As the Year of the Dog is drawing to a close, I thought a brief annual review would be welcome. Especially in France where the inopportune barking and calf-biting of the gang of lap-yappies finally pissed everyone off, creating a huge snowball effect reaction. The problem is that the last snowflake is actually a “minor” issue in comparison with the horrors ahead (such as the deployment of 5G and RFID chips for instance) unless we take our blinders off presto. Even with two for the price of one, this is no bargain but a genuine scam.
You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to, So that when they turn their backs on you, You'll get the chance to put the knife in.
So after the snowball effect, some heavy hair ruffling ensued...with big mouth stuffing and kickbacks galore...repeated yellow cards and spectacular crashings...to the great delight of the long-toothed scavengers.
One week ago, I attended a webinary with David Crow online from California. David is an expert in the Ayurvedic and Chinese medical systems and also a master herbalist, aromatherapist and acupuncturist of world renown. Alas, having been trained and having worked in herbal remedies myself, this 90-minute short talk didn't teach me as much as expected. However it inspired me this article which is a great way of bouncing back and turn a waste of time into something hopefully useful to you, my readers.
Nowadays, due to the growing awareness of environmental issues and the increasingly harmful impact of mainstream medicine on the human body, more and more people turn to natural products and alternative medicines, even though some regards this trend as another bankable hype. Well...
A Few Words Of Caution
The market for aromatherapy in particular is very strong. However, note that it's not because essential oils are still sold as non-prescription drugs (actually there is a big push to try to suppress most natural remedies especially the most potent ones like homeopathy and aromatherapy) that they shouldn't be taken with a word of caution. Here's some basic guidelines on how to use them safely. I highly recommend to read more on the subject if you wish to add them to your healthy practice. As you may find, there is a wide supply of literature available on the subject.
Do not apply pure essential oil. Always dilute in plant oil, greasy subtance or alcohol. Never dilute in water or water-based formulation for essential oils are hydrophobic.
Essential oils should never be in contact with your eyes or mucous membranes. If this happens, flush with plant oil NOT water and immediately seek medical assistance.
Do not manipulate essential oils near open flame sources for they are volatile and highly flammable.
Do not mix with chemical products as it could cause unfortunate reactions and create hazardous emissions.
Do not store in plastic containers. Always keep in thick (amber) coloured glass bottles (to filter UV rays which alterate oils) in a cool but not cold place.
Do not give to children under 15 or pregnant woman in whatsoever form.
Do not ingest unless you have a prescription from a qualified therapist and under medical supervision.
Always respect recommended dosages especially when using pure essential oils. One drop is one drop, not two.
Some essential oils are toxic when taken orally. As a rule, they are usually unavailable as non-prescription drugs (at least in France), but it's safer to enquire about it for natural drugs are still drugs. Think of mushrooms for instance. Sautéed ceps are heavenly food whereas fly-agaric omelettes can be a one-way ticket to ER or direct access to the morgue. Oops!
Other oils such as cinammon (of which I have a scar on my forearm to remind me that carelessness always has a price you can't always fix) or oregano can literally burn your skin or cause severe allergic reaction.
In the same fashion, mostly all citrus oils have photosensitising effects that may create permanent brown spots on your skin if you expose to the sun after applying skincare or massage oil containing those essential oils. In wintertime, it's okay, but be careful during the summer.
Last but not least, watch out for fraudulent oils. Some may sell diluted oil (in plant oil) for pure essential oils or pure but synthetic oils which have no medicinal properties. Prices should alert you especially when rare and costly flower oils (such as rose, jasmine or Italian everlasting) are sold for cheap. For synthetic oils, use your nose. You find these in greenwashing outlets I won't name but they are present in every shopping mall. As a rule, you should be safe if you buy your oils in natural oraganic supply stores, herbal stores or pharmacies.
Hopefully, I haven't missed out on any important point. If so, I do apologise and please, let me know in the comment section below so I can fix my omission.
What is an essential oil?
Essential oils should not be confused with plant (or vegetable) oils. Vegetable oils are fatty extracts from oil plants, that is plants producing seeds, nuts or fruits that contain fats. Though macerated oils (such as St John's Wort oil or carrot oil) are often wrongly called plant oils. Essential oils (from latin essentia, meaning “nature, essence of something”) are composed of volatile aromatic compounds extracted from plants using various methods.
During his webinary, David Crowe explained that every essential oil represents a kind of “pranic energy” — the “distilled lifeforce” of a plant that can either boost or unblock prana, chi or lifeforce. In this regard, more than mere allopathy (allopathy treats symptoms with substances that produce the opposite effect of disease whereas homeopathy mimics the effects), aromatherapy he says, should be thought in terms of energy medicine.
Using Essential Oils To Heal And Protect Your Respiratory System
Transcript:
One of the things that research has found is that the vaporized oils are generally more effective than pure liquid form this is very interesting. This goes back to why the plants produce the essential oils and how they protect themselves with them and that is that the plants basically have an aura diffuse aura of essential oils around them and then, of course, if certain creatures are chewing on them they don't taste good and burn their mouths. So the idea here is that we don't have to actually use strong concentrations to get really good effects and so the idea is less is more and vaporized is highly effective for the microbes.
Here's a couple more points that one of the most effective ways of treating respiratory infections is to inhale higher concentrations for shorter periods of time — and that's something that I will unpack here with some specific recipes but an obvious example of that would be a method you already know which is to put a few drops of the central oil on a pot of hot water cover your head with a towel and breathe it keeping your eyes closed of course. That's what I mean by a higher dose for a shorter period of time that appears to be one of the best ways of treating infections in the lungs. But on the other hand, if you want to have more power of actually expectorating to get the mucolytic mucus clearing effects and this goes directly to the question of regulating the terrain then lower concentrations tend to be more helpful and what does that mean lower concentrations mean in a diffuser.
So this basic point it's very important to remember here: diffused essential oils tend to work more effectively than pure liquid form and this is especially true in respiratory conditions because you can't really use your liquid essential oils in your lungs. But giving yourself a direct blast of aromatic steam is your first choice for infection but then to actually expectorate and clear the lungs, having something in the diffuser is going to work more effectively. So what can we translate from that? We can say that a longer more chronic exposure to a lower dose of essential oils works on the mucous membrane terrain. A stronger concentration attacks the pathogens.
Now the next thing that we would like to do is talk about three terms in two different contexts and here we're going to talk about Veta, Pitta, Kapha. We're going to circle back around and I'm going to give you another way of thinking about essential oils through the lens of Ayurvedic medicine and this is very closely related to three basic functions known about essential oils and that is antibiotic, probiotic, and eubiotic. I will say those terms again: you know antibiotic that means it's it will kill bacteria specifically; probiotic it means it will support bacteria the healthy bacterial culture; eubiotic means that it will support a healthy terrain.
What is a terrain?
Terrain means the soil of the tissue or an organ. Iit's the ground that the physiological events take place in. And so what is the terrain of the respiratory system? The terrain — the ground of the respiratory system is the mucous membrane. That means if we take this antibiotic, probiotic and eubiotic concept we also compare it with lots of Pitta-Kapha we learn a tremendous amount about how the essential oils work and then there is nothing left to do except just give you a whole bunch of recipes.
Now let's start with the Vita-Pitta-Kapha part because this will help us as we go through the therapeutics to understand different groups of oils because some oils may be much more effective for mucous congestion and in some oils may be much more effective for attacking the infection in the inflammation. And some methods such as steam inhalation may be better for a dry respiratory system. What's interesting about essential oils is that because they are inhaled as opposed to taking them orally which is how we take pills, they bypass our digestive system. Now when we take herbs we consume them orally they first have to be processed in the stomach and then assimilated through the intestines and then processed by the liver and spread through the bloodstream to the various tissues and organs. In other words it's a slow metabolic digestive process that affects the whole body. Well, if we're breathing essential oils they're going directly into the lungs and as we're going to find in a couple more molecules that go directly into the brain and therefore the way that they work is very different than the way that herbs work which have to be processed through all the different digestive organs.
Now when it comes to taking herbs in Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, there's a tremendous emphasis on if this herb is heating or cooling or drying or moistening. In other words, what effect does it have on organs and tissues what is its energy? What is its temperature ? And so forth. Now the interesting thing about essential oils is that that system can also be applied but it doesn't or so much— why do I say that? Well, because in herbal medicine you can say that an herb is moistening and that may be the most important thing about it. It may be hydrating but that also means that it might be hard to digest and heavy and give you gas and bloating in your stomach and so forth. But when it comes to the essential oils, we can definitely say “okay this oil is more cooling all right”, “this oil is more heating”. There are some real clear examples of that, but the majority of essential oils are more difficult to classify according to heating and cooling and so forth. What this means on a practical level is that essential oils are more tri-dosha, in other words they're good for the different doshas — doshas meaning Vata, Pitta and kapha. What this means is that we do not have to have the same level of medical expertise in order to get good benefits using generalized aromatherapy.
So for example in Chinese medicine, a respiratory condition of say airborne pathogen of an upper respiratory condition would be classified as wind-heat, wind-cold, wind-phlegm. And so what does that mean? That means basically upper respiratory viral infection is caused by what is calledan attack by wind and it can manifest as heat. That looks like more fever, more yellow-colored phlegm. More cold means more chills, more clear phlegm. Clear mucus, more phlegm — that's a damper condition. Now let's just take any of the respiratory oils that you already know about such as eucalyptus and conifers — do we need to worry about whether eucalyptus and conifers are heating or cooling when it comes to identifying specifically should they be used for wind either wind-cold? The answer is no, you don't actually have to make that distinction. Are eucalyptus oils heating or cooling? Well, yes, mostly they're a little bit on the cooling side and some are more cooling than others, but can you use that for a wind-cold condition, yes. Why, because the qualities of aromatic expectorant antimicrobial powers are more important than the cooling nature of the eucalyptus oil.
So what this means basically is that aromatherapy is actually more applicable for all body types without having to worry about whether you are a Veta, Pitta or Kapha person or even worse that you are a mixture of Vata and Pitta or Pitta and Kapha and whatever. This means you don't need a specific diagnosis, you can treat things symptomatically with aromatherapy very effectively. That means that essential oils are really good for their own pharmacy.
About Ayurveda and Doshas
The Ayurvedic medicine David Crow mentioned about was developed more than 3,000 years ago in India. It’s based on the belief that health and wellness depend on a delicate balance between the mind, body, and spirit. Its main goal is to promote good health, not fight disease.
In Ayurveda there are three doshas (bodily humors) which are: VATA, PiTTA, KAPHA.
Every human being is made of the five elements (Ether, Air, Water, Fire, Earth) in various proportions. These proportions are what determine your body type or dosha. For example, when you say someone is VATA, that means he has an excess of VATA humor.
A state of health is achieved when the three humors are balanced and none is in excess.
You may use this test online to find out what your dosha is.
A Shortlist Of Essential Oils For Your Respiratory System
Dilute 20% of a combination of several of the above oils (three is a good match) in plant oil. That is a total of 6 ml of essential oils for 24 ml of plant oil which makes 30 ml of massage oil. The equivalent of 1 ml of essential oil would be about 35 drops if using standard droppers. Apply on chest and neck several times a day and before bedtime.
Steam inhalation:
Add 5-6 drops of a combinaison of or single oil in a pot of hot water and inhale until there is no steam left. Reiterate several times a day.
Diffusion:
Pour a dozen drops into a diffuser or more depending what type of diffuser you use.
For lungs and cough, stinkwort oil is a bit expensive but very efficient when you rub it on your chest.
These are only a few examples. If you wish to learn more, again you'll find a wide range of extensive information available online (though do not stop at the first on the list when Googling) as well as many books. I for one have learnt a lot from Dr Valnet's books (he is regarded as one of the fathers of herbalism and aromatherapy).
Take good care of yourself and may the Chi be with you!
Here is a fairly simple (though a wee bit tedious) photo manipulation to turn your images into patchworks. All you need is a photo editing program (I have used GIMP for my first example and Paint Shop Pro for the second) plus lots of imagination.
Materials
a photo
Instructions
1. Open a copy of your chosen image. Add an alpha layer to your original layer, duplicate and hide it.
2. Add a new layer (Frame) and with the Rectangle Selection tool draw your desired frame that will be used to create the patchwork. Fill the selection with the colour white using the Bucket tool.
3. Apply menu command Selection - Shrink 5px (you may use different values depending on the size of your picture) then Delete and unselect all.
4. Duplicate Frame layer and rename copy Shadow. Apply menu command Colors - Invert for your frame to turn black.
5. Apply menu command Filters - Blur Filters - Gaussian Blur with 10px blur radius.
6. Move Shadow layer under Frame layer. Use the Rectangle Selection tool to select the inner transparent part of the frame then delete so that the shadow doesn't show inside the frame.
8. Duplicate Frame 1 as many times as needed depending on the effect you want to create (for this example, I have used five frames).
9. Arrange frames as you wish using the Move and Rotate tools.
10. With the lasso, select the overlapping parts of frames. Activate the desired frame layer and press Delete to remove.
11. Activate the duplicated layer of your original image. Still using the lasso but in Addition mode (or holding the Shift key), select the white borders of each frame (middle of each border), then invert selection and delete. The whole background becomes transparent except for the parts inside the frames. Unselect all.
12. This last step is optional. You may save your picture with a transparent background or add a new background layer and fill it with colour, gradient, pattern or another picture. I have used the original picture (which I had duplicated and hidden on step 1) to which I have added several effects. So I've added a black layer at the bottom of the layer stack, then made my original layer visible again (Background 1) to which I've applied menu command FX Foundry - Artistic - Quick Sketch. I have then duplicated this layer (Background 2) and applied menu command Colors - Invert. Last but not the least, I have changed the settings of these two background layers (Background 2 must be on top of Background 1) as follows:
For this second example made years ago with Paint Shop Pro, I didn't duplicate the frame layer on step 4 to turn it into a shadow layer but applied a drop shadow instead. I have also selected the inner area of some frame and applied a desaturing effect on the selected area of the original background layer. As you can see the desaturation is either complete or partial. For the background, I have also used a duplicated layer to which I've applied a vignette effect with a mask and partial desaturation so as to make the patchwork stand out.
To take originality further, it would have been interesting to colourise some frame, applied a variety of effects depending on the type of picture used. As always, there are no limits to your creativity and my tutorials only aim at being used as basic tools to trigger your imagination. Have fun!
A very “Musian” track from their latest album Simulation Theory released in late November (actually borrowing the gimmick from "Knights Of Cydonia") and a title that fits perfectly our current circumstances in France. My apologies for the overdose of Muse songs lately: not my fault if Matt Bellamy is a visionary and seems on the same wavelength as me (watch out for feedback noise). Not sure though that rebelling against the outside is the best way if an inner transformation doesn't happen first. Otherwise, the same will happen again for brick by brick, as Pink Floyd sang, our denial — our refusal to take responsibility for our own power is what builds those unseen walls that keep us trapped. Let's change our mindset and the walls will tumble down by themselves. It's actually the only way, as shown by all these centuries of wars, overthrowned puppets — and puppeteers still in power.
Stop! I wanna go home, Take off this uniform And leave the show. And I'm waiting in this cell Because I have to know Have I been guilty all this time?
The truth is that when I am killing in order to survive, I have never felt so alive. I am always seeking to live and die on the edge, Life is a broken simulation I'm unable to feel. I'm searching for something that's real, I am always seeking to see what's behind the veil. Trapped in a maze of unseen walls, These blockades must fall.
Crush, crush, Raze and rush. Seize, fight for your life. Smash, test, Beat the best. Fight for your life, You've been summoned now.
I never sleep or rest, But I'm still running out of time. I have sacrificed all of my life, The time has come To prove to you what I'm worth. Trapped in a maze of unseen walls, These blockades must fall.
Crush, crush, Raze and rush. Seize, fight for your life. Smash, test, Beat the best. Fight for your life, You've been summoned now.
Crush, crush, Raze and rush. Seize, fight for your life. Smash, test, Beat the best. Fight for your life, You've been summoned now.
We are the champions, my friends, And we'll keep on fighting 'til the end. We are the champions... We are the champions.... No time for losers 'Cause we are the champions of the world!
Off it goes, another one bites the dust, all dead, all dead1 the Worst Year has passed away. And even though it passed in a flash, it left us scarred like Harry Potter. Goodbye Worst Year, hello Golden Year! Let's not celebrate yet until we actually catch the Golden Snith2. Which means we should not take anything for granted and keep our eye wide open to be in with a chance to take that bloody ball on the flight. And watch out for Bludgers3 and Nifflers4! But we will win for, as Freddie sang, we are the champions of the world.
The Golden Snitch is used in Quidditch, the sport played by wizards in the Harry Potter world. This is a small golden ball the approximate size of a walnut with two small silver wings to hover, dart and fly around the pitch. The first Seeker to catch the snitch ends teh game and scores his team 150 points, which is usually enough (but not always) to guarantee victory.
In Quidditch again, Bludgers are enchanted jet-black balls designed to knock prevent players to scores points by knocking them off their broom. It is the Beaters' job to defend their teammates from Bludgers and direct them toward the opposing team.
Still in the Harry Potter world, Nifflers are small mole-like furry creatures with platypus-like features. They are obsessed with hoarding shiny objects which they hide inside their belly pocket.
FR
