Sumangali.org: In The Spirit Of Serendipity

Old News: Gardening is In

Once again in the UK it has been suggested that we are behind the eco-friendly times, now caught red-faced and red-handed with basket-full of imported vegetables.

The production and transportation of food is responsible for 23% of our carbon footprint; above home energy, personal travel, and running shared services like hospitals and schools. [source]

China, Japan and Cuba are way ahead of us in their responsible actions, but being a tiny, densely populated island with horrible weather is no excuse, according to the more heroic amongst gardeners.

No, gardening, especially growing vegetables, is not just for your granddad, a left-over habit from the War. It’s possibly the coolest pastime of now. To be caught with compost under your fingernails and a faint whiff of Brussels sprouts, rather than an air-freighted fistful of Zimbabwean mangetout, may be your ticket to unimaginable kudos.

The Urban Farmer

Take Fritz Haeg for example. The architect and design academic, with exhibitions at the Tate Modern in London and Whitney Museum of American Art under his belt, chooses to spend his time on an inner-city council estate in south London with a trowel.

Last year Prime Minister Gordon Brown admitted “We need to make great changes in the way we organise food production in the next few years.” In his book Edible Estates, Haeg paves the way, urging you to dig up your front lawn for an “edible landscape”. Last year the Tate challenged him to make a permanent “edible estate” in the concrete metropolis known as Elephant and Castle.

The grass plot, previously used as a playground for drunks and dogs, was transformed into a paradise of fruit trees, tomato plants, aubergines, squashes, green vegetables, herbs and edible flowers. With a design based on ornate flower beds at Buckingham Palace, it not only looks beautiful, but no doubt smells a lot better than it used to.

Amazingly, although the plot is accessible to the public, no theft or vandalism has been witnessed. It’s not just venerable pensioners who are turning out to help; most of the volunteers are children and teens. Carole Wright, who manages the garden designed by Haeg, notes the project’s social benefits:

“People who have not spoken for five years are suddenly chatting again, discussing what they’ve grown. And it brings together people from different cultures too – they lean over the fence and reminisce about the vegetables they grew in their countries as children – okra, bananas, yams, sweet potatoes.”

[source]

The Guerrilla Gardener

The British government is not always so supportive of gardening. The intrepid Richard Reynolds (a resident of… Elephant & Castle) just grows ever stealthier in his undercover missions to bring blossoming beauty to public areas neglected by the council.

The council says it’s against the rules, the police say it’s committing criminal damage, and warrants arrest, but the Guerrilla Gardener is undeterred. Relying on donations of overgrown house-plants, seeds in the post, and whatever he can appropriate from his mum’s garden, Reynolds is on a crusade: not to feed the world so much as make it more beautiful.

And that’s a crime?

“I’d rather the council did things I can’t do, like fix the lifts. I’d rather do the gardening myself. I’m not an eco-warrior, I just like nice gardens and want to be left alone to garden peacefully. There’s no sadder sight than a paved-over front garden.

“Why spend so much effort cultivating your back garden when no one but you can see it? So many people live in big cities and don’t have land of their own, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be able to garden.

[source]

Pigs May Fly

For Toronto Scientist Gordon Graff, urban gardening is not just pie in the sky. His 58-floor SkyFarm concept is designed to provide food for 35,000 people per day.

The trouble with growing crops on the roof (well, the main one at least) is the weight of the soil used in traditional methods. The plan here is to use a “hydroponic” irrigation system, where nutrient-rich water is recycled through the building. One added bonus is that a lot of diseases thrive on soil, so without it chemical pesticides are no longer needed.

There are rumours that a similar building in Las Vegas would also house not only crops, but pigs. I’m sure much stranger things have happened in Vegas, so I’m ready to believe it. [source]

Further Reading

• The Guerrilla Gardening offical website: see how you can fight the filth in your area… if you dare.
• For all the latest gen on gardening check out Gardenerstips.co.uk
  (“What a great logo!” I hear you cry, “They surely must have got it from Pure Web Designs!” )

MOZART IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

Mozart’s music lowers stress, heightens intelligence and relieves heart disease. It could even improve your eyesight, and doctors may soon prescribe it for epilepsy. According to Roger Dobson in The Independent, Mozart is a Medical Maestro:

“Mozart soothes the beating heart. A study at Oberwalliser Hospital in Switzerland on the effects of music on heart-rate variability in 23 adolescents showed that listening to music may be helpful in heart disease. The study showed that listening to Mozart or Bach resulted in reductions of heart rate and variability.” [source]

It seems the benefits are not only available to connoisseurs of classical music, indeed it’s not even necessary to be conscious of the music for it to work its magic. Proof comes from the Agricultural University of Athens where scientists played Eine Kleine Nachtmusik to carp for 30 minutes at a time. The fish grew more and showed fewer signs of stress.

You might not recognise the second portrait above, as it was only unearthed last week. It’s deemed the most important painting of the great composer, considered more accurate than the most well known (first above), painted 18 years after his death. [source: The Telegraph].

BILINGUALISM IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

Separation between countries in Europe is becoming increasingly passé. That has to be a good thing in itself, but it also means bilingualism is on the increase, maybe even for us reluctant Brits. Why is that so healthy?

“Researchers found that bilingual people are far better at retaining their mental abilities into old age than the majority, who speak only one language, in fact that they were less prone to problems such as Alzheimer’s disease in later life.” [source: Agence Bretagne Presse]

According to Omniglot.com, we use different facial muscles, not just when speaking different languages, but when using different accents. So, all us Brits reluctant to learn a language can practise our Scottish, Welsh, Irish, and English accents and we’ll at least give our faces a good workout, even if we lose our marbles earlier than anyone else in Europe.

CHOCOLATE IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

Yes, yes, I know, lots of fat and sugar and calories and often very garish packaging, but bear with me. We don’t want too many of those nasty free radicals radicalling around so freely do we? What we need is antioxidants then, just as your mother always told you:

“Eating dark chocolate could help control diabetes and blood pressure, Italian experts say.

Researchers found eating 100g of dark chocolate each day for 15 days lowered blood pressure in the 15 person-study.

The University of L’Aquila team also found the body’s ability to metabolise sugar - a problem for people with diabetes - was improved.

But eating the same quantities of white chocolate did not have an effect, the researchers said.

The team said an antioxidant called flavanol was responsible for the effect because it neutralised potentially cell-damaging substances known as oxygen free radicals, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported.” [source: BBC]

A lot of disclaimers follow in the article above, so of course we must read them and take them very seriously before consuming large quantities, or at least consult a good chocolatier. Don’t consult your doctor, they’ve got enough to do.

Montezuma’s organic is my latest favourite chocolate in the world, especially their Emperor Chilli bar (pictured). If you haven’t tried chilli chocolate, (and especially if you have), you might want to get some (more) at Montezuma’s. No garish packaging there, and it’s good for you. Chillies are full of vitamins A and C, they stimulate the heart, kidneys and nervous system. Don’t get me started… [source: BBC]

(Did I tell you the one about the diamond burglar armed only with a box of chocolates? Chocolate is not only good for your health, but can be good for your bank balance. Don’t try this at home. No, really.)

BLOGGING IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

According to blogging scientists at Eide Neurolearning, it’s official: blogging is healthy. That’s very good news for all you lovely people on the left who have visited here recently (forgive me for not adding links to you all). Let me return the favour by telling you why blogging is so good for you. The Eides say:

1. Blogs can promote critical and analytical thinking.
2. Blogging can be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive, and associational thinking.
3. Blogs promote analogical thinking.
4. Blogging is a powerful medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information.
5. Blogging combines the best of solitary reflection and social interaction.

Maybe we shouldn’t spend all day at our desks though, according to The Independent:

“Scientists have claimed that it’s as risky as smoking, increases obesity, and that it could lead to deep vein thrombosis if you do it for too long. Yet 59 per cent of us do it every day at work. Sitting at a desk, it seems, can be hazardous to your health.”

So what’s the answer to maintaining physical well-being while keeping our brains healthy with blogging? Get out more? Not necessarily, you could take up Deskercise: steppers, Swiss balls and neck stretches. Yikes. Find out more here, it’s a very good article.

GIVING IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

The BBC released an article yesterday about the proven health benefits of giving to others, based on some recent Canadian research, in: Charity Makes You Feel Better. Giving to others makes you happier, and therefore healthier. It could even save your life:

“Those who spent the cash on others reported feeling happier at the end of the day than those who spent the money on themselves, no matter how much they had been given.

Dr Dunn said: ‘This study provides initial evidence that how people spend their money may be as important for their happiness as how much money they earn.’

‘And spending money on others might represent a more effective route to happiness than spending money on oneself.’

Dr George Fieldman, a psychologist at Buckinghamshire New University, said: ‘Giving to charity partly makes you feel better because you’re in a group. You are also perceived as being an altruist.’

‘On an individual level, if I give to you, you are less likely to attack me and more likely to be nice to me.’”

…and not just giving, but forgiving is especially wholesome:

“In one study, people who focused on a personal grudge had elevated blood pressure and heart rates, as well as increased muscle tension and feelings of being less in control. When asked to imagine forgiving the person who had hurt them, the participants said they felt more positive and relaxed and thus, the changes dissipated.” [source: Science Daily]

• While we’re on the subject, a very nice article also came out yesterday at Sri Chinmoy Inspiration: Harnessing the Power of Self-Giving
• Image: A favourite photo by Sharani Robins, who wrote a great post recently called Kindness and the Unexpected

SALT IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

Well, not all salt. According to a recent article in The Independent, if you put a sea fish into a table salt solution it will die. The sodium chloride most of us keep in a shaker on the dining table strains the heart and chivvies the blood-pressure, so too much of it will send us the same way. Unrefined rock salt, however, contains more than 84 different minerals.

“‘These mineral salts are identical to the elements of which our bodies have been built and were originally found in the primal ocean from where life originated,’ argues Dr Barbara Hendel, researcher and co-author of Water & Salt, The Essence of Life….

Without mineral salts, says Dr Hendel, there would be no movement, memory or thought and your heart wouldn’t beat….

Mineral salts, she says, are healthy because they give your body the variety of mineral ions needed to balance its functions, remain healthy and heal. These healing properties have long been recognised in central Europe. At Wieliczka in Poland, a hospital has been carved in a salt mountain. Asthmatics and patients with lung disease and allergies find that breathing air in the saline underground chambers helps improve symptoms in 90 per cent of cases. ” [source]

You can find out more about Himalayan rock salt at Indus Salz. They even make it into table lamps. Wizard! Must have.

INDIGO IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

According to the ancient code of Feng Shui, different colours affect us very differently, and indigo is noted for its healing properties. So are green and blue.

“Yellow is a happy color that promotes creativity and vitality. Use it in a kitchen or office. Green is a healing and calming color. It is great for living rooms or bedrooms. It renews and keeps us in balance. Blue is also a healing color as well as a mentally relaxing color. Add blue to a room when someone is sick. Blue will keep the room’s occupants calm. Indigo is not only relaxing but is also to keep good health in your home.” [source: Essortment.com]

Colour therapy is a well-established art. Everything you ever wanted to know about the science of colours can be found at ColourTherapyHealing.com, where we find that indigo is calming and good for studying. It also helps heighten intuition.

But what of the spiritual significance of colours? Kedar Misani has recently completed a beautiful and informative series of videos on the subject. It’s based on spiritual master Sri Chinmoy’s book Colour Kingdom, where indigo is found to signify unity. That seems to be a good note to end on; if bilingualism and self-giving are good for the health, then unity certainly must be. You can enjoy the videos and find out more at Sri Chinmoy TV.

Do you ever wonder why we have to sleep? I’ve always thought that spending a third of my life unconscious is a spectacular waste of time. But of course I must be mistaken, otherwise God wouldn’t have made us like this.

Not only does sleep give the body a break and a chance to recover, sleep gives us a chance to dream.

But…

Why Do We Dream?

The Dream World, is it really so Heavenly, or just an escape from reality like watching too much TV? Were my own dreams to come true, at least the few I remember, my waking life would probably be less interesting than usual, and maybe a bit more stressful.

So what’s the big deal about dreams? Apparently, even if they’re ordinary, they prevent psychosis. So sleep is obviously a wise investment rather than an indulgent squandering of time.

“In a recent sleep study, students who were awakened at the beginning of each dream, but still allowed their 8 hours of sleep, all experienced difficulty in concentration, irritability, hallucinations, and signs of psychosis after only 3 days.”

So says Listverse.com (a very cool and very interesting site) in Top 10 Amazing Facts About Dreams. Among those amazing facts are the revelations that:

• Everybody has dreams but that we forget 90% of them. “Within 5 minutes of waking, half of your dream is forgotten. Within 10, 90% is gone.” Those who claim not to have dreams are probably just better at sleeping: “If you are awakened out of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, you are more likely to remember your dream.”
• Blind people dream “People who become blind after birth can see images in their dreams. People who are born blind do not see any images, but have dreams equally vivid involving their other senses of sound, smell, touch and emotion.”
• Not everyone dreams in colour
• If you’re snoring you’re not dreaming. [Neither are you reading.]

ZZZzzzzzzzz

The average person spends a total of 6 years dreaming, according to Discover Magazine in 20 Things You Didn’t Know About Sleep. It’s obviously time well spent, even if they’re not very interesting dreams, and these facts are much more interesting than most of my dreams:

• The surgical procedure to cure chronic snoring is called uvulopalatopharyngoplasty.
• Counting sheep doesn’t work: According to research at Oxford University “The mental activity is so boring that other problems and concerns inevitably surface.”
• Oversleeping (like undersleeping) could permanently damage your health: ”A six-year study of a million adults showed that people who get only six to seven hours of sleep a night have a lower death rate than those who get eight hours.” [Unfortunately it doesn't say why, and this was probably the most interesting fact of all.]
• Fear of sleep is called somniphobia [maybe a more rational fear than you'd think, given the research above.]

Do Animals Dream?

Well I know the answer to this where dogs are concerned. One dog in my family has very active dreams that (like my own) seem quite similar to waking life. Going by the paw twitches and muffled yelps they apparently involve chasing, digging and asking (not very politely) for food etc.

According to Islandnet:

“Yes, animals dream. Researchers Dr. Matthew Wilson and Kenway Louie at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology selected four lucky rats. They implanted micro-electrodes into the hippocampus, the region of the brain associated with memory. Then they monitored the firing patterns of the neurons hooked up to micro-electrodes.

The patterns were the same whether the rat was dreaming about running around on a track or actually running around on a track. In fact, by just looking at the patterns, the scientists could tell whether the creature was dreaming about running or just sitting around. So why do animals dream? Probably to re-live and learn from experience.”

Which Plane Did You Catch?

As for humans, everyone I know likes to talk about their dreams, whether they’re funny, strange, scary, uplifting or full of symbols. Are they really symbolic? Can they instruct or inspire us, or are they just nonsense?

Sri Chinmoy gives a spiritual viewpoint in his book The Journey of Silver Dreams

”There are seven higher worlds and seven lower worlds. When we have dreams coming from the lower worlds, the subconscious worlds—or you can say, inconscient worlds—we have to feel that these dreams have no value. They cannot change our nature. They cannot inspire us. They cannot give us any hope for our future fulfilment. When we get a dream from the vital plane, we will see that the dream will be constant movement. It will be like a battlefield where everything is breaking and smashing and people are being killed. These dreams cannot help us at all in our spiritual life. The best thing we can do is forget them. If the dream comes from the mental plane, there will be some poise—not full poise, but a little poise, a little calm and quiet there. If it comes from the psychic plane, we will feel affection, sweetness, compassion and concern for the things or persons we are seeing. And if it comes from the soul’s plane, it will be all Light, Delight and Peace.”
—Sri Chinmoy

CREDITS

• Image 1: Flaming June by JWW Waterhouse: absolutely the finest fine artist, ever (polite disagreements welcome in the comments section below).
• Image 2: I don’t much care for cats, but I’m incurably addicted to Cute Overload (sorry, I know, I know) where I found this seemingly harmless variety.
• Title: Inspired by a spate of Shakespearean titles over at Thousandeye, a healthy habit always to be encouraged. This one is perhaps not as inspiring as it sounds, spoken by Hamlet in his most famous soliquoy. He contemplates the sleep of death as a solution to his problems, but then dreads the dreams that might come with it. Indeed, anyone would dread the dreams of such a troubled man. Not much of a bedtime story, but a cracking good plot nonetheless.
• You: Credit is amply due to anyone who got this far in the post.

When I was little, my mum had a penchant for Chinese antiquities. Along with a glossy rosewood coffee table, my favourite was a painted statue of Shou Lao, the god of longevity. He held a long twisted staff of many twining branches in one hand, and a peach (of unlikely proportions) in the other.

Although he looked at least 200 years old, he smiled as if mid-chuckle, and his cheeks had a crimson glow like the peach. We were told that the peach came from a tree that bore fruit every 3 millennia, and anyone who took a bite from it could live as long as they wanted.

Researchers say that by 2060 people living in the country with the highest life expectancy will live to an average age of 100. The average lifespan globally is double that of 200 years ago. But, say researchers Jim Oeppen and Dr James Vaupel “This is far from eternity: modest annual increments in life expectancy will never lead to immortality.” (Source: BBC)

Physical immortality is yet further off in some countries. There is a gap of more than 30 years between the life expectancy of the world’s poorest and richest countries, and the gap is widening. (Source: The Independent)

But maybe help is at hand, as Steve Connor reports in an Independent article: Who Wants to Live Forever (sorry if you get that Queen song in your head all day, I know, it happened to me too.)

“A genetically engineered organism that lives 10 times longer than normal has been created by scientists in California. It is the greatest extension of longevity yet achieved by researchers investigating the scientific nature of ageing.

If this work could ever be translated into humans, it would mean that we might one day see people living for 800 years. But is this ever going to be a realistic possibility?”

…

“There is, of course, a huge difference between yeast cells and people, but that hasn’t stopped Longo and his colleagues suggesting that the work is directly relevant to human ageing and longevity. “We’re setting the foundation for reprogramming healthy life. If we can find out how the longevity mechanism works, it can be applied to every cell in every living organism,” Longo says.

“We’re very, very far from making a person live to 800 years of age. I don’t think it’s going to be very complicated to get to 120 and remain healthy, but at a certain point I think it will be possible to get people to live to 800. I don’t think there is an upper limit to the life of any organism.” ”

Of course I believed the story of Shou Lao, and at six years old asked myself how many more years I’d choose, if that peach on the dresser was not just ceramic. I’d say my answers have changed a lot throughout life, but now I’d definitely answer: as long as possible.

That’s not just because I believe in reincarnation, and want to delay my return to embarrassing teenage haircuts as long as I can. It’s because I’ve found what I’m looking for in life, I’m happy, and I want to hold onto that as long as I can. Believing in re-incarnation means believing in immortality at the soul’s level, but along with a new birth comes a new state of amnesia, and we are challenged with finding our long-lost happiness again.

On immortality, my spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy says:

“In the world of consciousness each individual is immortal. An individual identifies himself either with the soul or with the body. If he identifies himself with the body, which is far from perfection, then naturally he feels he cannot live forever. But if he identifies himself with the soul, then he knows that he is immortal. The body will die, but when it is a matter of consciousness—which every man has and which he inwardly is—man is eternal, man is immortal.”
—Sri Chinmoy: How Can Man Live Forever

He goes on to say that age can be a matter of mental perception rather than just a physical inevitability:

“If the mind is used, then you are finished. When you are ten years old, the mind will make you feel that you are as old as ninety years! Only think that at this particular stage of life you are supposed to do something. Then after ten or fifteen years you are supposed to do something else. Continuously a new game is starting, a new part you have to play. Each time you are given a new role, you have to play it well. When you become a huge tree, at that time more responsibility comes. A tree has to give so much, so much. Under the tree at first only one pilgrim can stay. Later many individuals can come and stay. Finally, the tree has to feel the responsibility of giving shade, protection and shelter to all. The higher you go, the more shelter, protection and illumination you have to give to others. In terms of human age, you may be only sixty or seventy, but in terms of divine light and divine wisdom you will become hundreds and hundreds of years old.”
—Sri Chinmoy: Sri Chinmoy Answers 21

Maybe Shou Lao’s happiness is part of his secret then, and not the peach alone. Sri Chinmoy’s life of happiness and meditation allowed him to continue transcending his own astonishing achievements in weightlifting well into his eighth decade, until his passing last year at the age of 76:

“I am trying to inspire people who are not praying and meditating. I am telling them that everybody has a vital, everybody has a mind everybody has a heart, everybody has a soul. But they are not utilising these members of their inner family the way I do. Otherwise, if I had to depend entirely on the physical, I could do next to nothing. My biceps are not even 14 inches, whereas the biceps of other weightlifters are 21 or 22 inches. My calves are not even 13 1/2 inches, and theirs are 20 inches. Their muscles are gigantic compared to mine. I can lift as much as I do because I am taking help from the strength within me.”
—Sri Chinmoy on SriChinmoy.tv

In 2003 Sri Chinmoy met Fauja Singh, the UK’s sporting legend who rediscovered running age 81, completing marathons and competing for world records well into his nineties. In 2004 Singh signed a major advertising deal with Adidas called “Impossible is Nothing”.

So forget about retirement, if you want to live long and prosper, look busy. Take Shigechiyo Izumi as another example:

“As well as holding the title of the oldest man to have lived, Izumi, from the Japanese island of Tokunoshima, holds the record for the longest career. A farmer, he worked from childhood until the age of 105, in a career that spanned 98 years. In spite of a weakness for sho-chu (a barley whisky) and taking up smoking at 70, he lived to 120. He died in 1986.”
(Source: The Independent)

I will end with a quote for my teacher Sri Chinmoy, whose outer loss from the world is still great for those who had the joy of knowing him, although his example of self-transcendence will live on:

“Unable are the loved to die for love is immortality”
—Emily Dickinson

FURTHER READING:

• Tribute to Sri Chinmoy
• The Oldest People in the World