Tapping Into Possibilities

Whittle Your Wattle

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Wattle: a fleshy, wrinkled, often brightly colored, fold of skin or growth hanging from the head or neck of certain animals.

You’re probably giving some thought this week to ordering your turkey and making that wonderful gravy with the giblets and turkey neck.

But what about that other “turkey neck”? Do you give it any thought at all?

The neck may be one of the least favorite body parts of women of a certain age but it got that way because it’s one of the most neglected body parts in the skin care regimen of all women, regardless of age. This is the area where those fragile, crepey (is this even a word) lines and liver spots appear first (now you know why turtlenecks have never gone out of style!).

Skin on the neck and chest is thin with little connective tissue and the area has fewer stem cells (which promote skin renewal). The neck and chest area lose elasticity more easily (earlier) and are dryer because of changing hormones, sun exposure and less attention.

Building neck muscles not only reduces tension, reduces pain and reduces stress but also makes wrinkles less apparent.

Here are things I do to reduce tension and pain in the neck area and reduce wrinkles; what you might call “killing two turkeys with one stone”!

Posture: pay attention to it and keep your chin up. Don’t tilt your head to one side or the other while on the phone.

Line of vision: change it. Don’t look down while reading or looking at that phone or tablet.

Pillows: sleep with less. Too many pillows force your neck down.

Water: Just make sure you’re adequately hydrated and water is your drink of choice. Water carries nutrients to all cells and removes toxins from all cells.

Silica: consider a bioavailable silica supplement which helps strengthen the skin as it plays a part in the synthesis of elastin and collagen. Silca is a trace mineral which decreases as we age. Consider, BioSil, JarroSil or Cellfood Essential  Silica from www.iherb.com (couponcode BOT164 for discount on first order).

Excercise: 1) Tilt head towards ceiling and pretend to chew for 2-3 minutes 2) Cat & Cow pose. Click above on the Articles tab for exercise How To’s. 

Sunscreen: need I say more.

Tightening Skin Masks:  My favorite is 1 egg white, 1 teaspoon each of honey, lemon juice and olive oil. Whisk egg white and other ingredients. Pat on skin of face, neck and chest and leave on for 15 minutes. It will still be liquid but it will dry and tighten.  Wash gently off with cool water then gently rub on coconut oil. Google for other ideas using ingredients you already have in your house.

Coconut Oil: There are many neck specific skin care products out there but a jar of virgin coconut oil from your health food store is my favorite and has multiple uses. Before bed gently massage the neck and face and anywhere else in small circles. Coconut oil will relax the skin, minimize wrinkles and moisturize the skin. There are many health benefits of coconut oil both topically and internally including increasing blood circulation which helps generate new cells. Try Nutiva Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil from www.iherb.com

Disclaimer: The information provided here is not intended to substitute for medical counseling. Tapping Into Possibilities does not treat, prevent, cure, or diagnose any disease or ailment.

 

 

Sweat Equity….Literally

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“July has rewritten climate history”, though you probably don’t need the World Meteorological Organization to tell you that July 2019 was the hottest month on record.

I spent most of the month of July, dripping sweat as I worked in our gardens here in the Berkshires.

Sweat Equity per Merriam Webster and dictionary.com  is the “time and effort that people contribute to a project, the unreimbursed labor that results in the increased value of property or that is invested to establish or expand an enterprise.”

 

While I’ve contributed countless hours of Sweat Equity (and I admit most of them have been pulling weeds, it hasn’t been about the increased value of the property, it has been about the transformation, about creating something, about change, about  gratitude for the opportunity to make a difference, even if it’s small.

Think of yourself as the property or the enterprise. What weeds do you want to pull? What do you want to plant? 

 

June 2019

 

 

 

 

Sweat Equity is something we can do for ourselves everyday and reap the fruits of our labor.

 

 

 

 

 

July 2019

Where do you want to create change or beauty or just a WOW?

 

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, July 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

Firework

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This song still gives me goose bumps. Not the Katy Perry version (2010) so much, which now has 1.1 billion views on YouTube, but the PS22 version (2011) which back then had 300,000 views and now has 1.1 million.

PS22 is a public elementary school in Staten Island with a music teacher with a vision, with a faith in these kids that should be a lesson for all of us.

It’s not that I don’t like Katy Perry or her version. But somehow her voice doesn’t  give me goose bumps (maybe because it is a performance, maybe because she tried to outshine these kids on Oprah back in 2011). 

Click on the link below and just listen to little Denise belt out

Just own the night like the 4th of July. Cause baby you’re a firework.  Come on show them what you’re worth.

and I hope you’ll know what I’m talking about. 

Watch the faces on these 5th graders and you can’t help but believe in them (and maybe even yourself) and feel something. 

Talk about possibilities…………

Do you ever feel so paper thin, like a house of cards one blow from caving in? Do you know there’s still a chance for you  cause there’s a spark in you….Come on let your colors burst.

And if you have any doubt about your own gifts and talents, your own worth, your own possibilities doubt no more.

I believe that children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside. Whitney Houston

P.S. I’m still figuring out how to embed videos so bear with me if you can’t open the video. Go to youtube.com and search PS22 Chorus Firework if any problems. Thank you.

Lipstick on a Pig or Transformation?

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Lipstick on a Pig– is a rhetorical expression used to covey the message that making superficial or cosmetic changes is a futile attempt to disguise the true nature of a product or person. (Wikipedia)

Lipstick on a Pig is a relatively new phrase/colloquialism (think Sarah Palin) evolved from a 300 year old phrase, “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”.

Transformation– a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance, metamorphosis, renewal, radical change, shift. (Merriam-Webster)

Our ramshackle, eyesore of a chicken coop was, just that, an eyesore – something that is ugly or unpleasant to look at (MacMillian Dictionary).

First comes thought, then organization of that thought into ideas and plans then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is your imagination. Napoleon Hill

It is amazing what an afternoon and a little elbow grease can accomplish

Transformation isn’t a future event. It is a present day activity. Jillian Michaels

Many may think Lipstick on a Pig but I choose Transformation!

Possibilities………..

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Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.  Gloria Steinem

In April, it was hard to imagine that this……

Could become this in May

Could become this in June

Just imagine what’s next………?

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.  George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

Your Tapping Season

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You know Spring is here, or at least right around the corner, in the Berkshires when the galvanized buckets hanging on the sugar maples (Acer Sacchurum) are gone.

The “sap run” is determined by the freeze/thaw cycle when it’s above 40 in the day and below freezing at night. The maple sugaring season is typically mid- February to early April. 

When the temperature remains above freezing or buds start to form on the trees, it is time to stop collecting sap.

It takes 40 years for a maple tree to grow big enough to tap but if healthy and treated well, the tree can be tapped for decades, even a century!

A single tap on a healthy maple usually produces 10-12 gallons of sap but sap becomes syrup when the water evaporates through boiling and the sugars become concentrated. That 10 gallons of sap becomes only 1 quart of syrup, but it is liquid gold

While the season to tap into the sugar maples is just that, a very short season, the time for you to tap in to your possibilities is anytime, your season is limitless. What are you waiting for? It’s time to move on down the road.

Miracle Shall Follow Miracle

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Today is a day of completion. I give thanks for this perfect day. Miracle shall follow miracle and wonders shall never cease.” Florence Scovel Shinn, New Thought spiritual teacher and metaphysician, The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925) p. 33.

For some, this is the holiest day of the year: Easter.

For some, Resurrection is about rising from the dead.

For others, today is just another day. 

Did you know the word/name Easter doesn’t have it’s roots in Christianity? Easter has its roots as a secular verb meaning “to turn or move to the east.” (from a German word for East which came from a Latin word for Dawn). Some scholars believe the name Easter is derived from the pagan Goddess Eostre or Ostara, the Goddess of Spring who was celebrated at the Vernal Equinox.

And while resurrection is most often referred to (in the Christian belief) as Christ’s rising from the dead with a capital R, it is also defined as a “rising again from decay and disuse, a revival”, and most importantly “a setting of things to right”. 

Resurrection is something all of us frail and flawed humans can believe in. Resurrection is shown to us in small and big ways every moment of every day….if we just look.

Those daffodils blooming when nothing else is, when there’s barely any green poking through the dirt is the hope, the sign that something special is yet to come.

“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

Spring – Just a Season or a State of Mind?

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The Vernal Equinox and the Super “Worm” Moon said it was Spring on Wednesday  March 20 and my “girls” agreed. 

9:43 pm, Wednesday, March 20, Monterey MA

(According to the Farmer’s Almanac, the March full moon is called the “worm moon” because it is around this time of year that the ground softens and worms begin to appear in the soil again, marking the beginning of Spring.)

But my garden begs to differ!

Saturday, March 23, Monterey MA
25 degrees and 25 mph wind


In spring I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours. Mark Twain

A bit like life you might say.

But Spring is so much more that the time between winter and summer. Spring is a time of hope, of resilience, of change and of possibilities.

Or as Lily Pulitzer the socialite and fashion designer said, 

Despite the forecast, live like it’s Spring!

Counting Blessings and Counting Crows (or turkeys for that matter)

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Don’t know what you’ve got til its gone. They paved over paradise and put up a parking lot.

I couldn’t help but sing along to the Counting Crows 2002 version of Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell- 1970) this morning when it came on the radio. 

I also thought this song is about so much more than a lost love or urban sprawl.  

What exactly is paradise? Is it somewhere outside in the world, a place that we just haven’t traveled to yet or something else? 

On the physical level could it be about regretting lost health? Most definitely, and that’s another story for another time. But on a deeper level, is paradise somewhere inside of us and it’s just been paved over and over and over again so that we just don’t see, hear or feel it anymore.

The definitions for paradiseare varied from biblical to sensual. The origins are Greek meaning “an enclosed park”. I personally like a place that is positive, harmonious, timeless, a state of delight and peace.This is a place I’d definitely like to go, to be in, to stay in.

You don’t have to have had some awful stuff happen to you to pave over your paradise, just the everyday normal stresses/worries and hassles will do it. It is so easy to lose/forget who you really are and what’s important. This is why I believe a daily self care practice is so important (whether it be tapping or a sitting, walking or writing meditation).

 If you can’t find 30 minutes, what about 15?.  And if you can’t find 15 minutes, why not? 

The purpose of meditation is to bring you to the present moment without the chatter and distractions from outside or inside the mind. 

This stillness is when you find clarity or peace or contentment, your blessings and yes, your paradise.

Grateful for this view out my window this winter.

Counting my blessings and 8 turkeys as well!

Any One Who Had a Heart….

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America is a country of broken hearts. Since the beginning of the 20thcentury, heart disease has been the number one killer of men and women. A few years ago, it was the cause of one in four deaths, now its one in three and the cost has soared to over $400 billion per year. The American Heart Association reports that more women die from heart disease each year than from all cancers combined.

And only in America do we have a month or a day to celebrate everything from Hug a Ginger Day (a redhead) on February 22 to Valentine’s Day to American Heart Month.  Did you know there is actually a calendar available that lists the day, week or month that we celebrate, or should I say, try to make you aware of, more than 100 diseases/infections/problems, called The 2019 National Health Observances Calendar! Today is National Donor Day, last week it was Congenital Heart Defects and next week it’s National Heart Valve Diesease.

But back to the Heart….

Open Your Heart. Don’t Go Breaking My Heart. Total Eclipse of the Heart.  Unbreak My Heart. My Heart Wasn’t In It. Broken Heart. Heart Attack. Heartless. Faint of Heart.  Anyone Who Had a Heart. The word HEART is used in so many songs, expressions, slogans that we’ve almost become immune to its importance.

We’ve become a country of not just physically broken hearts but of emotionally and spiritually broken hearts.

Since Hearts  are getting lots of attention this month and especially today, I thought it would be appropriate to work on opening my own heart and not just that pulsing, pumping muscle in my chest.

And just how will I do this? With deep listening and with mindful breathing.

The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.     Buddha

Thicht Nhat Hanh wrote in True Love, A Practice for Awakening the Heart (1997), Breathing in, I am aware of my heart. Breathing out, I am smiling at my heart. Breathing in, I know that you are there; Breathing out, thank you for being there.