Feliz Cumpleanos Omar!

Por mi amigo de Pueblo (unless you’ve moved again)

I am wishing you and your wonderful dreamy Pisces self a life full of the joy and beauty you have brought to mine. Till we meet again… Feliz Cumpleanos Omar.

Comfort Zone

Please act to help prevent our sea friends against sound abuse

As you know, I have been studying sound and healing. My personal experience of using sound to help heal the body on many levels is profound. Also understand that sound can and is used for abuse and torture, in this case our friends in our vast oceans. Please sign this simple petition urging President Obama to reverse sonar training that slowly and painfully are killing our marine life.

Dear Friend,

President Bush left behind three dangerous rules that would allow the Navy “to take” — to harass, injure, or kill — marine mammals more than 10 million times over the next five years of sonar training.

Please urge the Obama Administration to reverse this attack on marine mammals by sending a letter today at  www.pacificenvironment.org/sonar.

If the Navy gets its way, its ships will flood millions of square miles of our oceans with mid-frequency active sonar — without essential safeguards — that is known to cause disorientation, hearing loss, stranding, and death in whales.

Make no mistake: the Navy does NOT need to put marine mammals at risk in order to protect the American people. Simple precautions, such as avoiding whale calving grounds, migration corridors, and critical habitat, would safeguard whales without compromising the nation’s military readiness. With a new administration taking office, we have an unprecedented opportunity right now to make sure that the Navy conducts its sonar training in an environmentally responsible manner.

Call on the Obama Administration to reverse the Bush rules so that thousands of whales and dolphins will be spared the deafening noise of Navy sonar at www.pacificenvironment.org/sonar.

Sincerely,

Jackie Dragon
Marine Sanctuaries Campaign
Seaflow/Pacific Environment

Quote for the day

Quote from Heartmath Institute

Acutonics Tuning forks and Sound Healing Biography

I’ve had a lot of interest lately in the Sound Healing with tuning forks and so I thought I would put classes and training down here as part of my biography, a work in progress.

1976-1984 St Simons School, Lost Altos CA

1st through 8th grade

1984-1989 Monta Vista High School, Cupertino CA

Graduated 1989

1989-1992 West Valley College, Saratoga CA

AA degree and Transfer to UCSC

1992-1994 University of California Santa Cruz, CA

Graduated BA Anthropology Degree 1994

2001 Cypress Health Institute, Santa Cruz CA

Completed 170 hour Therapeutic Massage Program

August – December 2005 Tamalpa Institute

Expressive Arts Therapy Program

May 2006- Present

Energy School in San Rafael, CA

Matrix Energetic, San Francisco CA, Level I and II

August 2006 Burning Man

September 2006-June 2007 – San Francisco

CIIS: Voice, Music and Sound Healing Certificate

Drumming, Rhythm, Voice and Mind-Body Synchronization w/ Glen Velez and Lori Cotler

Don Campbell

Sanskrit Mantra: Theory and Practice w/ Jim Ryan and Stuart Sovatsky

Sound and Silence: Paradox and Play The Trickster in Tibetan Buddhism w/ Steven Goodman

Bio Tuning and Sonic Induction Therapy with Jeffrey Thompson

Introduction to Counseling Techniques and Integration w/ Sylvia and Janis Phelps

Finding your inner musician with David Darling

Music, Medicine and Sound Therapy w/ Joshua Leed

Creativity in Tibetan Buddhism w/ Steven Goodman

Sound Therapies w/ John Beaulieu

Essential Music Therapy and Clinical Improvisation w/ Clive Robbins

razilian Music and Shamanism: Entracing, Enchantment & Enlightenment through Chant, Movement and Rhythm w/ Sylvia and Afro Brazilian Music and Dancers

February 2007 – Bay Area

Acutonics Level 1

July 2007 – Bay Area

Acutonics Level II

August 2007 -Bay Area

Acutonics Level III: Harmonic Attunement

Volunteer at BrightHaven in Northern California with 4 horses and begin working with horse energies and tuning forks

October 2007 – Bay Area

Acutonics Level IV

Hot Stone Massage Course completed

October-November 2007, Santa Fe NM

Facial Soundscapes

Planetary Soundscapes

The Transcendent Face

April 2008 Equinology Horse Massage Certification Program

March 2008, Medicine Horse Ranch,  Northern California

Workshop: Energy Vibration and You!

Been known to do/study and randomly participate in:

Capoeira, Trapeze arts, Scuba Diving, 5 Rhythms, Laughter Yoga, John of God healings

Happiness study

Happiness Can Spread Among People Like a Contagion, Study Indicates

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 5, 2008; A08

Happiness is contagious, spreading among friends, neighbors, siblings and spouses like the flu, according to a large study that for the first time shows how emotion can ripple through clusters of people who may not even know each other.

The study of more than 4,700 people who were followed over 20 years found that people who are happy or become happy boost the chances that someone they know will be happy. The power of happiness, moreover, can span another degree of separation, elevating the mood of that person’s husband, wife, brother, sister, friend or next-door neighbor.

“You would think that your emotional state would depend on your own choices and actions and experience,” said Nicholas A. Christakis, a medical sociologist at Harvard University who helped conduct the study published online today by BMJ, a British medical journal. “But it also depends on the choices and actions and experiences of other people, including people to whom you are not directly connected. Happiness is contagious.”

One person’s happiness can affect another’s for as much as a year, the researchers found, and while unhappiness can also spread from person to person, the “infectiousness” of that emotion appears to be far weaker.

Previous studies have documented the common experience that one person’s emotions can influence another’s — laughter can trigger guffaws in others; seeing someone smile can momentarily lift one’s spirits. But the new study is the first to find that happiness can spread across groups for an extended period.

When one person in the network became happy, the chances that a friend, sibling, spouse or next-door neighbor would become happy increased between 8 percent and 34 percent, the researchers found. The effect continued through three degrees of separation, although it dropped progressively from about 15 percent to 10 percent to about 6 percent before disappearing.

The research follows previous work by Christakis and co-author James H. Fowler that found that obesity also appears to spread from person to person, as does the likelihood of quitting smoking. The researchers have been using detailed records originally collected by the Framingham Heart Study, a long-running project that has explored a host of health issues, to construct and analyze detailed maps of social networks.

The findings, Christakis and others said, provide striking new evidence of the power of social networks, which could have implications for public policy. Happy people tend to be better off in myriad ways, being more creative, productive and healthier.

“For a long time, we measured the health of a country by looking at its gross domestic product,” said Fowler, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego who co-authored the study. “But our work shows that whether a friend’s friend is happy has more influence than a $5,000 raise. So at a time when we’re facing such economic difficulties, the message could be, ‘Hang in there. You still have your friends and family, and these are the people to rely on to be happy.’ “

Other experts praised the study as a landmark in the growing body of evidence documenting the influence of personal connections and the importance of positive emotions.

“It’s a pathfinding article,” said Martin E.P. Seligman, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist. “It’s totally original, and the findings are striking.”

Stanley Wasserman, who studies social networks at Indiana University, said: “We’ve known that one’s network ties are important, but we’ve never looked at anything on this scale. The implications are you can’t look at individuals as little entities devoid of their social context.”

Others, however, questioned the findings, noting that it is difficult to account for every variable that might affect the outcomes of such studies.

“Researchers should be cautious in attributing correlations in health outcomes of close friends in social network effects,” wrote Ethan Cohen-Cole of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Jason M. Fletcher of Yale University in an accompanying study. Their research used data from a large federal survey to show that acne, headaches and even height could appear to spread through social networks if not analyzed properly. “The methods of detecting ’social network effects’ of health outcomes commonly found in the recent medical literature might produce effects where none exists.”

But Christakis said his analysis took other possible explanations into consideration.

Ed Diener, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said the findings could explain why people in some countries tend to be happier than others. “This is an extremely exciting study — interesting, provocative and important,” Diener said.

While obesity appeared to spread even among people who lived far apart, happiness appears to be transmitted only among people who live within a mile of one another. The influence was also greatest among people who considered themselves mutual friends.

Because the researchers did not find the effect for people living on the same block beyond a next-door neighbor, they were confident that the positive mood was not the result of living in the same good neighborhood. Because people tended to get happier if someone they knew became happy, the researchers could rule out the alternative explanation that happy people tend to be drawn to each other.

“We know it’s not a ‘birds of a feather flock together’ effect,” Christakis said.

Surprisingly, happiness had no such effect at work. The researchers speculated that work relationships may have different dynamics. One worker might become happy because he or she got a raise or a promotion at the expense of another, for example.

Unhappiness also appeared to be catching, but not as strongly: An unhappy connection increased the chances of being unhappy by about 7 percent on average, while a happy connection increased the chances of being happy by about 9 percent. While having more friends is important for a person’s happiness, the benefit of having more friends appears to be canceled out if they are unhappy, the researchers found.

The researchers and others speculated that the emotion may be important on an evolutionary level by helping people cooperate. Seligman likened happiness to an orchestra tuning up.

“Laughter and singing and smiling tune the group emotionally,” Seligman said. “They get them on the same wavelength so they can work together more effectively as group.”

Happy Birthday Mai!

This woman is one of a kind and I am so grateful to call her a friend. Cheers to Mai!

Mai the biker, you should see her trapper hat :)

Oso Oso

Oso got a well deserved bath on my birthday. This is him sunning himself.

Vote for BrightHaven!

BrightHaven is in the running for SmartNow’s annual promotion prize. Please vote here now: http://smartnow.com/page/731

This animal sanctuary houses some of my favorite equine friends along with dozens, literally, of cats a dog and a pig who are living out their sunset years at this wonderful healing sanctuary. The owner, Gail, is in service to these animals 24/7 as this is also her home she shares with her husband. Jessica, the stable manager, is a dear woman who gives love generously to the animals and teaches volunteers, like me!

Here are just a few pics taken since August 2007, when I started my volunteer work with Brighthaven. I was inspired to return to the horse world I left behind as a rebellious teen and started trying the Acutonics tuning forks on the horses here. I have been out almost every Monday or Friday since and built a great relationship with Daisy when I left in August of this year. She was a little surprised, as were some of you, to see me groggy and tired but back last Friday. I have so missed the 4 girls and Jessica, Gail, and Bianca.

Transitioning

Today I will have been back in the states a week and I’ve experienced the most profound exhaustion as I begin this transition. The opportunity to seize each moment takes on new meaning as I digest “each moment” of the last 3 months. There is nothing like traveling in a foreign country to feel alive, sometimes with fear, a new kind of openness, curiosity, frustration, indignation, warmth, and ultimately surrender. Of course this is a personal experience and may be viewable to others, or not.

While back in the spiffy clean USA I have a new appreciation for dirt. Really. I miss it as part of my daily life, I think it keeps me in touch with the earth and thankful for each hot shower I take. Even having the fresh smelling jasmine, orange, patchoulli, almond, lime, aloe… bar of soap to wash with is a luxury most people in this world do not have.

I realize I’ve not relayed enough of my experiences in Argentina to make you appreciate, like I do, the overwhelming abundance we are afforded here in America, Marin County at that.  Where we enjoy the best organic produce, weather, shopping, access to open space, enormous homes, cars, incomes and egos. No wonder we have the most “self-help” lecturers, authors and spiritual teachers than any other place in the world. Sit down, I realize we are playing an important part of the shift in consciousness just like anybody.

I’ve said a lot this early morning. I leave you to expound upon this.