Thursday, August 29, 2019

The Greatest Secrets


Thank you all you readers that have stuck with me as I griped, expounded, pontificated, experimented, made a fool of myself, and wandered off course over the past few years.


You are my sunshine
My only sunshine.
You make me happy when skies are gray
You never know dear how much I love you.
do not take my sunshine away.

I saw this on a pillow this morning in a shop downtown and thought of you. 

The shop's window pulled me in, loaded with brilliant crystal as it was. I'm a sucker for crystal. Well, I picked up a champagne flute, turned it over, and the price jumped out at me, $110.00 per glass.

Lordy, I'd be afraid to wash that glass, and what price must the champagne be to pay homage to such a glass?

I carefully placed the crystal back on its shelf, and beat-feet over to the sandwich shop where I was headed.
I've been off bread for a couple of weeks, (trying to lose weight), but I'm splurging today, and having a sandwich, even bought a loaf of sour dough for dinner. My foodie daughter told me that fermenting the dough makes it healthier.

She also gave me the best explanation I've heard of why it's better to sprout or ferment wheat. I have rebelled against the current trend that the "#Staff of Life," aka wheat, is not healthy. Well, spraying it with Roundup would certainly do the trick. and apparently some companies do that. Maligning the plant. They ought to be ashamed. 

No, they ought to stop.

This is the explanation my daughter gave me: Some grains, aka, the seed of the plant, have enzymes that when the seed sprouts it releases the enzyme keeping other plants a distance away. 

I've seen this around some trees, nothing will grow right next to their roots. This is for self-preservation and for natural spacing that makes for a healthier crop or forest. 

The trouble is the plants protective enzymes can interfere with our enzymes. But help is on the way. If grains are either soaked or fermented it makes them easier to digest. Maybe then we're not seen as an intruder.

The process of sprouting uses part of the germ, the layer of carbohydrates under the seed coat that is fuel for the baby plant. As the germ is used up by the growing plant, it has fewer carbs for us, but more vitamins.


Sprouting  breaks down phytate, a form of phytic acid that normally decreases absorption of vitamins and minerals within the human body.


Ancient peoples sprouted and fermented grains. I don't know how they knew to do this. I don't know how a lot of food preparation got to be, but somehow the idea of sprouting or fermenting got into their cultures. 

Well, that's the health lesson for the day. 

As I was driving home, my sandwich tucked away so my dog wouldn't get it,  I mulled over a conversation my husband and I had last night. At home, before biting into that sandwich I opened the computer and ordered the book my husband had told me about. It was PTSD, Time to Heal by Kathy O'Brian.

It wasn't available on Kindle so I must wait for delivery, so I can't tell you much about it, except this: One is we know a person with Post Traumatic Syndrome which makes me interested, and two O'Brian tells people as they are going through her book to write down their thoughts. I believe in writing as a therapeutic technique especially for folks who tend to repeat themselves or recycle stories. This is true of many PTSD people. 

I have long thought how terrible is is for folks who must replay horrific events in their mind over and over. You have probably been plagued at one time or other with something you saw of experienced that traumatized you. I saw a movie once that I should never have seen, but it caught me unawares, and I replayed that scene for months. It finally wore out, and no longer bothers me. But with PTSD people the event doesn't wear out, it goes on and on.

That brings me back to writing out thoughts. Who would write a sentence over and over, the way it cycles through their brain? That would get old in a hurry, not to mention writer's cramps. Put a period at the end of a line and be done with it.

Sounds like a good idea.

I'm not saying writing will cure a person of PTSD, I haven't read the book yet, and I don't know much about the condition. I do know they say there is no cure, no blood test for it, and conventional therapy is mostly ineffectual. 

Okay, this brings me back to the eyes. 

Remember a couple of months ago I wrote about the #Bates Method of Vision training, and was surprised that so many people wanted to know about it.

They say that the eyes are the windows of the soul. We know there is a direct pipeline from the eyeball right into the brain. In fact, it is as though a part of the brain has been pulled into a long strand and attached to two stimuli seeking balls.

We know from unconventional therapy that tapping around the eyes while thinking of a particularly painful event can lessen the painful memories. If a person is kept from rem sleep, their natural rhythms get messed up. That tells us that eye health is important to our overall health. There is a therapy regarding tracking of the eye that I've heard is beneficial.

Don't hold me to this, it is an hypothesis worth looking into. I'm just wondering if the eyes have the answer.

Conventional medicine does not have a cure for PTSD. There is no chemical test for it. It is diagnosed by symptoms, and those symptoms are then compared to a chart of drugs. when the symptoms and the possible help of the drug line up, that drug is prescribed.  It's all subjective.

What if there really was a cure? 

I'm going to read the book.

Well, that was my morning, except for that input from my publisher.

Well rats. 

Who wants to buy a book that isn't touted by Oprah?

I have some work to do. 

So, how was your morning?