Good Clean Reads

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tomorrow starts my tenth Natural Products Expo West show, and yesterday, as I was setting up my booth space I was overcome with both the sweet memories of the decade past and the recognition of the vast shift that has happened to this industry. I started out with...

It has been really foggy where I live for days. Yesterday, the sun popped through in part of town and it was astonishing to me how bright the world seemed. I felt like I could breathe again and I was uplifted. My mood was bright for the first time in days. Again today, though the fog is covering our little community like a cap. I hear that just 25 miles in any direction there is light. Getting up...

“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.” -Mary Oliver

A good friend of mine recently told me that her resolution for this year was to become more human. She laughed as she shared the story with me, of how some of her friends from Silicon Valley didn’t quite understand the meaning of her pronouncement. “I...

Contributed by Darlene Mars

(November’s Key to Gratitude Contest Weekly Winner)

For me, the key to gratitude is recognizing that absolutely everything that is happening in my life is a sacred gift. All experiences up until now, have converged to teach me, whether through pain or pleasure, how to live this life with greater reverence.

I have hurt. I have been hurt. I have loved. I have been loved....

Joseph Goldstein talks the Insight Meditation Center and the connection between mindfulness and compassion.

“The chemist who can extract from his heart’s elements compassion, respect, longing, patience, regret, surprise and forgiveness and compound them into one can create that atom which is called love.” – Kahlil Gibran

This last week has been punctuated by an emotional injury that feels like a pinched nerve between my neck and back. It is odd that this unique but persistent pain still catches me off...

Rare are the true healers, doctors who are not only skilled in their craft, but generous with their attention. Jerome Hobbs was a studied and skilled acupuncturist and naturopath; but it was his gentle manner, easy laugh and abiding curiosity that made his patients well. I was blessed to be one of his long time patients seeing him at least monthly over ten years. I can still close my eyes and hear...

Contributed by Grady Tude
(November’s Key to Gratitude Contest Weekly Winner)

When my wife died suddenly and unexpectedly at only 58 years old my life unravelled. After a few months I began my slow return to reality from the daze and haze of shock and legal bullstuff. My life seemed to be in  shambles, pointless and simply too much trouble to continue. In retrospect, and awareness,I can say...