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Joy is healing and may need a little help.

We can not always choose our attitude – just smile and be happy – nutrient deficiencies can cause mood changes that are not going to change without getting the nutrients. Then the change to a better mood can happen rapidly sometimes, within 20 minutes for magnesium if needed.

Hunger, sleepiness, stress or anger, loneliness, all may interfere with mood or mood control. Patience is a virtue, and practice helps. So does a good night’s sleep. Low blood sugar can lead to irritability or poor concentration, so can poor sleep. Briefly resting can help recharge things towards a better mood, and sometimes a walk may help.

Nature or images of nature cam help sooth stress and walking was found more beneficial in natural surroundings than in urban settings for relieving stress.

Brighter lighting indoors can help mood if sunshine isn’t available. Sunshine helps our circadian cycle and helps make vitamin D, surprise also water soluble forms of vitamin A and D. Full spectrum lighting might be a good health and mood supplement during winter months.

Salt crystal lamps can help improve air quality for mood due to negative ions being released. These may also help improve air quality by helping remove odor particles or mold. When the salt is warmed it releases negative ions and possibly a little ozone, but not much based on sites selling other types of air cleaners. Ozone is safe if it is not in excessive amounts and it can also have a positive effect on mood.

The negative ions or ozone help air quality by clumping with air particles which causes them to drop from the air. Then just sweep it up.

http://www.natural-salt-lamps.com/negative-ions.html * I am unaffiliated with this site but as personal testimonial – I went upstairs to get my lamp because the basement smelled musty and unpleasant. Using the salt lamp several hours a day does give it a fresh feeling and salty ocean aroma instead of musty.

This helps with mold spores or odor particles or secondhand smoke chemicals and odor. Too much ozone can cause headaches, but the salt crystal doesn’t produce much, not compared to ozone producing air cleaners. The negative ions may build up, so leaving the lamp warming all day may be more than you want. I do reach a point where I want to turn off the lamp after it had been on for hours.

The reddish glow may have health benefits as light therapy if other lights are turned off. In the evening having dimmer lighting can help the body adjust to getting ready for sleep. Bright screen blue light is too much like sunny day light and keeps our circadian cycle genes set to active awake mode. Blue light blocking glasses are available to wear for the last 3 hours before sleep time, to help the circadian cycle switch gears.

We need that to happen for growth and repair genes to be activated and the active awake, inflammatory functions are turned off for the night. The two systems share a protein, so they have to take turns. We can’t use both pathways at the same time if they both need the same assembly line machine.

Himalayan Salt Cystal lamp, it has a dial so it can be darker and cooler, less ozone released.

Joy can be practiced. The feeling of gratitude and connection to others or the planet can be a support when things are tough. Pausing to look for beauty, or snap an image, smell a flower, pet a friendly animal, all can be an island of joy in an otherwise busy day.

Tiger lilies and wild goldenrod.

My site peace-is-happy.org is my art escape with posts that are generally shorter than are found on this site. It also has sustainable building information and biodiversity- peace is living within a community of friends, family, and wildlife. Peace is clean air, water, and food. Peace is shelter on a cold day, or a shady canopy on a sunny summer day. Peace is caring for oneself, and the community as an extention of oneself. Peace is lending a hand and accepting one when in need.

Peace is a warm puppy, or a comfortable baby. Hat-tip to Charles Schultz and his book “Love is a Warm Puppy.” The titles on the peace-is-happy.org site are based on his simple and beautiful little book.

Love is a soft blanket,

to surround oneself or others.

Peace is love for oneself and others,
even when annoying or annoyed.

The peace-is-happy.org site has a page with links to a podcast series I did last year regarding our feelings or mood and what those feelings might mean. They may not mean anything beyond, you need a nap or a snack. Or they might mean the snack you had was not a great choice for your later mood. But in either case – might not mean that someone else was purposely trying to irritate you. You – might just be feeling irritable.

The podcast is called: How Are You Feeling? The webpage has links to the audio and to transcripts with references and occasionally additional information. https://www.peace-is-happy.org/how-are-you-feeling

Disclaimer: This information is being shared for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and are not intended to provide individual health care guidance. Please seek an individual health care provider for individualized health care guidance.

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Connecting to the past through words

The written word allowed mankind to share knowledge in the present and across time. We can learn from others experience when it is shared in a written or audio format. Storytelling and reciting from memory was how history was passed down through generations for much of human history. The alphabet and written text in its various languages and appearance changed human culture.

Kurt Vonnegut was an exceptional wordsmith, crafter of words both real and of his own creation. To connect any interested readers or writers, in brief, I returned to the bookstore for a copy of Timequake to give to a friend and instead found a book that fills in yet more gaps in the biography, The Brothers Vonnegut, and autobiography/novel Timequake. Armageddon in Retrospect, And Other New and Unpublished Writings on War and Peace, (Berkley Books, 2008, New York), by Kurt Vonnegut, Introduction by Mark Vonnegut (one of his sons who is also a writer) is a collection of unpublished short stories and letters including one that was mentioned in both Timequake and The Brothers Vonnegut.

The letter was published in a newspaper after WWII. It is the initial, oh, you may not have heard yet family, but I’m not dead and no longer Missing In Action, letter to his lived ones. I haven’t read past the letter. Tears in my eyes make it difficult to read – or write. War is bad. We need to be reminded of that everyday until we figure out how to manage life more humanely. I share the hope that humans can do that soon.

Learning to write better may be a goal which reading well written words can help achieve. Learning to live better may be a bonus.

Previous post about The Brothers Vonnegut: https://transcendingsquare.com/2018/03/01/who-owns-science-or-should-all-ideas-be-shared/

Previous post about Timequake: https://transcendingsquare.com/2018/03/05/timequake-a-novel-by-kurt-vonnegut/

Disclosure: This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use.

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Timequake, a novel by Kurt Vonnegut

Timequake as a work of fiction isn’t quite and as an autobiography might also leave a few bewildered readers unless they were regular readers of Kurt Vonnegut. Surreal fiction that isn’t quite science fiction but which also isn’t quite based in the real world is a norm for the books I remember besides the book he is best known for. Slaughterhouse Five is novel that describes his experiences in World War II during which he was captured and held as a Prisoner of War. Conditions were intolerable and many other soldiers who were captured died. The experience left Kurt Vonnegut going that peace would be achieved after the war.

Timequake (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1997) is the last novel Kurt Vonnegut wrote and he was in his seventies at the time. In a recent post I discussed a biography that is a history based on a variety of archived material about he and his brother Bernard Vonnegut, a weather/cloud seeding scientist, and other scientists from the era, and interviews from a few surviving family members. https://transcendingsquare.com/2018/03/01/who-owns-science-or-should-all-ideas-be-shared/

The nonfiction book and novel include some of same stories from the family’s history but written in different styles. Both books provide an interesting look into the effort involved in building a successful writing career. While the nonfiction biography/history was written more recently it was helpful to read it first as it provides more detail in consecutive order about Kurt Vonnegut and his family and it helped provide a better understanding of some of the pain and difficulty that may have led to some of the more surreal and cryptic stories that Kurt Vonnegut included in Timequake. 

Part of the book includes a storyline that is fiction but which is also somewhat autobiographical because the main character is an author that he considered somewhat of an alter ego. Nice to have a fictions voice to say the things that polite society wouldn’t say or might not want to hear. The storyline is what the title is derived from, all the characters including Kurt Vonnegut are supposedly trapped in a Timequake and they are having to repeat everything they did in the previous ten years over the course of the next ten years. When time unfreezes again people aren’t prepared for a return of free will. The author character tells them:

‘You were sick, but now you’re well again, and there’s work to do,’

The phrase catches on and more people start to repeat it.

The underlying theme is about peace and ending gun violence. It is also about appreciating each other and the little things in life more than television shows. It is about self respect and holding yourself together when it might be difficult. The book is timely and may leave your self respect slightly shredded at points but you may arrive on the other end of the Timequake stronger and ‘there’s work to do,’ so it may be worth the slight shredding. An example:

‘Men are insane. Women are psychotic.’

Having survived being a Prisoner of War and the Allie’s carpet bombing of Dresden may give some license for questioning human nature and the line isn’t flattering to either gender. Six of one, half a dozen of the other – who among us is completely sane at all times?

The title may have to do with an experience mentioned on page 129 that occurred after the Allie’s won WWII but Kurt Vonnegut hadn’t returned home yet. He and another soldier found a Nazi soldier as he lay dying. The soldier asked them to leave him to die and then signaled that he had something else to say. Last words? They listened:

‘I have just wasted the past ten years of my life,’ he said.

Kurt Vonnegut followed the story with a line describing the last words as a Timequake.

The Nazi soldier is dead and far more than ten years were lost in WWII but there is always tomorrow for the rest of us who are still reading and thinking.

‘You were sick, but now you’re well again, and there’s work to do.‘

Disclosure: This information is being shared for the purpose of education or entertainment within the guidelines of Fair Use. Opinions and any errors in the summarized material are my own.

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Inspiring Words about Peace – Kaiser Permanente Memorial Park

A memorial sculpture park was created after 9/11 by Mario Chiodo to remind us of the words and vision of peace shared by 25 great healers, leaders, writers, artists, activists from around the world. The Henry J. Kaiser Memorial Park is a sculpture park in Oakland, California includes four large works that combine words and images of the 25 leaders with 14 additional local activists including Henry J. Kaiser, founder of Kaiser Institute and Kaiser Permanente, and a fireman is included to represent the workers and others who lost their lives on 9/11/2001. The 25 heroes are also portrayed individually with one of their quotes in two rows of smaller brass sculptures and plaques.

The tragic events of September 11, 2001, compelled Mario Chiodo to create the Remember Them monument. Embedded deep within the foundation is an original steel fragment from the New York World Trade Center. A sculpted replica of the fragment is shown above. It is Mario’s hope to inspire the world to work together to turn tragedy into peace.

Remember Them – by Mario Chiodo

Remember Them – by Mario Chiodo

Remember them when you walk with freedom.

Remember them when you think of liberty.

Remember them when your children get on the school bus.

Remember them while you sleep without fear.

 

Remember them when you are hungry or lonely.

Remember them when you thirst for knowledge.

Remember them when you cannot see the light or hear the birds sing.

Remember them when you are lost and need hope.

 

Remember them when others say “You cannot . . .”

Remember them when you know you can.

Remember them when it is difficult to see the good.

 

Remember them when those less fortunate come your way.

Remember them when someone is unkind.

Remember them – forgive and be compassionate.

 

Remember them when you see injustices.

Remember them and know your voice can be heard.

Remember them and stand up for what is right.

 

Remember them and know that we are all equal.

Remember them and know that our children become what they see.

Remember them and know that your actions determine history.

 

Remember them and know that obstacles are opportunities.

Remember them and know the greatest success often comes from failure.

Remember them and know you have so much to give.

 

Remember them and walk the path of peace.

Remember them and never give up.

Remember them and reach for the stars.

Disclaimer: Opinions are my own and the information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes.