. But i did notice that the colours on one were reversed. VIBGYOR instead of ROYGBIV

So i wonder if the scriptures when describing the state of no more rainbows, if its only referring to rainbows in the sky or ones you can make at home, with crystals or like the physics example referred to above.

I dislike the thought of no more rainbows. They light up the sky so beautifully.

Encounters of the Ferral Kind part 2

I found the rat, disgusting vermin that it is.

For weeks i assumed that it had died up in the roof and that the stench was unlocatable and unremovable. I was wrong.

My last day in my flat I shifted my bookshelf to load it onto the trailer and what did i find. Gross emaciated disgustingness lying under my bookshelf. I found the nearest tool I could (a pitchfork in the garden) to shift it outside. From where some other kind soul threw it in the bin for me, where i took a photo of it for future records. Yuk.

Degrees of Separation

I read once that if you go back 500yrs, assuming 25yr average per generation, there will have been 1 million people involved in your future birth. Assuming that each person has 2 parents, 4 grandparents (I have 6, but thats another story) 8 great grandparents and so on. Of those great grandparents, I only met 3, none of whom are alive at present. I didn't meet any gg grandparents. So closely linked (4 degrees of separation) and yet so far.

I met my nana's youngest surviving brother two days ago for the first time. She was the oldest in a family of 8, he was the second to youngest. I was stunned to see how strongly I could see the family resemblance in him, even in the way he held himself, and the intonations he used when he spoke.

In australia, I met a man who has a common ancestor with me - his gg father is my 4th great grandfather. But he told me after meeting me, that I am just like his oldest grand daughter - in looks, mannerisms and way of talking. He could only assume it was through our common line.

So what are these things called genes? And what determines which variants get put into some people in one generation and not others? I apparently *look like my mother, have my fathers expressions, look just like my sister, look nothing like her at all, am just like my mothers mother, have the "ormsby" look, and look like a distant cousin who i've never met before?

If we're all linked to so many people, ancestors, cousins, descendants, like threads in a tapestry woven together, I suppose it would be possible for one ancestors influence to spread exponentially down the line. But i wonder what determines who gets what part of that influence.

*all subjective comments from other people

Switching tracks

So one minute life is progressing along in one direction, and the next its switched in a totally different direction. A detour which i didn't see coming at all. I have a sneaking suspicion it has something to do with gratitude, owing to a prior experience I had.

I had a sucky boring job that was not fun and not going anywhere, just passing the time really. Into my head popped the bright idea of "counting my blessings" ie coming up with good things about it. I managed it. And within two weeks i had a better job. I didn't even ask for something better, it just came along when i stopped being fixated with how bad the other job was.

That was the first inkling that i remember having that there might be something to this whole idea of being grateful. Its as if looking at the good things, pours more good things into your life. Like presents from a smiling heavenly father.

I can't claim to know how it works, I have just seen it work, again, recently.

I was on an extra shift and I ran into a workmate who I don't normally see (shes on a different roster pattern to me) and she asked if i'd seen this job advert for a position at the airport in my home town. I actually hadn't. But since she'd mentioned it to me, I thought i'd check it out.

The next day I redid in CV and applied. Forgot about it til a week later when the recruitment lady called me for an interview. Did that. Forgot about it til the end of that week when she called and said i'd been shortlisted. Only then did i start thinking about all the things I actually like about where i'm living now, and I was surprised that the list was at least as big as all the benefits of moving back.

A few days ago she called again, to say they want to offer me the job and can I start asap. I called my team leader and she called me back the next day to say i'm finishing up in 2wks and can i have a minute to think about it pls? No? Ok so i have 1week after I get back from holiday to pack up my life (again) and transfer everything and start all over again. Only its not really starting again because I came from there? Right? We'll see.

And what was the point of me being in Auckland anyway? Was there a point? Now I'm not so sure. I thought I knew why i was going there when i moved, but that reason seemed to disintegrate before my eyes, so chances are that its a good thing I'm going back to where I'm usually happier anyway.

This post all looks like random psychobabble. But its weird that after months of trying to decide whether or not I liked Auckland, I think I might actually be sad to go.

Travel Musings

A few things I've learnt over the last few days

The difference between fiords and sounds (one is created by a river and v shaped, usually quite shallow - like the Malborough sounds, a fiord is carved out by a glacier, usually u shaped, very deep) Milford sound is actually a fiord, but that phrase doesn't roll off the tongue as easily. It was originally called Milford Haven but they didn't like that name either.

You shouldn't try to take photos of outdoor close up objects while travelling in a fast moving vehicle. It doesn't work. I have a lot of blurry photos to show for my efforts.

Where the Mirror lakes are located. I'd seen lots of photos of them growing up but had no idea where they were. They're just south of Milford sound. Beautiful, though a lot smaller than i expected.

Milford sound really is beautiful. I'm so glad i came down this way. Photos to follow.

Arrival

I arrived in Christchurch this morning and found myself constantly patting my pockets for something that wasn't there. My keys. Symbol of where i'd come from and where i was returning to, but completely redundant in my current space and present moment. What do you do with a key when the thing for which its designed is no longer within your reach?

I heard people complaining about how cold it was. I don't know what they were on about, i was walking around in a tshirt and trackpants and i was totally fine. The flight was uneventful apart from a few roller coaster dips as we came into land, and i was very thankful i hadn't suffered from my usual queasy lightheadness. And as we got off i spotted some money someone had left behind across the aisle. Score.

I always wonder why everything on travel noticeboards is twin share - cruises, accomodation and the like. Not much options left for a solo traveller unless you want to pay for an invisible person who isn't there.

I thought i'd try something different for lunch, being in a new place and out of my comfort zone and all that. I got a honey chicken dish at a thai place. I really wished i'd gotten something else. It was a bizare combination of flavours, battered chicken pieces smothered in a sweet sauce, rice, dry strips of carrot and cabbage, and dry hard kumara pieces. I'm not sure what it was meant to taste like but it was weird. Too much sweetness, not enough savoury. I should have gone with my usual preference of fried rice.

Mainland tourist

They say travel broadens the mind, and I'm not sure if thats true. It could be true, but you could return home just as narrow minded as you started out. Travelling in your own country, now theres a great opportunity.

One of my many rash new years declarations that i made this year was to travel all around the country and visit all the city sized places i have not yet been to. Since I had leave accrued I thought I would head down south. It turns out May is really not the best time to travel. Theres currently a lot of storms and wet weather going on down there. I've been keeping an eye on the 7 day forecast and it doesn't look too promising.

On the news they were talking about all the stranded trampers on the Milford track, one of NZ's "great walks" and saying how stupid they all were to get caught out in the wet weather like that. I've never been on the Milford track, but it is something I intend to do at least once in my lifetime, and I know its sort of like a constantly moving conveyor belt of people, especially in summer. You can't stay more than one night in each hut because theres always more people starting as people finish at the other end. And its usually booked out well in advance.

So most of the poor stranded trampers were already partway into the track before the deluge hit and they all got stuck because some bridge at the beginning of the track got washed out apparently.

One of the things I planned to do on my trip next week is to take a day trip from Queenstown through Te Anau to Milford sound (boat cruise) and back. However I see that that road might be closed due to the whitestone bridge being washed out somewhere near Te Anau. Since i was intending for that to be one of the highlights of my trip, I hope they can find an alternate route or fix the road sometime in the next 5 days. Quite selfish of me, but we'll see what happens.

I shouldn't really have such a she'll be right attitude, especially as i haven't booked any kind of travel insurance but I bought some thermals and a raincoat this morning, as a kind of preemptive I hope I don't need it but at least if i do then i'm prepared.

I'm so looking forward to my trip. I love sightseeing. I hope my camera doesn't break down like it did last time.

Possible Upheavals

I applied for a job back in my home town last week, not that I'm sick of Auckland yet, but the opportunity presented itself to me, and the opportunity looked good. If i dont get the job then everything will remain the same.

If i do get the job i'll have a couple of weeks to pack up my whole life again and traipse back down to the place I grew up. I'm not sure whether to be more excited or more uneasy.

In any case, i'm not thinking too much about it, this time next week i'll be in the south island. I love holidays. I love thinking about holidays and deciding what i'm going to do. Christchurch, Queenstown, Wanaka, Kaikoura and Nelson. Two of those places i've never been to and one i've just gone past on a bus at night. This will be my last holiday for a while, I don't really like travelling too much during winter.

My interview today was slightly uncomfortable. I've never had a phone interview before. It was a bit off putting, and made it hard to think.

My favourite poem #5

My sister and I picked up this poem in drama class in high school and got hooked on it. We repeated it over and over again to each other and to my brother. It drove him insane. Honestly, sometimes we just said it to him to aggravate him, not a very nice thing to do to a little brother, now that i think about it. But his reaction was always just so amusing.

A Blade of Grass, Brian Patten

You ask for a poem.

I offer you a blade of grass.

You say it is not good enough.

You ask for a poem.

I say this blade of grass will do.

It has dressed itself in frost,

It is more immediate

Than any image of my making.

You say it is not a poem,

It is a blade of grass and grass

Is not quite good enough.

I offer you a blade of grass.

You are indignant.

You say it is too easy to offer grass.

It is absurd.

Anyone can offer a blade of grass.

You ask for a poem.

And so I write you a tragedy about

How a blade of grass

Becomes more and more difficult to offer,

And about how as you grow older

A blade of grass

Becomes more difficult to accept.

My favourite poem #4

My nana always really liked this poem. She used to quote it to me when i was younger, and she wrote it out for me on a Christmas card one year, I think while i was on my mission.

"Master, where shall I work today?"
and my love flowed warm and free;
and He pointed out a tiny place,
and said, "Tend that for Me."

But I answered quickly, "O No, not there,
For no one would ever see -
No matter how well my task was done -
Not that little place for me."

"Disciple, search that heart of thine,
Are you working for them or for Me?
Nazareth was just a little place,
And so was Galilee."

Awesome things

So a couple of years ago a guy called Neil Pasricha decided to start documenting positive things and create a blog about 1000 of them, one per day. A couple of years later he is just publishing a book including some of them, he has received two "Webby" awards (apparently the equivalent of online Oscars)and has thousands of followers on his website. It seems that with the recession, grim news, skyrocketing crime rates and societal breakdowns everywhere, people really are looking for a bit of "Pollyanna-ness" to lift them out of the doldrums of life.

So my awesome thing for today: Starting up conversations with random strangers.

Sometimes you overhear a couple of people having a really interesting conversation, and you might think about joining in, but that could turn really bad. They might not like to be disturbed by someone they don't know.

I was on the bus going home tonight, and i overheard this couple next to me talking about needing 6 months validity on a passport to go overseas. I figured they must be going to one of the islands, and i didn't want to interrupt, but i felt uniquely positioned to provide information, since i took some time at work recently looking at passport, visa and documentation requirements for kiwis going to most of the countries around the pacific, asia and america.

So I thought about it for a bit, then there was a lull in their discussion, so I jumped in, "Excuse me, but where are you going?"
"Oh just to australia."
"Oh, well then you don't need 6 months on your passport, it just needs to be valid the day you travel."

Then that led to a further discussion about their planned family trip in June, 8 of them, all trying to sort out tickets and passports so that everything goes smoothly on the day. By the time they got off the bus a few minutes later, all of us smiling amiably at each other, wishing each other well. I had connected with 2 complete strangers and we had temporarily entered into each others spheres of existence, if only for a few minutes. It was a good feeling.

Little people

I really like my nephew. He is so cheeky and charming. He's only 2 but he seems to have had pretty much the same personality since he was born. He loves the outdoors and hates being cooped up inside. Hes fearless (much to the chagrin and occasionally horror of his mother) and inquisitive. Hes a happy little boy, except when he's tired, then he sulks and is grouchy. He likes checking out everything and everyone and is very sociable. Its been so interesting watching his development up til now. I like how children display their emotions so freely, which is something adults learn to avoid doing as they get older.

Today i rung up to talk to his mother who was trying (unsuccessfully) to get him to go to sleep. He kept getting back up so she put him on the phone to me. And he started telling me (in cute broken baby english) 'wot wot today' (He apparently went to a mall today to see the Wot Wots kids tv show characters). My name is "a ree" he can't really say aunty yet, but at least he is trying. Sometimes he calls me 'mum' but i don't think he knows what he's saying.

My favourite poem #3

I had a magic moment just before my mission started several years ago. I was staying with a family in Bountiful, Utah who an old teacher linked me up with, and the Mum & I had just done a temple session in the Salt Lake temple. Then her dad, who was also with us took me on a mini tour through a few of the rooms and introduced me to one of his friends, all i can remember is that he was an elderly man. When he found out i was a kiwi going to Switzerland he started reciting a poem. It felt like i was in a dream, i was so caught up in the words. Several months later my mother sent me a poem that a recently returned missionary in our ward had quoted - and lo and behold, it was the same poem.

To some there comes a call to love a people
A nation, land or race thats not their own
The pages of two calenders will measure, the lives they've touched
and if they've really grown

And more than one has come and gone unnoticed
They find it hard to love a strangers land
They somehow lost the vision they arrived with,
when others built on rock they built on sand

But those who learned to give then keep on giving
And take their worsts and turn it into bests
are those who've learnt that lifes most sacred treasures
Are won by those who've learnt to serve the rest

If you've been called, you'd better know the reason
Without that knowledge, your time is useless there
The Master knows the answers and the questions
He'll help you, but the cross is yours to bear

To some there comes a call to love a people
A nation, land or race thats not their own
and when its done with eyes of tears they'll tell you
This nations mine, this lands become my home

My favourite poem #2

When I was in intermediate school one of my friends memorized the whole of the poem "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes. She would just quote it off the top of her head. My response to that was a much more pitiful attempt to memorize "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. I don't think i ever got to the end. But i liked the way the first few verses felt in my mouth. And i doubt i'll remember it after so long and probably butcher it but heres what I remember of it:

Once upon a midnight dreary while I wandered weak and weary
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore
While i nodded nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door
Tis some visitor i muttered tapping at my chamber door
This it is and nothing more

Ah distinctly i remember as it was in bleak december and each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor
Eagerly i wished the morrow vainly i had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow sorrow for the lost lenore
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named lenore
Nameless here forevermore

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before
So that now to still the beating of my heart i stood entreating
Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door
This it is and nothing more

Well thats all I remember. Not much, but not bad for 16yrs ago.

My favourite poem #1

I came across this little poem in an old church youth magazine, I think from the 70s or 80s. It had been thrown out by my aunty and I somehow inherited it. My favourite ones were the big creativity competition they had every year with poetry, essays, songs and hymns.

Nights black canvas A backdrop of stars
Silently whispers to us of a heritage that is ours
One hand made these stars and scatters them abroad
I feel it with a kinship, I too was made by God

Institute

Tonight i went to Institute for the first time in about 5 years. I stopped going after i graduated because I assumed there wasn't much more I could learn since I'd done all the courses I wanted to do. Then i had lots of odd hours jobs that stopped me going anyway. Somehow with this being the last year i can go i somehow found the desire to start up again, and what do you know, I did learn something.

The date for easter, which changes every year and I always wondered why is chosen as the weekend following the "vernal equinox" (I think thats what the teacher said, I could be wrong) and a full moon. There was a huge golden full moon low to the horizon as I was driving to auckland yesterday morning, it was quite freaky, reminded me of the whole "signs in the heavens" thing the scriptures talk about.

Our other teacher for Family history told us about an online website they have where you can keep a private journal and get them to print it out and send it to you. Ldsjournal.com. I'm not sure how much different that would be to a blog, but I guess if you dont want anyone to read it its a good thing.

Rant

Today im going to rant, whine and complain about something that annoyed me, in the hopes that talking about it will make it go away (ie the bad feelings). I was sitting by myself at the church sacrament meeting and i grabbed a hymn book and put in front of me so i could sing if i wanted to.

For some reason I have problems with lapses of attention when listening to speakers in any situation not just church, sometimes even with friends, I just can't focus on what they're saying for more than a few minutes, unless they're telling a story or new and relevant information, then I find it easy to stay concentrated.

But a way I've figured around that (which especially came in handy for uni lectures) is that if i write while listening then i can absorb more of what the speaker is saying. Its like the disinterested part gets taken up with writing and then the other part of my mind soaks up any audio info coming through.

So i was writing in my journal when the intermediate hymn started, one of my favourites, "Each life that touches ours for good," when this lady who presumably assumed that I didn't want to use it reached across me and took my hymn book (not technically mine, but I felt quite possessive of it anyway) and handed it to some lady in front of her. Who smiled, and i remember thinking what a dazzling smile she had, followed by 'that wench took my book!' Without even asking if I was going to use it, just assuming.

I fumed inwardly through the first two verses then thought maybe singing would calm me down. I already knew all the words so it wasn't like i needed the hymn book but it was the principal of the thing.

For a while I sat there thinking "am i completely invisible?" and feeling that way. Complete lack of acknowledgement from that woman had led me to an inward fury and turmoil over my own self worth.

What annoys me most is not so much what she did - completely ignore me and take my book. Theres always going to be people who are annoying or rude, but what upset me was my own complete failure to voice my opinion or do anything external to resolve my complaint.

Last night at Timezone 12 of us, mostly my sisters in laws all rocked up to the laser game to play what we assumed would be two teams fighting it out in the maze. We sat through the safety briefing and went to get out gun packs, only to be told by the guy there that it was everybody against everybody and no teams, because there were only 14 of us (us and a couple that were already there) and they needed at least 15 to have team games.

My brother in law told him straight up what he thought of that idea, raised his voice and demanded to speak to the manager, who came and sorted it out. Although I was quite shocked at his belligerence, inwardly I wished I could be more like that, just come out with my opinion, never mind what anyone else thought about it, make myself heard and demand a solution that I was happy with.

Holiday

One of the things that I like about holidays, is doing things i wouldn't normally do if i were at home. If i were at home doing something out of my comfort zone, chances are i would run into someone i know and have to deal with awkwardness from them.

But being away from home, and unlikely to run into anyone i know - and given that i will probably never see any of these people again - leaves me free to enjoy myself exactly as I please.

Theres a cyclone blowing in, and it started raining just as i got on the bermuda triangle ride at sea world today, and i forgot how soaked you get when you sit near the front of the boat, and it drops 30 or so metres and consequently i am drenched and have no jacket to put on until i get home. And i promised myself i would go to baskin robbins for icecream which seems redundant since its no longer warm outside and probably getting dark about now.

My feet are sore and my head hurts, I think I hurt my neck on the roller coaster or the jet ski ride but i had a really great day. It was so much fun. I can't remember when i had such a good day out.

In the Gold Coast

Today was awesome. I slept in, got up when i felt like it, went out for breakfast at this themed hot air balloon restaurant, went back home for a swim then went out again on a cruise. If I had people staying with me (the ones who were meant to stay with me and bailed out last minute) I would have been much more subject to their whims, desires and needs.

But because it was just me, I could be as completely selfish as i wanted to and do only the things that i wanted to do. It was a great day.

I ended up on a cruise boat named after a whale from "The Spit" up to the Sovereign islands - very flash houses, one with a roof that cost 1.5million dollars, made of titanium apparently. Apparently the owner is a russian chemist. Imagine being rich enough to be able to spend 18 million on a house and land. I wonder what sort of rates he or she would be paying.

We saw an assortment of australian wildlife, including wallabies, moving rocks which turned out to be soldier crabs, and an assortment of hunting birds. The boat was airconditioned with three tiers, and on the top deck was a cover in the shape and size of a whales tail. The crew were really friendly and the commentary was quite entertaining. TBC

Rethink

Sometimes you repeat an experience that you've had before, or go somewhere you've already been, only to find that the whole thing is completely different. Not so much that the place or thing has changed, but the observer, and therefore all the reactions and emotions are different.

One year ago, i spent two weeks in queensland. It was not fun. Well, some parts were fun, but others were not. I had a weird freakish infection on my foot, which meant that not only could i NOT swim, i was not allowed near salt water, and i could barely walk. I spent the better part of two weeks limping around.

Also with my two young family members in tow, we could not go anywhere without alot of bickering. It didn't take long for me to feel very sorry for their mother. Dealing with them for 2wks is nothing like dealing with them all the time.

We shopped alot. It seems like a big thing to do on the gold coast. At first i thought it was crazy we never went to the beach, and we had a pool at the place we were staying. That was until this year, when i met the jellyfish.

This year has been completely different. Solo adventuring is a great thing. You can go where you want, when you want with nobody making demands on your time. And since you're on holiday, you can feel free to do nothing on a regular basis.

Same place, same person, same balmy temperatures, completely different holiday. Today i went on a ferris wheel. Stunning 360 degree views. I haven't been on one since i was a kid, or maybe i've never been on one and just imagined i had. I hope i'm not mixing reality and dreams again.

I went out west and hung out with my Uncles wife and also met up with this guy whos my very distant cousin. My 4th great grandfather is his great grandfather. He had like 20 years research, family trees, information and a book of family letters and a lot of stories to tell. I feel so blessed.

Homeopathy

The more i learn about health the more intrigued i am by the different ways (eg asian) of looking at the mind body connection. In the western world we have been run by allopathic medicine for such a long time, and anyone out of the box is viewed as a quack or a fraud. But asian therapies seem to have a much more holistic way of viewing disease and health. I think the thing i like most about it is that they treat the person rather than the problem. Each person being individual in their genetic makeup, environmental factors, upbringing, stress levels, nutrition and so forth, it makes sense that a person would require different treatments to obtain maximum vitality than anyone else. ie no "One cure fits all." Im currently learning about the ayurvedic system of health where they group people as vata, kappa or pitta, or combinations of the three.

I was staying with a friend in sydney who has just started studying to be a naturopath. She says i should take up the same degree since i like talking about health so much. She was studying for a homeopathy test at the time i was staying with her, so i got to hear a lot of her revision notes. Prior to this, all i knew about homeopathy was that 'like cures like' (I didn't understand what that meant though). What they do when treating someone in homeopathy is learn all their symptoms, stress levels, whats going on in the persons life so they can get an accurate picture and then determine which herb/drug matches the persons symptoms. The idea being that they then take that drug, dilute it and succuss it (shake) then dilute it some more, so that by the end of it there's no molecular content of the herb left, which is good when you're prescribing someone arsenicum but only the spiritual memory of that drug which is released into the carrier which then the person takes and it tells their body how to treat the cause of the sickness (rather than just suppressing symptoms as most allopathic medicines do). At first it sounded a bit mumbo-jumboish to me.

But the weird thing is that it works. When i first got there Hollie was really sick, she went to a homeopath and got prescribed a treatment. And within 24hrs she was feeling a lot better. It reminds me of something i learnt about ages ago, which i can't remember the proper term for, but it was something about water memories. Water records and remembers things. You give water a message and it holds onto it.

I think it came from the work of Mr Emoto a japanese scientist who wrote messages on water bottles, then froze them into crystals and took photos of the crystals. He also took samples of water from different sources all over the world, waterfalls, city supplies, water that had been blessed, water that had been cursed, water that had had different types of music played to it. Some water formed beautiful well shaped crystals, and some didn't form any crystals at all. So it makes sense that if you introduce something like a herb to water or whatever carrier that it would hold onto that message. Reminds me of a quote I heard once, that stuck with me.

Friends are those who know the song in your heart and play it back to you when your memory of it has gone.
Herbs are those who know your ideal self and remind your body how to restore you to that state.

Old Testament Intrigues

Some sunday school classes are much more entertaining than most. My friend Hollie was teaching our class on sunday. It was one of the most entertaining classes i've ever been to, I'm so glad i skipped out on YSA class. And it was about the Old testament, which is one of the more boring and hard to understand standard works. The lesson was, i think meant to focus on Joseph in egypt and how he managed to wrangle himself out of the clutches of Potiphars wife, the original cougar. But it started off with Josephs mum, dad and aunty. First of all, something i didn't know before, it doesn't have a definition of concubines in the bible dictionary, but they were apparently legal wives, but with less rights than a proper wife.

So Leah was the first wife only because her father married her off without Jacob knowing. Which brings me to my first question. Marriages in Israel were apparently preceded by a bethrothal, which was a legal binding contract between the husband and wife, meaning that they were technically married, only they hadn't yet been through the proper ceremony and they weren't living together. So if Jacob was bethrothed to Rachel first, did swapping her and Leah make such a big difference? And it seems like there's something they're not saying in the story because why would Laban swap his daughters over like that? And why would the girls go along with it? And what does "doe-eyed" mean anyway. Was she short sighted or was something else wrong with her why she wasn't married before Jacob came along? So even though Rachel was obviously the preferred wife, why wasn't she the first wife, since she would have been legally contracted to him prior to their marriage ceremony?

The evidence that she wasn't the first wife is because Reuben, Leah's eldest, got the birthright, until he lost it by cavorting with his father's concubine. At which point it dropped through to the second to last child, Joseph, favoured son of his father. Weird that it didn't go to Leah's next son. And I feel so sorry for her, reading all the names she gave to her sons in the hope that her husband would finally love her. Seems like she got ripped off the most in the story. I wonder what she thought about her father marrying her off to her sisters fiance.

When Joseph went to go visit his brothers, at the tender age of 17, it was apparently 42 miles to wherever he went to visit them to see how they were. Then when he got there he got told they were in Dothan, another 12 miles away. So he took off straightaway to go see them there. Thats when his brothers starting plotting to kill him. It seems like Reuben was either an honourable man, or else repenting of earlier sins, or maybe he just liked his brother, or possibly felt responsible to his father as the eldest son, because he told them not to kill him but to put him in a pit. And its recorded that his plan was to get rid of his brothers and return Joseph safely back to Dad. At which point he went away somewhere, because when he came back they'd sold their little brother into slavery and Reuben was so gutted he rent his coat. Maybe he thought he'd get the blame for something happening to the apple of his fathers eye.

Why did his father send a 17yr old boy off by himself to go see to his brothers, when he was so beloved? Or did Joseph talk his father into letting him go? And what was he thinking telling his brothers and his father about his dream of them all bowing down to him. Did he seriously think they'd not mind? Or maybe he was just oblivious to his brothers envy. In any case, I like considering their motivations and what was going on with them.

Welcome to Australia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy_TB6onHVE

Hilarious!

Encounter of the Ferral Kind

Sweet slumber.

I was jolted awake at 2:30am one morning by the uncomfortable sensation of something small and heavy sitting on my ankles. I got up and turned on the light, and since sleep had completely escaped me, sat on my bed and started writing in my journal. About 10 minutes later from my all purpose room a tiny furry fuzzball scurried into my room and underneath my drawers. I was shocked and horrified.

A few minutes later he or she (henceforth to be named as he) moved outwards to leave and saw me and darted immediately back under the drawers. I was amazed that he could be as terrified of me as I could be of him. I stayed sitting there until it was time for work and then got ready and left in a bad mood because i had not had enough sleep.

I had been hearing scurrying type noises in the roof above my head and around the sides of the walls for a few days but didn't think anything of it. At the time i thought it was a trapped bird. I thought it was a mouse, but it was too big for a mouse, so my conclusion is that it was a rat. Ew a rat.

I told the family i was staying with and we tried a number of remedies - keeping the cat in my room at nights and setting traps in the alcove type storage area. Neither worked. My room is separate to the house but attached to the garage so probably it came through from that way up through the roof and down into my room. I was mortified.

After a few days of cat and trap didn't bring forth any dead bodies the bait came out. It looked like a small bar of blue soap. We put it up high away from the cats reach, since it can apparently kill pets. Now i thought the idea of rat bait is that it makes the creature thirsty so it leaves and goes to water. One night (after the bait had disappeared about three times) i woke up to hear what sounded like something being dragged on the tin shed above me. I hoped it was the rat in its dying throes.

The next day when i got home there was a bad smell in my room. The next day it was worse. Putrid decaying flesh smell. I moved my furniture around to make sure it wasn't underneath, but i'm pretty sure its in the roof. The smell is much worse near the shower. And every day it gets worse. I keep walking in to find blowflies in my room. Its so gross.

I've been sleeping upstairs in the house, thankfully theres a spare bed. Im glad the rat is dead but i wish it had died outside, on the roof, where the birds could have finished off its vermin remains.

Health and Vitality

Last wednesday my sister and I went to a health seminar hosted by a lecturer from a health company (I think it was called Lifestream). He must have been at least 45 (based on the ages of his kids) but he looked so much younger (late 20's ish).

He started life as a sickly prem baby, overloaded with drugs and medicines that never really helped him. When he was older he went on his own personal mission hunting for something to help him improve his health.

3 things I learnt from him.

The beauty of aloe barbadensis. Aloe vera has been known as a medicine for thousands of years (and after hearing what he had to say I really want to go buy me a plant). If you break off a leaf and peel it like a banana you can slice it up, use some of the gel as a skin toner, then eat the rest which helps your digestive system, apparently. I've never tried it but I want to.

If you're addicted to a food, its whats killing you.
Yep sugar and chocolate, I knew it.

The 4 missing food groups from the western diet (he suggested eating one thing each day from each of these) - something raw (eg fruit or veges), something sprouted, something fermented (eg apple cider vinegar or yoghurt) and something soaked (eg nuts).

By the end of it both my sister and I were convinced we should buy a bottle of aloe vera juice, which most likely we will never use, but I did win a bottle of pysllium fibre which was very cool. And since the point of the seminar I'm sure was to sell stuff, they did pretty well.