So, this was Christmas

We trim the apartment with our St. Nicholaus decorations after Thanksgiving. This year it is a quiet time, perhaps more quiet as we organize our memories on all times we celebrated before when our children were very small. It is these memories of family and friends. Times seemed always too short and the house was near empty to those times it was overflowing. People seemed to fit anywhere no matter, we would squeeze someone somewhere. Just to have as many people express the love we have, sharing ourselves for one day of celebration when the rest of the year swallows our time away. Best times are found when in the company of our families. I have cherished every one of these many years. We always overflowed with the food for the dinner and the thrills of this feast for the delicious treats finding their way to our watering mouths. These tastey sweet and savory memories will linger forever in us all. We all have our reasons for our feasts, I think of this one as a challenge to change. Year after year it reminds us of the materials of this world are the least of our worries and that the forgiveness towards each other is most important to me.

No matter how you choose to celebrate this season or the way you honor your family and its distance apart, honor the differences we face as a family and cherish the love in your heart towards each other. Hope that we all can continue to change towards a purpose that includes peace and freedoms. Love that comes with the struggles that we face finding work and continued learning. Peace that generates from our thoughts and actions in our family and extends to our communities. The Spirituality that humbles us, strengthens our convictions and the wisdom to know the differences in ourselves and in helping others. Because we need to be aware of what energy we need to sustain ourselves and what we can give, as a gift to others, when that is all that we have to share.

Salt Lamp

You don't go telling everybody about your lamp that you just bought. Particularly if it is a naturally mined one from salt. But, this is one is interesting as it has a strange story to tell.

Yesterday I was shopping, window shopping only I told myself. I was attracted to a new shop and was hoping it was similar to my favorite one in Santa Barbara called Paradise Found. I always walk out of that shop with a favorite item and some incense. I think I this may be early to judge, but it is close. It first reminded me more of something in Isla Vista, hemp and tye dye when you first walk inside. Nice tables of things you can touch, try and test out. Puzzles first attracted me, then half way in the store I was amazed at all the stones and gems. Next was a very nice display of Lucky Bamboo. The sales person stopped me to ask if they could help me. I most always say, just looking...but I told him I was looking for a gift for my husband. He asked what he likes and I rattled off Tai Chi, Chinese coins...and then he said..I've got something he just might enjoy. We walked past the Lucky Bamboo and a table, with two tiered displayed luminous rocks, three sizes of these rocks. The glow was so strongly attracting me to them. I started touching all of them that were glowing and they were all a gently warm. He described them as Himalayan Salt Lamps. The were all unusual, individual in natural shapes and colors ranging from quartz like white to a deep amber sort of orange or apricot. Not veins, or marble like, but translucent and the warm glow...I could not get enough from the attraction these had on me. In the core center of each was a night light fitting, on a wooden base and a on/off switch.
I purchased one, about 6 lbs heavy. When I gave it to Billy, he was in disbelief, then we turned it on....amazing. We love this lamp, now we started researching about these.

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This is what I found about these: (http://www.naturalsaltcrystallamps.com/how-salt-lamps-work.html)

The salt crystal lamp binds the negative ions with the excess positive ions. When the lamp becomes warm, it absorbs moisture and the crystal will be damp on the surface. This builds up the ion field. Through the lamp, the positively charged atmosphere of a room can be neutralized. In addition to this, the colours of the salt crystal stones have a healing effect. The therapeutic value of the coloured crystals can reorganize the epidermal layer of our skin. Tests made with kids having ADHD symptoms have shown that after only one week of exposure to crystal salt lamps, their symptoms subsided. After removing the lamps, the symptoms returned.

It's a well know fact that, through scientific and empirical research, salt crystal lamps exhibit biophysical characteristics, which demonstrate a positive effect on our well-being. From a scientific view there are three natural action principles at play: ionization, the electromagnetic oscillation and the transparent-crystalline structure developing the light waves.

Characteristics of the salt crystal lamps in detail, we would like to point out that salt is a primal element, like water and air and its natural minerals and trace element have unique biophysical and biochemical characteristics. Salt is to be regarded as neutral, chemically as well as physically, without its own polarity, always balancing and neutralizing. Exactly like our planet earth's makeup, human beings consist of about 70% water; brine water more specifically. This enormous potential on enclosed brine solution transmits the cosmic oscillation (vibration) energy, not only evenly over our planets, but also reaches deep into our most minute cells and nerves. It is not only the salt from a chemical view that the body needs in order to maintain our entire bodily functions, but the salt, from biophysical view, will always be able to bring the body back into its natural energy vibration rhythm.

Worldwide laboratory tests with the most diverse kinds of measuring methodology furnished the proof that lighted salt crystal lamps deliver ions to our environment. Primarily, the research points to an increased number of negative ions. The emission of ions is primarily caused by the alternating actions of the salt's ability to first absorb water, and then evaporate it. To explain this more precisely, the heated salt crystal attracts the water molecules from the ambient air to its surface. The salt goes into a solution as it mixes with the water molecules. Sodium, as the positively charged ion, and chloride, as a negatively charged ion, becomes neutral and are emitted back into the environment. The uniqueness of this ion emission interrelation is only possible with the mineral salt, since salt possesses this transformation ability with water due to its electrically neutral atomic structure.

Scientific investigations of the last decades proved clearly that a balanced ion relationship with a little surplus of negative ions could have extremely positive affects on our entire physical condition and our health. The heated salt crystal lamps can be referred to, according to research, as natural ion generators. Here however it is pointed out that the emission of ions by heated salt crystal lamps, should not be regarded as the primary characteristic, because from scientific standpoint, the surplus of negative ions is negligible. More important is its ability to clean the ambient air. Depending upon size and surface area of the salt crystal used for the lamp, the ambient air surrounding it is measurably cleaned by the transformation cycle of hydrogen and oxygen, as well as sodium and chloride ions. This characteristic is especially helpful for relieving the symptoms associated with asthma and allergies in general.

The research of the characteristics of pure, or cleaned air through the action of the salt crystal lamps, is based on a medical therapy called Spelaeotherapy, a treatment where the patient enters an underground salt mine and is exposed to the concentrated atmosphere of negative ions. Further scientific research has not taken place yet under medical guidance, since scientific investigations are still at the beginning stages. One cannot compare the therapeutic effect of a singular salt crystal lamp to the effects found in a salt cave (mine), when conducted according to medical guidelines. However, there have been a great variety of holistic and positive self-therapy results, which can be classified as scientifically subjective, and should be recognized and considered.

Also, a salt crystal, in its neutral state, exhibits this exact frequency oscillation value. But due to our industrialized and technical way of life, the human organism is being affected, particularly in our homes and offices, to artificial electromagnetic wavelengths with the most diverse frequency values, caused by electronics devices. These frequencies have been proven not only to disturb our human organism, but also to promote illness, since they constantly overlap our natural resonant frequency. As a result of this constant exposure to various frequencies, our own electromagnetic energy field becomes imprinted by the frequencies forced upon it, which upsets the natural development of our cells. Because of the atomic structure of the salt, which is already neutral, it is most likely that the artificial frequencies can be harmonized or balanced by the lit salt lamp as it works as a natural amplifier for the resonant frequency of 8-10 cycles per second, which is so necessary for our life. With the use of a salt crystal lamp we can adjust and neutralize electromagnetic wavelengths caused by electronic devices in natural way.

The healing effect of colors was introduced to me by Acupuncture. This is a partial list of effects:

• Orange - Facilitates a feeling of security and is helpful to our nervous system and our mind and activates the kidneys and bladder.
• Yellow - Encourages intellectual comprehension and activates the pancreas, liver and gall bladder.
• Red - Strengthens the vital life force and activates the heart and circulation.
• Pink - Supports the sense of partnership and love and opens your emotional body.
• White - Has a cleansing and detoxifying effect and represents the healing aspect.
• Brown - Helps to find ones own balance and supports earthiness.

When we talk about light we mean, for the most part, the oscillation energies, or electromagnetic wavelengths, which lie in a nanometer, range visible to our human eye. From the colour therapy it is well-known that the human organism needs the light waves of the rainbow spectrum (300-700 nanometers) for the health and preservation of the body. Our body's cells are supplied by light with new energy in the form of electromagnetic wavelengths. Thus the atomic structure of each individual cell vibrates in its own given order and can radiate bio photons as the cell's own electromagnetic energy field.

The specific oscillation values of salt crystal lamps depend upon crystalline colour structure in the so-called warm clay/tone range of 600-700 nanometers. For decades, the field of medicine has been using irradiation with monochromatic light, since these colour vibration areas exert direct influence on our cell producing functions. To what extent a salt crystal lamp can be employed for natural irradiation therapy, is yet to be seen without further research. However, salt crystal lamps have been used therapeutically for years.

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After all this reading, I still have the same feeling I got the first reaction from these...similar to that of cozy near a campfire in the outdoors, coals from the campfire and the night sky, stars and the moon...dreamy.

School break for this Oma of 2009

I'll continue to struggle for the units and credits to obtain my degree. It doesn't matter to anyone but yourself. You can list all the reasons you want about not finishing High School or not starting College, or dropping out of College. However, you can't change the fact how high the bar has been raised for specific careers. Sorry to admit that age must be considered in some careers. Not so much in the physical requirements of a job, but the mental situation too. When you consider computer software that you may need to learn. What do you do with all the older versions and software stuffed into your brain? Memory builds up like an attic or basement, and where is the Salvation Army to take away all the donations of unnecessary software memory? I want to dump it into the nearest receptical. So, if we are getting older, and our brains shrink due to age the solution is dump the garbage...but how? As I learn new software and classes for school this old information rises to the surface and I just sweep it under the rug or close the lid and try to forget about it. Somehow, old memory doesn't like to be replaced. Something like a cognitive thing I guess. I'll have to try to bring that up as a question in my Biology class next term. Meanwhile, struggles are a good thing, it means to me that I am learning and perhaps the old memory becomes just a few dust bunnies...I'll try to ignore them.

Cooked, Raw, Hot or Cold?

Food is always on my mind.
I am no saint, but I love sitting at a nicely set table, have nice music on and Billy sitting across from me as we enjoy a meal together. It is the most cherished moment in my day. I have an old favorite cookbook that I have had to replace once. It had become so tattered and worn that the pages were falling out. So I found it online back in the 80's and take better care of it, but...it still is resembling my original in it's well worn hard back cover. It is starting to look like the flimsy sort of cook books, the only differnce is the stains that baptised its useage. It's not filled with pictures or drawings that attracted me to this book, it's just a book. Before computers, you had to search to find out how to cut, broil, poach or steam in the ways our mothers...didn't. I love food from all over this planet. Their are many items I haven't bitten into yet, or let dribble down my chin or let spill in haste to enter my lips all over my white shirt. Oh...I love to try new things too. I will never forget my approach to poaching an egg without the tools I've seen at stores. But, my researching has expanded into the internet when I crave for a savory, tasety goodness. Learning these words from my son, who has asked often for my meatloaf, dutch mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts and gravy over these many years. My daughters have such a sweet tooth and romance flavors and smells of food more than I do. Now they take wooden spoons and cast iron pots to their own stoves and master basic skills and experiments in their own kitchens. I know and please myself in knowing my children will never be without the means or knowledge on cooking or even eating out.....even if more than occationally.

I simply love that a cauliflowerhas so many directions to be served and is one of my favorite items that I serve weekly and most times more often than most like. You don't have to drag children into the kitchen to cook. You just need to give the child a variety of foods to enjoy in all its different ways till they find out for themselves if they like it cooked, raw, hot or cold.

Cauliflower is low in fat, high in dietary fiber, folate, water and vitamin C, possessing a very high nutritional density. As a member of the brassica family, cauliflower shares with broccoli and cabbage several phytochemicals which are beneficial to human health, including sulforaphane, an anti-cancer compound released when cauliflower is chopped or chewed. In addition, the compound indole-3-carbinol, which appears to work as an anti-estrogen, appears to slow or prevent the growth of tumors of the breast and prostate.[8] Cauliflower also contains other glucosinolates besides sulfurophane, substances which may improve the liver's ability to detoxify carcinogenic substances.[9] A high intake of cauliflower has been found to reduce the risk of aggressive prostate cancer.[10]

Student Weather

No riding a bike and avoiding traffic...no going in early to find a parking place either...just in front of a monitor for my school.
Well, so I have begun the student life. What have I started!!!
I've made a few friends on campus and have them in several of my classes, not just this first one. May prove interesting and should stretch out my computer skill level and renovate the remaining room in my brain.

Small is our simple place

Texas Wisteria, seed pods are in a special tin container waiting to be planted. I don't know if they will grow in a pot on my patio, but I want to try. I have a vision of weaving them as you would a lactic trellis as it grows into a screen. I may have to grow several in pots, perhaps as many as six of them. The pots must have a rolling base so that they can move when I need to roll them aside. I would like to place clay masks inside, so when it is not in bloom the mask can face the outside. This may take a few years to grow...I have time and patience like I never had before now.

Hibernation doesn't always happen in winter

When lizards are cold they like to sun themselves on the rocks, soak in the warm rays of the morning. I find myself also hibernating, coming out only to shop for groceries, hair color or some odd essential. I used to enjoy the occational shopping trips, when you can spare the few bucks. It is so difficult to spend now, money or time, so I hibernate.

So I find that I resort to thinking like those bears in caves, beavers in the dams they build and tightly huddle with what I do have and keep to myself. But, now it's but a few days before summer...and I find myself in the same thought as if I were hibernating. It's okay, if money is tight, or you want to save for that rainy day. To make it a every day lifestyle, that's not healthy. People need people and sharing the daily tough times and good times is what makes us friends.

I am reminded of my parents and my father most. I never met his friends, they were all stories and coworkers. None ever came to our house for a nice chat or shared a meal together. Dad didn't dine out or have time with the boy's, go fishing, hunting, meet at a bowling alley...never. Why?

I trust my family remembers our friends and visitors, we had pot-lucks, birthday parties, celebrations of life, passings of time remembered with talks, gatherings around food, stars, sunsets, daybreaks. Life is worth celebrating and nothing says it more than with the company of friends.

Understanding our place and space here

In an apartment is it understood that you are occupying space which you use and upon ending a contract, vacate. If you move around various locations, how do you develop 'roots'? You may have assigned a town, city or location on the globe as your roots. Getting involved in a community surely earns you the right to develop roots. But, what connection, if known, do you really come from. Your parents had roots, where you may have been born are roots, where you have lived the longest may be your roots, perhaps where you are now are your roots. How do you identify those roots? I have known many that have moved every year in their lives. Even if they never have returned to where they were born they most often use their birthplace as their roots, and then are quick to point out other places where they have identity, longest lived place, school age city, college state. But we also connect with a place as it resembles most about ourselves, or what we would like to associate with coming from, our 'roots'.

Learning about my past has confused me. I do not identify with my family history, the different country where I was born, where I have lived but places I have visited. Short periods of time, vacations, adventures and other ethnic family histories which I know are not associated with 'roots' or heritage.

The term indigenous peoples can be used to describe any ethnic group of people who inhabit a geographic region with which they have the earliest known historical connection, alongside immigrants which have populated the region and which are greater in number. However, several widely accepted formulations, which define the term indigenous peoples in stricter terms, have been put forward by prominent and internationally recognized organizations, such as the United Nations, the International Labour Organization and the World Bank. Indigenous peoples in this article is used in such a narrower sense.

Other related terms for indigenous peoples include aborigines, native peoples, first peoples, first nations, Amerigine, and autochthonous (this last term having a derivation from Greek, meaning "sprung from the earth").

Having written this, being born of Indonesian parents that did not want to associate themselves with their birthplace, but of their fathers of the Netherlands, or what they liked to say European and becoming American Citizens in the 1960's. Even I, born in the Netherlands liked to camouflage what ever someone wanted to label me. Hopi, Navajo, Mexican all was acceptable for my color and face shape for being in California. What a melting pot that was! Never did anyone to this day say European or the Netherlands, I didn't fit the description of the history of Europe. Why is it that people need the association of a persons heritage or find it a necessity to 'guess' the heritage of the person they are speaking to? Somehow I failed to fit every persons guess and description of what they saw me as. More often it was upsetting to not to guess correctly by whites then of non whites. And then I filled out applications of race with...white, non latino nor hispanic, why is this required?

Test yourself next time walking in the store, mall or post office. Pick the person that doesn't appear American, Texan and try not to suddenly guess before asking them for directions to a bathroom. Where you straining to hear a hint of an accent?

Spring '09 Oak Hill

Oak Hill...or SW central Austin.
Comfortable rolling hills with nests of homes hidden in the landscape. Spring is here, warm 80 degrees then a cold wind enters, rain begins and then goes on the rest of the afternoon. Rains stop, and suddenly everyone wants to BBQ. The air smells fresh and sweet with smokey chicken, ribs and brisket...yummmy.



Moving here has not been easy when you have lived in California most of your life. But, having moved here has been the best thing we did. Friendly and blessed people, keeping Austin weird...that is a good enough reason to stay here. Add 2 weird and one cute Catahoula.



The city scape is sudden, after all the rolling hills.



My kind of country...