March 29, 2013    |  By Rhonda Kuykendall-Jabari

Clutter clearing involves getting rid of “things” that no longer serve a positive or useful purpose. Space clearing is a ritual performed to release stuck, negative energy and resets the space with clean, clear, vibrant energy. The two work hand-in-hand when it comes to making space for good things to come into your life. While your home may generally be a happy place, the imprint of arguments, breakups and other unpleasant occurrences hangs around and stagnates as time passes. It seems many of our elders were aware of this phenomenon. Spring cleaning involved an extensive room-by-room removal of furniture, followed by a thorough washing of walls, windows and floors. After the cleaning was done, furniture was put back in place and things that were not needed were thrown out. This cleared the entire living space and created a vacuum of physical and emotional space for new things to enter.

De-cluttering and space clearing are important, especially if you’ve just moved into a new space or feel ready to start a new life path. Space clearing is especially supportive of career changes, ending or starting relationships, attracting prosperity, releasing negative emotions and any major life change. Decluttering may be done separately from or as part of a space clearing.

Sometimes we have emotional attachments to clutter for sentimental reasons, of we fear we may need something in the future, so we hold onto to it, “just in case.” Guilt may be the reason you keep and display that horrid picture frame your best friend gave you as a wedding gift. For some of us, the habit of clutter is inherited from our parents. Whatever your reasons, it would serve you well to conquer your clutter to clear your mind and make space for wonderful things to come into your life.

According to Jayme Barrett, a Los Angeles feng shui consul- tant and author of Feng Shui Your Life, asking yourself the fol- lowing questions will help you decide if an item is encouraging good feng shui or counteracting it with unnecessary clutter:

• Do I love it? • DoIuseit? • Do I need it? • Does it evoke a positive feeling and make me smile?

Tess Whitehurst is a Los Angeles feng shui consultant, energy worker and author of Magical Housekeeping, The Good Energy Book, The Art of Bliss and, soon to be released, The Magic of Flowers. She classifies clutter into categories to create a flow for assessing and eliminating items.

• Paper
• Decorations
• Food
• Clothes
• Furniture
• Car Clutter
• Books
• Gifts
• Unfinished projects or broken things
• Items with negative associations

A practical road map to clutter clearing and reclaiming your living space is available in Whitehurst’s “Magical Clutter Clearing Boot Camp” for .99 cents in the Kindle e-book store. It is filled with tips and strategies to move you through clearing each area of your home. A word of caution, there is no short cut to ridding your home and space of clutter. In Magical Housekeeping, Tess acknowledges that clutter-clearing is a lifelong pursuit. She points out the rewards that make it worthwhile; “Everything is connected, and every inch and component of the physical world is filled with an invisible life force and unique magical energy...every one of us has the inherent ability to sense, change, channel, and direct these energies to create positive conditions and manifest the true desires of our hearts.”

After the clutter is minimized, a space clearing will fine tune your home by releasing the energy and debris remaining from arguments, confusion and general negativity. Noisemaking (rattles, bells, clapping), smudging (sage bundles), misting (essential oils), and visualizing (white light or elemental) are all methods of space clearing. presents several simple space clearing rituals in an article, “Try This! Traditional Rituals to Clear Out Bad Home Energies.”

Whether you tackle your clearing all at once or break it down into smaller tasks, the benefits are reported to be long-lasting and transforming. Open yourself to the positive possibilities of a springtime declutter and space clearing. There is much to be gained and all you have to lose is your unwanted junk.


 

March 15, 2013

The term “reiki” refers to universal life force energy. The practice of Reiki involves helping to create a state of energetic balance, which releases stress, relieves pain and promotes faster healing. This is done by offering an extra measure of life force energy to the person in need. It can be given silently, with noticeable results.

Reiki therapy sets the stage for deep relaxation, restored balance of mind-body-spirit, an enhanced sense of well-being and improved ability to concentrate. During a Reiki session, most recipients enter a state of relaxed awareness called, “alpha.” In this state, the mind is clear and receptive to information from the higher or subconscious mind. In the alpha state, people are able to make connections and realizations that may be missed in a conscious state of mind. This clears ‘mind clutter’ and creates opportunity for ‘aha’ moments, deep relaxation, self- healing and stress release.

Reiki is also a powerful way to address specific mental, emotional and physical imbalances like pain, stress, injury and illness. As part of an ongoing program, Reiki relieves symptoms associated with PTSD, side effects of radiation therapy or chemotherapy and ADHD. A single Reiki session restores a sense of calm as the recipient is lulled into an alpha or theta state of consciousness.
A Reiki therapy program offers tremendous benefits to America’s more than 44 million ‘informal’ or ‘family’ caregiv- ers who provide unpaid care for family and friends in need.

The most common informal caregiver is an adult child caring for an aging parent. In other scenarios, caregivers may support an elderly or sick spouse, aging grandparents, severely disabled children or siblings, grandchildren whose parents are unable to provide care, disabled friends or neighbors. In the U.S., informal caregivers provide 80% of long term care. Most are middle-aged women and many work full time jobs. They struggle with deep-seated feelings of guilt, anger, loneliness, depression and exhaustion. Shared illnesses throughout this population include heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, high levels of stress hormones and a compromised immune system. They spend lots of time taking care of others, yet tend to neglect themselves and, compared to non-caregivers, they are less likely prepare healthy meals or get sufficient sleep and exercise.

Reiki supports caregivers by presenting an opportunity to slow down and focus on self-care. Sessions last 30-60 minutes and clears the mind. Clients emerge feeling rested, energized and with an overall sense of wellbeing. In following weeks, they tend to take better care of themselves and pay closer attention to their own mental, emotional and physical needs. Below are some specific benefits Reiki may bring to address issues specific to caregivers.

Overcome feelings of overwhelm. A scheduled Reiki therapy session is about one hour long. That’s an entire hour during which you release all demands placed upon you in everyday life and relax into a state of receiving pure love, light and positive energy. You will emerge from a single session feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.

Program yourself for a healthier lifestyle. Reiki can be performed with a specific intent in mind. With the Reiki practitioner, determine some specific changes you would like to see in your life. During the session you will remove energy blockages that prevent you from choosing healthy behaviors. It’s like a form of self-hypnosis, gently planting seeds that subtly modify your daily life choices, nudging you into alignment with your true desires for yourself.

To learn more about Reiki, search the term on the Internet or visit the site for the International Association of Reiki Professionals at www.iarp.org.

March 15, 2013    |  By Pau Trix

What do you do when you see a stray dog? If you’re like me, your instinct is to stop the car—or if you’re on foot, stop in your tracks— and do what you can to apprehend the dog—or at least herd it off the streets and onto a sidewalk out of harm’s way. But even if you succeed at this, what do you do next? The dog is likely to be lost, frightened, anxious, hungry or thirsty, or some combination thereof. It could also be hurt, which could make it even more anxious and possibly aggressive. Or it could be very receptive to someone corralling it and giving it some TLC, ideally returning it to its owner (if indeed there is an owner who had enough foresight and caring to have given the dog a tag and/or microchip).

I’ve done a lot of on-the- spot rescues over the years. Frankly, there is no standard operating procedure. Each dog is truly different. Some will walk up right up to you, but my experience has been that most strays or lost dogs are too leery of people to be caught, no matter how great their need and no matter how good your intentions. They move away and move on. What I have learned is that you can rarely catch any dog by following it; you have to be still, or even move in the opposite direction, to get it to come to you. It sounds counter-intuitive, but it works. It helps if you have some food and water too: strays are usually more thirsty than hungry. (After all, you can go much longer without food than you can without water.)

Unfortunately, Inglewood’s population of home- less dogs is sizeable. And it’s quite diverse: I’ve taken in dogs that range from purebred to stereotypical (but adorable and very adoptable) mutts. Whether it’s because the economy is forcing more people out of their houses and into smaller spaces that don’t accommodate dogs, or because too many people routinely don’t keep track of their pets, hardly a week goes by that I don’t spot a dog (or two) out there on its own. Most of them wind up passing through my neighborhood and through my life, but each of them means something. In each case I like to imagine he or she made it back home, or encountered a new one.

That would be the best thing for all of us.

March 01, 2013    |  By Rhonda Kuykendall-Jabari

Essential oils are to plants what blood and oxygen are to humans. The scientific name is “oleo-gum-resins.” Comprised of tiny molecules, essential oils travel easily through plant tissue and into the cells. They deliver nutrition information and carry waste products out. Just as hormones regulate growth in the human body, essential oils regulate growth in plant organisms. Like enzymes that boost the human immune system and combat germs and disease, essential oils are the basis for a plant’s immune system. Scientists at Tufts University developed a scale for the US Department of Agriculture called the ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorption Capacity) score. The ORAC score tells us the ability of a particular food or oil to destroy free radicals. The higher the ORAC score, the greater the ability to retard aging and prevent cancer and other dis- eases. Interestingly, ORAC scores for essential oils are often much higher than those for super foods.

Used properly, essential oils are non-toxic, harmless to human tissue and promote healing. They penetrate the Blood- Brain-Barrier, a network of blood vessels with closely spaced cells that makes it difficult for potentially toxic substances (such as anticancer drugs) to penetrate the blood vessel walls and enter the brain. This makes a convincing argument for the efficacy of aromatherapy. When diffused or used topically, essential oils enter through the olfactory system, cross the Blood-Brain-Barrier and work with the Central Nervous System to promote healing. They communicate with a part of the brain that cannot be communicated to with spoken or written language. It only comprehends and responds to smell.

Essential oils can be diffused, applied topically or taken orally (only where specifically stated). Oil burners are very popular but not recommended for essential oils because the heat changes the properties and diminishes the therapeutic effect. Diffusers break down the molecules and disburse them into the air without the use of heat, thus preserving the therapeutic value of the oils. Essential oils are also great for mixing household cleaning aids. A few drops of lemon essential oil eliminates the mildew smell of clothes left in the laundry for too long. Add peppermint essential oil to your shampoo or conditioner for stimulate the scalp. If you like cleaning with vinegar but hate the smell, add lavender essential oil to calm the odor.

Do not confuse essential oils with fragrance oils. Essential oils are 100% natural and are extracted from the flowers, leaves, stems, bark or root of plants. They may be used therapeutically in physical applications and for psychological effects. Fragrance oils are synthetic and have no therapeutic value. Because fragrance oils are less volatile than essential oils, the scents last much longer. As a test, put a drop of the oil on paper. Pure essential oil will disappear without a trace. Fragrance oils will usually leave an oily residue. Both fragrance oils and essential oils may be used to scent perfumes and body care products so read the label to know what you are getting.

A few inexpensive, basic, multi-purpose essential oils like lemon, peppermint and lavender are a good start for beginners. To read the doTERRA recommends (101 uses), please see the Web site .

General Contraindications to Essential Oils

Essential oils are highly concentrated and very potent. One drop of peppermint oil is the equivalent of 28 cups of peppermint tea. Essential oils are 50 to 70 times more powerful than herbs. While there are no known side effects, there are some general and medical contraindications. If you are under a doctor’s care or on prescription medications, consult with a professional aromatherapist and also make your doctor aware BEFORE use.

Space limitations prevent me from detailing the many aspects made graciously available by West Coast Institute of Aromatherapy.

For the complete list of general contraindications, please visit .

February 08, 2013    |  By Rhonda Kuykendall-Jabari

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that 1 in 3 U.S. adults (est. 68,000,000) has high blood pressure. In 2010, high blood pressure cost the U.S. $93.5 billion in medications, missed days of work and health care services. High blood pressure can lead to bone loss, sexual dysfunction, coronary artery disease, heart failure, stroke, Dementia, kidney failure, damage to the eyes and more. Known as “The Silent Killer,” high blood pressure may present no outward symptoms until it reaches advance stages. The only way to know for sure if you have high blood pressure is to confer with your doctor and know your numbers.

The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) defines blood pressure as “the force of blood against the walls of arteries.” It is measured by the pressure in the arteries when the heart beats, as the muscle contracts (systolic) and when the heart rests between beats as it refills with blood (diastolic). It is written as systolic/diastolic. For example, if the systolic pressure is 115 and the diastolic pressure is 79, it is written as 115/79 and read aloud as, “115 over 79.”

As we age, arteries lose elasticity, which increases the risk of hypertension. Family history also plays a role in the likelihood of developing high blood pressure. Dr. Andrew Weil, a leading natural and integrative health advisor, lists stress, excessive salt consumption, a diet low in calcium, magnesium and potassium, excessive alcohol intake, obesity and certain prescription medications as potential contributing factors.

According to the American Heart Association, blood pressure categories are defined as follows:



Dietary and lifestyle choices are key factors in the prevention and control of hypertension. In addition to following doctor’s orders, discuss and incorporate some of the following into your daily self-care plan.

DASH Diet: The NHLBI promotes the DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), which has been proven to lower blood pressure and cholesterol. It is high in fruits and vegetables, low- or non-fat dairy, whole grains and fiber. The DASH diet is also rich in potassium, calcium and magnesium. For recipes, menus and more information, visit
http://www.dashdiet.org.

Dr. Weil recommends the following nutritional measures: • Eat eight to 10 servings of vegetables and fruit per day. • Limit animal protein to six ounces per day. • Limit salt intake. If you are salt sensitive or have a family history or hypertension, reducing salt to about one teaspoon a day may help control your blood pressure.

• Use garlic. It has a modest effect on blood pressure, potentially helping to relax blood vessels.

• Consume four to five servings
of nuts, seeds and dry beans per week. This is equivalent to two tablespoons of nuts or seeds, or 1/2-cup cooked dried beans.

• Eat plenty of fish. Include at least three servings of fish a week, emphasizing cold-water fish such as wild Alaskan salmon and sardines, which are rich in omega-3 fatty acids. Take fish-oil supplements if you cannot get enough omega-3-rich foods.

• Take calcium and magnesium. Inadequate intake of both of these minerals has been associated with high blood pressure. Women should get between 1,000 and 1,200 mg of calcium a day from all sources, while men need no more than 500-600 mg daily from all sources and probably do not need to supplement.

• Take vitamin C. This antioxidant vitamin has been shown to lower blood pressure in people with mild to moderate hypertension.

Exercise: Aerobic activity strengthens the heart, enabling it to pump more blood with less pressure. Exercise also helps maintain a healthy weight, reducing obesity which is a risk factor for high blood pressure. Aim for at least 30 minutes of aerobic activity each day. This may include walking, jogging, swimming or household chores like raking leaves, mowing the lawn or scrubbing/mopping floors. If you are unable to do 30 minutes at one time, break activities into three 10 minute sessions and get the same benefit.

Deep Breathing: Dr. Weil says, “If I had to limit my advice on healthier living to just one tip, it would be simply to learn how to breathe correctly.” Deep breathing lowers blood pressure, increases energy levels, promotes better sleep, helps break down salt, promotes weight loss and relieves stress and tension. Deep breathing exercises can be done anywhere at any time. The goal is to slow your breathing to less than 10 breaths per minute. Inhale for six seconds, hold for 18 seconds, exhale for 12 seconds. Repeat 10 times, twice daily (try it upon rising and
before bedtime).

Reduce Sodium: Most sodium is consumed as sodium chloride, known as table salt. NHLBI recommends a daily sodium intake of 1 teaspoon or less. This includes sodium or salt found in processed foods (read labels), table salt added to foods, Kosher salt and sea salt. Keep your combined daily intake below 2300 milligrams. Use deep breathing twice daily to help break down and eliminate salt from your body.

Limit Alcohol: For weight and blood pressure control, limit alcohol to one moderate drink daily for women, and two drinks daily for men. A drink is 12 ounces of beer, five ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of 100 proof whiskey, etc.

Quit Smoking: Smoking injures blood vessel walls and accelerates the hardening of arteries. This applies to filtered and unfiltered cigarettes. If you smoke, quit. If you don’t smoke, don’t start. Regular doctor’s visits, compliance with doctors’ orders, a heart healthy diet and common sense goes a long way in the fight against high blood pressure.

January 10, 2013    |  By Rhonda Kuykendall-Jabari

Welcome to Rhonda’s Wellness Corner. This is a sacred space dedicated to spreading the good word about health, wellness and natural living. The goal is to explore, discuss and resolve topics of health and wellness by sharing information that empowers readers to minimize pain, illness and disease while maximizing good health, strength and vitality. (Read More)

December 10, 2012    |  By Randall Fleming

A number of reports have been published regarding the results of significant studies executed to explore whether aircraft noise and particulate pollution harms children’s reading abilities, lung development, memory, stress levels and general health. The studies have proved that the noise and air pollution around large airports does indeed negatively impact children’s health, cognitive functions and mental well-being.

The Cornell study, also known as the Munich report, was published in the a Sept. 2002 edition of the American Physiological Society’s journal, Physiological Science, is titled “A Prospective Study of Some of Effects of Aircraft Noise on Cognitive Performance in School Children.”

The study was conducted over a number of years near Munich, Germany, where a new international airport was to be built and an old one decommissioned. Scientists studied the reading, memory and speech perception of the children, whose mean age was 10.4 years, prior to the old airport being put out of service, the children living near where the new airport was to be built and then again the latter group after the airport was built and put into use.

The results of the lengthy test, which took place during the 1990s, was that aircraft noise impairs long-term memory and reading and that speech perception deficits among the noise-impaired children at the old airport were not recovered.

The other report, titled “Physiological, Motivational, and Cognitive Effects of Aircraft Noise on Children: Moving From the Laboratory to the Field,” was published in American Psychologist, Vol. 35, March 1980.

In it was announced “a link between noise and physiological processes associated with stress,” and that “[t]hese processes...are considered a health hazard. Further, it was suggested that children, the sick, and the elderly are the most susceptible to noise impact.”

Yoga, gardening in more first Saturdays in Queen Park

November 03, 2012    |  By Chante Griffin

Although small in size, Queen Park hosts a slew of activities during its monthly Community Day. (Read More)