I’m always talking about plants. Today, I want to speak in defense of art. If human health is about achieving balance, let’s please put art somewhere on the scales.

Please, please make something. You don’t have to be an artist. So often, we get an image in our heads of what an “artist” is. Black beret and canvas in Paris? Suspender-clad metalworker in Oakland? Activist guerilla-knitter in NYC? Noble images of the artist, but please.

People use stuff, make stuff–all the time. So, if we gotta make it, why not make it beautiful? Take, for example, dinner.

Or, craft. Sewing, home repairs and decoration, even gardening, maybe. Craft is such a practical way to bring art into daily life. It can build community. Without craft, life can so easily slip into a very dull and stressful cycle: work> sleep> repeat, peppered with (often unfulfilling, often kitchy, often commercial) entertainment. So, please, please make something.

More than that, craft can be thrifty. It keeps it local. It’s a way to stop the crazy shopping.

In the spirit of the holidays, here’s something seasonal that makes a great gift: homemade advent calendars. If there are kids in your life, these are such a treat and they require really no sewing skill. You can make them in any color combination to suit any occasion: the countdown to vacation, a birthday, the last day of school, visit from Grandma and Grandpa. Best of all, you can fill them with anything you like. (Bye bye to crappy tasting, non-fair trade chocolate.)

This set was made in red and white for my sister last year for Christmas. She just sent me pictures of it all strung up in her house. So cute. She filled the envelopes with little special toys and tree ornaments, instead of sugary sweets. Silver bells can be placed in a bowl on the hearth. After an envelope is opened, the kids can hang a silver bell up so that they see how many days are left and know which envelope to open next.

There are thousands of pictures of different varieties of advent calendars online and probably some good tutorials. Look around. Use your creativity. If sewing is not your thing, I bet you could figure out how to do it with glue if you’re clever, skipping the button. Mine are pretty Berkeley: recycled red felt from a support a local, mom-and-pop fabric shop.

I hope you find a way to get your craft on, too. Happy holidays, from Sri.

Advent Calendars

recycled felt
yarn
buttons
contrasting thread
silver bells or other item to hang on the button after opening

Cut 2.5in x 6.5in rectangles out of felt.

Measured down 1.5in from one end and affix a button loosely. Here, I used an assortment of various shades of green in slightly different shapes and sizes. Don’t make it too tight or it will be hard to wrap the yarn around it as a closure.

Then, fold at 2.5in from button end to make a pocket and a 1.5in flap. Blanket stitch around pocket sides and flap.

Sew a length of yarn to top center of flap. Wind yarn around button to close. Hang envelopes around a length of yarn over the mantel, down the staircase, etc.

I sewed on little numbers cut out of matching felt to count the days. Or, as a visual cue to know which envelope is next to open, hang something on the button, such as a bell or printed card.

Pregnant mamas, please come to get ready!

Postpartum mamas, bring your babe and learn some tricks to make it a bit easier!

The postpartum period is so much easier with a few tips and tricks up your sleeve! Class will include herbs and food cures that are easy to have on hand to self-treat.

Natural approaches to common concerns will be given: managing baby blues, natural pain relief, balancing appetite, toning the abdominal muscles and pelvic floor, lactation issues, prevention and home treatment of mastitis, strategies to maximize rest and minimize stress.

For new moms and moms-to-be. Bring your partner.

$35, but partners attend for FREE.

When:  November 20, 2011 12:30-3:00pm

Where: Berkeley Yoga Center

call 415.938.7421 to register or click below to pay online.

My friend came over for a “Stitch and Bitch.” All that gossiping? It was for a good cause.

Our friend Hri just had a baby. In her honor, a bunch of us contributed a 10×10 block for her quilt. I invited a friend over, pulled out piles of scraps and we got to work. We stayed up ridiculously late. It turned out to be quite a collaboration.

I really *get* the whole quilting bee thing. I used to think it was kinda corny, but now I see it as a tangible expression of community.

Maybe it calls to something ancestral in me. Some of my people are Pennsylvania Dutch. When I visited Lancaster County as a girl, some old Amish granny I didn’t really know happened to invite me to the basement below her farmhouse. It was loaded with half a dozen or more wooden quilting frames for the women’s weekly gathering. Beauty on so many fronts.

It must be more than ancestry for me. After all, I was the recipient of a community quilt once, so I know firsthand: community presence is tangible in the final product.

Stitchers for a Cause is a group that sews quilts for children who have been placed foster care and knit wheelchair bags. They’ve donated almost 2,000 items. I’ve heard stories about kids who have received Stitchers quilts. In some cases, those quilts are the first and only possessions these children call their own. It is the one physical item that goes with them from home to home, that they don’t grow out of. What an inspiring team of men and women. I got to volunteer for them for a few months last year.

Then, earlier this year when we lost our baby, the Stitchers group stopped everything and collaborated to make a quilt for our family. I was stunned: thinking of all of those people working together across the country out of love for (little old) me whom they hardly knew? It has meant so much to us. In the first months after our loss, there were times my husband and I would just lie there on the couch under that quilt even when it was warm out.

That’s the kind of nourishment a community quilt can give. It is as if the whole Stitchers gang is giving me a hug whenever I wrap that quilt around myself.

There is power in a group. When individuals turn their energy on a project together, it is a beautiful thing.

If you haven’t yet, try it. Invite friends. Plop scraps in the middle of the table. Open a bottle of wine. See what happens. You don’t need a sewing machine. You don’t need to know how. Just try. If you find your community and tap into it…if you give something back, you’ll receive more in return than you can possibly imagine.

Women are power. No act reminds us of this more than birth.

Surrendering to the chaos of labor and then pushing a child through is an incredibly empowering experience. We can help new mothers reveal this as a powerful transformation and successfully integrate it into their lives by offering life-affirming midwives and natural birthing options and protecting the postnatal period as a sacred window with proper support, nutrition and herbal support.

Demedicalized Childbirth: Supporting Women as they Embrace Nature

In 1997, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for the demedicalization of childbirth due to the increase in unnecessary interference with the natural process of birth related to the advance of modern medicine.

Statistics show that medical interventions at birth tend to snowball, leading to further interventions. This makes it difficult for a woman to have the natural birth she planned, while increasing the chances for complications with nursing and general healing that frequently come with drugs usually employed in the hospital birthing process. While we can be truly grateful for lifesaving medical technology when it is applied appropriately, natural childbirth is clearly safer and therefore preferable for most normal births. In a culture where natural childbirth is less common and homebirth can seem extreme, how can we support women to embrace nature?

Birth–and death, for that matter–used to be a common and visible part of daily life right in our homes. Simply by proximity, we as a culture used to know what to expect with birth and the postnatal period. Mamas and sisters and aunties and nieces were there and ready to help out with the familiar territory of birth. Men knew their roles and provided a supportive and respectful space for women. This is in sharp contrast to today’s cultural landscape, where we often don’t see the full range of life anymore. The birthing and dying and eschewed away to the doctor’s domain and labor and birth is depicted as an emergency situation on TV ranging from the Cosby Show all the way to ER. It has bred a kind of pervasive, cultural fear where it seems only the “experts” have the answers about grounded, real-life womens issues–not just at birth, but also in the healing period afterward.

Even outside of the doctor’s office, new moms today are often expected to adjust to their new role as Mommy largely on their own; this compounds the problem. Cut off from a living women’s tradition of community support and with the office demanding Daddy and possibly even Mommy back at work ASAP, the modern world refuses to make space. To make matters worse, women often feel that their experience is unique and therefore irrelevant to other women–from the medical particulars of their birth to the individual family situation and beyond–and therefore moms might not readily talk about their experiences with other women, especially those who are not moms themselves. It all adds up to making having a baby in today’s culture often isolating and strange, even in liberal enclaves where lip service is given to community support but where people actually live quite separately from one another. What’s worse, it also robs women of their inherent power.

This is why it is critical that we offer women safe, natural, life-affirming birthing environments whenever possible, rather than fear-driven ones. After that, it is essential to provide a loving and supportive postpartum environment in which she may recover and integrate her birth experience, whether she was able to have her child naturally or not. Expectant women can help themselves by creating thoughtful birth plans for Labor Day and informing those they are close to of their wishes. For the postpartum period, they can teach their friends and family to stock their kitchen with nutritious foods-as-medicines like bone broths and teas to promote healing and a good, basic home herbal pharmacy with simple, safe herbs for lactation support and to combat baby blues. A postpartum choice growing in popularity is to take a retreat and media fast for mom, dad, new baby and siblings only, with only the very closest best friend, caregiving family member or postpartum doula entering the home to help with meal preparation and cleaning.

What Does This Mean?

If a woman trusts that she can birth naturally, a woman trusts that she can meet any challenge in raising that baby–and in fact, many women report after birth that they believe that they can do anything. When a woman is allowed to stand in the power of her birth, she can stand in the power of her life. The cultural implications of that statement are staggering.

When a woman is empowered by the full, natural birth process, she is biochemically, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually better equipped to make the bond with her child that can lead to a deeper bond with humanity. In birthing a child, it is possible recognize the tear between this world and that: from Dao to one, one to two and so on. When she can intimately connect with this new child which only a few minutes, days or weeks ago was the stuff of her own body, her own being, and now is literally ‘other,’ she has the opportunity to dissolve the very sense of separation that we feel with all others–the family, the community, and beyond.

Properly framed, birth is a spiritual act. Not a medical one.

Our yoga studio has a really great deal going on now where you can bring in a friend for free all this month. Consequently, we’ve met lots of new people. It has been a really fun opportunity to teach more than just the usual suspects at Yoga Mandala in Berkeley.

In response to the newcomer energy in class, I’ve had to contextualize a few of the things we do at our studio that are unique–er, “unique” in the sense that they are *so* traditional and rootsy yogic they feel radical to us in comparison to the contemporary, commercial American yoga scene.

Take, for instance, our mandala chanting. Yes, we make it short and sweet. Yes, we provide a pithy explanation every time. But for me, it is one of the most important aspects of practice. Chanting orients the entire session, setting the tone for whatever practice follows.

To me, it’s serious stuff. Here’s a (sadly) not uncommon scenario: it’s morning and I’m all shined up and ready to rock it on the yoga mat, only to find myself–COMPLETELY UNINSPIRED! You know the feeling: uh-ok-i-guess-i’ll-do-some-(sigh)-Pawanmuktasana-and-then-see-what-happens sort of thing.

It is tamas central, folks. Closed channels. Animal realm station on the BART train of the 6 realms. I mean, obviously, I know I’m going to pull myself out of it and will be stoked by the time breath is in full swing or later when it’s time to sit and yet, I’m thinking, “but how (oh HOW?!) am I going to get there this time, again, today?!” Essence nature is in there and I’ve gotta smuggle Her a file so she can break out of jail or something before limited ahankara notices.

Enter chanting.

Hands in supplication, there I am with no choice but to actually contemplate the innate mystery of Nature with my mind, voice and body (Oms): its totally Unbound, Flexible and Limitless Variegation (Ganesh chant), the Truth of its Wisdom (Sarasvati), and the Graceful Force and Power of Gratitude and Auspicious for Unbroken Living Wisdom (Guru Stotram). Oh yeah, and how could I forget the Teacher-Student Prayer which harmonizes me with everyone else I’m practicing with in this Fortunate Community of all practitioners throughout time? What a family. How many others have sat in this pose and opened their voices just like me today? How could I *not* open up?!

Boom: instant gratitude! With that, it is easy to practice.

So, yes. At Yoga Mandala–and every day–we chant with heart. It’s either that or fake it, folks, and I’m not that kind of girl.

Sri Lalita’s Hatha Yoga class is at 4:30 at Yoga Mandala.

I am appalled by the way St. Luke’s Hospital’s charitable programming is being gutted. Not only that, but its *natural* medicine: a Touro osteopathic teaching clinic. That’s right, they are cutting effective, natural medicine offered for free to those in need in a clinical context in which medical students are trained. The patients lose; the students lose. Everybody loses.

Check out the letter I submitted to the Health Commission urging them to advise the SF Board of Supes to stop CPMC (Sutter) from this action. The address is there, if you feel compelled to weigh in on the issue. If you’re in the city today, the Health Commission hearing is today and there is another one coming June 16 at 2:00 pm. Speak up!

—————-

May 19, 2009

Department of Public Health
Health Commission
101 Grove Street, room 308
San Francisco, CA 94102

RE: Sutter/CPMC Charity Service Cancellations

To the Health Commission:

I am shocked and saddened to hear that charity service programs such as Touro University’s osteopathic clinic and student training are being canceled. There has been a justifiably angry outcry against this move from the doctors offering these services as well as from the students who have an unparalleled opportunity to learn in the hospital setting, not to mention patients benefiting from these free services.

It is for services like these that Sutter/CPMC has been granted non-profit status. As such, they have a responsibility to answer the real needs of the community. How can they hope to expand and create big, new hospitals such as that proposed for Cathedral Hill without protecting charity programs for facilities already in existence? If Sutter/CPMC wishes to function like a for-profit company, then they should be stripped of their non-profit status.

My child has been a patient of the osteopathic training program with Drs. Cislo and McCombs, DO, through Touro University at St. Luke’s, one of the Sutter/CPMC hospitals. My son’s health has improved dramatically from his care there over the past two years. He was successfully treated through natural, hands-on osteopathic methods from symptoms that his pediatrician claimed couldn’t be helped. At each visit, a room full of students got to share the joy of my boy’s improved health and comfort. Real learning happened and real confidence in natural osteopathic care was instilled in each of us. It is a beautiful program–not only for us, but for many other families who may not be able to find the same quality services due to financial constraints.

Ours was a simple story of good health turning great, but I know that for other patients participating in that program, it has been a story life or death. That is, I am told that some patients are literally kept alive through Touro’s free program. What happens to these patients if the care is stripped?

This is yet another insult in a long line of charity service cancellations. Guided by Sutter/CPMC, the “new” St. Luke’s has already cut many badly needed services in favor of more profitable programs. Consider the impact our community has suffered already: the loss of the entire psychiatric care unit, the loss of neo-natal intensive care, the loss of much-needed SNF beds, the loss of the heart of the maternity ward which was once famous for its commitment to women-centered, safe, demedicalized birth. Now, charity osteopathic medicine has had its final day.

Please listen to the opinions of the hospital doctors and nurses. Let people who took the Hippocratic Oath guide the hospital’s direction. They know what is best for their patients, not the money guys.  Please advise the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to keep Touro’s and other charity programs alive, otherwise they must revoke Sutter/CPMC’s non-profit status.

Sincerely,
Sri Lalita

A mask? A spacesuit? A hermitage? Let’s re-evaluate.

The recent swine flu outbreaks are a wonderful reminder of the fragility and precious nature of life. Every day brings opportunities to honor the gift of life and the everpresence of death.

How? The answer is in our conduct. When we nurture ourselves with the appropriate daily habits in food, rest, exercise and relationships, we boost our life force and are able to relax more deeply into our natural place in the larger web of life. This is the best thing we can do to enhance our ojas, our immunity. Working from this place, what can we do with all of the hysteria surrounding the swine flu? We can commit, yet again, to our dinacharya–our daily health practices.

What Can I Take?*

Yes. Of course. Boost your immunity. Take natural, preventative measures.

Vitamin D has been shown in studies to prevent or at least minimize influenza in particular. I have seen recommended dosages ranging from 2,000 IU up to 10,000 IU.

Banyan Botanicals makes a nice formula called Immune Support, which can be taken on and off for two week periods. (Don’t stay on your immune boosting herbs constantly, but stagger them instead.) The Echinacea and Osha contained in this formula are excellent immune enhancing herbs. According the legendary herbalist Michael Moore, Osha was famous as a remedy throughout Northern California in treating the Spanish Flu during in the 1920′s.

Alternatively, use Astragalus and Echinacea together. Astragalus is another herb with antiviral properties and is found in the classic Chinese formula Jade Wind Screen which is easy to find in many herbal shops. Put that with Echinacea and you’ll have a pretty great combination.

Another good one is Yin Chiao Echinacea Complex, a nice formula by Planet Herbs. It has both Echinacea and Boneset (also antiviral) as well as Elecampane (to benefit lungs). Take this if you think you’re coming down with flu-like symptoms. This one and the Jade Screen can be taken together. In fact, I think Planet Herbs makes a Jade Screen that is glycerine-based that kids like.

As a more general recommendation, I can’t stress the importance of Vitamin C and Cod Liver Oil and probiotics for maintaining general balance in the body. Vitamin C is an antioxidant which is necessary for basic maintenance. Omega-3′s in Cod Liver Oil are necessary for the proper balance of fats, functioning of the nervous system, and lubrication of tissues. Probiotics help your gut efficiently and effectively digest, absorb and assimilate nutrients. Remember, according to Ayurveda, *all* disease originates in the digestive system so healthy GI flora is foundational to good general health.

What Can I Do?

With this as with any influenza, do your part to minimize the spread of the pathogen. Wash your hands. Cover your mouth with you cough or sneeze. I have seen that it is recommended to wear a mask if you are traveling. But, don’t forget that a ‘bug’ needs an imbalanced host in order to do its mischief. That means that if your channels are gunked up with ama, your mind is bogged down by stress, your bloodstream riddled with free-radicals, then your entire system is already under duress. Avoid congesting foods like cheese, alcohol and fried or processed foods. Do not depress your immune system with sweets.

Equally bear in mind the importance of reducing stress. Having good, home cooked food as well as the appropriate, rest and exercise for your dosha goes a long way to unwind subconscious tension. Pursue natural health care such as massage, acupuncture, Ayurveda and chiropractic care.

Meditate. Or pray. Or both.

But do this: eliminate fear. Follow your bliss. Find your niche and live it proudly. This is the main thing you can do to tonify your ojas.

*Please remember that these are all just suggestions and it is prudent to check with your doctor before embarking on any herbal course or change in lifestyle or diet.