Sunday, November 30, 2008

Monday Bunday: Bunvention

Hello

Sydney: Hello, we'd like to share our newest bunvention.
Tyler: We constructed it in our rabboratory with the help of our simple assistant.
The Newest Bunvention

Sydney: We tried to convey our wants by chewing on the baseboards, cupboards and doors, and by strewing our hay about like wild animals.
Tyler: So she made us a box with well and firmly held sticks, because that's what we love about chewing on household parts and items; they don't roll around. You can see the side in one of the pictures. A sharp and dangerous implement was used to cut an X, then the stick was shoved in.
Detail

Sydney: These acts required the use of thumbs, that's why we couldn't do it ourselves. 
Tyler: There was still part of the concept missing. Sydney communicated our wants to our very simple assistant. 
Tyler demonstrates use

Sydney: One afternoon she cleaned our boxes while she thought we were asleep. For ten minutes we had no boxes, of course we are usually napping. All the same; outrageous!!!!. I showed my displeasure and let her know that the buninvention needed refinement by peeing on the bottom of the box.
Tyler: She cut off the wet panel, flipped the box over and filled it with hay. Don't you just love it!! We do and like to chew on the sticks in the middle of the night. 
Sydney: Now go make one of your own. And have a great week, where everyday is Bunday.
Sydney also demonstrates

Friday, November 28, 2008

Rabbit Pie

Not a real rabbit pie, of course. Boyfriend used to ask "is everything an art project?". Well, yeah, everything sort of is, isn't that the point? This is one of the pumpkin pies we brought to dinner, the other went home in stomachs. I infused the whipped cream with fresh rosemary, which actually tasted quite good. The pumpkins I used were from our Farmer's Market, carefully chosen; you have to check the stems to be sure they haven't been harvested prematurely. Look for a shrunken dried stem, anything slightly green or moist or moldy won't keep and won't have maximum flavor.  For the crust I used fresh organic butter and organic leaf lard from a pig whose name was "lefty". The flour is white spelt.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Monday Bunday


It had simply been too long, I had to just grab Sydney to clip her nails. The last time it had been nail clipping time I did Tyler first and he, evidently, told Sydney and she went into evasive action. Since she doesn't like to petted, though she likes to be fed treats and she will put her paws on my knees and give me bumps, I decided to play a waiting game. I didn't want to betray her trust, but being a responsible bunny slave carries hard choices, and I grabbed her while she was eating a treat. She got her nails clipped with a minimum of fuss and even got brushed, even though she doesn't show shed lines, the amount of fur that transferred itself to my clothing told another tale. I have to say she is solidly built, round and firmly packed, quite unlike her brother who is light as air and elf-like.


Tyler is easier, he will present for petting and act surprised when lifted, but can settle down. Though both buns wouldn't speak to me for hours. Sydney refused an apres event apple treat, but Tyler gobbled his in my lap. Tyler is pictured as if in jail because he was a bit bad, though I think he is very cleaver. While boyfriend was on the phone in the living room talking to his sister in Maine, Tyler snuck into the study, climbed on a chair, navigated some books, found a four inch segment of unprotected phone cord and CHOMP ! ! ! ! Can't we harness this amazing sixth sense for the greater good ???

Enjoy your week everybun.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Another WAPF Report

Dr. Beverly Rubik holds a Ph.D. in Biophysics from UC Berkeley. Her interest in healing and the energy started when she was in grad school. As a dancer she had developed chronic knee problems, at that time the next step was exploratory surgery, her response was "is there another option?" and someone mentioned that a healer, Dr. Olga Worrel, was coming to Berkeley. Beverly went and Dr. Olga put her hands on Beverly's knees, they felt warm and her knees became quite warm and then the pain was gone. The pain never did return. Was it simply the "biology of belief"? the placebo effect? which is certainly legitimate if it works, if it is lasting, who cares how you get better? Or was there more to it? Some interesting experiments took place using bacteria (presumably immune to the biology of belief) and healers, including the fab Dr. Olga. The bacteria were heat shocked then different healers, mostly Reiki practitioners, would try to keep them from dying. Mostly the bacteria just died. Dr. Olga was able to save some. However if a healer worked on a human then went straight to bacteria, results improved, also healers who were used to working on animals did quite well with the bacteria. There was definitely something going on. 

These days BR is working with an imaging device called GDV, this device uses the emission of light from the fingers and a software program that utilises various body mapping systems (Korean Hand Acupuncture, Chinese Meridian System, etc...) to produce a  picture of the electro-bio-field of the subject. One could also say "aura". (It is important to note that every indigenous culture in the world has had an "energy" view of life, it has been science that has truncated us from our roots.) A good bio-field is regular and even. Many of BR's experiments have to do with practitioners of a type of Qi Gong called "Wild Goose", which produces quite a nice field. In one quite telling series she showed the scattered uneven field of a beginning practitioner before attending class, then the same person with a lovely even and enhanced field after just one hour of practice. The long term practitioners seemed to maintain their good fields throughout the day. BR is of the opinion that any kind of energy practice, be it Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Yoga, meditation or even Ba Gua   (this was my addition since it is, err, my practice) is good for the field. Her example it is heartening as it shows beginners can benefit immediately. 

Once you can shift the energy then physiology and biology follow; the bio-field is the bridge between the mind and body. A few more items from my notes: Korotov, the developer of GDV, found that there was a burst of light from the body at death, presumably the soul; intuitives have a permeable bio-field; the healers with splotchy bio-fields were healed as they healed their patients; don't forget we are an open system, you've got more microbes in you than human cells; Before and after pics of Qi Gong healers showed an energy build-up then a draining in the liver and colon area from the healer because they were using their own Dan Tian energy; Reiki healing does not deplete the practitioner, (but is not so reliant on the intent of the healer -my addition).
Stuff that messes with your bio-field are electromagnetic fields (cell phones, computers, power lines, electronic devices, that sort of thing). So what can you do, other than start your Tai Chi practice? there is a device that BR likes, there is science behind it and good studies. Q Link is it's name and here is a link to their site. The Q Link uses a crystal oscillator that is in sympathetic resonance to strengthen the bio-field in the presence of stresses. BR shared a case of a woman who was very sensitive to EMFs- when working on a computer she would get fatigue, decreased brain function, tense stiff, headachey. Then she put on a Q Link and went to work on her laptop and her field got better, better from even from her "normal" status.

Next time Iodine and The Thyroid with Dr. David Brownstein.





Tuesday, November 18, 2008

From the WAPF Conference

And this cabbage became sauerkraut.

Our most excellent local WAPF Chapter leader, Jean Harrah of Deep Roots Ranch wrote she would like to have some highlights of the WAPF Conference and I am happy to oblige. The first talk I attended on the day I went to the conference, which, by the way, was Sunday 11/9/2008, was given by Dr. Joseph Heckman, a soil science prof from Rutgers University. He is very into the energy concepts developed by Wilhelm Reich. According to Reich, energy, life energy, which he named Orgone is a tangible energy. It is increased by eating and breathing and discharged by sex, movement, growth and heat. It is always moving and is attracted to water. It flows from lower to higher concentrations. The more you have to more you get....Without our orgone energy we simply would not be. You can see the accumulation of orgone under the microscope in the form of bions.  These glimmer a special blue called "Orgone Blue". When asked what non-Reichan scientists thought of these visible blue lights Heckman said that you will mostly see them if you are looking for them. He also spoke about muscular armour which is brought about by the repression of emotions and inhibits contact with living things. I guess if you have this armor then you won't see the bions. The more bions an organism has the more cohesive it is and that's good. For example an egg with plenty of bions would have good tone, the yolk would really stand up; it would be cohesive. This would be an egg worth eating. Some other foods high in bions are raw milk, but not pasteurized milk and broth. An audience member pointed out that honey was pretty high as well. Sand is quite high, (though not recommended for ingestion) this could explain why we love to kick off our shoes and walk in it. Green grass, especially spring green grass is high in bions, this it would seem is passed on to raw milk. Organic vegetables have more bions than conventional. Although the analysis of vitamins and minerals of these two may not be so very different, once consumed the result is apparent. Organic food is more vitalizing, whether this is because of the bions or lack of pesticides or both, we are not sure.  What adds bions to the soil for plants to uptake is compost, both as an additive to the soil and as a tea (drink up my little pea plants). As plant matter breaks down into compost it is fermenting, the same as sauerkraut or the rumination of a cow. Although the matter breaks down the bions hang around. You can tell when a plant has plenty of bions and orgone energy it will have a certain turgidity; back to the cohesive concept;  also with a repletion of bions "the habit of the plant develops a personality". I'm not sure where this quote is from, but to me it made a lot of sense, really healthy plants do seem to have a personality, don't you think? Heckman also spoke about some experiments he had done using an orgone accumulator, basically a metal lined box. Plants placed in the box and transplanted later were larger or more productive or lived longer than the control group. An injured cat placed in an orgone blanket (sort of a steel wool comforter) recovered. After he was done Dr. Heckman came and sat a few seats away from me to listen to the next speaker. He was a restless sort of person and a pattern of Irish Setters adorned his tie. 

Commentary: Although I am not a student of Reich, by any means, the whole Orgone concept is quite close to the concept of Qi, though Qi is a bit more complex. It is interesting to note that while developing the Soviet Space Program one of the engineers read the about Riech's Orgone Accumulator and incorporated the concept in Soviet space suits. You read more about the blanket using this technology here. I have used this blanket in my practice for a few years now and it does seem to give some extraordinary results when used with acupuncture needles. Another experiment that the Orgone Accumulator brings to mind is the copper room experiment of Elmer Green, pioneer of bio-feedback. He had read that Tibetan monks mediated in front of copper wall to reach a state of "lucidity". So he built a copper wall and invited  healers and meditators,and a control group to experience it and during this time he measured the voltage emitted from their bodies using an EEG monitor. The control group showed no change in electrical activity, but the healers and meditators had from 6 to 441 volts shooting from their persons. You can read more about this here .

Next post: Healing the Human Bio-field with Dr. Beverly Rubik

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Rabbit Centered Universe

There is no denying that I live in a rabbit centered universe and that despite rather feeble efforts on my part this is, for all intents and purposes, a rabbit blog. I had actually started it years ago as a Chinese Medicine blog because one of my trade papers said blogging was a great way to keep in contact with patients between visits and to get new patients. It was not so in my case. This past Sunday I attended the Weston A. Price Conference  and could write short and concise pieces about Heart Rate Variance, Energetic Coherence,  Iodine and Health, Healing the Bio- field and Subtle Energies in the Soil, but I choose to write about a rabbit. For a while now I have been tired of my silly avatar that shows me peering out from behind my beloved camera. Naturally I thought about replacing it with a rabbit, but it didn't seem fair to choose one over the other and it seemed like the icon space would be crowded if I used both. Good heavens such knotty problems. Yesterday morning I saw Tyler in front of the blue stretching mat in the living room, the sun coming in from the window behind turning the mat silver. "That's nice." I thought and continued on through the room. Later I returned and he was still there. Possibly enamored with fantasies of being the Rabbit in the Moon, sparked by the shining mat or simply waiting to have his picture taken, I wasn't sure.  I could readily indulge him with the latter. After a few pictures he figured his work was done and he moved on to other important rabbit tasks. Dutifully I changed my avatar, curiously this went almost too smoothly, from getting the photos into iPhoto to finishing the switch it was under five minutes...............

"I'm waiting, you cannot resist me."

"Took you long enough, I'm off to see if Sydney has something good to chew. You get on that computer and set your avatar right."

"What a good looking fellow I am."




Saturday, November 08, 2008

Moku Hanga Lagomorph ID

Can you identify the bunny couple in this print????

Monday, November 03, 2008

Monday Bunday

I think I can say that all bunny slaves love to watch their rabbits eat. Not only is a good appetite a sign of health, but rabbits just seem to love to eat and can do so with a delightful vigor.

I wish I could have sound included with this photo.

One of Tyler and Sydney's foods is fresh picked Chicory leaves straight from the garden, only seconds from being plucked from the plant. These are greeted with great excitement and sometimes a bink or two.

Tyler has to open his eyes very wide in order to make room for the leaf in his little bunny mouth.

It is a wild sport eating these big greens, almost larger than the buns themselves (especially in Tyler's case). When Sydney first came to live here she wanted her food in small pieces and just wouldn't go after a single large leaf in it's more or less natural state. Now she can keep up with her brother without a thought.

Sydney says "The last bit is easy when you can brace the stalk on the floor."

Despite the effort, or perhaps because of it, garden Chicory appears to be their favorite food. Tyler's tongue tells that truth.

Nom, nom, nom.