Convenient First Aid

According to herbalist, teacher, and author Cathy McNease, garden plants and various foods in your kitchen can become first aid remedies as well as long-term support for health. Having a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioner on your healing team is a good idea, for they can guide you in the use of everyday items to bring immediate comfort, can give aid while en route to their office, and can offer information on how to prepare and ingest certain foods on a daily basis for continued health. Self-education is great, but when facing a situation, it is recommended that you communicate with your TCM practitioner to verify that the remedy truly fits your constitution and ailment. The western herb, goldenseal, for example, is a fantastic anti-biotic, but its nature is cold and therefore not recommended for at least half the population, unless taken in a way that acknowledges the cold person or the person with the cold condition.

The mulberry leaf, Sang Ye, is widely known as food for silk worms, but it has benefits for humans, too. Mulberry trees do not flower, they give fruit. The plant can grow in a wide space in your sunny yard, and you may start with a cutting as well as seeds. To get a cutting of a plant, cut a piece of the stem, removing the bottom leaves and top bud of leaves off a friend’s plant, for example. Energy will travel down within the cutting, and roots, instead of buds, will grow. McNease says, “Plants that have a woody stem, like a mulberry tree cutting, or more difficult to root plants, are easiest done in soil.” Take the mulberry stem, dip it in Rooting Hormone, which is a powder you can purchase from any gardening supply store, and simply plant the cutting into moist soil. McNease warns, “Rooting Hormone is not used in water rooting, only when done in soil.” Eight to ten feet are required between the fence and this tree when planted. Whether planted initially into a pot or into the ground, remember to use good, soft, moist soil. A Pakistani variety of mulberry is McNease’s favorite because of its size and taste: they are two to three inches long and have a very sweet, delicious flavor. After years with various varieties, perhaps you will have a favorite, too. Books are available on the subject of gardening in general and growing plants from cuttings. Books, like McNease’s Tao of Nutrition, are also available, providing helpful information about the properties of plants as foods and other potential uses.

So, your child comes home from school with a cough, headache, fever, or even a sore throat. The child’s eyes are watery, possibly a little red. Perhaps the youngster has only one of these symptoms. Mild tasting Sang Ye is ready and waiting in the backyard. First, pick enough of the huge leaves for a serving of tea now and for later. McNease suggests, “When dry herbs are used to make tea, a handful of crushed dry leaves are used for a cup.” A child’s handful or an adult’s handful is used depending on for whom the tea is intended. Sang Ye is mild and non-toxic, so large doses are no problem, but remember the handful measurement to guide you with other herbs. When fresh leaves are used, just rinse off any dust. McNease recommends scissors for the task of cutting up the leaves, stating, “It really doesn’t matter if you use the leaf whole or not, but you can get a little stronger tea if the leaf is cut or crushed. When the leaves are fresh, use two to three times more of the amount used than when dry.” Pour hot water over the dry or fresh leaves in a pot, let the tea simmer for fifteen to twenty minutes, and then strain it and sip it. Be certain not to catch a chill. If you should start perspiring, be mindful of changing your clothes and avoiding a draft.

For nausea and/or a dry cough (perhaps with yellow phlegm), the huge, oval, dark green leaf from the loquat tree, Pi Pai Ye (Eriobotrya japonica), may be prepared as a single herbal remedy. It has the function of descending the rising force behind rebellious stomach qi (chi) and lung qi, which is responsible for the maladies. This leaf can clear heat from the stomach and heat and phlegm from the lung. Consulting with your TCM practitioner before preparing Pi Pai Ye tea is a good idea to rule out conditions caused by cold. Prior to breaking or cutting the leaf, or leaves, into a cup, check the back of each leaf for a scaly insect. If found, remove it. It is a parasite, not part of the leaf. The leaves are fuzzy, so when a tea is ready, it will need to be strained through a coffee filter or else the fuzz may irritate your throat.

Patchouli or Huo Xiang (Agastache rugosa) is terrific at stopping stomach flu and food poisoning symptoms. Although it is best to seek treatment for mild cases or situations when you are unable to seek immediate help - late at night or during a disaster, for example, picking some Huo Xiang leaves, pouring hot water over them, and then slowly sipping the remedy may bring some relief. McNease recommends also placing a hot water bottle on your midsection. This sometimes calms the rebellious qi, stopping the qi from moving downward too strongly and other qi from moving up too strongly during, for instance, diarrhea and vomiting. Through allowing the qi to communicate and harmonize, and by “transforming turbidity,” stomach flu and food poisoning symptoms may be relieved. A few twenty degree Southern California nights prompted McNease to shelter her Huo Xiang in a protected porch. This is a benefit to having this particular plant in a pot where it thrives.

Catnip (Nepeta cataria) is from the mint family and may be grown from a cutting. McNease says, “Plants in the mint or geranium families can easily be rooted in water, but change the water every week.” This means you may take the cutting and simply keep it in water until the root-hairs have grown sufficiently for planting. I found that my scented geranium cutting did not like being in a really sunny hot spot, so I moved it to a counter not in the path of direct sunlight. Just be aware of your cuttings and their surroundings. During extremely cold weather, these delicate plants, as well ferns and lemon trees, need to be protected. That is easy enough if they are in pots, but the ones rooted in the ground may be protected by gently placing ordinary bed sheets over them, as McNease would do in this situation.

Catnip has a hairy, square-like stem and it usually grows three to five feet high. This wonderful herb may be used indirectly for a colicky baby, for the baby does not ingest the tea directly; the mother does. Through drinking the mother’s milk, the baby’s spasms, cramping, and nervousness calm down. It has been used for diarrhea and bronchitis. Catnip and its mint relatives, spearmint and peppermint, may also be made into a tea in order to relieve the beginnings of a sore throat, a cough, and/or a slight fever, referred to as wind-heat in TCM. The mints may make you sweat, so, again, protect yourself from getting a chill.

Mullein has a soft leaf, a two-year life cycle, and can grow nine to ten feet tall. McNease says, “The first year it produces a basal rosette of furry leaves. The second year it sends up the tall flower stalk. In our mild California climate, it may last a third year with more flowers.” A tea made with the mullein leaf can resolve phlegm and can therefore aid infected lungs presenting with a cough and congestion. Its temperature is cooling, so it is best in dry and hot conditions; however, if fresh ginger is added, it may be used for cool conditions as well. Mullein flowers may be prepared for an ear infection by soaking the flowers in olive oil for a few weeks, covering the flower with at least a half an inch of the oil. Being aware that the temperature in the house is not too hot to turn the oil rancid and not too cold to turn the oil solid is tricky. Strain off the oil from the flower and keep the mullein oil in the refrigerator. When someone has an ear infection, two to three drops may be dropped into the ear.

Plantago seeds or Che Qian Zi is also known as White-man’s Foot and as plantain. They have parallel veins that are raised on the leaves. The early settlers of the U.S. brought these seeds with them as they journeyed westward, some purposely to use medicinally, some inadvertently on their shoes. The flat, broad, ribbed leaves are growing as troublesome weeds, are grown as a crop intended for bird’s food, are raised for a leafy vegetable intended for human consumption, and are still grown for medicinal reasons. The good news is, Che Qian Zi can grow anywhere. Perhaps it was so important to the settlers because it functions to clear heat and toxins. Red eyes and cough may be relieved by this versatile plant. It is great for stopping the itching from bug bites. Steep the chopped up leaves in a cup or bowl of hot water, then place the leaves on the affected area. Larry W. Mitch, author of “Whiteman’s Foot: Broadleaf Plantain,” an article in Weed Technology July 1987, said that in the past, plantain poultices were used on scorpion and snake bites, Puritans used it for deep cuts and sore feet, and the young leaves may be used in any fashion, like spinach, or can be eaten in a salad. Do not ingest this herb if pregnant, and if feeling weak, consult with your practitioner first.

TCM uses the whole dandelion plant (Pu Gong Ying/Taraxicum officinalis) by cutting it into a salad. Cut it in spring, though, as it is too bitter in summer. Dandelions are loaded with minerals and work to clear heat and toxins from the body, so may be used for the situations mentioned above. Also, new mothers experiencing mastitis will be happy to know that the dandelion leaves may be steeped in boiling water, removed, and place on the affected breast. This method works well for insect bites as well.

It is nice to know that our gardens may help us with some acute (sudden) and chronic (long term) conditions. Once we begin with one or two plants and learn to know which one to prepare for which condition, we have the option to add other plants and remedies to our gardens. Later, if we find ourselves in our TCM practitioner’s office, no matter what treatment with which they have aided us, they can always add, “Hey, cook yourself up some such and such when you get home.” They may say that the root, twig, stem, fruit, flower, or leaf is indicated for the condition we are experiencing at that moment. Each plant and plant part may address different meridians (pathways) within the body and various conditions.

For more information on food temperatures and foods appropriate for certain constitutions and conditions, please read Tao of Nutrition by Cathy McNease and Mao Ni. For a plantain recipe, please read Wild Plums in Brandy by S. Boorman, 1962.

Why Humans Have the Ability to Dowse

According to…Judy Jacka, N.D., “Dr. Robin Baker at the University of Manchester in England, has added to our understanding of the magnetic sense by locating a magnetic focus at the back of the nasal passage and just in front of the pituitary gland-the ethmoid sinus.” Jacka states that this means humans are indeed capable of internally locating magnetic north. We are like bees, birds, salamanders and fish!

Dowsers are people who usually use two metal rods in order to receive information. Information may be desired on where to locate water, or perhaps to learn about pathogenic Qi (energy) in an environment. The rods move and dip in response to the question. To outsiders, it may look as if the person is using their muscles to move the rods, when in reality the movement comes from a communication between the Earth and the magnetic sense of the Dowser. A pendulum, a weighted object at the base of a string, is another way to “dowse” for information. For example, a practitioner may gain knowledge about a person’s chakras by holding a pendulum over each chakra of a client who is lying down. Both the dowser using rods and the practitioner using a pendulum are utilizing their “magnetic sense.”

In The Vivaxis Connection, Jacka mentions a medical researcher named Robert Becker. Long ago Becker indicated “that the sophistication of modern instruments has revealed that living creatures are intimately related to the Earth’s geomagnetic field and derive vital and basic information from it.” Humans are living creatures. Jacka also refers to the work of a French scientist Professor Yves Rocard regarding the magnetic sense. Rocard claims to have located “magnetically sensitive points on the body,” such as brow ridges and the bony protuberance of some vertebrae. From Rocard’s point of view, in dowsing, these bones are “crucial receptors of information and energy.” The pineal gland and the “magnetic organ containing minute crystals of magnetite” are connected to the nervous system. This is the magnetic sense that makes humans able to dowse.

During Vivaxis exercises, a person will tap into their magnetic or dowsing sense in order to perform the techniques correctly. As with dowsing, tiny responses “in response to the question” occur in the nervous system of the person who performs the exercises. The question may have been an actual question held in the mind, or it may be a desired goal. At any rate, as with the rods and pendulum, the body part will transmit the response.

It is true that dowsing may be performed in a way that requires more of a psychic or Astral sense. Jacka feels that our ability to dowse is also related to our chakras, but since chakras reside in the Astral body, they are not considered further in this strictly physical look at dowsing. A psychic avenue is harder to document and defend. In The Vivaxis Connection, Jacka is focusing on the magnetic sense organ and the physical techniques associated with dowsing. This should help something as occult and strange as dowsing seem less out of the ordinary for those who are uncomfortable exploring outside the third dimension.

For more information on dowsing, please visit John Butler’s website at www.ascensiontools.com.

No Television!

My daughter stayed home from elementary school today. She has a nasty, spasmotic cough. Although I could blog about how neat it was watching heat come out of her during her treatment, I want to blog about sick kids staying home from school and not watching t.v.

Andreas Moritz says that watching t.v. dehydrates its viewers. I do not know if that is true or not, but imagine if it is. Mommy's little patient is most likely dehydrated enough without adding to the dilema.

Then there is Ted Andrews who says, "The importance of myths and tales in the evolutionary process of a people or individual has been overlooked in modern society. Children in more ancient times were schooled in the listening arts." The reason I mention this is because kids today watch stories. They do not close their eyes and visualize the unfolding drama as we used to do when I was a kid.

So today I pulled out my 1967 South African record called "PollyWollyWog", my 1960 British "The Beatrix Potter Stories", and a rather recent purchase my 1952 American "Winnie the Pooh". She listened for quite awhile. Then, a true child from this century, she requested peace and quiet. After giving her her wish, I heard the t.v. come on.

Oh, well. At least for awhile, she lay on her side without any coughing and journeyed to the Game Reserve, to McGregor's garden, and to the Hundred Ache Forrest.

Esoteric Acupuncture

"Only in a strong and clean body can the soul do its message fitly."
Woman in the Nineteenth Century p. 163 by Margaret Fuller

According to…Mikio Sankey, humanity as a whole has raised its consciousness to such a level that it has acted as a timelock for Esoteric Acupuncture’s New Encoding Patterns to be released and offered. These acupuncture patterns can expand humanity’s path toward healing and wellness, and opportunities for even higher consciousness!

Dr. Mikio Sankey is a California licensed acupuncturist, naturopathic physician, theosophist, lecturer, and author of several books. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been around for thousands of years. The goal of the early TCM doctors was to see their clients as little as possible, because it meant that the doctors were doing a good job with educating their clients on how to conduct their lives, and that their treatment procedures (acupuncture, acupressure, qi gong, tai chi, herbs, diet and lifestyle recommendations) were correct.

To-day, we are blessed to have Esoteric Acupuncture as another treatment protocol, thanks to Dr. Sankey, with the goal being wellness and heightened awareness about personal health, the environment and beyond. The name was chosen to express the Ancient Esoteric Wisdom along with TCM and acupuncture theory. The diagnosis process is different compared to traditional acupuncture where the practitioner views the client’s tongue, feels the pulses on their wrists for information about their organ systems, and takes note of their signs and symptoms. The Esoteric Acupuncturist notices tears in a person’s energy field, foreign energies clogging the system, imbalances with the chakras (huge energetic vortices situated along the midline of an individual), and especially various emotions and how they are effecting the client. TCM is often referred to as preventative medicine. Esoteric Acupuncture is concerned with wellness, taking prevention to a whole new level.

Healers, not licensed in acupuncture, may use Esoteric Acupuncture patterns by using crystals, oils and other items instead of needles. With the New Encoding Patterns, the acupoints, areas of extreme energy on the body, are touched in an exact order. While the points are activated, the client remains awake, possibly doing mental imagery to assist with the treatment. Afterwards, the objects are removed in the inverse order to how they were placed in or on the body. Dr. Sankey has found that this protocol, unlike with traditional acupuncture, releases higher frequencies. In fact, meditators wishing to expose themselves to heightened awareness and expanded consciousness are drawn to Esoteric Acupuncture, especially those who do Inner Plane or multidimensional work.
Esoteric Acupuncture helps a client to be able to view problems and imbalances from a higher level, thus being able to step back from a situation in order to improve clarity. The fine tuning of subtle frequencies, being aware, and an active participant in the process, the client may “simultaneously align and initiate the opening of their Heart Center.” This will cause a frequency of love that is generated throughout the energy field Esoteric Acupuncture is just one more piece of the puzzle available at this time.
becoming the “gateway to expanded healing.” Dr. Sankey emphasizes the importance of the Heart Center being in alignment, because, in his opinion, no healing can truly occur without it.

Information, Intelligence and memory reside in the cells. Think of each cell is as a computer and Esoteric Acupuncture as a tool that helps a client to access the data when the timing is appropriate for that particular individual. With organic produce, clean, healthy water, exercise suitable for the client’s personality and body type, meditation, and a modality such as Esoteric Acupuncture, a person may become more present and healthy.

For more information, please visit Dr. Sankey’s website at www.esotericacupuncture.com.

Esoteric Acupuncture Revisited

“…this body is no more than a garment of thought.”
Journey Into Nature by Michael J. Roads

According to Mikio Sankey, acupuncturists might have better results with their clients if they looked for the qi emanating from the person’s true acupoint rather than merely looking at a book’s generic definition of where the point should be located on everyone’s body.

How may an acupuncturist see, feel, or simply know where the center of a specific acupoint is appearing on any given client on any given day? When a practitioner follows the same guidelines they present to their clients for living well, the acupuncturists will refine their own Qi (energy) and thus work toward intuiting the location of points. The guidelines given and followed are to receive acupuncture in conjunction with eating foods and beverages that promote life. This means avoiding the chemicals frequently found in beverages, food and drugs. According to Sankey, even a sip of alcohol sends its energy from the practitioner through the needle to the client. Under normal circumstances this may not present a problem. If the client is a recovering alcoholic, however, the practitioner needs to be aware of the state of his or her own Qi and what he or she is bringing energetically to the treatment room. Meditating and/or doing Inner Plane work as well as performing Esoteric Acupuncture on clients will contribute to increasing the practitioner’s awareness, intuition, and ability to see or feel subtle qi.

Here is a surprising fact. The client’s Intention for the outcome they wish to receive from the treatment can actually effect where acupoints will show up at that time on his or her body. Of course a hand point will always be in a similar area on the body. It would not suddenly be accessed on the foot. However, astute acupuncturists will notice that from person to person particular acupoints are not consistently found in exactly the same spot, nor even on one person from treatment to treatment. Even with these adjustments, the acupoints will always be in the proximity of the book’s definition; however, several factors influence whether a treatment has offered all that was expected. Did the client and practitioner have the same Intent, or any Intent at all? Is the practitioner able to sense the point’s location? Some people prefer a practitioner who is aware that they are in process and working toward the same wellness and high awareness goals as their clients. Other clients hold any doctor in high regard simply for holding a license and the clients are unconcerned with the practitioner’s state of health and state of mind. A client’s decision s about their practitioner’s standards will also contribute to the treatment.

The Chakras, spinning energy vortices, are located in a person’s Astral/Emotional Body, which is outside the Defensive/Protective Qi area of their physical body. Incarnating humans consist of five bodies: the dense physical body and the four subtle/finer frequency bodies, which Sankey says are “actually distinct vibrational fields extending outward from the dense physical body.” Each body is named for the plane on which it resides. The physical body resides in the physical plane, for example, yet each body is contained within all the bodies that precede them. The subtle bodies from most dense to most fine are the Etheric, the one that houses the acupuncture meridians; the Astral, the one with which traveling and work may be accomplished away from the physical level while still incarnating; the Mental/Casual, the Mental acts as a filter for incoming information and the Casual is a higher level of the Mental body; and the Spiritual, which is actually separated into the Buddhic, Atmic, Monadic, and Logoic. Energies come from the Mental plane through the Chakras in the Astral body to the physical body. Imbalanced Chakras may pull in greater energies from our other subtle bodies and planes of existence. Due to being laden with charged emotional energy, the frequency now working within the Chakras may be lower, and the spinning may go in the opposite direction for health. (Clockwise is a healthy rotation for those in the Northern Hemisphere. Counter-clockwise is healthy for those in the Southern Hemisphere). Chakras must be clear, open, and activated prior to working consciously with kundalini energy.

Sankey writes, “Kundalini refers to an electromagnetic energy field of consciousness” that is stored at the base of the spine. It slowly rises up the etheric spine over the course of someone’s life, unless he or she, along with their Inner Plane work and meditation, is working with it purposely. In Sanskrit, kundal does mean coil; however, kunda can mean pit, as in the cranium. Sankey points out that “the dissection of the human brain reveals that it resembles a snake coiled upon itself.” Westerners can think it all hog wash, but it is a good idea to research and understand the effect of kundilini, diet, and the power of unexpressed emotions because in ignorance one risks the rising energy getting stuck, usually around the third and fourth Chakras in middle age. It is common to know someone who died of a heart attack around forty years of age.

When people are out of balance, they might like to find their center, which actually rises with their changes toward health and along with increased understanding of their subtle bodies. Esoteric Acupuncture can assist a person with this endeavor through Sacred Geometry, among other disciplines. Humans are not flat. When Sacred Geometry is Intended through using Esoteric Acupuncture patterns, energy folds, flops, and twists, affecting a person much like a combination lock that first turns to the right, and then to the left. With each “click,” a person’s consciousness is closer to “opening.” Building the Antahkarana, Rainbow Bridge, is assisted with this work. Building the Antahkarana is building the center. The concept of the six surrounding the one is made manifest with needles, or oils and crystals, for the non-acupuncture treatment. Bridges, or connections, between the sixth and seventh Chakras, that some meditators have long been aiming to establish, may occur now. Knowledge may come to those receiving regular Esoteric Acupuncture treatments without reading or hearing the information. For others, simply being able to understand a once hard book may be the noticeable outcome. Full Sensory abilities may first show up with peripheral clairvoyance, seeing into other dimensions out of the corner of the eye. Other benefits may include calmer, more balanced relationships and accompanying improved physical health.

When a client visualizes the acupoints connecting to each other, picturing golden light making triangular shapes, and consciously moves energy in figure eights, the client becomes a living Yantra. A Yantra in Sanskrit is a tool that can be used during meditation in order to express otherworldly ideas, something that can perceive and receive. Yantras sometimes look like beautiful designs in the shape of a circle. Another example of a perceiver/receiver is the human body. Esoteric Acupuncture is a tool for assisting with an awakening through the Yantra of the human body. Esoteric Acupuncture is a tool making a spiritual “download” possible.

Esoteric Acupuncture can guide a person on a journey to understanding finally that the ancient Hindu belief that we are all connected to everything is true. When someone makes the decision to refine their Qi (energy), it is as if a veil has been removed and the whole world opens up for them. With the New Encoding patterns, needles are placed in and are also later removed from acupoints in an exact order. This sequence acts very much like a combination lock. The client does more than simply relax on a massage table with the needles in place, they experience what NASA refers to as “spin field.” Esoteric Acupuncture can assist a person with their Intent to build minor energetic bridges within their head centers in order to eventually sustain a bigger bridge, the Antahkarana, the Rainbow Bridge. Energy will not go to the Crown Chakra, it will jump if something, like the Rainbow Bridge, is not set up in advance. Needling one point and having it travel to another not within its meridian system is possible with Esoteric Acupuncture.

Esoteric Acupuncture works on multiple levels: physical, etheric, astral, mental/casual, and spiritual in order to support a client in preventing illness, maintaining health, and experiencing wellness on previously unknown levels. For more information, please read Esoteric Acupuncture: Gateway to Expanded Healing and truly participate with your acupuncturist in designing Esoteric Acupuncture treatments suited for you personally.

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I Have a Dream, Too

Last Wednesday morning, it was raining. I was walking toward a building behind a married couple. (The husband was in the lead, followed by the wife, and then me, a distant third.) At the double doors, the man opened one and entered without looking back and without holding the door for the two hot on his heels. To consider fellow human beings is obviously a courtesy I take for granted. Instead of allowing the door to close in her face, he could have held the door, even from inside the building if he preferred. After opening the door and beginning to enter, she held the door for me. This is a step toward my dream; for humans to consider one another.

Fancy sleeping with a man who is unable to consider you! I suppose most women of yesteryear experienced just that. If people never lost their ability to consider one another, perhaps Mary Wollstonecraft (1792), Anna Jameson (1832), and Margaret Fuller (1845), not to mention all the authors on female rights since, may not have felt compelled to put ink to paper at all. Let’s face it. The men of yesteryear with power were too busy worrying about securing their rights to speak as they wished, hold slaves if they wished, and to be able to vote if they wished. They were making certain they were justly represented in government and, like this modern day husband, they were far too concerned with their own obligations at hand, to consider neglected groups denied a voice, or those walking behind. How differently America would have been settled if those few with a voice were able to consider the masses!

Considering others is offering an ear, even though we believe we lack the time. It is being in traffic, seeing a red light up ahead, checking in the rear view mirror for stopping safely, and allowing those three cars to make their left turn into the shopping center. It is gathering up another’s plates since we are heading out to the kitchen ourselves. It is knowing that we have a very toxic work mate and so doing what we can for her. And it is holding the door for a fellow worker, even though we are married to him/her, and even though in our estimation, we do not have the time to spare.

My male cousin once held the door for a girl just behind him about to enter a university building in Australia. She socked him in the face to his great surprise. His thoughtfulness was interpreted as an accusation of weakness. Certainly, the husband knows his wife is capable of opening a door, and he was simply thoughtless in that moment. Children learn by example. Gentlemen make strong fathers. I have a dream, too.

Consideration. With it, we would not have, nor would we ever have had, any form of slavery. Consideration. With it, women would not have, nor would they ever have been unfairly judged and oppressed. Consideration. With it, one has to wonder if divorce would be so prevalent. Consideration. With it, a door is not allowed to slam in the face of another, “woman libber” or not. Consideration. With it, those in the lucrative business of suppressing would run out of heroes to assassinate, because there would be too many of us and too few bullets.

Martin Luther Kings would be the norm…
not the exception.

Yes, I Have a Dream, too.

Bye-Bye Microwave!

I am sitting here contemplating a MLK blog, enjoying holding a hot cup of coffee, and having a few sips, enjoying the rain and the fact that my mother did it!

Today is the first day that she no longer uses a microwave. Saturday we found her old fashioned stainless steel non-electric, filter included, coffee maker. This morning, she placed it on the stove, poured the boiling water into the wide opening, and placed the lid on it. In only a few minutes, the water passed through the coffee grounds and into the pot part of the contraption. Another benefit is that she no longer needs to purchase coffee filters.

In the past, my mother put her coffee in the microwave, because the electric coffee maker just did not get the coffee hot enough for her taste. This old fashioned contraption does!

Bye-Bye microwave!

For information on the harmful effects of microwaves, please visit www.ascensiontools.com.