| Thursday, September 4, 2003 |  |
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 4 Sep 2003 @ 20:31
From September 2003 Magical Blend
For two decades, self-help books have hammered home a consistent theme for successful romantic relationships: first, you must love yourself. A new study, headed by a psychologist at the University of Georgia, may turn that wisdom on its head, though.
It turns out that those with positive self-views bordering on narcissism are usually miserable mates--selfish, manipulative, unfaithful, and power hungry. The study, co-authored by Keith Campbell, assistant professor of psychology at UGA, Craig Foster of the U.S. Air Force Academy, and Eli Finkel of Carnegie-Mellon University, was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Clinical narcissism itself is a personality disorder affecting only about one percent of the population, but there are millions who share characteristics of narcissists to a greater or lesser degree. In general, true narcissists think very highly of themselves, are not very concerned with intimacy, and believe they are unique and smarter and more attractive than others. They often maintain these feelings by seeking and expressing superiority to or dominance over others.
Despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary, men are only slightly more likely than women to fall into this category. Narcissists often find it easy to get dating partners but rarely have long-term relationships. People with low opinions of themselves may be especially easy prey for narcissists.
Viewing excessive narcissism as a problem is nothing new, of course. In Greek myth, Narcissus saw himself as beautiful and better than those around him, but his love of himself kept him from falling in love with anyone else. In the end, he fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water and died.
If you want to read more on narcissism check out Sam Vaknin, Ph.D's website. It has lots of information and links...good reading.
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 4 Sep 2003 @ 21:04
By Gaia Vince August 27, 2003 New Scientist
Eating chocolate can boost the level of heart-protecting antioxidants in the blood, but consuming milk at the same time cancels the potential health benefits, according to a new study.
The researchers speculate that milk may also have the same effect on other antioxidant-rich foods, including fruit and green vegetables.
Researchers in Scotland and Italy looked at the body's absorption of an antioxidant found in cocoa, called epicatechin, and a type of flavonoid.
Dark chocolate contains about twice the amount of flavonoids as milk chocolate, so 12 healthy volunteers were given either 100 grams of plain chocolate or 200 grams of milk chocolate. Some were also given 200 ml of milk to drink in the double-blind experiment. The levels of antioxidant in their blood plasma were tested after one, two and four hours.
Maximum benefit
"Those volunteers who had dark chocolate had a 20 per cent increase in antioxidants in their plasma," says Alan Crozier, one of the team at the University of Glasgow. "But those who had milk chocolate, or milk with their dark chocolate, showed no increase in epicatechin plasma levels,"
Four hours after eating the chocolate, all the volunteers' blood antioxidant levels had returned to normal. To gain the maximum potential benefits from chocolate, Crozier suggests it may be advisable to refrain from milk products during that period.
"Presumably the epicatechins are binding to the milk proteins," he told New Scientist . "Dairy products may inhibit the body's absorption of flavonoids from other foods as well."
Antioxidants are involved in lowering the levels of free-radicals in the blood. Prolonged and high-level exposure to free radical has been linked to cardiovascular disease and some cancers.
Journal reference: Nature (vol 424, p 1013)
For another article on the benefits of Chocolate, check http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/74/5/563
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| Saturday, August 30, 2003 | |
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 30 Aug 2003 @ 23:15
From Grist Magazine:
A new injection for men could shake up the world of contraceptives by Audrey Schulman
13 Aug 2003
If you plan to have sex anytime soon, let's hope it's not in Niger, Africa.
According to the nonprofit organization Save the Children, just 4 percent of couples in Niger have access to birth control. Although the situation in this West African country is extreme, more than 125 million couples worldwide -- most of them in developing countries -- cannot get contraceptives. Some of the children that have resulted from these couplings were wanted and some were not, but one thing is certain: Lack of access to birth control increases the burden on already strained parents and on the global ecosystem.
Sujoy Guha, professor of biomedical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, believes he has the answer to this problem. Highly regarded in India for his work on everything from disability rights to drinking-water purification, Guha has spent the last 25 years perfecting his invention, Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance, better known (thankfully) as RISUG. RISUG, he says, has all the advantages of the perfect contraceptive -- and, some would say, a surprising bonus: It's made for men.
RISUG works by an injection into the vas, the vessel that serves as the exit ramp for sperm. The injection coats the vas with a clear polymer gel that has a negative and positive electric charge. Sperm cells also have a charge, so the differential charge from the gel ruptures the cell membrane as it passes through the vas, stopping the sperm in their tracks before they can even start their journey to the egg. RISUG doesn't affect the surrounding tissues because they have no charge.
Compared to the other male contraceptive choices currently available -- abstinence, withdrawal, condoms, and vasectomies -- RISUG is a whole new ballgame. In fact, Guha and others believe, the contraceptive promises to be even better than the choices available to women. Guha enumerates six advantages of his invention:
First, neither sexual partner has to interrupt the throes of passion to use it -- no more running to the bathroom and fumbling with various ointments and plastics.
Second, the process, once it is refined and approved, will be completely non-surgical. Whew, say a lot of men.
Third, it's long-lasting. According to Guha, a single injection can be effective for at least 10 years.
Fourth, after testing RISUG on more than 250 volunteers, neither Guha nor other researchers in the field have found side effects more worrisome than a slight scrotal swelling in some men immediately following the injection. This swelling goes away after a few weeks. Compare that to the Pill, which even today can cause health problems ranging from severe migraines to ovarian cancer.
Fifth, it works. Of all the men who've had the RISUG injection (and 15 of the 250 had it more than 10 years ago), there has been only one unplanned pregnancy among their partners -- and in that instance, the injection wasn't administered properly.
Sixth, and best of all, the contraceptive appears to be reversible with another injection. To date, reversing the procedure has been tried only on non-human primates, but among them, it's been reversed successfully multiple times.
If RISUG's current stage of clinical testing goes well, it will be on the market in India by next year. Within a few more years, if all proceeds as planned, the injection to reverse it will also be on the market.
Just Shoot Me!
But would men in India -- or anywhere else -- use it? Every U.S. male authority I talked to in the field, including experts at the World Health Organization and the U.S. Agency for International Development, pooh-poohed the idea. "Men don't like doctors to have anything to do with their testicles," summarized Don Waller, a contraceptives expert and professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Maybe not -- but one in six married men in the U.S. have had vasectomies, which definitely require medical personnel poking at the gonads. Moreover, surveys conducted by the University of Edinburgh, the Kaiser Foundation, and other entities have shown that in countries as diverse as Hong Kong, South Africa, and the U.S., the majority of men say they want more options for male contraceptives.
But even if men used RISUG, would women trust them? It's doubtful that the whispered promise of having been RISUGed would fly during a one-night stand. However, in the context of a committed relationship, RISUG could shift some of the responsibility for family planning off the women who have borne (and born) too much of it for too long, at the expense of their health, time, finances, and emotions.
That shift is definitely possible, according to Ronald Weiss, a vasectomy specialist in Toronto, who says men's attitudes toward contraception are changing. "In Canada, 10 years ago, it used to be tubal ligations [the more-invasive female equivalent of a vasectomy] to vasectomies were performed at a ratio of 2 to 1. Now that number is reversed." Weiss believes a lot of men would prefer a procedure that wasn't permanent. And, he says, RISUG is the most promising male contraceptive out there.
Still, there's been a lot more media fervor over the possibility of a male version of the Pill -- even though its potential side effects for men include everything from liver damage and prostate problems to what is referred to in the literature as gynecomastia. Translation: Men growing breasts.
Weiss thinks RISUG is preferable. "The only people who should be excited about the male Pill are pharmaceutical companies," he said. He believes so much money has been poured into researching the Pill because pharmaceutical companies want something consumers will have to buy again and again -- as opposed to an inexpensive, one-time injection. In the U.S., a decade of the female Pill costs about $3,600. RISUG would be dramatically less expensive, while pharmaceutical companies would have to pay $25 million to $40 million to bring it to market.
But from the consumers' point of view, RISUG could be a godsend during the approximately 30 years the average person spends trying not to cause a pregnancy. It would mean fewer women getting cancer from the Pill or having their uteruses perforated by an errant IUD. It would mean fewer men having to choose between the risk of a burst condom or the permanence of a vasectomy.
And in the developing world, RISUG would mean much more.
This Little Injection Went to Market ...
"Realize that overseas there just aren't decent options," said Elaine Lissner, director of the Male Contraception Information Project. "By the time condoms arrive there, they're cracked by the heat. Poverty and lack of medical follow-up are a problem. You can't use a diaphragm if you don't have clean running water. You can't use an IUD if no medical treatment exists if something goes wrong. You can't use the Pill if it's too expensive."
In the developing world, RISUG's price tag could be brought down to about $22, the price at which Guha and Indian Drugs & Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (the largest Indian drug company) are planning to market it in India. This makes RISUG potentially affordable by even the world's poorest.
Studies have shown that when couples in the developing world start having fewer children, both the health and literacy of the children improve, and mothers are more likely to survive long enough to raise their kids. Moreover, families with fewer children have less impact on the natural world, because they are not as desperate for firewood, water, and bush meat.
This "less children/healthier environment" connection has become so clear that wildlife organizations have started to team up with family-planning groups in biodiversity-rich areas of the world. In the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, Conservation International is working with Mexfam to slow the clearing of the forests as well as to offer people there the option of reproductive health care.
Inevitability, talk of providing contraceptives to people in developing countries raises allegations of racism -- but there's a huge difference between forced eugenics and offering people the choice to control their own fertility. According to Save the Children, 72 percent of Sweden's population has access to contraceptives; why shouldn't the same choices be available in Niger? With the world's population growing by 77 million people per year, access to contraceptives is not something the industrialized world can continue to hog.
So far, what's holding up the potential marketing of RISUG outside of India is safety testing. Although the Indian medical community maintains that its safety testing is better than that of the U.S., Jeff Spieler, chief of research at USAID's Office of Population and Reproductive Health, said, "The pre-clinical toxicology testing in India [on RISUG] was weak."
Lissner agreed that some of the older studies should be redone, but given the near-perfect record of RISUG so far, she noted, "If I were a man, I'd feel safer having RISUG injected than eating non-organic fruit."
RISUG will probably soon be marketed in India, but the U.S. will play a critical role in determining its use elsewhere in the developing world. Grants from U.S. agencies, corporations, and nonprofits spur on a significant portion of the world's research. But, said Waller of the University of Illinois, "If funds from the U.S. are paying for another country's research, then the research has to be already approved by the FDA. Otherwise it looks like we're using the rest of the world as experimental subjects." Thus, lack of interest in RISUG by the U.S. helps delay its use around the world.
Meanwhile the developing world waits.
As Lissner said, "Every month we delay means thousands more women dying in childbirth, more families in poverty from too many children, and more women dying in attempted abortions."
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| Monday, August 25, 2003 | |
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 25 Aug 2003 @ 14:31
70 Up is a multimedia project whose mission is to put forth a positive image of women's aging via a travelling exhibit, web site and book. It seeks to highlight older women's productivity and contributions to society and family. 70 Up is a vehicle that encourages intergenerational understanding. The goal is to reframe the way we think about women's aging by exposing the public to images of strong, vibrant, and passionate women who are in the thick of life.
70 Up delves into the lives of 30 remarkable and ethnically diverse women through photography and interviews. It explores what the real deal is post seventy on subjects such as power, sex, love, fear, courage and aging itself. Surprisingly refreshing takes on topics like these are revealed through candid interviews. Combined with cutting edge photography, we are impelled to see aging through raybans not granny specs! Our old ideas are turned upside down and are replaced with exciting, new images of aging.
The photographs and interviews challenge traditional ideas about aging. By putting forth refreshing and inspiring images of aging, 70 Up helps build a bridge of understanding between older and younger generations. This link between generations is crucial to ensuring that older persons are valued, their rights are guaranteed and their voices are heard. 70 Up delivers the message to young people that elders are not a separate species, but people like themselves, just later in life. The women of 70Up inspire us about the possibilities that are available to us in the later years of life.
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 25 Aug 2003 @ 14:12
I woke up this morning before dawn feeling small in my bed. I stepped out on the deck to see Mars in the sky. (Mars is closer to the Sun and Earth than in 60, 000 years. Mars is officially at perigee, its closest approach to Earth, on August 27, the day of the New Moon.) I sense the canyon speaking to me about changes that are taking place as the wheel of the year turns.
I take inspiration from the words of Joanna Macy from her writings about the Great Turning. As above, so As below:
Come from Gratitude To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe--to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it--is a wonder beyond words. Gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of all true art. Furthermore, it is a privilege to be alive in this time when we can choose to take part in the self-healing of our world.
Don't be Afraid of the Dark This is a dark time, filled with suffering and uncertainty. Like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So don't be afraid of the anguish you feel, or the anger or fear, for these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings. To suffer with is the literal meaning of compassion.
Dare to Vision Out of this darkness a new world can arise, not to be constructed by our minds so much as to emerge from our dreams. Even though we cannot see clearly how it's going to turn out, we are still called to let the future into our imagination. We will never be able to build what we have not first cherished in our hearts..
Roll up your Sleeves Many people don't get involved in the Great Turning because there are so many different issues, which seem to compete with each other. Shall I save the whales or help battered children? The truth is that all aspects of the current crisis reflect the same mistake, setting ourselves apart and using others for our gain. So to heal one aspect helps the others to heal as well. Just find what you love to work on and take joy in that. Never try to do it alone. Link up with others; you'll spark each others' ideas and sustain each others' energy..
Act your Age Since every particle in your body goes back to the first flaring forth of space and time, you're really as old as the universe. So when you are lobbying at your congressperson's office, or visiting your local utility, or testifying at a hearing on nuclear waste, or standing up to protect an old grove of redwoods, you are doing that not out of some personal whim, but in the full authority of your 15 billions years.
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| Sunday, August 24, 2003 | |
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 24 Aug 2003 @ 22:08
In the very beginning,
the girl-child loves her body.
Women of all ages are doing violence to their bodies and injuring their natural body-intelligence and body-shape. Choosing to treat one's body violently whether through repeated bingeing/starving diet cycles, obsessive exercise regimens, life-threatening starvation, or cosmetic surgery has become customary and even celebrated among American women.
We are outraged by the ancient custom of foot binding and by the continuing custom of genital mutilation and yet in record numbers we are choosing to have our breasts cut open and augmented, our noses broken and reshaped, our wrinkles injected with collagen or botox, our faces manipulated and peeled, and our bodies exercised and starved to death.
Self-loathing trickles down from generation to generation. Our mothers, supported by the culture, passed on the necessity of ornamentalism, the tyranny of the scale, the fear of food, and the dread of aging to us. And, yes, mothers also pass on their self-love, and the forbidden acts it inspires.
While speaking at a church in Delaware, I noticed a lovely thirty-something woman and her family in the front pew. After the service, she approached me. I commented on the loveliness of her gray hair. "I keep it gray for my daughters," she said. " I want them to grow up loving everything about themselves so I've had to be willing to love and accept myself. My actions speak louder than my words to my daughters."
Inspired by a time when women honored the body of the Goddess in their changing bodies, refuse to spend your precious life energy hiding your body, disguising the signs of aging, and keeping the realities of your life a secret. Rather, celebrate the accumulation of your years and wisdom, and the changes in your body and life.
Your forbidden acts are a prayer for your daughters, granddaughters, and nieces. Inspired by you, they will refuse to twist their female bodies out of shape. Supported by you, they will refuse to please others by becoming smaller than they are. Encouraged by you, they will love their woman-bodies through all the seasons of life.
May we all, mothers and daughters, aunts and nieces, nanas and granddaughters, discover the divine within us and love her fiercely. May we honor her face as we look into the mirror. Bless her body as we shower and bathe. Celebrate her life in the telling of our stories. May we face her without shrinking, she is lovely to behold.
Breathing in...I honor the body of the Goddess
Breathing out...in my changing body.
Breathing in...I refuse to use my precious life-energy
Breathing out..disguising the changes in my body.
Breathing in...As it was in the very beginning
Breathing out...may it be now.
Healing Blessings, Patricia Lynn Reilly
* Silver Threads is an excerpt from my new book "The Book of Woman: A Daily Reader of Inspiring Words."
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 24 Aug 2003 @ 20:57
Wow! Where does all the time go? I had hoped to post to my blog while in Glastonbury, England, but I found that I am not that 'techie' when it comes right down to it.
This morning I woke up to Dina Bachlor's weekly message:
Dearest all,
T.S. Elliott reminds us that only those who will risk going too far can possible find out how far one can go. Therefore we must each be willing to step away from our "you go first" attitude and become the pioneers we came here to be. Are you willing to find out what the response to standing in your integrity might really be? Are you willing to love without a single expectation so that you can stretch your own heart and find out what it feels like to become the love itself? Are you willing to stop trying to change those people in your life who do not recognize and support your spirit and find the ones who will? Are you willing to be the spirit you are at work, at play and in precious connection between you and your beloved? Are you willing to stop expecting unconscious people to act in conscious ways? Are you willing to give up smallness in order to get to your own greatness? How far are you willing to go? Step off the edge. But, be careful, you may find there is greater safety and aliveness in the unknown where every probability and possibility exists … than in the known where the choices have all been made.
Love
Dina
© Dr. Dina Bachelor Evan, Phoenix Arizona -August -2003
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| Tuesday, July 29, 2003 | |
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 29 Jul 2003 @ 19:45
Jewels and I went to the Glastonbury Symposium to hear what [http://www.cropcircleradius.com/AboutUs.html|Michael Glickman} had to say about Squares, String and Ribbons. You can read about his research and work here He gave a great presentation, full of humor and wonder.
Not sure if we will make it to any of the crop circles this year, though we did make a date to visit Michael next week. We shall see where my adventures in Avalon take me.
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| Monday, July 28, 2003 | |
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 28 Jul 2003 @ 18:59
Hard to believe this is the first time on a computer in 5 days. I must say I hardly missed it, though I am glad that I got on to clear emails.
Travels across the pond were uneventful, by the Grace of Goddess. With the rain coming and going.
Someone asked me today if I had jet lag. I laughed, how can anyone tell in Glastonbury? I seem to slip between the edges of time. I guess my first clue was the white rabbit I saw on the road, dashing off with a brown wild rabbit on my way out of the canyon.
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| Monday, July 21, 2003 | |
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 21 Jul 2003 @ 14:03
Laurel Kitten moved her dance classes to Monday nights for the summer and changed locations.
We had a great time last Tuesday.
Come join in the weaving of ancient/future story telling. Spirit dance is a space where we hold sacred counsel for women. A place to vision and remember. Our moments together will be of intention setting, prayer, yoga, dance, witnessing and reflection.
Classes start Monday July 21, 2003 7:00 - 9:30pm at Tribal Temple Studio 1224 S. Sycamore Ave Los Angeles,90019
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"In chaos theory, the edge is the meeting point between order and chaos, between the known and the unknown. In nature it is where creativity and self-organizing happen. It is where new information is created."
Dana Zohar & Ian Marshall
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"Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery."
Martha Graham, Blood Memory |
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Morphogenesis - Priestessing on the edge of chaos
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