Monday 31 October 2011

Samuli Perälä on nutrition

This food guru firstly highlighted 2 perhaps obvious attributes concerning food: the best food is original and natural. Food that is neither can be classed as fake and includes synthetic, human-made substances and overtly processed products such as white sugar, table salt, flours, and dairy products (including supermarket milk). The processing of foods destroys vital nutrients and such 'foods' are then stuffed with other substances instead, which burdens the body, often leading to liver and kidney symptoms. Ridding your body of such toxins and changing your eating habits to a healthier direction is actually very easy:

Mineralisation

Our bodies are largely composed of minerals and therefore the mineral balance in our bodies is of extreme importance. The easiest way of obtaining most vital minerals is by eating high quality salt. This can be either mountain salt (often called Himalayan rose salt or the like) or sea salt (this is gray in colour and crude, and has not been 'cleaned' with harmful synthetic substances). In contrast, 'normal' table salt is bad for us and should by all costs be avoided as it is highly processed, and sodium is often added in excess, making our bodies very confused. Minerals keep our bodies free from impurities, and as such pure salt is not harmful to us, we can gladly eat plenty.

Vitamination




Many of the vitamins and nutrients vital for our well-being are found in fresh and living food. The smallest and most sensitive nutrients are destroyed by heat, and food containing them should thus be eaten raw. Such foods are berries, all the greens that are fresh from nature, local vegetables, and sour fruits. In the northern hemisphere raw food often feels too cold and insufficient, but even so it is important that some uncooked food is added to each meal. This can be a salad composed of different greens.

Fats




Fats do not make us fat, that is a myth and a lie. This concerns cold-pressed, organic, natural and aboriginal fats, not the processed transfats that are continuously sold to us as healthy, although they actually are deadly. We need both 'hard' and 'soft' fats, which balance each other. Hard fats are for example butter and coconut oil (which is antibacterial and an excellent purifier), while soft fats include cold-pressed vegetable oils. Soft fats are especially important for women's hormones and they should be eaten by women in daily abundance. The balance between Omega 3, 6, and 9 is important, which highlights the importance of eating different kinds of oils and fats. These might for example include fish or fish oils, flax seed oil, avocado oil, hemp seed oil, coconut oil, and olive oil. Brassica oils (includes rapeseed oil and are very common in Finland as cooking oils = rypsi) are not recommended as the plant is of a highly refined species and as such not very aboriginal. This can be replaced with sunflower seed oil. Good fats can be eaten with a good conscience because we need much more of them than the current western diet suggests.

Purification




Green is the colour of pure, and as such all deep greens purify our bodies. Perhaps the most efficient food for this purpose are green powders, which can be anything from wheat grass to spirulina. Also, fresh greens are very good and recommended, for example nettle and other leaves. These should be chewed well to increase their force (all food should be chewed well and eaten slowly to lessen the burden on our stomachs). However, all purifying plants are extremely effective, and should be eaten in small amounts, especially in the beginning. Otherwise a risk of intoxication becomes relevant.

Superfoods




Superfoods contain ancient wisdom and act as acute aids to quickly provide us with missing nutrients and purify our intoxicated bodies. But in a natural state, when we are pure and gain all our necessary nutrition from pure, natural, organic, high quality foods (which is currently hardly the case) superfoods are generally not needed.


Other points made by Samuli:

- The best food for each person is usually the food that grows closest to our place of birth. This highlights the value of local food, which should definitely be taken into consideration when shopping for food.

- Herbs have subtle effects which we often do not notice because our bodies have been numbed by bad food and alcohol. But even if they go unnoticed, the effects do take place in our bodies.

- If you are tired, do not look for stimulants, what you need is sleep. When you wake up you can begin changing your diet to a more energy efficient kind.

- Concerning carbohydrates: again, high quality is what matters. Wild rice, quinoa, amaranth, etc are good sources.

- The most important nutrient addition to eat is vitamin D, especially in a country like this where we don't see the sun during half the year. This vitamin cannot be taken in excess and can freely be eaten in abundance.

- Fanaticism and absolutism is usually not good, they only increase stress, which is the worst state in which to eat.

- New things should be introduced slowly and moderation is the key.

- By far the best way to know what to eat is learning to listen to yourself. You know what you need, and you feel what is right.


If you have any questions or would like a personal consultation with Samuli, do contact me. I'll be back soon with more superinformation.

Love to all,

Emma

Saturday 29 October 2011

Grounding in the woods


This morning we went for a bare-footed walk in our childhood forest. The purpose was to ground ourselves, inspired by Mr Wolfe's talk. The air was about 8 degrees (celcius), and the ground was probably around 5, and the cold was definitely felt. After a while of walking, our feet started to hurt a lot, but then they just became numb and we couldn't feel anything anymore. When we got back inside the car our feet immediately warmed up, and they felt invigorated and well. And I feel well and invigorated otherwise too, although I think my 3 cups of chaga tea has had some say in it. We will probably do this again sometime, and next summer we'll probably forget our shoes all together.



Emma

Friday 28 October 2011

Event on nutrition


This is for all our Finnish readers. On Sunday an interesting event is taking place in Helsinki. It deals with the effects nutrition has on our physical and spiritual health. We cannot become spiritually conscious and reach higher energy levels without proper and right nutrition. Samuli Perälä, a relevant expert, will give a talk on this subject, and for 15€ you can join me to come and listen, at 6pm this coming Sunday. Call me, facebook me, email me or whatever if you're interested.

Emma

Tuesday 25 October 2011

One tiny drop

Today Emma and I did the good deed of the week by donating blood. This was my second time doing it, and Emma's first. It's a really good way to help out, and you also get something in return, you get a sandwich and some biscuits for your effort, as well as knowing your blood type and if you have HIV or hepatitis (the blood is always tested before being used, obviously).



My blood group is A+, which is the most common one in Finland, and if you believe in the whole "eat according to your blood type" thing, an A+ person thrives on a vegetarian diet. Looks like I've been making the right choices then. Emma will find hers out next week.

We also learnt a few new things, like it takes the body 24 hours to regain the fluids you lose by donating blood, and my mom informed me that the human body contains 5 liters of blood, which I found surprising as I thought it would have been more. The nice nurse at veripalvelu also told me that you can give - blood to a + type patient, but not the other way around.

You have the opportunity to learn something new every day.

Anna

David Wolfe in town


So, Anna gave me a ticket to this event as a graduation present (although I haven't yet officially graduated). Off we went and it was simply super great. Not only Mr Wolf (whose middle name btw apparently is Avocado..), but also all the people present made the energy feel like a party full of happiness. It was fun and new and cool, and I learned a lot and got inspired to implement it all into my life. The whole point is really to activate the genius you already are, through eating the most amazing things on the planet and living the best way possible.


Here are some key points that found their way to my notebook during the course of the evening:

- Shoes disconnect us from the earth and therefore from the earth's life force, and as such walking bare footed in nature is the best way of grounding yourself and becoming re-connected.

- Growing stuff in your back garden (or wherever) connects you with the earth too.

- If you don't want to eat fish, eat what the fish eat, i.e plankton, to get all the great fishy nutrients you need.

- There are 3 types of Omega 3 oils which are all vital for our well-being: ALA (alpha-linolenic acid), EPA (epicosapentaeonic acid) and DHA (docosaheaenoic acid). ALA is found in chia-, flax-, and hemp seeds, and EPA and DHA in fish or fish food (algae, micro-plankton). These fats can be mixed with wild berries and raw chocolate to create a super source of nutrition. If omega 3s are mixed with saturated fat (such as coconut oil), the absorption is doubled.

- Mushrooms are great. They're the only biological organism that can survive the vacuum of outer space, and the whole atmosphere of our planet is covered in mushroom spores. The reishi mushroom is very nutritious, as is our very own chaga (=pakurikääpä) (which I'm drinking right now for breakfast). Chaga has been shown to prevent and heal cancer, amongst numerous other illnesses, and has been used in the northern hemisphere as a medicine for ages. Vitamin C makes mushrooms 3 times more powerful. A tip: pick rosehips in late summer, dry them in the sun or a drier, ground them to powder in a mortar, and use as vitamin C powder throughout the winter.

- Horsetail (=peltokorte=åkerfräken) is a great herb full of medicinal properties, that can be mixed with chaga tea for example, and is found growing everywhere around you.

- Chocolate (cacao) trees can be grown inside our houses, and are great house plants (I want one now).

- The only thing that should be imported to any place is cacao. We have everything else we need where we are born, such as berries and mushrooms.

- Be aware of your metabolism limits: use the trial and success method.

- People need different nutritional ratios: protein-fats-carbohydrates, found out yours (through the t&s method) and eat according to it.

- Stable blood sugar activates your genius and produces energy, while too much sugar makes you cuckoo.

- Trouble with digestion and absorption is linked with kidney problems, which is linked with low yin (life force) in Chinese medicine, which might all be linked with having a judgement about diet, such as being a vegan. Some people need animal fat (I personally think it's those people with blood group O). If you notice you have low yin but don't want to kill animals, eat butter or ghee (purified butter).

- Low hormone production means bad bones. It is not natural to get bad bones when you're middle-aged, this can be prevented. The best way is by grounding yourself. If oestrogen dominates progesterone in women it creates problems. This happens for example if you eat soy or ddt/dde. ----> ground yourself.

- For cleansing yourself of bad hormones and all the rest of the toxins absorbed from this crazy world, go to the sauna, eat raw food, drink raw juices, eat oils (because toxins are oil-soluble and are absorbed into us through oils, and therefore also come out of us through oils), and once again: ground yourself.

- All diseases - all limitations - are psychosomatic. It doesn't matter who taught them to you or from where you got them or the ideas of them, they are only created through the mind and are not real and you can rid yourself of them all.


And finally: my name is Emma and I'm a genius.




Emma

Monday 24 October 2011

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Weekly inspiration

I wanted to talk to you more about Embercombe, the place, and what it's all about. It is definitely a place for all sorts of inspiration, so it will represent my inspiration for this week.

When you first arrive, you come down this winding road, into a beautiful valley surrounded by woods, and it's just simply breathtaking. There are meadows, gardens, orchards, woods, a lake, ie pretty much everything you need. When walking around the land, you can never run out of new things to explore. I thought I'd seen everything the first day, but later noticed that was not the case. At all.



The garden is natural, not too controlled, and obviously organic. The garden also provides most of the food being consumed at Embercombe, which is quite a lot as there are always volunteers and apprentices around. Everyone seems to be welcome at Embercombe, and what I find most inspiring about the place is the love and compassion that is all around. The Earth is loved for the food it gives us, and in all the other ways it sustains us. There is a tremendous amount of respect for all things living.

If you stay the night, while doing the Journey, or something of the sort, you sleep in a yurt. A yurt is a small round structure, super cosy, and the yurts at Embercombe have a window in the ceiling so you can fall asleep watching the stars, even if you're not sleeping outside (which you can of course do as well, I did one night)

I am sure places like this can and do exist all over the world, all it takes is love and respect towards nature, and people helping each other out. It is nothing impossible, as obviously it has already been done. One of the first things I was told by another Journeyer was that the land holds a certain magic, that the land heals and that it is all our land. I like that thought.

The motto of Embercombe is "touching hearts, stimulating minds and inspiring committed action for a truly sustainable world"


Anna

ps. the pics are Emma's.

Thursday 13 October 2011

The Journey of a Lifetime

I've started this post about five times now, but I just cannot seem to be able to put into words the story about the most amazing and rewarding experience of my life.

As Emma said, she'd talked about doing the Catalyst and about Embercombe in general, and apparently she had planted a seed in my mind. After what now seems like a quite difficult year or two, it just hit me, that that was what I was going to do. It was never actually a conscious decision, it just was. Everything fell into place, as it often does when you do what is right.

After everything was done, I had signed up for the Journey and booked my flight tickets and settled everything with work, I wasn't feeling all too good about going. The closer it came, the more annoyed I became with "having to do this stupid thing" I'm laughing as I sit here writing this, Embercombe is one of the most welcoming and beutiful places on Earth, and I had nothing to be scared or nervous about.



What happened was that I spent five incredible days in the English countryside, learning so much about myself, and getting to know some 30 or 40 people who will always hold a very special place in my heart, found what may be the ground for my own place in the world, and started to live, to actually really live life. I don't want to tell you very much at all about what we actually did, because i sincerely hope that some of you will embark upon this most wonderful adventure at some point.

I want to end this post by expressing my sincere heartfelt thank you to all the people I crossed paths with during my stay at Embercombe, and I cannot wait to go back.

Anna

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Inspiration of the week

As promised, my inspiration for this week is a lecture me and C attended a couple of weeks ago. It was given by Dr Prashant Kakoday who spoke about consciousness. As such, this is also a continuation of the post about the documentary concerning consciousness.

Dr Kakoday talked about health, and the relationship between the mind and the body. For example, if we use our bodies in a wrong posture, we get physical pain, but the same applies to the mind: if our mind is in the wrong posture, we get mental pain. He talked a lot about the concept of ownership and of using the words my and mine. Whenever we think we own something, it becomes a burden because we get attached to it. This can be anything, from the smallest objects to other people, and is very relevant in relationships. Imagine, if you want to own something, it immediately creates problems for you: you worry about it being stolen, you start comparing it with that of others, you become afraid to lose it, and when you see that someone else has a better one you want a new one. And the more you own, the more problems you face because you need to protect these things and keep them from getting stolen or lost. Also, you get hurt if someone comments on them negatively because you link them with yourself and thus take the comments personally. Wouldn't it be great to enjoy everything without all the problems? Kakoday explained that the same applies to our physical body. If we think of it as our possession or as the essence of what we are, problems arise. He said that we should consider our bodies as vehicles that we merely use in this life, and as such consider ourselves as guests here. We are here for a little while, during which we might use our bodies and enjoy all there is, but we cannot own anything because we are simply guests and we belong to something much larger. He drew a picture of this to make it more clear, of which I made my own example:


In this picture, you are the star. The black line is a division below which is this physical world and above which is everything else. The white line is your journey, showing how small and short this life is, and how all the things you consider yours in your life are simply things of this short visit, belonging only to a very limited physical world.

With this, Kakoday wanted to highlight that the more we consider ourselves as guests, and the more we remember that we are the star, unattached to everything here, the more the position of our minds turn towards a healthier one, making us happy and balanced. This shift in posture does not mean that we need to give up everything, it will all still be there for us to use, love, and enjoy, and we can still buy things, but without the attachment and without the problems. So where to start? When someone in the audience asked this question, Kakoday simply said: as often as possible, simply think that you are only a guest, you are the star in the picture. Use this pattern of thought in your daily life, and if you want to go deeper, begin a daily routine of meditation.

Emma

Saturday 1 October 2011

In the light of the previous post..

..I want to share this video with you. It's a talk given by Tim 'Mac' Macartney, who is the founder of Embercombe.



Emma

Embercombe


Anna has gone off here to do this. After I did the Catalyst programme in 2009 I've been trying to persuade everyone I know to go, and finally it has worked with Anna being the bravest one. It seems everyone's first reaction has been fright and flight, although there's nothing to be afraid of at Embercombe. On the contrary, it's probably the friendliest place on earth. Well anyway, I'll leave it to Anna for when she gets back to talk about her journey and about Embercombe. So be on the lookout for that, I sure can't wait.

Emma