Dr. Dan Siegel at Wisdom 2.0 Youth

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Wisdom 2.0 Youth Conference this weekend was just what I needed. It was great to visit the Computer History Museum in Mountain View . A conference centered around mindfulness and meditation is naturally going to include a lot of that. 

The presenters had really good stuff to say. I enjoyed Dr. Dan Siegel whose mission is to "provide a scientifically grounded, integrated view of human development for mental health practitioners, educators, organizational leaders, parents, and others as we promote the growth of vibrant lives and healthy minds."

I was intrigued by his concept of the healthy mind platter. From his website

The Healthy Mind Platter has seven daily essential mental activities necessary for optimum mental health. These seven daily activities make up the full set of “mental nutrients” that your brain and relationships need to function at their best. By engaging every day in each of these servings, you promote integration in your life and enable your brain to coordinate and balance its activities. These essential mental activities strengthen your brain's internal connections and your connections with other people and the world around you.

His integral view resonated strongly with me. 

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• Mindfulness, Technology, Education, and Parenting
• The Culture of Mental Health

Brahmavihara

Loving-kindness towards all: the hope that a person will be well; "the wish that all sentient beings, without any exception, be happy."

Compassion: the hope that a person's sufferings will diminish; "the wish for all sentient beings to be free from suffering."

Empathetic Joy: joy in the accomplishments of a person — oneself or another; sympathetic joy; "the wholesome attitude of rejoicing in the happiness and virtues of all sentient beings."

Equanimity: learning to accept loss and gain, praise and blame, and success and failure, all with detachment, equally, for oneself and for others. Equanimity is "not to distinguish between friend, enemy or stranger, but regard every sentient being as equal. It is a clear-minded tranquil state of mind - not being overpowered by delusions, mental dullness or agitation."

Ode to the Brain! by Symphony of Science

go on...

Support for Caregivers in Health Care Reform | The White House

The Middle Class Task Force developed a new Caregiver Initiative in the FY 2011 Budget to address the needs of the estimated 65 million Americans that provide unpaid care to seniors or people with disabilities. The historic health care legislation signed by the President last Tuesday will complement and enhance the Task Force’s Initiative. Let’s take a quick look at the ways in which health reform will help family caregivers and their loved ones.

First, the health reform legislation includes a provision called the CLASS Act, which establishes a new, voluntary long-term care insurance program for workers aimed at allowing them in the event of a disability to assist them in accomplishing life’s daily activities. After a 5-year vesting period, participants who experience a functional limitation would receive a cash benefit that could be used to purchase services and supports needed to maintain their independence at home or in the community including things like home modifications, assistive technology, accessible transportation, homemaker services, personal assistance services, home care aides, and nursing support. CLASS Act benefits can be used to compensate family caregivers, who often make huge financial sacrifices. And receiving benefits from this program would not have any effect on eligibility for other government programs.

Not pretty, but unfortunately real

Nooses And Broken Windows: A Week Of Threats And Vandalism: "As the health care debate came to its conclusion this week, the high-running emotions of many finally crested, taking the form of threats and acts of vandalism at the offices of several lawmakers, most of them Democrats. Here, a roundup:

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• NY Rep. Anthony Weiner receives threat and suspicious white powder (inquisitr.com)

Well written

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine said ``immediate deliverables'' should convince Americans that the overhaul was the right thing. Children with pre-existing conditions now can't have their coverage dumped. Seniors will get a break on prescription-drug costs. Parents will be able to keep their children on their policies up to age 26. Other expansions and protections would be phased in.

``They'll wonder, `Well gosh, is there a ``death panel''? Have we seen that?' '' Kaine said. ``No, it didn't exist. It never existed.'' The months between now and the November elections will ``expose that an awful lot of what the other side said was a phantom that never existed, and I think again that's going to work to our benefit.''

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• Health Care Bill: What Does it Mean For You? (abcnews.go.com)

Different ways of thinking

Temple Grandin, diagnosed with autism as a child, talks about how her mind works. She makes the case that the world needs people on the autism spectrum: visual thinkers, pattern thinkers, verbal thinkers, and all kinds of smart geeky kids.

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• Temple Grandin The World Needs All Kinds Of Minds (slideshare.net)

Stem cells rock

Man appears free of HIV after stem cell transplant

A 42-year-old HIV patient with leukemia appears to have no detectable HIV in his blood and no symptoms after a stem cell transplant from a donor carrying a gene mutation that confers natural resistance to the virus that causes AIDS, according to a report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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• Stem Cell, Bone Marrow Transplants Both Benefit Leukemia Patients (nlm.nih.gov)

brain waves

Think tennis for yes, home for no: how doctors helped man in vegetative state
For seven years the man lay in a hospital bed, showing no signs of consciousness since sustaining a traumatic brain injury in a car accident. His doctors were ­convinced he was in a vegetative state. Until now.

To the astonishment of his ­medical team, the patient has been able to ­communicate with the outside world after scientists worked out, in effect, a way to read his thoughts.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Q & O
www.thedailyshow.com

this could be good...

UPDATE 2-US approves Acorda MS drug to help with walking | Reuters


Acorda Therapeutics Inc
(ACOR.O) won U.S. approval on Friday for the first drug to
improve walking ability in patients with multiple sclerosis.

MS patients in clinical trials who took the oral drug,
Ampyra, had faster walking speeds than others who got a
placebo, the Food and Drug Administration said in a statement.

what is it?

it's certainly not available on e-bay.

it's undescribe-babel, but anyone who makes that journey, rich or poor, strong, weak or clever, black, white, red, yellow, day glo lime green, gentile and jew, muslim and hare krishna code warriors, if they really strip away all of that crap we call ego, and stand naked before the playa, clothed or not, and come to terms that this is ALL WE ARE, AND THIS IS WHAT WE ARE TO RETURN TO....fire and ashes and dust.....

to dust....


this is it....love one another, feed the poor, be kind to strangers, be as children, and play with fire,


and, most importantly, KEEP GOING UNTIL YOU FIND "IT"...

whatever it is, i'm sure there is a camp for it at burning man....

Thanks Ami - This is unreal

The Shambhala Warrior

· Firmly establish your intention to live your life for the healing of the world. Be conscious of it, honour it, nurture it every day.

· Be fully present in our time. Find the courage to breathe in the suffering of the world. Allow peace and healing to breathe out through you in return.

· Do not meet power on its own terms. See through to its real nature - mind and heart made. Lead your response from that level.

· Simplify. Clear away the dead wood in your life. Look for the heartwood and give it the first call on your time, the best of your energy.

· Put down the leaden burden of saving the world alone. Join with others of like mind. Align yourself with the forces of resolution.

· Hold in a single vision, in the same thought, the transformation of yourself and the transformation of the world. Live your life around that edge, always keeping it in sight.

· As a bird flies on two wings, balance outer activity with inner sustenance.

· Following your heart, realise your gifts. Cultivate them with diligence to offer knowledge and skill to the world.

· Train in non-violence of body, speech and mind. With great patience to yourself, learn to make beautiful each action, word and thought.

· In the crucible of meditation, bring forth day by day into your own heart the treasury of compassion, wisdom and courage for which the world longs.

· Sit with hatred until you feel the fear beneath it. Sit with fear until you feel the compassion beneath that.
Do not set your heart on particular results. Enjoy positive action for its own sake and rest confident that it will bear fruit.

· When you see violence, greed and narrow-mindedness in the fullness of its power, walk straight into the heart of it, remaining open to the sky and in touch with the earth.

· Staying open, staying grounded, remember that you are the inheritor of the strengths of thousands of generations of life.

· Staying open, staying grounded, recall that the thankful prayers of future generations are silently with you.

· Staying open, staying grounded, be confident in the magic and power that arise when people come together in a great cause.

· Staying open, staying grounded, know that the deep forces of Nature will emerge to the aid of those who defend the Earth.

· Staying open, staying grounded, have faith that the higher forces of wisdom and compassion will manifest through our actions for the healing of the world.

· When you see weapons of hate, disarm them with love.
When you see armies of greed, meet them in the spirit of sharing.
When you see fortresses of narrow-mindedness, breach them with truth.
When you find yourself enshrouded in dark clouds of dread, dispel them with fearlessness.
When forces of power seek to isolate us from each other, reach out with joy.

· In it all and through it all, holding to your intention, let go into the music of life. Dance!

by John Wigham / Akuppa akuppa@mac.com

Yum!

Richer in heart-healthy omega-3s than salmon, loaded with more anti-inflammatory polyphenols than red wine, and packing half as much muscle-building protein as chicken, the walnut sounds like a Frankenfood, but it grows on trees. Other nuts combine only one or two of these features, not all three. A serving of walnuts—about 1 ounce, or seven nuts—is good anytime, but especially as a postworkout recovery snack. SUBSTITUTES: Almonds, peanuts, pistachios, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts FIT IT IN: Sprinkle on top of salads; dice and add to pancake batter; spoon peanut butter into curries; grind and mix with olive oil to make a marinade for grilled fish or chicken. HOME RUN: Mix 1 cup walnuts with ½ cup dried blueberries and ¼ cup dark chocolate chunks.

from a great article

Sicko: A film by Michael Moore (1 hour)

Got Milk?

Higher levels of vitamin D in the blood may lower the risk of multiple sclerosis (MS), research suggests.

Acai is called a superfood for many reasons. The berry naturally contains huge amounts of Antioxidants, Vitamin B1, B2, B3, Vitamin E, Vitamin C, Phosphorus, Calcium, Potassium, Fiber, Proteins, as well as good fatty acids.

The incredible levels of antioxidants in Acai help you feel younger, and can also possibly help with medical problems such as cancer. Research has also shown that antioxidants can help regulate cholesterol levels in your body.

Acai has two essential fatty acids known as Omega 6 (Linoleic acid) and Omega 9 (Oleic acid). Research shows that Omega 6 helps lower LDL, which is the cholesterol that harms your body, while Omega 9 fatty acids lower LDL and maintain HDL (good cholesterol) levels. Acai's high levels of antioxidants also play a factor in maintenance of vascular cardiac system, which is important for better blood circulation.

The dark purplish color of the berry is due to the polyphenolic compounds present in the berry. One of the main compounds being researched is called anthocyanin. Anthocyanins are a group of Flavonoids widely distributed in plants and that give a reddish or purplish color to fruits such as blackberries, grapes, and raspberries.

Par-3

A breakthrough finding on the mechanism of myelin formation could have a major impact on the treatment of diseases such as multiple sclerosis and demyelination as a result of spinal cord injuries.

Wow