Archive for November, 2007
The Whirling Dervishes of Istanbul
November 19th, 2007
This 2007 event has passed
What this is
I remember hearing about the Whirling Dervishes when I stared my healing journey and now here’s the chance to see them live. It’s going to be a real treat. The show it at 8:00 PM with Coleman Barks at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts – Zellerbach Theatre.
Description
Since I haven’t been to see this show yet I’ll let the presenters speak [from the Philadelphia Society for Arts, Literature and Music website] with my headings:
"Experience the divine in an ecstatic performance by the Whirling Dervishes of Istanbul, Turkey, coming to Philadelphia with special guest host Coleman Barks, on Friday, December 14th, and Saturday, December15th at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts – Zellerbach Theatre at 8:00 pm each evening. Penn Presents will also host a special pre-show, middle-eastern dinner and guest lecture before the Friday evening performance at 6:00 pm.
800 Years of Rumi
The gala performance entitled “One House – Many Doors” is a celebration of the UNESCO 2007 International Year of Rumi, marking the 800th anniversary of the ancient ceremony of the Sema, a visually stunning meditation in motion by the Whirling Dervishes, accompanied by an ensemble of Turkish master musicians playing traditional instruments. The turning ceremony originated with the 13th century poet, scholar and Sufi mystic Jelaluddin Rumi, as a means to demonstrate and affirm the intimate relationship between the human being and the divine source of life.
Your host
The evenings will be hosted by Coleman Barks, highly acclaimed author and foremost popularizer of the mystical love poetry of Rumi
Afternoon colloquia (Free)
“Rumi in the 21st Century”
Afternoon colloquia entitled “Rumi in the 21st Century” are free and open to the public and will feature the noted authors and Sufi scholars Jamal Rahman, Pardis Minuchehr, Michaela Ozelsel, Sheikh Ahmed Tijani, and Coleman Barks. Ashok Gangadean will moderate the panel. Each panelist will speak from personal experience about how Rumi’s teachings on the path of personal transformation can be practiced in modern times, and then open the floor to questions from the audience. The format of the colloquia is in the manner of "sobhet" or intimate spiritual conversation, a technique used by the teachers of Sufism, allowing for deep understanding and authentic spiritual experience.“Rumi – the Way of the Heart”
The actress TAMIR will present her one-woman, sacred theater piece entitled “Rumi – the Way of the Heart”. The musical duo, HuDost, with Moksha Sommer and Jemal Wade Hines will also perform. Nasrin Marzban will read from Rumi’s Mathnawi in the original Persian.
The colloquia will take place on Friday the 14th, from 2:30 to 5:30 pm at Haverford College’s Stokes Auditorium, and at the Studio Theatre of UPENN’s Annenberg Center on Saturday the 15th, also from 2:30 to 5:30pm. Michaela Majoun, host of the WXPN Morning Show, will host the Saturday session.
Presenters
The event is co-presented by the Philadelphia Society for Art, Literature & Music and the Philadelphia Dialogue Forum, a Turkish-American organization devoted to interfaith understanding. Penn Presents is co-sponsoring the event, with generous support by the Middle East Center of UPENN, The Global Dialogue Institute, the Department of Religion and the Margaret Gest Center for the Cross-Cultural Study of Religion of Haverford College, and the Turkish American Friendship Society of the United States (TAFSUS).
Tickets for the Penn Presents pre-show dinner/lecture on Friday evening are $17. Tickets for the performances are priced $30, $40, $45, $55. All tickets are available at the Annenberg Center box office at 3680 Walnut Street, by phone at 215-898-3900, or online at pennpresents.org."
Book tickets for the dinner
View the Whirling Dervishes in action
Buy tickets from Penn Presents website
Posted in Events
Green for Life
November 15th, 2007
What this book is about
Victoria Boutenko bought, read and assimilated all the scientific material and did the studies that brought her to the conclusion that green leafy vegetables and fruit are the perfect foods to make up the bulk of the human diet. In this book she provides the component missing from most of the nutritional information the public has access to and knows about. Green leafy vegetables are meant to compose a large portion of our diet. This book’s brilliant comparison of the S.A.D. (Standard American Diet) and the raw foodist diet to the diet of the chimpanzee, the mammal closest genetically and physiologically to humans, left me stunned that this information hasn’t been more prevalent, since it’s been known for quite some time. The best way to get your greens is by pulverizing them with a Vita-Mix which brings them to the creamy consistency that we should be able to chew them to ourselves. So, this book is about why we need green leafy vegetables as the largest part of our diet, how to make them palatable as green smoothies, evidence of the efficacy of green smoothies from a 30 day study and lots of fascinating information you probably didn’t know but would love to know about.
Why study Chimpanzees
When Chimpanzees are studied in the wild we can assume their diet is natural and untainted and they eat primarily fruits and greens with some other minor additions (like bugs, bark and pith). Considering they are the closest to humans genetically and physiologically it only makes sense that we can model our diet after theirs and come to the same great health they have.
Smoothies
Since our teeth can no longer chew greens to a creamy consistency (due to generations of not eating them and not needing to chew our food very much) we can incorporate human help in the form of a Vita-Mix blender. It turns your greens into a creamy consistency and adding fruits makes the greens more palatable.
Vita-Mix
Regular food processors and blenders can puree the food about as well as our teeth can chew them, if we chew a lot. Unfortunately they won’t get the food into the creamy consistency needed for the best assimilation of greens. The Vita-Mix does all the work for you. You’ll probably still want to "chew" the smoothie in your mouth to mix it with your saliva since digestion starts in the mouth.
Successful green smoothie study
Again being a trend-setter and advocate for optimal health habits Victoria launched a study in which stomach acid was tested and participants drank one quart of green smoothies daily. The results were amazing. You can read the testimonials yourself in the book but some overall benefits the participants had were improved energy, quality of sleep, feeling good, exercise abilities, fewer cravings for unhealthy food and improvements of health issues.
Readability
This book is very well written with short, concise chapters that cover a lot of material. I felt drawn to swing into the next chapter like a chimpanzee and actually had a hard time putting it down. I just couldn’t get enough and really wanted my Vita-Mix right away. It’s coming next week.
Conclusions
I can’t believe it took me so long to read this book. It’s well written, informative, compelling and inspiring. I recommend this book for everyone who has a body or is taking care of someone who has a body (any interstellar care providers out there?) and I wish everyone could have this information right now, and a Vita-Mix. I’m so excited about the great results the people in Victoria’s study got that I’m looking forward to conducting my own studies on myself.
My studies
I’ll keep you posted as to my progress and how I’m doing with my particular issues.
View product details at Amazon: Green for Life
Beautiful on Raw
November 11th, 2007
What this book is about
Using the desire for youth and beauty to inspire and motivate others interested in raw foods, Tonya Zavasta interviewed eleven women who share their raw food experience, tips, insights and recipes in this motivating and inspiring book. How often do we get to read about the beauty tips and favorite raw food recipes of well known, inspiring, healthy and beautiful raw food women? It’s very motivating to read how they overcame and reversed health problems, aging, weight problems, and general dissatisfaction with their lives and diets. The before and after pictures are amazing and to read their ages while looking at the pictures has given me the belief that I can also youth and solve other issues.
In this book
Beautiful on Raw contains interviews to inspire, pictures to shift the paradigm of what you believe is possible, yummy and simple recipes and a list of health benefits of many fruits vegetables, nuts and seeds. The result is an informative, helpful, inspiring, captivating book that will motivate you to eat more healthy, raw foods even if you don’t convert to 100% raw.
Youthing
I was amazed at the transformation so many of these women made. The "before" and "after" pictures alone inspired me to believe that it’s possible to reverse the signs of aging. It made me consider that the human body doesn’t "grow old", it deteriorates from food the body wasn’t meant to eat and the belief that the body has to age. You may argue that it’s raw food alone that made these people grow more youthful. I would direct you to pictures of Anne Wigmore. If it’s only raw foods that causes the body to youth , then why didn’t she ever get younger? I think it’s because she didn’t have examples like Annie Larkin or Dr. Brenda Cobb. Annie started raw foods in her twenties and therefore remained young while Brenda actually reversed aging and looks younger every year that she’s on raw foods. It’s amazing!
My experience
I have taken Tonya suggestion (from Quantum Eating) of only eating twice a day and it has been great. I find that when I do eat I’m less likely to overeat, I have more energy and am less likely to eat things I don’t want to eat. I don’t just mean that I don’t want to use up my allotment of food on something that’s not wholesome. It really goes beyond that. I just don’t want it. It’s been a process but it’s working and I only started cutting back to 2 meals-a-day 6 days ago. Oh, one more thing, if I put something in my mouth now that’s not beneficial to my body, it tastes like I want to spit it out, and I did yesterday. I put some non-dairy frozen dessert in my mouth and as it started to melt I tasted things in it that I hadn’t tasted before and spit it right out into the sink. I won’t do that again.
What I eat now
My daily food now consists of green smoothies and nuts. (I soak and dehydrate the nuts before I eat them.) I sometimes have fruit as well but that’s about the bulk of my eating. Keep in mine that I started drinking a quart of green smoothies a day on November 29th.
Conclusions
I found the pictures in this book to be motivating and the stories inspiring and informative. The information on the health benefits of the different foods made me more conscious of how I was eating and the best way to make the most of the food I do eat. It was very educational and has affected my health positively.
View book details at Amazon: Beautiful on Raw: Uncooked Creations
Your Right to Be Beautiful
November 6th, 2007
What this book is about
If you ever wondered how to feel good for your whole life, remain young and look your most beautiful, then this book has everything you need. Tonya Zavasta has done all the research into what brings out the most beautiful "you" and how your lifestyle and what you eat can either shut it away or allow it to shine brightly. She addresses why we feel we have to resort to surgery to look beautiful (Barbie dolls and air-brushed models) and how to bring out our most beautiful self without it. She also teaches us that beautify is more than "skin deep" and that what we see on the outside is a reflection of the beauty and healthy (or lack thereof) on the inside. A beautiful, healthy outside also means a beautiful, health inside and dramatic healthy throughout.
How she achieves it
Through her own health challenges and many surgeries for a birth-defect in her hips, Tonya sought a way to be optimally healthy and beautiful (her beauty was affected by her diet and the surgeries). She wanted to achieve beauty inside and out. Through her diligent and thorough research into the causes of illness, how foods and habits affect our health and looks, she takes the reader on a journey that leads one from discouragement (when considering the "perfection" of air-brushed magazine models) to hopefulness and ultimate excitement about ones’ future filled with vitality, vibrant health, youth and beauty. Here are pictures of Tonya and her Russian mother, both at the age of 45. Doesn’t Tonya look much younger and healthier?
Topics covered
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Deodorants and Antiperspirants
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Toxins
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Vaccines
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Meat
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Medicine
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Salt
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Cigarettes, Nicotine and Tobacco
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Artificial Sweeteners
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Pasteurization
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - rBGH
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Alcohol
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Antibiotics
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Soda
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Caffeine
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Refined Sugar
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Dairy
- Beauty, Health and Life Draining - Exitotoxins
- Signs of Aging and Ill Health - Aging
- Signs of Aging and Ill Health - Pimples
- Signs of Aging and Ill Health - Age Spots
- Signs of Aging and Ill Health - Illnesses
- Signs of Aging and Ill Health - Birth Defects
- Signs of Aging and Ill Health - Freckles
- Signs of Aging and Ill Health - Gray Hair
- Signs of Aging and Ill Health - Oriental Diagnosis
- Topic Covered - Barbie Dolls
- Topic Covered - Food Pyramid
- Topic Covered - Hair Care
- Topic Covered - Skin Brushing
- Healthy and Live Giving - Alternative Health Therapies
- Healthy and Live Giving - Fasting
- Healthy and Live Giving - Raw Foods
- Healthy and Live Giving - Sunshine
Sunshine
We all love the sun but avoid it during the brightest hours. We avoid it so much that we need sunglasses even in the winter to shield our unexposed eyes, but we need the sun. Our bodies get natural Vitamin D from healthy amounts of exposure to the sun. Tonya brings up the point that flowers don’t get sunburn or tan and get wrinkled skin from exposure to the sunlight. No, flowers and other plants grow and thrive turning beautiful colors in the sun and providing wonderful nutrients for animals and humans, all from the sun. She states that it’s the toxins and impurities in our bodies that actually burn causing sunburn and tanning.
Exercise
When I saw one of Tonya’s lectures she talked about her exercise routine. In addition to resistance weight training she also does one and a half hours (if I remember correctly) of yoga (the kind you do in a hot yoga studio) each day. She swears by it and highly recommends it. I actually don’t have that much time to spend exercising every day, so in addition to resistance weight training twice a week and 20 minutes of aerobic activity 5-7 days a week I do Callenetics one to three times a week. The one hour Callanetics program is recommended once or twice a week. People achieve amazing results in just 10 weeks or less depending on their fitness condition when they start. The pictures in the original one hour Callanetics program are proof positive of the quick results. Flexibility is also achieved as well as a sense of well-being.
Scientific study recommendations not the same for raw foodists
Studies that offer recommendations on things like how much water to drink were done on subjects who eat a cooked food diet and can’t be applied to raw foodists. She covers this topic so make sure you read how things are different for raw foodists.
The evolution of a raw foodists diet
As you evolve on your raw food diet you will notice that your tastes and your bodies needs change. What you eat during your transition to raw foods will be very different from your diet at 6 months raw, which will be different from your diet at 2 years, 10 years, 20 years, etc. as your body learns to eat and crave more of the foods nature intended.
Inspiring others
From the stories Tonya told in her lecture, it sounds to me like her husband married her to try and save her. He was her "night in shining armor", but as it turns out, she’s saving him from an early grave my inspiring him to live a raw food lifestyle as well. He is getting healthier, thinner and happier. They are both very happy together.
Oriental Diagnosis
I found it very interesting to read what outward signs like pimples and age spots mean, using Oriental diagnosis. Did you know that pimples on the forehead mean intestinal or liver problems?
Food combining note
While writing this review I’m reading Victoria Boutenko‘s book Green for Life, which states that green leafy vegetables should be in their own category and not lumped with vegetables. Green leafy vegetables DO combine well with fruit.
Bibliography
The extensive research resulted in a great book and an long bibliography. If you want more information on any of the topics you can find it in the bibliography.
Conclusions
If you’re looking for a complete book on the ills of modern eating as well as a complete book on why and how to eat raw, Tonya has done all the research for you and put it down in this book for our convenience. If there was only one book my husband would read on raw foods, this would be it. Tonya has gone all out to provide convincing evidence for being raw and taking your external looks as an indication of your internal health and what the future brings for you if you continue on your current path. It’s also a must for those already on a raw food diet and those just getting started as well as skeptics and those curious about the raw food lifestyle. It will leave you inspired, empowered and in control of your health, beauty and life.
View book details at Amazon: Your Right to Be Beautiful: How to Halt the Train of Aging and Meet the Most Beautiful You