Hapy holidays to all my Zaadz friends
If you are looking for a few great gifts here are some ideas!
1. http://cdbaby.com/cd/davidson3
I am offering my holiday CD "Merry Christmas & Happy New York" at a bargain giveaway price! Buy one for $10 and get the second one FREE. This makes a great stocking stuffer! Merry Christmas & Happy New York is a collection of traditional carols I performed on my 1929 Steinway Grand. It is mellow and calming, perfect for late nights and intimate dinner parties.
2. Zen Alarm clocks from www.now-zen.com
This company makes the most amazing alarm clocks! You will wake up to the gentle sounds of chimes and a tibetan bowl. You can also hook these up to your doorbells and phone ringers! Another idea is to use them for "time outs" whether it be meditation, or for your kids! I love these clocks and I think you will too!
3. The organic skin care line from Jakare.com
I love every single one of their products. They use all organic natural chemical free ingredients and fresh batches are made up weekly. A few of my favorites are the french clay mask, the rose mask, and the body lotion! Yummmy.
4. Mary Janes Farm at www.Maryjanesfarm.com
I recently discovered this amazing woman who runs an organic farm in Idaho. She also puts out the most beautiful magazine, and on her site you can order back copies. The photography is stunning. She features articles on non toxic living and farm life, and makes any city girl want to dig in the dirt! Also check out her online store to stock up on organic cotton sheets, bath towels, to order her books, and more! Make sure to buy her Farm Girl budget mix and her organic chocolate bars- need I say more?
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Ok, now onto this week's show....
Rachel Naomi Remen was only 15 years old and already a freshman in college when she went into a coma for 6 months. She was diagnosed with Crohn's disease and her life from that moment changed. She was told she would be dead at age forty, but here she is in her sixties going strong! She is a doctor, and one of the most soulful people I have had the pleasure of interviewing. I was so blessed by her amazing stories, and I think you will be too! Perhaps because of her own journey, she has a great deal of compassion and also leaves room for mystery. Rachel was recently honored along with Jon Kabat Zinn, Larry Dossey and Andrew Weil as being one of the pioneers of integrative medicine.
Her books are two of my ALL TIME favorites- My Grandfather's Blessing, and Kitchen Table Wisdom. They make GREAT holiday gifts.
You can hear this episode anytime of day or night on the web at Zentertainment Talk Radio. www.Zentertainment.org
I loved her story about the 3 stone cutters, and also about a man named Henry. Make sure to tune it and check this one out!
I have also included one of her articles below. Let me know what you think.
Peace,
Jo
Zentertainment Talk Radio
www.Zentertainment.org
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An article by Rachel Remen:
In recent years the question how can I help? has become meaningful to many people. But perhaps there is a deeper question we might consider. Perhaps the real question is not how can I help? but how can I serve?
Serving is different from helping. Helping is based on inequality; it is not a relationship between equals. When you help you use your own strength to help those of lesser strength. If I'm attentive to what's going on inside of me when I'm helping, I find that I'm always helping someone who's not as strong as I am, who is needier than I am. People feel this inequality. When we help we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity and wholeness. When I help I am very aware of my own strength. But we don't serve with our strength, we serve with ourselves. We draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve, our wounds serve, even our darkness can serve. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness in life. The wholeness in you is the same as the wholeness in me. Service is a relationship between equals.
Helping incurs debt. When you help someone they owe you one. But serving, like healing, is mutual. There is no debt. I am as served as the person I am serving. When I help I have a feeling of satisfaction. When I serve I have a feeling of gratitude. These are very different things.
Serving is also different from fixing. When I fix a person I perceive them as broken, and their brokenness requires me to act. When I fix I do not see the wholeness in the other person or trust the integrity of the life in them. When I serve I see and trust that wholeness. It is what I am responding to and collaborating with.
There is distance between ourselves and whatever or whomever we are fixing. Fixing is a form of judgment. All judgment creates distance, a disconnection, an experience of difference. In fixing there is an inequality of expertise that can easily become a moral distance. We cannot serve at a distance. We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected, that which we are willing to touch. This is Mother Teresa's basic message. We serve life not because it is broken but because it is holy.
If helping is an experience of strength, fixing is an experience of mastery and expertise. Service, on the other hand, is an experience of mystery, surrender, and awe. A fixer has the illusion of being causal. A server knows that he or she is being used and has a willingness to be used in the service of something greater, something essentially unknown. Fixing and helping are very personal; they are very particular, concrete, and specific. We fix and help many different things in our lifetimes, but when we serve we are always serving the same thing. Everyone who has ever served through the history of time serves the same thing. We are servers of the wholeness and mystery in life.
The bottom line, of course, is that we can fix without serving. And we can help without serving. And we can serve without fixing or helping. I think I would go so far as to say that fixing and helping may often be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul. They may look similar if you're watching from the outside, but the inner experience is different. The outcome is often different, too.
Our service serves us as well as others. That which uses us strengthens us. Over time, fixing and helping are draining, depleting. Over time we burn out. Service is renewing. When we serve, our work itself will sustain us.
Service rests on the basic premise that the nature of life is sacred, that life is a holy mystery which has an unknown purpose. When we serve, we know that we belong to life and to that purpose. Fundamentally, helping, fixing, and service are ways of seeing life. When you help you see life as weak, when you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. From the perspective of service, we are all connected: All suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy. The impulse to serve emerges naturally and inevitably from this way of seeing.
Lastly, fixing and helping are the basis of curing, but not of healing. In 40 years of chronic illness I have been helped by many people and fixed by a great many others who did not recognize my wholeness. All that fixing and helping left me wounded in some important and fundamental ways.
Only service heals.
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