The Power Of Walking Our Personal Paths On This Planet & A Summer Refresher Drink Recipe!

The Native Americans use the term Medicine Path to describe our personal path on this planet; the gifts we have to offer to all life on this planet. What a strong message this sends: when we do what we are personally meant to be doing on our life walk it is healing to our body, mind, and spirit and healing medicine to those we share our gifts with. Each of us has a purpose, a story to tell, a gift to share with the world to make this place a better place for all. When we listen, truly listen to our heart-spirit, we know our special gift(s) to share. 

Are you connected with your purpose here, the gift you need to be sharing with others?

In my young teenage years I knew I wanted to be a health teacher. Going to RN school, right after high school, seemed to me a great place to start (When I look at my life in retrospect... I was not consciously thinking this out at the time!).  Nursing school taught me that our medical field works to decrease and cover the symptoms of ill health but really does very little, if anything, to get to the root cause of ill health and heal it. Health Education was my answer to get on prevention end and help people understand what causes disease, what promotes healthy bodies, and how to best make that happen in their lives. The road of life led me to my own practice, supporting other's desire to return to health is my medicine walk on this earth.

Finding your path in life means creating space to listen, truly listen to your heart and spirit talking to you:

• take walks in nature, relax and listen to what comes up without creating actual thoughts
• speak positive words about yourself and the world around you, your words create your reality and ripple out to the reality of the whole universe
• practice some form of mind-body-spirit activity, daily, that leads you back to you: yoga, tai chi, qigong, meditation, prayer...
• surround yourself with positive people, positive media, positive energy... positive food for mind-body-spirit
• eat whole foods so your body cells vibrate at their highest nutritional frequency
• discover what makes you happy and color your world happy!

All of these actions help you, your whole being, vibrate at your highest life force energy frequency. This is your medicine path in the making!

In my quest to do the best I can with what I do... I have devised a questionnaire for new clients to determine if I am the right choice for them on their healing path.  This questionnaire also helps me to determine if a client is the right fit for me and what I have to offer. The right fit, on both sides, creates happy clients who desire to be successful in this healing walk with me! We work together to color each other's worlds happy!

Summer Citrus Cooling Drink

• 1 lime
• 2 cups water
• 6 or so ice cubes
• optional: fresh herbs from the garden: mint, basil, tarragon, cilantro are all good choices; use one or two at a time

1. Wash off the lime and quarter it, put in blender (yes, skins & all as the skin contains amazing anti-oxidants... anti-cancer properties!)
2. add water & ice cubes
3. blend into a frenzy
4. pour into tall sipping glasses, add herbs, and enjoy (wide mouth pint canning jars work well)
5. PS add a touch of whole food sweetener if too tart for your taste buds but go very easy as sugar is not a cell enhancing food

I have made this with fresh lemons, oranges, peach & nectarines, berries, etc. Use your imagination and let the seasonal fruit offerings guide your choices.

RACK-ing Up Great Health!

I recently created the above image and idea I am calling R-A-C-K-ing up Health to remind people how easy the return to vibrant health is. When we follow life's plan, the natural laws of the earth and universe, our health flows freely.

I was thinking about this very concept as I was picking black raspberries at my Mom & Dad's home on Saturday morning. I began picking them planning to take them to my home and share the bounty. My kids were gone for the weekend so instead the hand to mouth experience began.

By the time I left my parent's home I bet I had picked and eaten, sharing with my good buddy Basil of course, a quart of these juicy delicacies. That is some powerful and colorful nutrition based upon the stains on my hands, face, tongue, lips, and teeth!  (The picture below is Basil and I on a little north country Hornbeck canoeing excursion.)

The thoughts of vibrant, live food kept passing through my mind and how much nutrition and life force energy our bodies receive when we pick and eat food immediately. Ah yes, the grace of local food, raised by ourselves or a conscious thinking farmer, brought to our tables within a short time frame to fill our body cells with nutrition and our entire being with chi energy.

When we pick plant based food from its life source, its source of life force energy, that plant based food begins to die.  The longer the time span between plucking or pulling the food from its source, the less nutrition and life force energy remain available to nourish your body. Grow, pick, and buy local for the most cell enhancing nutrition and life force energy infusion you can gift your body with.

To find local farmers here in Northern NY State: www.gardenshare.org

To find local farmers wherever you are: www.localharvest.org

Jump down below those gorgeous berries for a bit more life enhancing advice and a yummy, iced coffee recipe.

Eating fresh food is but one way we can enhance our life force energy and cellular health. Try these natural habits for increasing your vibrancy:

• deep breathing in a relaxed and peaceful way
• yoga
• meditation
• walks in the woods and time spent in nature (remember, you are nature)
• laugh
• acupuncture and energy healing methods
• take a swim in an Adirondack lake
• love with your whole heart

Added July 16th...

• Fun Loving Spontaneity increases Life Force Energy. See the words of wisdom, below, from Shelby Connelly, Five Elements Living, Colton, NY

Ingredients for spontaneity:

• The ability to let go:  Take a deep breath and jump. The chores and routine will await your return.
• Knowing life is short:  No one ever lays on their death bed wishing they had worked more.
• A friend to push you off the edge:   Every women needs a "Thelma" to her "Louise". Oh girls just wanna have fuu-un! (Cindy Lauper is my hero.)

Namaste'

Seasonal Allergies: Gear Up Now!

What would a healing post, from me, be without my favorite herb... stinging nettles!  It is my "go to" herb for all nourishing and healing needs.  Start with nettles + herbs specific for the health symptoms = healing equation!

Got allergies?  Gear up now to fortify your body before pollen season. (I know, it does seem like winter will never go away, here in Northern NY!  But, pollen season will happen!) This self-responsible, preventative health action will help to ease the seasonal allergy symptoms.  Breathe freely this spring, summer, and fall...

1.  Freeze dried stinging nettles:  Get to Nature's Storehouse, Canton, NY and purchase some freeze-dried stinging nettles.  Start taking them now to calm and heal your immune system and relieve the seasonal pollen allergies.  

2.  Local, raw honey.  Start eating 1/2 to 1 teaspoon two times daily, now.  Local, raw honey will acclimate your body to the local allergens before they bloom and blossom. This local honey will help to relieve or even rid your seasonal pollen allergies.

3.  Herbal Formula:  Herbs Etc. is a great company.  I use many of their formulas in healing ways with friends, family, and clients.  They work!

Allertonic® Enhances healthy inflammatory responses of the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts. Stabilizes mast cell walls and fixed antibodies found in the eyes and respiratory system, keeping the tissues calm. Normalizes secretion of the respiratory system, liquefies mucus, stimulates its removal from the lungs, and keeps pulmonary tissues hydrated.

Ingredients: Fresh Stinging Nettle herb, Licorice root, Eyebright herb, Horehound herb, Osha root, fresh Horsetail herb, fresh Mullein leaf, Elecampane root, and fresh Plantain leaf.

Suggested Use:

Acute: Take one soft gel or 40 drops with water every two to three hours until comfort is achieved or as directed by your health care professional. Noticeable comfort is attained within the first or second day. Switch to ongoing use.

Ongoing: Take one soft gel or 40 drops with water three times a day.

Proactive: Two months prior to seasonal challenges, take one soft gel or 40 drops with water twice a day.

4.  Yes, you can use all three of these natural, allergy relief "foods" as a preventative measure.  Start now, before the snow melts!

5.  Whole foods:  I would be seriously amiss as a whole food, holistic healer if I did not tell you that the foods you put into your body, every time you eat, affect the way you feel.  Eat crap, feel like crap!  If you over load your body with packaged, factory made foods, you overwhelm your immune system (actually, you overwhelm your whole body, every body cell!).  Your immune response to allergens in the seasonal air will be seriously heightened if your body is already overwhelmed by crap food.  Eat whole, love your body cells!

6.  Liver Nourishment:  As I write this post, I have a draft post on liver nourishment, ready to go.  Be looking for it.  Keeping the liver healthy will cut down on seasonal allergy symptoms.

7. Acupuncture: is an excellent healing tool in the seasonal allergy toolbox. Give Five Elements Living a call if allergy relief is in your plans!

PS:  I can order any product from Herbs Etc. for you.  Check Nature's Storehouse OR the Potsdam Food Coop for a similar product.  Compare the ingredients as many herbal companies make allergy relief herbal combinations.

Need Help? Not sure about herbal healing foods:  what to take, how to take it, when to take it, etc?  As a Certified Herbalist, I can help with this!  Give me a shout.

Farmacology: What Innovative Family Farming Can Teach Us About Health and Healing

A FOOD CHAIN RADIO RELEASE FROM METROFARM.COM

Some say essential nutrients went missing when we civilized our food, and we pay for that loss with sickness and disease.  This leads us to ask…

Can farming return the nutrients missing in our food?  

Saturday, March 22nd at 9 AM Pacific, the Food Chain Radio show with Michael Olson hosted Dr. Daphne Miller, author of The Jungle Effect and Farmacology, for a conversation about food, nutrition, and human health.

Topics include why some primitive cultures were healthier than many civilized cultures; what happened to food when we civilized it through agriculture; and whether the nutrients we lost through agriculture can be regained through agriculture.

I invite you to listen to the recorded show on your radio, computer or mobile device:    Food Chain Radio #961

This is the direct link to the 42 minute and 38 second show: http://metrofarm.com/assets/podcasts/2014-03-22_961bmissing.mp3

It was a fine look at whole food, health, and healing!  Paula

Gluten Free Apple Pie

Whole Grain Gluten Free Pie Crust

• 1/3 cup butter* from pasture raised cows
• 1 cup whole grain, gluten-free flour**
• 1/4 tsp. unrefined sea salt
• 1 - 2 tbsp. cold water (I use my local milk)

When making a whole grain pie crust, I have found it much easier to make it in a food processor.  The pie dough melds together really well and rolls out nicely.  I have tried many methods: fork, fork and knife, pie pastry hand blender, etc.  The best whole grain pie crust, for me, is made in a food processor.

I put in the flour, sprinkle the salt in, add butter in cold slices, and put the lid on. Turn the food processor on and drizzle the water or milk in through the top. When the dough balls up and is rolling about inside the canister, shut off the processor.

To roll the dough I sprinkle a bit of oat flour onto my pastry cloth and use the cotton sleeve on my rolling-pin. I bought my cloth pi making set at Evan's & White's Hardware store, Potsdam.

Roll out the pie dough and put it into the pie plate.  I make a second recipe for the top crust.  I have found it works best, for me, to make one crust at a time in the food processor.  If I am going to make a lattice top, like the pie above, I just make a little extra dough and make one batch only. (Approximately 1 1/3 cup flour plus maybe and extra tbsp., 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 tsp. salt, and 2 tbsp. cold milk.)

Apple Filling

• 4 very large, organic Braeburn apples, or whatever your favorite flavor of organic apple.  I prefer Pink Lady apples... but they are expensive so I save them for eating and buy a cheaper apple for pies.
• Slice into thin pieces, leave the nutritious peels intact on the apples
• 1/2 cup unrefined sucanat sugar
• 1 to 3 tsp. pure Ceylon cinnamon
• 1 tbsp. vanilla
• oat flour, say 1/4 cup, to thicken the apple juice so the pie is not runny.

Mix apples with rest of ingredients.  Fill pie crust and top with 2nd crust or lattice top. Pop into the oven and bake for approximately 50 to 60 minutes at 350 F.  Apples should be gently bubbling inside the pie, not running liquid all over the oven.

*I have been using Kerry Gold Butter from Ireland.  I am not thrilled about using something transported from so far away. Local food is better!

I wish we had a farm cooperative in Northern NY that produced butter from pasture raised cows.  However, I received a "tip" from Jessica Prosper of Prosper's Farmstead Creamery!  I just ordered (from Nature's Storehouse Wholeshare) 5 lbs of pasture raised butter from a farm cooperative in New York State:  Kriemhild's Dairy.  They are not in Northern NY State, but hey, they are not in Ireland either!  Thanks for the tip Jessica!

**I use mostly gluten free oat flour in pie crusts.  This one also had millet, quinoa, teff, and amaranth flours.  Then I added in a 1/4 cup of dark buckwheat flour.

The oat flour will make a smooth crust.  Add in the millet, quinoa, amaranth, and teff and the crust gets textured... grainy.  If you are not used to this in whole grains, I am just warning you!  The buckwheat flour has a very strong flavor.  Very yummy, but again, if you are not used to this flavor it is a big leap from refined, white flour pie crust pastries.  I find them flavorful, a true taste sensation as compared to white flour crusts that to me taste like baked wall paper paste. Enjoy the yummy, new flavors on your taste buds.

The pie is very yummy and full of whole-cell regenerating, healthy, whole foods. No refined flours and sugars depleting the health of the body cells in my home!   I encourage you to read and learn about feeding your body cells with whole food to prevent and heal lifestyle related diseases.  It is nature's plan!