Salamba Sirshasana

Otherwise known as an assisted headstand.

For some reason my Being started pulling me to start working with some inversion yoga poses a couple of days ago. I have practiced Hatha for many years off and on but never had the gumption to attempt such a feat. Low and behold- it worked! Upon further reflection and study I found some amazing information regarding inversions and all they do for us. I highly recommend giving it a whirl. Don't be bashful, I am not in the best physical shape right now and with a couple days of practice its smooth like butter. Might be best to have someone experienced with the pose there to help, it is apparently an advanced technique. There are other contraindications so please do your own thorough research before trying it out.

"The Headstand known as the King(Queen) of all asanas have tremendous benefits for the body and the mind. All our physical and mental activities are governed by the brain which is the seat of intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, discrimination and power. As the Headstand increases the blood flow to the brain it revitalizes the entire body and the mind and also regenerates the nervous system.

Practice of this asana provides the feeling of equilibrium and well-being and it increases memory and concentration. The Headstand inverts the pattern of blood pressure in the body " increasing it in the head and dropping it in the feet:

* The blood pressure at the top of the head increases from 100/60 mm Hg in a standing position to 150/110 mm Hg in the Headstand.

* The blood pressure of the feet in a standing position will be about 210/170 mm Hg and it will drop to 40/0 mm Hg in the Headstand.The blood pressure will remain the same at 120/80 mm Hg at heart level.

From: http://www.emaxhealth.com/62/6680.html


More Benefits Of Head Stand (Salamba Sirshasana)


1. The headstand increases circulation to the brain, which causes improved brain function (intelligence and memory) and increased vitality and confidence.

2. It improves many ailments, such as nervousness, tension, fatigue, sleeplessness, dullness, fear, poor blood circulation, bad memory, asthma, headaches, constipation, congested throat, liver or spleen, for female disorders, the initial stages of eye and nose troubles, and general lack of energy, vitality or self confidence.

3. It stimulates four of the most important endocrine glands - the pituitary, the pineal, the thyroid, and the parathyroid glands that are responsible for our very existence, for they keep the body mechanism in good working order. Pituitary gland is called the master gland of the body. As a consequence, the practice of the headstand helps us to get relief from many of our troubles, physical as well as mental, or to prevent them. It has a very beneficial effect on the whole body.

4. It promotes hair growth by increasing circulation to the scalp.

5. It helps to put the spine into correct alignment.

6. It restores the position of vital organs by reversing gravity.

7. The quality of sleep is improved. Poor sleep is often due to an excess of nerve impulses from the reticular formation to the cerebral cortex in the brain. The headstand causes an increase in circulation to the neck, which stimulates the baroreceptors in the neck. This calms the reticular formation down, causing reduced nerve impulses to the cerebral cortex. This results in a peaceful, deep steep.


8. The Head Stand helps relieve stress and mild depression by calming the brain

9. The head stand also strengthens the arms, legs, chest, abdomen and spine

10. It helps to tone up the abdominal organs and improve digestion

11. The Head Stand helps alleviate symptoms of menopause

12. It is also very beneficial for asthmatics, insomniacs, and those suffering from sinusitis

13. Moreover, you relax all your muscles and build up power, structure, strength, and stability in your neck, upper back and arms.

Contraindications:

* The Head Stand should be avoided by people suffering from headaches, heart condition, low and high blood pressure, neck and back injury and during menstruation

* Pregnant women can continue to practice it late into pregnancy only if they are experienced and comfortable with pose. Never, ever start practicing Sirshasana after getting pregnant.


Here is how to do it:
1. Use a folded Yoga blanket to cushion the head and forearms in head stand. Start by kneeling down then interlock your fingers and place your forearms on your mat. Keep your elbows shoulder-width apart. Turn your upper arms out, just a little, while remembering to press your wrists firmly into the mat.

2. Next place the crown of your head into the space between your clasped hands, nestling the back of your head against your interlocked hands.

3. With a deep inhalation, raise your knees from off the floor then slowly crawl near your elbows keeping your heels raised. Lift actively through your thighs, forming a topsy-turvy “V.”

4. With a deep exhalation, raise your feet from your mat. Lift both feet up simultaneously, even if you have to bend your knees. As your legs rise at right angles to the floor, turn in your upper thighs a little, and firmly push your heels toward the ceiling. For this you will have to straighten your bent knees as you go up. The feet should align with your pelvis that in turn must be aligned over the crown of your head.

5. Firm your outer arms continue pressing your shoulder blades against your back. Balancing your weight equally on both your forearms continue to push tailbone upward toward the soles of your feet. Once you have fully stretched the backs of your legs through your heels, maintain the stretch and push your feet up so that your toes are pointing to the ceiling.

6. In the beginning hold the pose for 10 seconds. Slowly add a few more seconds to your daily practice until you are able to comfortably stay in the pose for 2 – 3 minutes, after which you can keep up the practice for 3 minutes daily for a week or so, till you feel quite comfortable doing this. Keep increasing the seconds to your daily practice till you reach a stage where you are able to stay in the pose for up to 5 minutes.

7. To exit the pose, slowly descend with an exhalation, but don’t lose the lift of your shoulder blades till both your feet come to rest on your mat.

From:
http://www.yogawiz.com/blog/yoga-benefits/head-stand-yoga.html

http://www.holisticonline.com/Yoga/hol_yoga_pos_headstand.htm

Knitting as a spiritual practice...

Sounds silly but its true. When I pick up sticks and sit with a little string, calm washes over my body and each stitch is a gentle reminder of the connection of all things. Of all the countless people who have come before and worked to create warmth and solace with a bit o wool. It is also a great exercise in patience and a wonderful sense contact to use in conjunction with the breath for mindfulness. Outside of that, it is great fun and helps my heart bubble with glee. All those things seem to be in line with other practices so why wouln't knitting be a spiritual practice as well?

In the search for knitty goodness a website was found called Knitnotwar.com the lady who was organizing it got people to knit and felt 1,000 cranes for peace as an art installation. This photo was on that site and just made me giggle with delight.

Enjoy it and your day!

A sign of the times...Octuplets

Why do we assume we can tinker with nature and come to the end result of a healthy human being? We are not meant to have litters.

Birth of octuplets rattles fertility experts

"Even as the birth of octuplets at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center drew attention and applause from around the country, questions arose Tuesday about whether the mother's doctors did enough to prevent such a risky pregnancy.

The chances that the eight babies born Monday were conceived naturally are infinitesimal, infertility specialists and doctors in maternal-fetal medicine say. Today's reproductive experts have the tools and the know-how to avoid such high-risk pregnancies -- and often try desperately to do so.

When we see something like this in the general fertility world, it gives us the heebie-jeebies," said Michael Tucker, a clinical embryologist in Atlanta and a leading researcher in infertility treatment. Tucker added that in his opinion, "if a medical practitioner had anything to do with it, there's some degree of inappropriate medical therapy there."

The parents of the octuplets have not been identified, and Kaiser officials say they have not been authorized to release information to the public on how the babies were conceived.

Doctors reported Tuesday that the eight babies, six boys and two girls, are doing fine. The babies were delivered Monday by cesarean section 9 1/2 weeks early and ranged in weight from 1 pound, 8 ounces to 3 pounds, 4 ounces.

"The babies had a very good night," said Dr. Mandhir Gupta, a neonatologist at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center. The babies are stable and the two who were receiving help breathing had their breathing tubes removed Tuesday morning. They began feeding as well.

"They're doing amazingly well," Gupta said.

Despite that hopeful report, however, higher-order multiple births (defined as three or more babies born together) are dangerous for babies and the mother. Infants born prematurely face the risk of breathing problems and brain injuries that may cause permanent disability. Problems in premature babies, including learning disabilities or cognitive delays, are often not apparent until years after their births.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say "doctors should be making efforts to curb these higher-order multiple gestations," said Dr. Geeta Swamy, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University. "But it really is still up to the individual physician. There aren't any laws or legal ramifications to it."

The babies could have been conceived through in vitro fertilization, in which eggs and sperm are combined in the lab and a specified number of the healthiest-looking embryos are transferred to the uterus. That scenario seems unlikely because fertility doctors are asked to adhere to strict guidelines that limit the number of embryos transferred. As a result, higher-order multiple births resulting from in vitro fertilization are uncommon.

A more likely scenario is that the mother of the octuplets received infertility drugs in a procedure called controlled ovarian hyperstimulation. The treatment, which is typically used to achieve pregnancy in women who do not ovulate, stimulates the ovaries to produce a number of eggs. As the eggs near maturity, the patient usually has artificial insemination.

An oral drug, clomiphene, can be used to stimulate the release of one or two mature eggs. But more powerful, injectable medications may produce eight to 10 mature eggs, said Dr. David Diaz, medical director of West Coast Fertility Centers in Orange County.

"That's the most common way these higher-order multiples occur," he said.

Some patients with infertility problems opt to try controlled ovarian hyperstimulation instead of in vitro fertilization because it is far less expensive -- about $2,000 to $3,000 instead of $10,000. Kaiser Permanente does not cover in vitro fertilization for its members. Although the octuplets were born in a Kaiser hospital, it's not known whether the mother is a Kaiser member.

Ovarian stimulation is far less controllable than in vitro fertilization, Swamy said, "because you can't control how many embryos you put back."

Even so, doctors typically go to great lengths to monitor treatments involving infertility drugs, Diaz said. If tests show too many eggs have been stimulated, doctors often will not follow through with a second medication that releases the eggs. They can also drain some of the follicles to reduce the number of eggs released.

If patients choose to proceed with the treatment -- even facing the potential of a large number of eggs being released -- they can later abort some of the embryos if a higher-order pregnancy occurs. Many patients dislike this practice, called selective reduction, said Dr. Harold Henry, director of maternal-fetal medicine at Kaiser Permanente. Some have religious or ethical objections to aborting any of the fetuses; others don't want to risk losing the entire pregnancy.

Infertility experts generally try to prevent multiple births because of the myriad potential health problems for mother and babies and because such births consume enormous financial resources for hospitals, health insurers and families.

Higher-order multiples are always born prematurely, often before 30 weeks gestation. Such babies are at risk of respiratory distress, infection and damage to their other organs, particularly the brain and gut. Premature infants have a higher rate of death in the first month of life than babies born full-term. Later, these babies are at higher risk for developmental problems and cerebral palsy.

"I hope they do well," Swamy said. "But often in the first day or two you don't see all the significant risks or complications that occur yet. You're looking at an average stay in intensive care of one month to six months depending on how they do. They are obviously not going to be feeding and growing in the same rate or manner that a singleton can."

Diaz added, "As the technology has evolved and we've had more success in the ability to develop embryos in the lab, we've become more careful and more conscientious that these births can occur.

"Most reproductive endocrinologists are very consistent in trying to avoid these kinds of pregnancies."

From the LA Times.

shari.roan@latimes.com

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

Beautiful.

This was recommended some time last year but it is so cool, it bears a reminder. This is a photo a day service of beautiful images of the skies and heavens. They arrive on your homepage each day. Simply stunning.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

Video: The Mayan New Dawn

While I have not seen this yet, I thoroughly enjoyed Dr Calleman's book and Mayan Majix generally has interesting information. I plan to get it soon...


Dr. Carl Johan Calleman interviews Mayan Elder Don Alejandro Perez Oxlaj about the Mayan Calendar and Prophecies.

The DVD was filmed in 2006 and is set up in a Question and Answer format. The interview is unedited.

Topics covered include the Sacred Mayan Calendar, Mayan Prophecies, Earth Changes and the Awakening of Humanity. (1 hour and 16 minutes)


* Are the prophecies only for the Maya?

* What is the role of the Mayan Calendar?

* About the Tzolkin.

* Where does the Mayan Calendar come from?

* The Ahau and the Tzolkin.

* Opinion about the Dream Spell Calendar.

* The 13 numbers and the 20 Day Signs.

* The end of the Long Count.

* The return of the Baktun and 13 Ahau.

* A Message to Humanity from Don Alejandro



20% of each DVD sold will be donated to the Council of Elders
to preserve the Mayan culture and sacred places of Guatemala.

http://www.mayanmajix.com/dvd_nd.html

Buddhists welcome science into monasteries

January 12, 2009 10:57 AM
The Sarnath Buddhist monastery, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is revered as the site of the Buddha's first discourse after his enlightment - the stream from which the teachings of Buddhism flowed.

But if you visit the monastery between 20 and 31 January, you could witness the start of a new stream of teaching.

More than 30 Tibetan monks, plus a handful of nuns, will be collaborating with a team from San Francisco's Exploratorium ("the museum of art, science and human perception") to build exotic machines to create patterns from sunlight using cardboard, dowels, reflective sheets of mylar and electronic components.

If all goes to plan, the monks will return to their monasteries and start spreading the joys of scientific exploration among other followers of their religion.
The project is the latest reflection of the monks' spiritual leader's fascination with science. In the Dalai Lama's 2005 book The Universe in a Single Atom, the Nobel peace laureate argued that science and spiritual inquiry have much to learn from one other - you can read an excerpt here.

The Dalai Lama is particularly interested in the relationship between the Buddhist concept of the mind and our scientific understanding of the physical brain, and has encouraged his monks to collaborate with neuroscientists to investigate what happens in the brain during meditation.

Under a project called Science for Monks, backed by a Boston-based charity called the Sagar Family Foundation, western scientists also have given scientific workshops for exiled Tibetan Buddhist monks in northern India. The new collaboration aims to spread the appreciation of scientific inquiry yet further by creating a core of scientifically inspired "learning leaders", explains Exploratorium artist-educator Karen Wilkinson.

"These monks are the most extraordinary students," says Mark St John (pdf format), who runs a science education consultancy in Inverness, California, and will accompany the Exploratorium team to Sarnath. "They are total in their attention, often child-like in their enthusiasm, and are very used to working together."

Teamwork will be important to make the most of the exercises planned the Exploratorium's Playful Invention and Exploration team. The climax of the workshop will be the construction of Heath Robinson-esque machines to play with sunlight, incorporating electronic devices known as "crickets", which will be plugged into light sensors and programmed to control the monks' contraptions.

You can follow the monks' progress online, as Exploratorium team members will be blogging about their experiences.

Peter Aldhous, San Francisco bureau chief
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/01/monks-at-play-science-in-progr.html

Scientists study links between brain, meditation

by Joe Rojas-Burke, The Oregonian
Thursday June 19, 2008, 11:05 AM


Meditation matters. Brain scientists are using the age-old practice to understand stress and pain reduction, attention spans, even compassion.


To unravel the workings of the brain, neuroscientist Michael Posner and colleagues at the University of Oregon have turned to an ancient discipline: meditation.

A recent experiment tested college students' ability to focus their attention and filter out distractions. Half the students received training in mindfulness meditation while the other half received relaxation training.

After five days, meditators outpaced nonmeditators on the attention test, and they became significantly better at handling stress. Saliva samples revealed lower levels of the hormone cortisol when the meditators were subjected to an anxiety-inducing math quiz.

"This is the first time I've ever been involved in anything like meditation," says Posner, who conducted the experiment with Yi-Yuan Tang, a visiting scholar. But he sees promise in using the ancient mind-training practice to understand how the brain regulates awareness and attention, an area of neuroscience he helped pioneer.

Meditation is making a big comeback among brain scientists after its first heyday in the 1970s. Advances in brain imaging and monitoring have made it possible to see inside the brain and explore the biological forces creating and driving conscious thoughts.

"Now we are in a position to ask questions about people's experience and measure brain activity in close to real time," says Clifford Saron, a scientist at the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California at Davis. And with growing numbers of people turning to meditation for stress relief, Saron says, there's a pressing need to figure out how the many forms of mental practice actually work.

Already, studies reveal the brain may be far more flexible and capable of reorganization than long assumed. Evidence suggests that even the capacities for happiness and compassion may be trainable skills that meditation can improve, says Antoine Lutz, a scientist at the Waisman Lab for Brain Imaging & Behavior at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Sharpening attention

Meditation may sharpen the ability to focus by training the brain to apply limited processing power more efficiently.

In a recent study by Lutz's group, volunteers had to identify two numbers flashed on a computer screen amid a stream of letters. Because of limits of the brain's attention system, people often fail to see the second number if it's flashed a fraction of a second after the first. After three months of meditation training, volunteers were able to name the second number significantly more often. EEG recordings of brain activity showed that those subjects devoted less effort to finding the first target, thus freeing more brainpower to focus on finding the second.

At UO, Posner and Tang plan to use a kind of MRI that can detect changes in blood flow to explore how meditation changes brain activity during tests of attention. They expect to find that it improves communication links between separate brain regions that must act together.

"We think the network will improve," Posner says. "The different brain areas will operate together more efficiently."

Cultivating compassion

Specific brain regions become active when a person responds to another's pain.

Lutz's group compared activity between Tibetan monks and a control group of beginning meditators who practiced so-called "loving kindness" meditation -- progressively directing wishes of well-being and freedom from suffering to loved ones, adversaries, strangers and all beings.

While the volunteers meditated, researchers played emotional sounds, such as a woman crying in distress, and neutral sounds. On brain scans, regions used to empathize and process emotions were significantly more active in the experienced meditators in response to the emotional sounds, but no different in response to neutral sounds.

Lutz and co-author Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin, who reported the study in March, speculate that teaching such meditation to children could help prevent bullying, aggression and violence.

Power over pain

Feats of pain endurance are among the most striking displays of the power of meditation.

To explore the phenomenon, researchers at San Francisco State University used a system called qEEG to map electrical activity in the brain of a yoga master while he had his tongue pierced. The researchers found that the pattern of brain activity suggests that the meditating yogi entered a state similar to that produced by pain-numbing drugs.

Brain adaptations to pain may persist during times between meditation practice. Researchers at the University of California at Irvine and Maharishi University of Management in Iowa used MRI scanning to measure brain activity in practitioners of Transcendental Meditation while their fingers were dunked in hot water.

Long-term meditators showed a 40 percent to 50 percent reduction in brain activity in response to pain compared with a control group of non-meditators. After meditation training and five months of practice, people in the control group also showed a 40 percent to 50 percent decrease in brain activity during the painful hot water stimulus. Meditation did not change the volunteers' rating of pain intensity, suggesting that its effect was in reducing anxiety and distress, researchers concluded.

A few studies suggest that meditation can change how the brain responds to advancing age. Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta compared 13 older adults who regularly practiced Zen meditation with non-meditators of similar age. Among the latter, shrinking brain size and declining performance on attention tests correlated with age: The older the subject, the smaller the brain volume and the worse the performance. Among meditators, advancing age did not correlate with brain shrinkage or declining attention skills.

The findings match those of a 2005 study at Harvard Medical School, which found that brain regions involved in focusing attention and processing sense information were thicker in meditators than age-matched non-meditators.

Coming up next

These studies highlight the weaknesses common in research on meditation, says Dr. Barry Oken, a professor of neurology and behavioral neuroscience at Oregon Health & Science University. Often, he says, it's impossible to rule out the effects of other variables, such as differences in language, culture and other factors between meditators and control groups.

"Long-term Buddhist meditators -- they are intrinsically different from people you can compare them to," Oken says.

To nail down the effects, researchers must track brain activity changes over time. Researchers are just beginning to explore how different types of meditation compare and which might work best for training specific mental and emotional skills.

Oken is leading a long-term study of the effects of meditation training on people subject to the stress of caring for loved ones with Alzheimer's disease. Researchers hope to show that meditation can lower stress, as rated by caregivers and revealed in levels of stress hormones. The study also tracks changes over time in brain activity.

The results so far meet the expectations of Kyogen Carlson, an ordained Zen Buddhist teacher in Portland. But Carlson isn't concerned with whether science proves the health benefits of meditation or improved mental performance from its practice.

"I see that as an interesting side effect," says Carlson, abbot of the Dharma Rain Zen Center in Portland. Meditation, he says, "is part of a path to authenticity and being who we are supposed to be."

Greetings and Wild Food Crafting

Namaste,
Things are going well in my little microcosm. Getting a cabin set up that is nestled in the woods and overlooking a serene river. Hope to host some meditation opportunities for folks, so drop me a line if ya want to join.

For now, check this out:
http://www.ofthefield.com/



“Weeds are in every country of the world, so it’s beyond me why there is world hunger. An entire civilization is walking on their food.”

Linda Runyon spoke these words after years of teaching herself how to live from the land. “I have this driving force to let others know they can survive. I see pictures of Afghanistan children eating bread made from grass. They are actually eating healthy food. Starving people are probably walking on food that would keep them alive, if they knew how to use it. Wild foods can be dried and kept for decades, and their seeds can be planted to grow again after all that time,” she says.

Linda’s knowledge and expertise come from years of wilderness living, and learning on her own just what foods were safe to eat. She became familiar with medicinal herbs as well, as an offshoot of her friendship among members of an Iroquois Indian tribe in the Adirondacks wild, where she lived for many years.

Survival Acre is the first book Linda published about her years of education by Mother Nature. It came into being after she left the Adirondacks to care for her ailing parents in Phoenix. Other publications include “Wild Food and Coloring Book” and The Essential Wild Food Survival Guide, discussed in more detail in the “Testimonials” section of this website.

Most recently, Linda created a survival pack of wild food identification cards which are now available to soldiers through a military action gear company. “When I watch the news and see the soldiers walking in the fields, I see food everywhere in every country. There are 2,000 plants out there that can be eaten freely,” notes Runyon. “I wanted to make these cards available to every military person to help educate them. It makes me feel so good that a soldier can now purchase these cards and may give them to a family that may benefit from them.”

And then there’s this, from Genesis 1:29 of the Bible, where Linda notes that it is written, “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”