“
There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn't.
”
”
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
“
Lucky Charms are like the vampires of breakfast cereal. They're magical, they're delicious, they're a little bit dangerous and bad for you. They initially make you feel great, but then over time you realize that maybe your relationship with Lucky Charms is just a little bit unhealthy and you start to think, 'Maybe I don't want to be in a long-term relationship with a breakfast cereal that tastes delicious but damages my health.' But then the Lucky Charms gets all stalker on you and for some reason you kind of like that. It makes you feel special. So yeah, you spend your life with Lucky Charms. That's awesome. That's a great way to... get diabetes.
”
”
John Green
“
I would never slay the dragon, because the dragon was also me.
”
”
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
“
As Alaska zipped through something obvious about linear equations, stoner/baller Hank Walsten said, "Wait, wait. I don't get it."
"That's because you have eight functioning brain cells."
"Studies show that Marijuana is better for your health than those cigarettes," Hank said.
Alaska swallowed a mouthful of fries, took a drag on her cigarette, and blew a smoke at Hank. "I may die young," she said. "But at least I'll die smart. Now, back to tangents.
”
”
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
“
Kindness is strength. Good-nature is often mistaken for virtue, and good health sometimes passes for genius. Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, every one should be serene, slow-pulsed, and calm. Intelligence is not the foundation of arrogance. Insolence is not logic. Epithets are the arguments of malice.
”
”
Robert G. Ingersoll (The Christian Religion: An Enquiry)
“
Save the Planet...Buy Organic
”
”
Nancy Philips
“
Ben's tongue is like sunscreen...It's good for your health and should be applied liberally.
”
”
John Green (Paper Towns)
“
The grass is not 'greener' on the other side – it is just another shade of green.
”
”
Annika Sorensen (Take Stress from Chaos to Calm)
“
According to Maslow, I was stuck on the second level of the pyramid, unable to feel secure in my health and therefore unable to reach for love and respect and art and whatever else, which is, utter horseshit: The urge to make art or contemplate philosophy does not go away when you are sick. Those urges just become transfigured by illness.
Maslow's pyramid seemed to imply I was less human than other people, and most people seemed to agree with him.
”
”
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
“
At least for tonight. In sickness and in health. In good times and in bad. For richer, for poorer. 'Till dawn do us part.
”
”
John Green (Paper Towns)
“
I do things that are bad for myself, and my friends, and my health, and my world so I can get more power because I think I need that power to do good things.
”
”
Hank Green (An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (The Carls, #1))
“
Pain is a good cleanser of the mind and therefore of the sight. Matters which seem to mean the world, in health, are found to be of no import when pain is hard upon you.
”
”
Richard Llewellyn (How Green Was My Valley)
“
I want to share something Virginia Woolf wrote: 'English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver and the headache...The merest schoolgirl when she falls in love, has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her; but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.' And we're such language-based creatures that to some extent we cannot know what we cannot name. And so we assume it isn't real. We refer to it with catch-all terms, like crazy or chronic pain, terms that both ostracize and minimize. The term chronic pain captures nothing of the grinding, constant, ceaseless,inescapable hurt. And the term crazy arrives at us with none of the terror and worry you live with. Nor do either of those terms connote the courage people in such pains exemplify, which is why I'd ask you to frame your mental health around a word other than crazy.
”
”
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
“
if half the cells inside of you are not you, doesn't that challenge the whole notion of me as a singular pronoun, let alone as the author of my fate?
”
”
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
“
On the 'Celestial Seasonings' green tea packet there is a short explanation of its benefits: 'Green tea is a natural source of antioxidants, which neutralize harmful molecules in the body known as free radicals. By taming free radicals, antioxidants help the body maintain its natural health.' Mutatis mutandis, is not the notion of totalitarianism one of the main ideological antioxidants, whose function throughout its career was to tame free radicals, and thus to help the social body to maintain its politico-ideological good health?
”
”
Slavoj Žižek (Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism: Five Interventions in the (Mis)Use of a Notion)
“
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
”
”
John Keats
“
Corned beef and cabbage and leprechaun men.
Colorful rainbows hide gold at their end.
Shamrocks and clovers with three leaves plus one.
Dress up in green—add a top hat for fun.
Steal a quick kiss from the lasses in red.
A tin whistle tune off the top of my head.
Friends, raise a goblet and offer this toast—
'The luck of the Irish and health to our host!'
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year)
“
I know the secret that the me lying beneath the sky could not imagine: I know that would go on, that she would grow up, have children and love them, that despite loving them she would get too sick to care for them, be hospitalized, get better, and then get sick again.
”
”
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
“
Fear is the oldest and strongest emotion known to man, something deeply inscribed in our nervous system and subconscious. Over time, however, something strange began to happen. The actual terrors that we faced began to lessen in intensity as we gained increasing control over our environment. But instead of our fears lessening a well, they began to multiply in number. We started to worry about our status in society- whether people liked us, or how we fit into the group. We became anxious for our livelihoods, the future of our families and children, our personal health, and the aging process. Instead of a simple, intense fear of something powerful and real, we developed a kind of generalized anxiety.
”
”
Robert Greene (The 50th Law)
“
I don't think I'll ever grow old and say, "What was I thinking eating all those fruits and vegetables?
”
”
Nancy S. Mure (EAT! Empower. Adjust. Triumph!: Lose Ridiculous Weight, Succeed On Any Diet Plan, Bust Through Any Plateau in 3 Empowering Steps!)
“
Spring flew swiftly by, and summer came; and if the village had been beautiful at first, it was now in the full glow and luxuriance of its richness. The great trees, which had looked shrunken and bare in the earlier months, had now burst into strong life and health; and stretching forth their green arms over the thirsty ground, converted open and naked spots into choice nooks, where was a deep and pleasant shade from which to look upon the wide prospect, steeped in sunshine, which lay stretched out beyond. The earth had donned her mantle of brightest green; and shed her richest perfumes abroad. It was the prime and vigour of the year; all things were glad and flourishing.
”
”
Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist)
“
A primary rule of practice is meditation with no objects or anchors. Just concentrate on the breath.
”
”
Toshimi A. Kayaki (Green Tea Living: A Japan-Inspired Guide to Eco-friendly Habits, Health, and Happiness)
“
I walked towards her. Jean-Claude grabbed my arm. "Do not harm her, Anita. She is under our protection."
"I swear to you that I will not lay a finger on her tonight. I just want to tell her something."
He released my arm, slowly, like he wasn't sure it was a good idea. I stepped next to Monica, until our bodies almost touched. I whispered into her face, "If anything happens to Catherine, I will see you dead."
She smirked at me, confident in her protectors. "They will bring me back as one of them."
I felt my head shake, a little to the right, a little to the left, a slow precise movement. "I will cut out your heart." I was still smiling, I couldn'tseem to stop. "Then I will burn it and scatter the ashes in the river. Do you understand me?"
She swallowed audibly. Her health-club tan looked a little green. She nodded, staring at me like I was the bogey man.
I think she believed I'd do it. Peachy keen. I hate to waste a really good threat
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton (Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #1))
“
And my life continued
”
”
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
“
You hear a lot about the benefits of insanity or whatever - like, Dr. Karen Singh had once told me this Edgar Allan Poe quote: "The question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence." I guess she was trying to make me feel better, but I find mental disorders to be vastly overrated. Madness, in my admittedly limited experience, is accompanied by no superpowers; being mentally unwell doesn't make you loftily intelligent any more than having the flu does.
”
”
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
“
When we use these words and we talk about plants having a strategy to do this or wanting this or desiring this, we’re being metaphorical obviously. I mean, plants do not have consciousness. But, this is a fault of our own vocabulary. We don’t have a very good vocabulary to describe what others species do to us, because we think we’re the only species that really does anything.
”
”
Michael Pollan
“
There are four things that we know improve brain health and brain function,” says Shubin Stein. “Meditation, exercise, sleep, and nutrition.
”
”
William P. Green (Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life)
“
Like any good teacher, she tolerated little dissension. She smoked and talked and ate for an hour without stopping, and I scribbled in my notebook as the muddy waters of tangents and cosines began to clarify. But not everyone was so fortunate.
As Alaska zipped through something obvious about linear equations, stoner/baller Hank Walsten said, "Wait, wait. I don't get it."
"That's because you have eight functioning brain cells."
"Studies show that marijuana is better for your health than those cigarettes," Hank said.
Alaska swallowed a mouthful of french fries, took a drag on her cigarette, and blew smoke across the table at Hank. "I may die young," she said. "But at least I'll die smart. Now, back to tangents.
”
”
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
“
My respiration and inspiration...the beating of my heart...the passing of blood and air through my lungs, the sniff of green leaves and dry leaves and of the short and dark colored sea-rocks and of hay in the barn...the delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hillsides, the feeling of health...the full moon trill...the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.
”
”
Walt Whitman (Song of Myself)
“
They (...) call what I have an invisible illness, but I often wonder if they're really looking. Beyond the science stuff. It doesn't bleed or swell, itch or crack, but I see it, right there on my face. It's like decay, this icky green colour, as if my life were being filmed through a grey filter. I lack light, am an entire surface area that the sun can't touch.
”
”
Louise Gornall (Under Rose-Tainted Skies)
“
The term chronic pain captures nothing of the grinding, constant, ceaseless, inescapable hurt. And the term crazy arrives at us with none of the terror and worry you live with. Nor do either of those terms connote the courage people in such pains exemplify, which is why I’d ask you to frame your mental health around a word other than crazy.
”
”
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
“
It is unnatural to fear something natural.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
We got here the only way people get anywhere good: together
”
”
John Green
“
I picked you. And then you picked me back. And that's like a promise.
At least for tonight. In sickness and in health. In good times and in bad. For richer, for poorer, 'Til dawn do us part.
”
”
John Green (Paper Towns)
“
You can't fight mental health bias if you label people based on a lists of symptoms and you have no medical degree to diagnose people. We all have crazy running through our blood and so many things trigger that. We all struggle with our anxiety and twisted issues. Defamation of character is not kind, nor Christlike. Because when you label people with self righteous vindication you open the door to the very idea that self righteousness is itself a disorder that we should all be afraid of. This doorway when left open too long gets people to pull away from Christ, not run to him.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
I think the idea of a 'mental heath day' is something completely invented by people who have no clue what it's like to have bad mental health. The idea that your mind can be aired out in twenty-four hours is kinds of like saying heart diseases can be cured if you eat the right breakfast cereal. Mental health days only exist for people who have the luxury of saying 'I don't want to deal with things today' and they can take the whole day off, while the rest of us are stuck fighting the fights we always fight, with no one really caring one way or another, unless we choose to bring a gun to school or ruin the morning announcements with a suicide.
”
”
John Green (Will Grayson, Will Grayson)
“
I'll never tire of her warm smile or bright green eyes. She's mine, in sickness and in health, till death do us part-scratch that- even in the afterlife she's mine and I'll fight any spirity-ghost bastard that attempts to fuck this up.
”
”
Skyla Madi (Forever Consumed (Consumed, #3))
“
It was the first day of June, and the sheep-shearing season culminated, the landscape, even to the leanest pasture, being all health and colour. Every green was young, every pore was open, and every stalk was swollen with racing currents of juice. God was palpably present in the country, and the devil had gone with the world to town.
”
”
Thomas Hardy (Far from the Madding Crowd)
“
The best way to deal with stress at work is to go for a forest bath. I go for shinrin-yoku every lunchtime. You don’t need a forest; any small green space will do. Leave your cup of coffee and your phone behind and just walk slowly. You don’t need to exercise, you just need to open your senses to nature. It will improve your mood, reduce tension and anxiety, and help you focus and concentrate for the rest of the day.
”
”
Qing Li (Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness)
“
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand....
nor look through the eyes of the dead....
nor feed on
the spectres in books.
I tramp a perpetual journey
All goes onward and outward.... and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
The final three stanzas of 'Song of Myself" were also highlighted.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to your nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one places search another,
I stop some where waiting for you
It became a weekend of reading, of trying to see her in the fragments of the poem she'd left for me. I could never get anywhere with the lines, but I kepr thinking about them anyway, becase I didn't want to disappoint her. She wanted me to play out with the string, to find the place where she had stopped and was waiting for me, to follow the bread crumb trail until it dead-ended into her.
”
”
John Green (Paper Towns)
“
first, the countenance of the patient, if it be like those of persons in health, and more so, if like itself, for this is the best of all; whereas the most opposite to it is the worst, such as the following; a sharp nose, hollow eyes, collapsed temples; the ears cold, contracted, and their lobes turned out: the skin about the forehead being rough, distended, and parched; the color of the whole face being green, black, livid, or lead-colored.
”
”
Hippocrates (Works of Hippocrates)
“
Green flags are when you get frequent and continual inner nudges to take positive steps or make healthful life changes.
”
”
Doreen Virtue (Assertiveness for Earth Angels: How to Be Loving Instead of Too Nice)
“
As the green summer comes on you must be the better surely; if you can bear to lie out under the trees, the general health will rally and the local injury correct itself.
”
”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
“
Theres no shortcuts.
”
”
Bob Greene (The Get with the Program! Guide to Good Eating: Great Food for Good Health)
“
Hi there, cutie."
Ash turned his head to find an extremely attractive college student by his side. With black curly hair, she was dressed in jeans and a tight green top that displayed her curves to perfection. "Hi."
"You want to go inside for a drink? It's on me."
Ash paused as he saw her past, present, and future simultaneously in his mind. Her name was Tracy Phillips. A political science major, she was going to end up at Harvard Med School and then be one of the leading researchers to help isolate a mutated genome that the human race didn't even know existed yet.
The discovery of that genome would save the life of her youngest daughter and cause her daughter to go on to medical school herself. That daughter, with the help and guidance of her mother, would one day lobby for medical reforms that would change the way the medical world and governments treated health care. The two of them would shape generations of doctors and save thousands of lives by allowing people to have groundbreaking medical treatments that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to afford.
And right now, all Tracy could think about was how cute his ass was in leather pants, and how much she'd like to peel them off him.
In a few seconds, she'd head into the coffee shop and meet a waitress named Gina Torres. Gina's dream was to go to college herself to be a doctor and save the lives of the working poor who couldn't afford health care, but because of family problems she wasn't able to take classes this year. Still Gina would tell Tracy how she planned to go next year on a scholarship.
Late tonight, after most of the college students were headed off, the two of them would be chatting about Gina's plans and dreams.
And a month from now, Gina would be dead from a freak car accident that Tracy would see on the news. That one tragic event combined with the happenstance meeting tonight would lead Tracy to her destiny. In one instant, she'd realize how shallow her life had been, and she'd seek to change that and be more aware of the people around her and of their needs. Her youngest daughter would be named Gina Tory in honor of the Gina who was currently busy wiping down tables while she imagined a better life for everyone.
So in effect, Gina would achieve her dream. By dying she'd save thousands of lives and she'd bring health care to those who couldn't afford it...
The human race was an amazing thing. So few people ever realized just how many lives they inadvertently touched. How the right or wrong word spoken casually could empower or destroy another's life.
If Ash were to accept Tracy's invitation for coffee, her destiny would be changed and she would end up working as a well-paid bank officer. She'd decide that marriage wasn't for her and go on to live her life with a partner and never have children.
Everything would change. All the lives that would have been saved would be lost.
And knowing the nuance of every word spoken and every gesture made was the heaviest of all the burdens Ash carried.
Smiling gently, he shook his head. "Thanks for asking, but I have to head off. You have a good night."
She gave him a hot once-over. "Okay, but if you change your mind, I'll be in here studying for the next few hours."
Ash watched as she left him and entered the shop. She set her backpack down at a table and started unpacking her books. Sighing from exhaustion, Gina grabbed a glass of water and made her way over to her...
And as he observed them through the painted glass, the two women struck up a conversation and set their destined futures into motion.
His heart heavy, he glanced in the direction Cael had vanished and hated the future that awaited his friend. But it was Cael's destiny.
His fate...
"Imora thea mi savur," Ash whispered under his breath in Atlantean. God save me from love.
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Dark Side of the Moon (Dark-Hunter, #9; Were-Hunter, #3))
“
The Harvard Nurses’ Health Study found that eating just one serving of lettuce or other vitamin K–rich foods (leafy greens and veggies) a day can cut the risk of hip fracture in half compared to eating just one serving a week.
”
”
Stacy T. Sims (Roar: How to Match Your Food and Fitness to Your Unique Female Physiology for Optimum Performance, Great Health, and a Strong, Lean Body for Life)
“
Thankfully, there is a burgeoning demand and market for accessible, scientifically accurate information on health and environmental matters. If you uttered a sigh of relief while reading that sentence, it’s you I am writing for. If you’re simply ‘sci-curious’, delve in and see whether you like what you read. There’s no dogma here, only evidence.
”
”
Zion Lights (The Ultimate Guide to Green Parenting)
“
Ethanol is a volatile, flammable, colourless liquid with a slight chemical odour. It is used as an antiseptic, a solvent, in medical wipes and antibacterial formulas because it kills organisms by denaturing their proteins.
Ethanol is an important industrial ingredient. Ethanol is a good general purpose solvent and is found in paints, tinctures, markers and personal care products such as perfumes and deodorants.
The largest single use of ethanol is as an engine fuel and fuel additive. In other words, we drink, for fun, the same thing we use to make rocket fuel, house paint, anti-septics, solvents, perfumes, and deodorants and to denature, i.e. to take away the natural properties of, or kill, living organisms. Which might make sense on some level if we weren’t a generation of green minded, organic, health-conscious, truth seeking individuals. But we are.
We read labels, we shun gluten, dairy, processed foods, and refined sugars. We buy organic, we use natural sunscreen and beauty products. We worry about fluoride in our water, smog in our air, hydrogenated oils in our food, and we debate whether plastic bottles are safe to drink from.
We replace toxic cleaning products with Mrs. Myers and homemade vinegar concoctions. We do yoga, we run, we SoulCycle and Fitbit, we go paleo and keto, we juice, we cleanse. We do coffee enemas and steam our yonis, and drink clay and charcoal, and shoot up vitamins, and sit in infrared foil boxes, and hire naturopaths, and shamans, and functional doctors, and we take nootropics and we stress about our telomeres. These are all real words.
We are hyper-vigilant about everything we put into our body, everything we do to our body, and we are proud of this. We Instagram how proud we are of this, and we follow Goop and Well+Good, and we drop 40 bucks on an exercise class because there are healing crystals in the floor.
The global wellness economy is estimated to be worth $4 trillion. $4 TRILLION DOLLARS. We are on an endless and expensive quest for wellness and vitality and youth. And we drink fucking rocket fuel.
”
”
Holly Whitaker (Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol)
“
The chaplain has a good life, an easy life. He is well educated, modestly
well-to-do, and awkwardly handsome. He has faced no particularly compelling
struggle, aside from frequently being dumped by women he wished to marry. His
friends and family are in good health. And, sometimes, when one is not blessed
with crisis, one must manufacture it.
”
”
John Green (Double On-Call and Other Stories)
“
You think I needed you? You don't think I could have given Myrna Mountweazel a Benadryl so she'd sleep through my stealing the safe from under my parents' bed? Or snuck into your bedroom while you were sleeping and taken your car key? I didn't need you, you idiot. I picked you. And then you picked me back." Now she looked at me. "And that's like a promise. At least for tonight. In sickness and in health. In good times and in bad. For richer, for poorer. Till dawn do us part.
”
”
John Green (Paper Towns)
“
You grew older today, but did you age as well? If you drank a few cups of green tea, had five servings of fruits and vegetables, exercised for at least 30 minutes at your target heart rate, took nutritional supplements optimized for your age and health situation, spent quality time with close friends and loved ones, consumed a glass of red wine, had a romantic (and sensual!) time with your spouse or significant other, and got 8 hours of quality sleep, then you probably aged very little if at all.
”
”
Ray Kurzweil (Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever)
“
Money as such is a useful invention, making commerce possible beyond the state of barter. A moderate amount is necessary to us all-but consider :of all the things you buy , that which you buy dearest of all is money. For money you sell the hours, the days of your life, which are the only true wealth you have. You sell the sunshine, the dawn and the dusk , the moon and the stars, the wind and the rain, the green fields and the flowers, the rivers and the sweet fresh air. You sell health and joy and freedom
”
”
Hope L. Bourne
“
Gilbert laughed and clasped tighter the girlish hand that wore his ring. Anne's engagement ring was a circlet of pearls. She had refused to wear a diamond.
"I've never really liked diamonds since I found out they weren't the lovely purple I had dreamed. They will always suggest my old disappointment ."
"But pearls are for tears, the old legend says," Gilbert had objected.
"I'm not afraid of that. And tears can be happy as well as sad. My very happiest moments have been when I had tears in my eyes-- when Marilla told me I might stay at Green Gables--when Matthew gave me the first pretty dress I ever had--when I heard that you were going to recover from the fever. So give me pearls for our troth ring, Gilbert, and I'll willingly accept the sorrow of life with its joy.
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (Anne's House of Dreams)
“
Cheryl was aided in her search by the Internet. Each time she remembered a name that seemed to be important in her life, she tried to look up that person on the World Wide Web.
The names and pictures Cheryl found were at once familiar and yet not part of her conscious memory: Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, Dr. Louis 'Jolly' West, Dr. Ewen Cameron, Dr. Martin Orne and others had information by and about them on the Web. Soon, she began looking up sites related to childhood incest and found that some of the survivor sites mentioned the same names, though in the context of experiments performed on small children. Again, some names were familiar. Then Cheryl began remembering what turned out to be triggers from old programmes. 'The song, "The Green, Green Grass of home" kept running through my mind. I remembered that my father sang it as well. It all made no sense until I remembered that the last line of the song tells of being buried six feet under that green, green grass. Suddenly, it came to me that this was a suicide programme of the government. 'I went crazy. I felt that my body would explode unless I released some of the pressure I felt within, so I grabbed a [pair ofl scissors and cut myself with the blade so I bled. In my distracted state, I was certain that the bleeding would let the pressure out. I didn't know Lynn had felt the same way years earlier. I just knew I had to do it Cheryl says. She had some barbiturates and other medicine in the house. 'One particularly despondent night, I took several pills. It wasn't exactly a suicide try, though the pills could have killed me. Instead, I kept thinking that I would give myself a fifty-fifty chance of waking up the next morning. Maybe the pills would kill me. Maybe the dose would not be lethal. It was all up to God. I began taking pills each night. Each-morning I kept awakening.
”
”
Cheryl Hersha (Secret Weapons: How Two Sisters Were Brainwashed to Kill for Their Country)
“
Watching him, his hands buried in his pockets—to keep from circling her neck she supposed—she couldn't help but marvel at the curious mix of Southern courtesy and male arrogance, the natural assumption he shouldered of being lawfully in control. "Engaging in a moral battle isn't always hazardous to one's health, you know."
"Doesn't look like it's doing wonders for yours."
"Saints be praised, it can actually be rewarding."
Looking over his shoulder, he halted in the middle of the room. "Irish."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You. Irish. The green eyes, the tiny bit of red in your hair. Is Connor your real name?"
"Yes, why..." she said, stammering. Bloody hell. "Of course."
"Liar."
She felt the slow, hot roll of color cross her cheeks. "What could that possibly have to do with anything?"
"I don't know, but I have a feeling it means something. It's the first I've heard come out of that sassy mouth of yours that didn't sound like some damned speech." He tapped his head, starting to pace again. "What I wonder is, where are you in there?
”
”
Tracy Sumner (Tides of Passion (Garrett Brothers, #2))
“
TOP SUPER FOODS FOR SUPER IMMUNITY Kale/collards/mustard greens Arugula/watercress Green lettuce and cabbage Broccoli and brussels sprouts, Carrots and tomatoes Onions and garlic Mushrooms Pomegranates Berries (all types) Seeds (flax, chia, sesame, sunflower) The Micronutrient Revolution We have an opportunity to earn great health via what we eat.
”
”
Joel Fuhrman (Super Immunity: The Essential Nutrition Guide for Boosting Your Body's Defenses to Live Longer, Stronger, and Disease Free (Eat for Life))
“
And that’s like a promise. At least for tonight. In sickness and in health. In good times and in bad. For richer, for poorer. Till dawn do us part.
”
”
John Green (Paper Towns)
“
That's like promise.At least for tonight.In sickness,in health.In good times and in bad.For richer,for poorer.Till dawn do us apart.
”
”
John Green (Paper Towns)
“
The power of the body is as evident as green grass, rainy days, and sunshine. It is by no means a mystical power: it arises from the same exceptional intelligence that produced you out of two microscopic cells and that heals your wounds when you are injured. It is the same set of natural human characteristics that allows you to eliminate waste or to “lose weight” when you change your diet. It is the same innate ability that allows an exhausted individual to go to bed (without eating) and wake up vibrant and full of energy for another 16 hours.
”
”
Joel Fuhrman (Fasting and Eating for Health: A Medical Doctor's Program For Conquering Disease)
“
The Jumblies
I
They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter's morn, on a stormy day,
In a Sieve they went to sea!
And when the Sieve turned round and round,
And every one cried, 'You'll all be drowned!'
They called aloud, 'Our Sieve ain't big,
But we don't care a button! we don't care a fig!
In a Sieve we'll go to sea!'
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
II
They sailed away in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they sailed so fast,
With only a beautiful pea-green veil
Tied with a riband by way of a sail,
To a small tobacco-pipe mast;
And every one said, who saw them go,
'O won't they be soon upset, you know!
For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long,
And happen what may, it's extremely wrong
In a Sieve to sail so fast!'
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
III
The water it soon came in, it did,
The water it soon came in;
So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet
In a pinky paper all folded neat,
And they fastened it down with a pin.
And they passed the night in a crockery-jar,
And each of them said, 'How wise we are!
Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,
Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,
While round in our Sieve we spin!'
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
IV
And all night long they sailed away;
And when the sun went down,
They whistled and warbled a moony song
To the echoing sound of a coppery gong,
In the shade of the mountains brown.
'O Timballo! How happy we are,
When we live in a Sieve and a crockery-jar,
And all night long in the moonlight pale,
We sail away with a pea-green sail,
In the shade of the mountains brown!'
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
V
They sailed to the Western Sea, they did,
To a land all covered with trees,
And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart,
And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart,
And a hive of silvery Bees.
And they bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws,
And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws,
And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree,
And no end of Stilton Cheese.
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
VI
And in twenty years they all came back,
In twenty years or more,
And every one said, 'How tall they've grown!
For they've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone,
And the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
And they drank their health, and gave them a feast
Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast;
And every one said, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,---
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
”
”
Edward Lear
“
When you eat mostly high-nutrient foods, the body ages slower and is armed to prevent and reverse many common illnesses. The natural self-healing and self-repairing ability that is hibernating in your body wakes up and takes over, and diseases disappear. A nutrient-rich menu of green vegetables, berries, beans, mushrooms, onions, seeds, and other natural foods is the key to achieving optimal weight and health.
”
”
Joel Fuhrman (The End of Diabetes: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Diabetes (Eat for Life))
“
This time I shall not lead you into a new corner of the house of the world. We know it so well by now, after all. We know where the Fairies live and where the shadows fall, where the cobwebs really ought to be cleaned up if anyone ever gets around to it, where a window is loose, where a door creaks. We are annoyed by the stove that will not light, by the weeds in the garden, by that ungodly mess in the closet. A thing too familiar becomes invisible.
It is time for us to Go Out.
But do not fear, even if it is colder outside than you might prefer, if Spring has once again been rudely tardy, if the trees only have a breath of green at their tips like a fine lady's jade rings, if the sun is pale and high and makes you squint, if the wind, for there is always wind, bites and pierces deep. Tug up your best coat round your neck and tie your longest scarf tight. You may hold my hand if you like. I promise, it is good for your health to step outside the house of the world. After all, we are not going far.
Only so far as the mailbox.
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (The Boy Who Lost Fairyland (Fairyland, #4))
“
So part of you wanted to be kissing him and another part of you felt the intense worry that comes with being intimate with someone."
"Right, but I wasn't worried about intimacy. I was worried about microbial exchange."
"Well, your worry expressed itself as being about microbial exchange."
I just groaned at the therapy bullshit. She asked me if I'd taken my Ativan. I told her I hadn't brought it to Davis's house. And then she asked me if I was taking the Lexapro every day, and I was, like, not every day. The conversation devolved into her telling me that medication only works if you take it, and that I had to treat my health problem with consistency and care, and me trying to explain that there is something intensely weird and upsetting about the notion that you can only become yourself by ingesting a medication that changes your self.
”
”
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
“
[Free trade agreements] are trade agreements that don't stick to trade…they colonize environmental labor, and consumer issues of grave concern (in terms of health safety, and livelihoods too) to many, many hundreds of millions of people - and they do that by subordinating consumer, environmental, and labor issues to the imperatives and the supremacy of international commerce.
That is exactly the reverse of how democratic societies have progressed, because over the decades they've progressed by subordinating the profiteering priorities of companies to, say, higher environmental health standards; abolition of child labor; the right of workers to have fair worker standards…and it's this subordination of these three major categories that affect people's lives, labor, environment, the consumer, to the supremacy and domination of trade; where instead of trade getting on its knees and showing that it doesn't harm consumers - it doesn't deprive the important pharmaceuticals because of drug company monopolies, it doesn't damage the air and water and soil and food (environmentally), and it doesn't lacerate the rights of workers - no, it's just the opposite: it's workers and consumers and environments that have to kneel before this giant pedestal of commercial trade and prove that they are not, in a whole variety of ways, impeding international commerce…so this is the road to dictatorial devolution of democratic societies: because these trade agreements have the force of law, they've got enforcement teeth, and they bypass national courts, national regulatory agencies, in ways that really reflect a massive, silent, mega-corporate coup d'etat…that was pulled off in the mid-1990's.
”
”
Ralph Nader
“
It’s like I have this demon inside of me, and I want it gone, but the idea of removing it via pill is . . . I don’t know . . . weird. But a lot of days I get over that, because I do really hate the demon.” “You often try to understand your experience through metaphor, Aza: It’s like a demon inside of you; you’ll call your consciousness a bus, or a prison cell, or a spiral, or a whirlpool, or a loop, or a—I think you once called it a scribbled circle, which I found interesting.” “Yeah,” I said. “One of the challenges with pain—physical or psychic—is that we can really only approach it through metaphor. It can’t be represented the way a table or a body can. In some ways, pain is the opposite of language.” She turned to her computer, shook her mouse to wake it up, and then clicked an image on her desktop. “I want to share something Virginia Woolf wrote: ‘English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver and the headache. . . . The merest schoolgirl, when she falls in love, has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her; but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.’ And we’re such language-based creatures that to some extent we cannot know what we cannot name. And so we assume it isn’t real. We refer to it with catch-all terms, like crazy or chronic pain, terms that both ostracize and minimize. The term chronic pain captures nothing of the grinding, constant, ceaseless, inescapable hurt. And the term crazy arrives at us with none of the terror and worry you live with. Nor do either of those terms connote the courage people in such pains exemplify, which is why I’d ask you to frame your mental health around a word other than crazy.
”
”
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
“
All these so-called bread-and-butter provisions (for job security, health care, child care, education, and housing) are fundamentally about creating a context in which the rampant economic insecurity of our age is addressed at the source. And that has everything to do with our capacity to cope with climate disruption, because the more secure people feel, knowing that their families will not want for food, medicine, and shelter, the less vulnerable they will be to the forces of racist demagoguery that will prey on the fears that invariably accompany times of great change. Put another way, this is how we are going to address the crisis of empathy in a warming world.
”
”
Naomi Klein (On Fire: The Case for the Green New Deal)
“
Nature is medicinal; the sun, large bodies of water, and deep breaths of fresh air. Healing is found in the mountains, amidst a forest, by fire, and water. I still recall how healing it was to be home, my parents' island, waking up to tropical sounds of morning; monkeys, tropical birds, and tropical animals discussing their days, feet in sand, and the glorious sound of tropical rain. Visuals of lush greens and vibrant flowers, nature calls us into ourselves, nature calls us home
”
”
Cheyanne Ratnam
“
I didn’t need you, you idiot. I picked you. And then you picked me back.” Now she looked at me. “And that’s like a promise. At least for tonight. In sickness and in health. In good times and in bad. For richer, for poorer. Till dawn do us part.
”
”
John Green (Paper Towns)
“
Cholera continues to spread and kill not because we lack the tools to understand or treat the disease as we did two hundred years ago, but because each day, as a human community, we decide not to prioritize the health of people living in poverty
”
”
John Green (The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet)
“
Once he felt “completely secure” about his financial future, no amount of money he could earn would make any difference to him. “I’m the richest guy in the world because I’m content with what I have,” says Van Den Berg. “I feel wealthier not because I have more money but because I’ve got health, good friendships, I’ve got a great family. Prosperity takes all of these things into consideration: health, wealth, happiness, peace of mind. That’s what a prosperous person is, not just a lot of money. That doesn’t mean anything.
”
”
William P. Green (Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life)
“
My respiration and inspiration.... the beating of my
heart....
the passing of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the
shore and
darkcolored sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belched words of my voice....
words loosed to
the eddies of the wind,
A few light kisses.... a few embraces.... a reaching
around of
arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the
supple boughs
wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or
along the fields
and hillsides,
The feeling of health.... the full-noon trill.... the song
of me
rising from bed and meeting the sun.
Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? Have
you reckoned
the earth much?
Have you practiced so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of
poems?
”
”
Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
“
Wedding Superstitions
The Bridal Gown
White - You have chosen right.
Grey - You'll go far away.
Black - You'll wish yourself back.
Red - You'll wish yourself dead.
Green - Ashamed to be seen.
Blue - You'll always be true.
Pearl - You'll live in a whirl.
Peach - A love out of reach.
Yellow - Ashamed of your fellow.
Pink - Your Spirits will sink.
The Wedding Day
Monday for health, Tuesday for wealth,
Wednesday best of all,
Thursday for losses, Friday for crosses,
Saturday for no luck at all.
The Wedding Month
Marry in May, and you'll rue the day,
Marry in Lent, you'll live to repent.
Married when the year is new,
He'll be loving, kind and true.
When February birds do mate,
You wed nor dread your fate.
If you wed when March winds blow,
Joy and sorrow both you'll know.
Marry in April when you can,
Joy for maiden and the man.
Marry in the month of May,
And you'll surely rue the day.
Marry when the June roses grow,
Over land and sea you'll go.
Those who in July do wed,
Must labour for their daily bread.
Whoever wed in August be,
Many a change is sure to see.
Marry in September's shine,
Your living will be rich and fine.
If in October you do marry,
Love will come, but riches tarry.
If you wed in bleak November,
Only joys will come, remember,
When December's snows fall fast,
Marry and true love will last.
Married in January's roar and rime,
Widowed you'll be before your prime.
Married in February's sleepy weather,
Life you'll tread in time together.
Married when March winds shrill and roar,
Your home will lie on a distant shore.
Married 'neath April's changeful skies,
A checkered path before you lies.
Married when bees o'er May blossoms flit,
Strangers around your board will sit.
Married in month of roses June,
Life will be one long honeymoon.
Married in July with flowers ablaze,
Bitter-sweet memories in after days.
Married in August's heat and drowse,
Lover and friend in your chosen spouse.
Married in September's golden glow,
Smooth and serene your life will go.
Married when leaves in October thin,
Toil and hardships for you begin.
Married in veils of November mist,
Fortune your wedding ring has kissed.
Married in days of December's cheer,
Love's star shines brighter from year to year
”
”
New Zealand Proverb
“
1:92
THE WAYS OF ESSENCE
Now I will observe the nature of this being alive in the different ways we are. Essence can be known only in a living example. People are often dazzled by form because essence shines so in its qualities. Feelings of health and feelings of illness are not part of my meaning here. The green world, new friendships, discoveries, circumstances, the feel of water, our delight in the human body and its imaginings, these are areas where essence thrives. How we recognize anyone's presence, how people's lives register in the body, how soul goes to its guidance and agrees to the work it's given. Try to be more conscious of these living abilities, and be happy.
”
”
Bahauddin (The Drowned Book: Ecstatic and Earthy Reflections of the Father of Rumi)
“
Good evening, Lady Maccon.” The vampire tipped his top hat with one hand, holding the door with the other. He occupied the entrance in an ominous, looming manner. “Ah, how do you do, Lord Ambrose?” “Tolerably well, tolerably well. It is a lovely night, don’t you find? And how is your”—he glanced at her engorged belly—“health?” “Exceedingly abundant,” Alexia replied with a self-effacing shrug, “although, I suspect, unlikely to remain so.” “Have you been eating figs?” Alexia was startled by this odd question. “Figs?” “Terribly beneficial in preventing biliousness in newborns, I understand.” Alexia had been in receipt of a good deal of unwanted pregnancy advice over the last several months, so she ignored this and got on to the business at hand. “If you don’t feel that it is forward of me to ask, are you here to kill me, Lord Ambrose?” She inched away from the carriage door, reaching for Ethel. The gun lay behind her on the coach seat. She had not had time to put it back into its reticule with the pineapple cut siding. The reticule was a perfect match to her gray plaid carriage dress with green lace trim. Lady Alexia Maccon was a woman who liked to see a thing done properly or not at all. The vampire tilted his head to one side in acknowledgment. “Sadly, yes. I do apologize for the inconvenience.” “Oh, really, must you? I’d much rather you didn’t.” “That’s what they all say.
”
”
Gail Carriger (Heartless (Parasol Protectorate, #4))
“
mental health days only exist for people who have the luxury of saying ‘i don’t want to deal with things today’ and then can take the whole day off, while the rest of us are stuck fighting the fights we always fight, with no one really caring one way or another, unless we choose to bring a gun to school or ruin the morning announcements with a suicide.
”
”
John Green (Will Grayson, Will Grayson)
“
Eat carbohydrates and blood sugar rises. Every first-year medical student knows this, every nurse or diabetes educator knows this, every person with diabetes who performs finger-stick blood sugars before and after meals knows this. Eat any food with more than just a few grams of carbohydrates and blood sugar will rise; the more carbohydrates you eat, the higher blood sugar will rise. Everyone also knows that foods like butter do not raise blood sugar, nor will a fatty cut of meat, olives, green bell peppers, broccoli, or chicken liver. And since the 1980s, when the sharp upward climb in type 2 diabetes (and obesity) began, the only component of diet that has increased is carbohydrates, not fat or proteins.4
”
”
William Davis (Undoctored: Why Health Care Has Failed You and How You Can Become Smarter Than Your Doctor)
“
If [Hurricane] Katrina pulled back the curtain on the reality of racism in America, the BP [Deepwater Horizon] disaster pulls back the curtain on something far more hidden: how little control even the most ingenious among us have over the awesome, intricately interconnected natural forces with which we so casually meddle. BP has spent weeks failing to plug the hole in the earth that it made. Our political leaders cannot order fish species to survive, or bottlenose dolphins not to die in droves. No amount of compensation money can replace a culture that has lots its roots. And while politicians and corporate leaders have yet to come to terms with these humbling truths, the people whose air, water, and livelihoods have been contaminated are losing their illusions fast.
”
”
Naomi Klein (On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal)
“
Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)"
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time
It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life.
So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth, it was worth all the while
It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life.
”
”
Billie Joe Armstrong
“
One day she would build her own church, and God would see her, too. They continued traveling along the Arges River, which sometimes was narrow and violently churning, sometimes as wide and smooth as glass. It snaked through the land until reaching the mountains. Everything was a green so deep it was nearly black. Dark gray stones and boulders jutted out of the steeply rising slopes, and beneath them the Arges wandered. It was cooler here than in Tirgoviste, a chill that never quite burned away clinging to the rocks and moss. The looming mountains were so steep that the sun shone directly on the traveling company for only a few hours each day before shadows reclaimed the passes. It smelled of pine and wood and rot—but even the rot smelled rich and healthful, unlike the hidden rot of Tirgoviste. Late
”
”
Kiersten White (And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga, #1))
“
As far as I can tell, there are two basic rules: 1. Don’t bite anything without permission, and 2. The human tongue is like wasabi: it’s very powerful, and should be used sparingly.”
Ben’s eyes suddenly grew bright with panic. I winced, and said, “She’s standing behind me, isn’t she?”
“‘The human tongue is like wasabi,’” Lacey mimicked in a deep, goofy voice that I hoped didn’t really resemble mine.
I wheeled around. “I actually think Ben’s tongue is like sunscreen,” she said. “It’s good for your health and should be applied liberally.”
“I just threw up in my mouth,” Radar said.
“Lacey, you just kind of took away my will to go on,” I added.
“I wish I could stop imagining that,” Radar said.
I said, “The very idea is so offensive that it’s actually illegal to say the words ‘Ben Starling’s tongue’ on television.”
“The penalty for violating that law is either ten years in prison or one Ben Starling tongue bath,” Radar said.
“Everyone,” I said.
“Chooses,” Radar said, smiling.
“Prison,” we finished together.
And then Lacey kissed Ben in front of us. “Oh God,” Radar said, waving his arms in front of his face. “Oh, God. I’m blind. I’m blind.”
“Please stop,” I said. “You’re upsetting the black Santas.
”
”
John Green (Paper Towns)
“
I never leave home without my cayenne pepper. I either stash a bottle of the liquid extract in my pocket book or I stick it in the shopping cart I pull around with me all over Manhattan. When it comes to staying right side up in this world, a black woman needs at least three things. The first is a quiet spot of her own, a place away from the nonsense. The second is a stash of money, like the cash my mother kept hidden in the slit of her mattress. The last is several drops of cayenne pepper, always at the ready. Sprinkle that on your food before you eat it and it’ll kill any lurking bacteria. The powder does the trick as well, but I prefer the liquid because it hits the bloodstream quickly. Particularly when eating out, I won’t touch a morsel to my lips ‘til it’s speckled with with cayenne. That’s just one way I take care of my temple, aside from preparing my daily greens, certain other habits have carried me toward the century mark.
First thing I do every morning is drink four glasses of water. People think this water business is a joke. But I’m here to tell you that it’s not. I’ve known two elderly people who died of dehydration, one of whom fell from his bed in the middle of the night and couldn’t stand up because he was so parched.
Following my water, I drink 8 ounces of fresh celery blended in my Vita-mix. The juice cleanses the system and reduces inflammation. My biggest meal is my first one: oatmeal. I soak my oats overnight so that when I get up all I have to do is turn on the burner. Sometimes I enjoy them with warm almond milk, other times I add grated almonds and berries, put the mixture in my tumbler and shake it until it’s so smooth I can drink it. In any form, oats do the heart good.
Throughout the day I eat sweet potatoes, which are filled with fiber, beets sprinkled with a little olive oil, and vegetables of every variety. I also still enjoy plenty of salad, though I stopped adding so many carrots – too much sugar. But I will do celery, cucumbers, seaweed grass and other greens. God’s fresh bounty doesn’t need a lot of dressing up, which is why I generally eat my salad plain. From time to time I do drizzle it with garlic oil. I love the taste.
I also love lychee nuts. I put them in the freezer so that when I bite into them cold juice comes flooding out. As terrific as they are, I buy them only once in awhile. I recently bit into an especially sweet one, and then I stuck it right back in the freezer. “Not today, Suzie,” I said to myself, “full of glucose!”
I try never to eat late, and certainly not after nine p.m. Our organs need a chance to rest. And before bed, of course, I have a final glass of water. I don’t mess around with my hydration.
”
”
Cicely Tyson (Just as I Am)
“
Why science? Many people, with the best intentions, like to give parents advice about raising a child, including parents, non-parents, health visitors, friends, celebrities, bloggers and next-door neighbours. Unfortunately, much of this advice can be completely wrong or based on archaic ideas and practices that have since been disproved or debunked. Some of this advice can even be damaging. In addition, some parents say that they advocate using ‘common sense’ or ‘intuition’ in raising their children, but what do those things mean? How is intuition classified, when it differs so greatly from one person to another? Some people do the ‘common sense’ thing only to find out it was wrong later in life, which is why it is altogether better to be guided by the latest scientific research. In order to learn how to filter the good advice from the bad, I believe that new parents need science-based evidence in their corner. You’ll find it in this book.
”
”
Zion Lights (The Ultimate Guide to Green Parenting)
“
A chilled pea soup of insane simplicity, garnished with creme fraiche and celery leaves. Roasted beet salad with poached pears and goat cheese. Rack of lamb wrapped in crispy prosciutto, served over a celery root and horseradish puree, with sautéed spicy black kale. A thin-as-paper apple galette with fig glaze. Everything turned out brilliantly, including Patrick, who roused himself as I was pulling the lamb from the oven to rest before carving. He disappeared into the bathroom for ten minutes and came out shiny; green pallor and under-eye bags gone like magic. Pink with health and vitality, polished and ridiculously handsome, he looked as if he could run a marathon, and I was gobsmacked. He came up behind me just as I was finishing his port sauce for the lamb with a sprinkle of honey vinegar and a bit of butter, the only changes I made to any of his recipes, finding the sauce without them a bit one-dimensional and in need of edge smoothing.
”
”
Stacey Ballis (Off the Menu)
“
Things external to her may have their own weight and dimension: but within inside us she gives them such measures as she wills: death is terrifying to Cicero, desirable to Cato, indifferent to Socrates. Health, consciousness, authority, knowledge, beauty and their opposites doff their garments as they enter the soul and receive new vestments, coloured with qualities of her own choosing: brown or green; light or dark; bitter or sweet, deep or shallow, as it pleases each of the individual souls, who have not agreed together on the truth of their practices, rules or ideas. Each soul is Queen in her own state. So let us no longer seek excuses from the external qualities of anything, the responsibility lies within ourselves. Our good or our bad depends on us alone. So let us make our offertories and our vows to ourselves not to Fortune: she has no power over our behaviour, on the contrary our souls drag Fortune in their train and mould her to their own idea.
”
”
Michel de Montaigne (The Complete Essays)
“
and said, “She’s standing behind me, isn’t she?” “ ‘The human tongue is like wasabi,’” Lacey mimicked in a deep, goofy voice that I hoped didn’t really resemble mine. I wheeled around. “I actually think Ben’s tongue is like sunscreen,” she said. “It’s good for your health and should be applied liberally.” “I just threw up in my mouth,” Radar said. “Lacey, you just kind of took away my will to go on,” I added. “I wish I could stop imagining that,” Radar said. I said, “The very idea is so offensive that it’s actually illegal to say the words ‘Ben Starling’s tongue’ on television.” “The penalty for violating that law is either ten years in prison or one Ben Starling tongue bath,” Radar said. “Everyone,” I said. “Chooses,” Radar said, smiling. “Prison,” we finished together. And then Lacey kissed Ben in front of us. “Oh God,” Radar said, waving his arms in front of his face. “Oh, God. I’m blind. I’m blind.” “Please stop,” I said. “You’re upsetting the black Santas.
”
”
John Green (Paper Towns)
“
older today, but did you age as well? If you drank a few cups of green tea, had five servings of fruits and vegetables, exercised for at least 30 minutes at your target heart rate, took nutritional supplements optimized for your age and health situation, spent quality time with close friends and loved ones, consumed a glass of red wine, had a romantic (and sensual!) time with your spouse or significant other, and got 8 hours of quality sleep, then you probably aged very little if at all. If you were a coach potato, ate
”
”
Ray Kurzweil (Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever)
“
It [the charcuterie] was almost on the corner of the Rue Pirouette and was a joy to behold. It was bright and inviting, with touches of brilliant colour standing out amidst white marble. The signboard, on which the name QUENU-GRADELLE glittered in fat gilt letter encircled by leaves and branches painted on a soft-hued background, was protected by a sheet of glass. On the two side panels of the shop front, similarly painted and under glass, were chubby little Cupids playing in the midst of boars' heads, pork chops, and strings of sausages; and these still lifes, adorned with scrolls and rosettes, had been designed in so pretty and tender a style that the raw meat lying there assumed the reddish tint of raspberry jam. Within this delightful frame, the window display was arranged. It was set out on a bed of fine shavings of blue paper; a few cleverly positioned fern leaves transformed some of the plates into bouquets of flowers fringed with foliage. There were vast quantities of rich, succulent things, things that melted in the mouth. Down below, quite close to the window, jars of rillettes were interspersed with pots of mustard. Above these were some boned hams, nicely rounded, golden with breadcrumbs, and adorned at the knuckles with green rosettes. Then came the larger dishes--stuffed Strasbourg tongues, with their red, varnished look, the colour of blood next to the pallor of the sausages and pigs' trotters; strings of black pudding coiled like harmless snakes; andouilles piled up in twos and bursting with health; saucissons in little silver copes that made them look like choristers; pies, hot from the oven, with little banner-like tickets stuck in them; big hams, and great cuts of veal and pork, whose jelly was as limpid as crystallized sugar. Towards the back were large tureens in which the meats and minces lay asleep in lakes of solidified fat. Strewn between the various plates and sishes, on the bed of blue shavings, were bottles of relish, sauce, and preserved truffles, pots of foie gras, and tins of sardines and tuna fish. A box of creamy cheeses and one full of snails stuffed with butter and parsley had been dropped in each corner. Finally, at the very top of the display, falling from a bar with sharp prongs, strings of sausages and saveloys hung down symmetrically like the cords and tassels of some opulent tapestry, while behind, threads of caul were stretched out like white lacework. There, on the highest tier of this temple of gluttony, amid the caul and between two bunches of purple gladioli, the alter display was crowned by a small, square fish tank with a little ornamental rockery, in which two goldfish swam in endless circles.
”
”
Émile Zola
“
Five Days • 6 apples • 1 bunch grapes • 20 ounces frozen peaches • 20 ounces frozen blueberries • 15 ounces frozen strawberries • 10 ounces frozen mixed berries • 6 ounces of mango chunks • 3 bananas • 1 bunch kale • 20 ounces spinach • 20 ounces spring mix greens • Stevia sweetener (packets) • Bag of ground flaxseeds (often in vitamin section) • Fruit and veggies of your choice to munch on (such as apples, carrots, celery, etc.) • Raw or unsalted nuts and seeds to snack on • Detox tea (by Triple Leaf or Yogi brands) • Sea salt (or any uniodized sea salt) • OPTIONAL: Non-dairy/plant-based protein powder, such as RAW Protein by Garden of Life or SunWarrior protein Food for the Last Five Days • 20 ounces frozen mango chunks • 20 ounces frozen peaches • 20 ounces frozen pineapple chunks • 10 ounces frozen mixed berries • 6 ounces frozen blueberries • 6 ounces frozen strawberries • 2 apples • 5 bananas • 1 bunch kale • 20 ounces spinach • 20 ounces spring mix greens • Fruit and veggies of your choice to munch on (such as apples, carrots, celery, etc.) • Raw or unsalted nuts and seeds to snack on CHAPTER FOUR How to Do the 10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse The 10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse is a truly health-transforming experience.
”
”
J.J. Smith (10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse: Lose Up to 15 Pounds in 10 Days!)
“
A diet rich in readily available nutrients allows the bones to mineralize properly, particularly during gestation and early development, and gives the teeth immunity to decay throughout the stresses of life. Not surprisingly, he found that the native diets that conferred such good health on healthy, so-called primitive groups were rich in minerals, particularly calcium and phosphorus, necessary for healthy bones and teeth. What is surprising about the work of Weston Price is his discovery that these healthy diets always contained a good source of what he called "fat-soluble activators," nutrients like vitamin A and vitamin D, and another vitamin he discovered called Activator X or the Price Factor. These nutrients are found only in certain animal fats. Foods that provided these nutrients were considered sacred by the healthy groups he studied. These foods included liver and other organ meats from grazing animals; fish eggs; fish liver oils; fish and shellfish; and butter from cows eating rapidly growing green grass from well-mineralized pastures. Price concluded that without a rich supply of these fat-soluble nutrients, the body cannot properly use the minerals in food. These fat-soluble nutrients also nourish the glands and organs to give healthy indigenous peoples plenty of immunity during times of stress.
”
”
Thomas S. Cowan (Fourfold Path To Healing: Working with the Laws of Nutrition, Therapeutics, Movement and Meditation in the Art of Medicine)
“
Inarguably, a successful restaurant demands that you live on the premises for the first few years, working seventeen-hour days, with total involvement in every aspect of a complicated, cruel and very fickle trade. You must be fluent in not only Spanish but the Kabbala-like intricacies of health codes, tax law, fire department regulations, environmental protection laws, building code, occupational safety and health regs, fair hiring practices, zoning, insurance, the vagaries and back-alley back-scratching of liquor licenses, the netherworld of trash removal, linen, grease disposal. And with every dime you've got tied up in your new place, suddenly the drains in your prep kitchen are backing up with raw sewage, pushing hundreds of gallons of impacted crap into your dining room; your coke-addled chef just called that Asian waitress who's working her way through law school a chink, which ensures your presence in court for the next six months; your bartender is giving away the bar to under-age girls from Wantagh, any one of whom could then crash Daddy's Buick into a busload of divinity students, putting your liquor license in peril, to say the least; the Ansel System could go off, shutting down your kitchen in the middle of a ten-thousand-dollar night; there's the ongoing struggle with rodents and cockroaches, any one of which could crawl across the Tina Brown four-top in the middle of the dessert course; you just bought 10,000 dollars-worth of shrimp when the market was low, but the walk-in freezer just went on the fritz and naturally it's a holiday weekend, so good luck getting a service call in time; the dishwasher just walked out after arguing with the busboy, and they need glasses now on table seven; immigration is at the door for a surprise inspection of your kitchen's Green Cards; the produce guy wants a certified check or he's taking back the delivery; you didn't order enough napkins for the weekend — and is that the New York Times reviewer waiting for your hostess to stop flirting and notice her?
”
”
Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly)
“
The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in.
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons.
They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.
The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,
They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,
Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,
So it is impossible to tell how many there are.
My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water
Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.
They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.
Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage——
My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,
My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.
I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat
stubbornly hanging on to my name and address.
They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.
Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley
I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books
Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head.
I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.
I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free——
The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.
It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them
Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.
The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe
Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.
Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.
They are subtle : they seem to float, though they weigh me down,
Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color,
A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.
Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.
The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me
Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,
And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow
Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,
And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself.
The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.
Before they came the air was calm enough,
Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.
Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.
Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river
Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.
They concentrate my attention, that was happy
Playing and resting without committing itself.
The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.
The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health.
--"Tulips", written 18 March 1961
”
”
Sylvia Plath (Ariel)
“
O my dark Rosaleen,
Do not sigh, do not weep!
The priests are on the ocean green,
They march along the deep.
There’s wine from the royal Pope,
Upon the ocean green;
And Spanish ale shall give you hope,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope,
Shall give you health, and help, and hope,
My Dark Rosaleen!
Over hills, and thro’ dales,
Have I roam’d for your sake;
All yesterday I sail’d with sails
On river and on lake.
The Erne, at its highest flood,
I dash’d across unseen,
For there was lightning in my blood,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
O, there was lightning in my blood,
Red lighten’d thro’ my blood.
My Dark Rosaleen!
All day long, in unrest,
To and fro, do I move.
The very soul within my breast
Is wasted for you, love!
The heart in my bosom faints
To think of you, my Queen,
My life of life, my saint of saints,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
To hear your sweet and sad complaints,
My life, my love, my saint of saints,
My Dark Rosaleen!
Woe and pain, pain and woe,
Are my lot, night and noon,
To see your bright face clouded so,
Like to the mournful moon.
But yet will I rear your throne
Again in golden sheen;
‘Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
‘Tis you shall have the golden throne,
‘Tis you shall reign, and reign alone,
My Dark Rosaleen!
Over dews, over sands,
Will I fly, for your weal:
Your holy delicate white hands
Shall girdle me with steel.
At home, in your emerald bowers,
From morning’s dawn till e’en,
You’ll pray for me, my flower of flowers,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My fond Rosaleen!
You’ll think of me through daylight hours
My virgin flower, my flower of flowers,
My Dark Rosaleen!
I could scale the blue air,
I could plough the high hills,
Oh, I could kneel all night in prayer,
To heal your many ills!
And one beamy smile from you
Would float like light between
My toils and me, my own, my true,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My fond Rosaleen!
Would give me life and soul anew,
My Dark Rosaleen!
O, the Erne shall run red,
With redundance of blood,
The earth shall rock beneath our tread,
And flames wrap hill and wood,
And gun-peal and slogan-cry
Wake many a glen serene,
Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
The Judgement Hour must first be nigh,
Ere you can fade, ere you can die,
My Dark Rosaleen!
”
”
James Clarence Mangan
“
No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard — and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable independence besides two good livings — and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might expect, she still lived on — lived to have six children more — to see them growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health herself. A family of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number; but the Morlands had little other right to the word, for they were in general very plain, and Catherine, for many years of her life, as plain as any. She had a thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong features — so much for her person; and not less unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind. She was fond of all boy's plays, and greatly preferred cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush. Indeed she had no taste for a garden; and if she gathered flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief — at least so it was conjectured from her always preferring those which she was forbidden to take. Such were her propensities — her abilities were quite as extraordinary. She never could learn or understand anything before she was taught; and sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive, and occasionally stupid. Her mother was three months in teaching her only to repeat the "Beggar's Petition"; and after all, her next sister, Sally, could say it better than she did. Not that Catherine was always stupid — by no means; she learnt the fable of "The Hare and Many Friends" as quickly as any girl in England. Her mother wished her to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should like it, for she was very fond of tinkling the keys of the old forlorn spinner; so, at eight years old she began. She learnt a year, and could not bear it; and Mrs. Morland, who did not insist on her daughters being accomplished in spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave off. The day which dismissed the music-master was one of the happiest of Catherine's life. Her taste for drawing was not superior; though whenever she could obtain the outside of a letter from her mother or seize upon any other odd piece of paper, she did what she could in that way, by drawing houses and trees, hens and chickens, all very much like one another. Writing and accounts she was taught by her father; French by her mother: her proficiency in either was not remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in both whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable character! — for with all these symptoms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with few interruptions of tyranny; she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house.
”
”
Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)
“
Beginning with maternal, fetal, and infant malnutrition, it’s hardly surprising that the enslaved were more susceptible than free people to most infirmities, including crib death, infant mortality of all kinds (including infanticide), death in childbirth, and injuries and deterioration to the mother from repeated childbirth, along with typhoid, cholera, smallpox, tetanus, worms, pellagra, scurvy, beriberi, kwashiorkor, rickets, diphtheria, pneumonia, tuberculosis, dental-related ailments, dysentery, bloody flux, and other bowel complaints. The health conditions of the enslaved were aggravated by overwork, accidents, and work-related illnesses such as “green tobacco sickness,” today known as nicotine poisoning, which plagued tobacco workers.22 The heavy work regimes they endured wore down their bodies and aged them prematurely, with childbirth-related fatalities limiting women’s life spans even more than the men’s.
”
”
Ned Sublette (The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry)
“
Government Standing next to my old friend I sense that his soldiers have retreated. And mine? They’re resting their guns on their shoulders talking quietly. I’m hungry, one says. Cheeseburger, says another, and they all decide to go and find some dinner. But the next day, negotiating the too narrow aisles of The Health and Harmony Food Store—when I say, Excuse me, to the woman and her cart of organic chicken and green grapes she pulls the cart not quite far back enough for me to pass, and a small mob in me begins picking up the fruit to throw. So many kingdoms, and in each kingdom, so many people: the disinherited son, the corrupt counselor, the courtesan, the fool. And so many gods—arguing among themselves, over toast, through the lunch salad and on into the long hours of the mild spring afternoon—I’m the god. No, I’m the god. No, I’m the god. I can hardly hear myself over their muttering. How can I discipline my army? They’re exhausted and want more money. How can I disarm when my enemy seems so intent?
”
”
Marie Howe (The Kingdom of Ordinary Time: Poems)
“
New Rule: Democrats must get in touch with their inner asshole. I refer to the case of Van Jones, the man the Obama administration hired to find jobs for Americans in the new green industries. Seems like a smart thing to do in a recession, but Van Jones got fired because he got caught on tape saying Republicans are assholes. And they call it news!
Now, I know I'm supposed to be all reinjected with yes-we-can-fever after the big health-care speech, and it was a great speech--when Black Elvis gets jiggy with his teleprompter, there is none better. But here's the thing: Muhammad Ali also had a way with words, but it helped enormously that he could also punch guys in the face.
It bothers me that Obama didn't say a word in defense of Jones and basically fired him when Glenn Beck told him to. Just like dropped "end-of-life counseling" from health-care reform because Sarah Palin said it meant "death panels" on her Facebook page. Crazy morons make up things for Obama to do, and he does it.
Same thing with the speech to schools this week, where the president attempted merely to tell children to work hard and wash their hands, and Cracker Nation reacted as if he was trying to hire the Black Panthers to hand out grenades in homeroom. Of course, the White House immediately capitulated. "No students will be forced to view the speech" a White House spokesperson assured a panicked nation. Isn't that like admitting that the president might be doing something unseemly? What a bunch of cowards. If the White House had any balls, they'd say, "He's giving a speech on the importance of staying in school, and if you jackasses don't show it to every damn kid, we're cutting off your federal education funding tomorrow."
The Democrats just never learn: Americans don't really care which side of an issue you're on as long as you don't act like pussies When Van Jones called the Republicans assholes, he was paying them a compliment. He was talking about how they can get things done even when they're in the minority, as opposed to the Democrats , who can't seem to get anything done even when they control both houses of Congress, the presidency, and Bruce Springsteen.
I love Obama's civility, his desire to work with his enemies; it's positively Christlike. In college, he was probably the guy at the dorm parties who made sure the stoners shared their pot with the jocks. But we don't need that guy now. We need an asshole.
Mr. President, there are some people who are never going to like you. That's why they voted for the old guy and Carrie's mom. You're not going to win them over. Stand up for the seventy percent of Americans who aren't crazy.
And speaking of that seventy percent, when are we going to actually show up in all this? Tomorrow Glenn Beck's army of zombie retirees descending on Washington. It's the Million Moron March, although they won't get a million, of course, because many will be confused and drive to Washington state--but they will make news. Because people who take to the streets always do. They're at the town hall screaming at the congressman; we're on the couch screaming at the TV. Especially in this age of Twitters and blogs and Snuggies, it's a statement to just leave the house. But leave the house we must, because this is our last best shot for a long time to get the sort of serious health-care reform that would make the United States the envy of several African nations.
”
”
Bill Maher (The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass)
“
Red: Maintaining health, bodily strength, physical energy, sex, passion, courage, protection, and defensive magic. This is the color of the element of fire. Throughout the world, red is associated with life and death, for this is the color of blood spilled in both childbirth and injury. Pink: Love, friendship, compassion, relaxation. Pink candles can be burned during rituals designed to improve self-love. They’re ideal for weddings and for all forms of emotional union. Orange: Attraction, energy. Burn to attract specific influences or objects. Yellow: Intellect, confidence, divination, communication, eloquence, travel, movement. Yellow is the color of the element of air. Burn yellow candles during rituals designed to heighten your visualization abilities. Before studying for any purpose, program a yellow candle to stimulate your conscious mind. Light the candle and let it burn while you study. Green: Money, prosperity, employment, fertility, healing, growth. Green is the color of the element of earth. It’s also the color of the fertility of the earth, for it echoes the tint of chlorophyll. Burn when looking for a job or seeking a needed raise. Blue: Healing, peace, psychism, patience, happiness. Blue is the color of the element of water. This is also the realm of the ocean and of all water, of sleep, and of twilight. If you have trouble sleeping, charge a small blue candle with a visualization of yourself sleeping through the night. Burn for a few moments before you get into bed, then extinguish its flame. Blue candles can also be charged and burned to awaken the psychic mind. Purple: Power, healing severe diseases, spirituality, meditation, religion. Purple candles can be burned to enhance all spiritual activities, to increase your magical power, and as a part of intense healing rituals in combination with blue candles. White: Protection, purification, all purposes. White contains all colors. It’s linked with the moon. White candles are specifically burned during purification and protection rituals. If you’re to keep but one candle on hand for magical purposes, choose a white one. Before use, charge it with personal power and it’ll work for all positive purposes. Black: Banishing negativity, absorbing negativity. Black is the absence of color. In magic, it’s also representative of outer space. Despite what you may have heard, black candles are burned for positive purposes, such as casting out baneful energies or to absorb illnesses and nasty habits. Brown: Burned for spells involving animals, usually in combination with other colors. A brown candle and a red candle for animal protection, brown and blue for healing, and so on.
”
”
Scott Cunningham (Earth, Air, Fire & Water: More Techniques of Natural Magic (Llewellyn's Practical Magick Series))
“
Nartok shows me an example of Arctic “greens”: cutout number 13, Caribou Stomach Contents. Moss and lichen are tough to digest, unless, like caribou, you have a multichambered stomach in which to ferment them. So the Inuit let the caribou have a go at it first. I thought of Pat Moeller and what he’d said about wild dogs and other predators eating the stomachs and stomach contents of their prey first. “And wouldn’t we all,” he’d said, “be better off.” If we could strip away the influences of modern Western culture and media and the high-fructose, high-salt temptations of the junk-food sellers, would we all be eating like Inuit elders, instinctively gravitating to the most healthful, nutrient-diverse foods? Perhaps. It’s hard to say. There is a famous study from the 1930s involving a group of orphanage babies who, at mealtimes, were presented with a smorgasbord of thirty-four whole, healthy foods. Nothing was processed or prepared beyond mincing or mashing. Among the more standard offerings—fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, milk, chicken, beef—the researcher, Clara Davis, included liver, kidney, brains, sweetbreads, and bone marrow. The babies shunned liver and kidney (as well as all ten vegetables, haddock, and pineapple), but brains and sweetbreads did not turn up among the low-preference foods she listed. And the most popular item of all? Bone marrow.
”
”
Mary Roach (Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal)
“
For most of our history, walking wasn’t a choice. It was a given. Walking was our primary means of locomotion. But, today, you have to choose to walk. We ride to work. Office buildings and apartments have elevators. Department stores offer escalators. Airports use moving sidewalks. An afternoon of golf is spent riding in a cart. Even a ramble around your neighborhood can be done on a Segway. Why not just put one foot in front of the other? You don’t have to live in the country. It’s great to take a walk in the woods, but I love to roam city streets, too, especially in places like New York, London, or Rome, where you can’t go half a block without making some new discovery. A long stroll slows you down, puts things in perspective, brings you back to the present moment. In Wanderlust: A History of Walking (Viking, 2000), author Rebecca Solnit writes that, “Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord.” Yet in our hectic, goal-oriented culture, taking a leisurely walk isn’t always easy. You have to plan for it. And perhaps you should. Walking is good exercise, but it is also a recreation, an aesthetic experience, an exploration, an investigation, a ritual, a meditation. It fosters health and joie de vivre. Cardiologist Paul Dudley White once said, “A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world.” A good walk is anything but pedestrian. It lengthens your life. It clears, refreshes, provokes, and repairs the mind. So lace up those shoes and get outside. The most ancient exercise is still the best.
”
”
Alexander Green (Beyond Wealth: The Road Map to a Rich Life)
“
Quote from "The Dish Keepers of Honest House" ....TO TWIST THE COLD is easy when its only water you want. Tapping of the toothbrush echoes into Ella's mind like footsteps clacking a cobbled street on a bitter, dry, cold morning. Her mind pushes through sleep her body craves. It catches her head falling into a warm, soft pillow.
"Go back to bed," she tells herself.
"You're still asleep," Ella mumbles, pushes the blanket off, and sits up.
The urgency to move persuades her to keep routines. Water from the faucet runs through paste foam like a miniature waterfall. Ella rubs sleep-deprieved eyes, then the bridge of her nose and glances into the sink.
Ella's eyes astutely fixate for one, brief millisecond. Water becomes the burgundy of soldiers exiting the drain. Her mouth drops in shock. The flow turns green. It is like the bubbling fungus of flockless, fishless, stagnating ponds.
Within the iridescent glimmer of her thinking -- like a brain losing blood flow, Ella's focus is the flickering flashing of gray, white dust, coal-black shadows and crows lifting from the ground. A half minute or two trails off before her mind returns to reality.
Ella grasps a toothbrush between thumb and index finger. She rests the outer palm against the sink's edge, breathes in and then exhales. Tension in the brow subsides, and her chest and shoulders drop; she sighs. Ella stares at pasty foam. It exits the drain as if in a race to clear the sink of negativity -- of all germs, slimy spit, the burgundy of imagined soldiers and oppressive plaque.
GRASPING THE SILKY STRAND between her fingers, Ella tucks, pulls and slides the floss gently through her teeth. Her breath is an inch or so of the mirror. Inspections leave her demeanor more alert. Clouding steam of the image tugs her conscience. She gazes into silver glass. Bits of hair loosen from the bun piled at her head's posterior.
What transforms is what she imagines. The mirror becomes a window. The window possesses her Soul and Spirit. These two become concerned -- much like they did when dishonest housekeepers disrupted Ella's world in another story.
Before her is a glorious bird -- shining-dark-as-coal, shimmering in hues of purple-black and black-greens. It is likened unto The Raven in Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poem of 1845.
Instead of interrupting a cold December night with tapping on a chamber door, it rests its claws in the decorative, carved handle of a backrest on a stiff dining chair. It projects an air of humor and concern. It moves its head to and fro while seeking a clearer understanding.
Ella studies the bird. It is surrounded in lofty bends and stretches of leafless, acorn-less, nearly lifeless, oak trees. Like fingers and arms these branches reach below.
[Perhaps they are reaching for us? Rest assured; if they had designs on us, I would be someplace else, writing about something more pleasant and less frightening. Of course, you would be asleep.]
Balanced in the branches is a chair. It is from Ella's childhood home. The chair sways. Ella imagines modern-day pilgrims of a distant shore. Each step is as if Mother Nature will position them upright like dolls, blown from the stability of their plastic, flat, toe-less feet. These pilgrims take fate by the hand.
LIFTING A TOWEL and patting her mouth and hands, Ella pulls the towel through the rack. She walks to the bedroom, sits and picks up the newspaper. Thumbing through pages that leave fingertips black, she reads headlines:
"Former Dentist Guilty of Health Care Fraud."
She flips the page, pinches the tip of her nose and brushes the edge of her chin -- smearing both with ink. In the middle fold directly affront her eyes is another headline:
"Dentist Punished for Misconduct."
She turns the page. There is yet another:
"Dentist guilty of urinating in surgery sink and using contaminated dental instruments on patients."
This world contains those who are simply insane! Every profession has those who stray from goals....
”
”
Helene Andorre Hinson Staley