Someone has taken the storm debris & made a semi luxurious shelter for themselves

…. is somewhere warm!

I’ve just been out for a morning bike ride along the beach in Venice, California. There are two main groups of people: the beautiful ones with their personal trainers, hula hoops, skateboards, running club instructors, bicycles pulling baskets with sleeping dogs, iPods attached to their arms, inline skates and lattes. There is another group carrying black plastic sacks, scruffy clothes (although it is true you can be wealthy and have extremely  trendy scruffy clothes) and outfits with many layers, but two things set them apart from the other group – their matted hair and their lack of movement. There is no need to expend excess energy by running up the beach, they probably don’t have enough.  They are the homeless who make this stunning beach their home. Wouldn’t you hang out here in November when everywhere else is freezing cold?  That’s the thing about the USA; it’s a system where there is no limit or ceiling to how successful you can be and at the opposite end of the spectrum there’s nothing to catch you if you fall.

These are the lucky ones I guess. They made it to the warmth of LA. Some of them had good jobs not long ago; means and lifestyles to be proud of. Some of them are victims of the sudden downward spiral of foreclosure. Maybe they were jogging in a beautiful setting a few months ago.

According to the Homelessness Research Institute of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, 672,000 on any given night experience homelessness in the USA, . This means that for every 10,000 people in the USA 22 are homeless.  42% of those live on the street or in places not meant for human habitation.  The rest are in shelters or transitional housing programmes.  Two thirds are individual adults whilst the rest are in families with 82% of the total coming from urban environments. 18% are chronically homeless and the data shows that there was a 28% reduction in these numbers between 2005 and 2007 because of community initiatives specifically targeting this group. The data was collated from a census taken in 450 communities in January 2007. It is going to take until summer 2010 to release figures from January 2009 data which might show the impact of the current recession and its implosive effect on housing but mid-term results show that there has been an abrupt halt to positive changes being made by current initiatives.  20% of the homeless are veterans.

The pen that hears what you are saying while it films what you write !

I have just bought a brilliant gadget.  When I say ‘gadget’ it sounds like something you don’t really need but trust me, you need this one. It’s brilliant. In fact, as I am in the USA at the moment I can say it is ‘awesome’ but that’s not a very British word.

Anyway, the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen: I found it on the internet somehow but did not rush to buy it – wasn’t sure if I REALLY needed it (would it end up hidden away like my self-pumping bucket & hose car cleaning kit?). When my friend Eric turned up with one from a local Target store I dashed out to get one myself. You use a notebook with special paper that has zillions of tiny dots, as you write with the pen a tiny infra red camera films the words. In addition, you can hit the RECORD button on the bottom of each page and the words being spoken in the seminar or meeting will be recorded with the words. Which means ……. you can go back to anywhere on the paper, tap the pen on a word and hear what was being spoken at that moment. Again, AWESOME!

I tried it out at a Conference writing full notes but recording just small segments of the sessions as an aide memoire; I have used it to narrate a summary of a meeting while I have sketched out a mind-map of the highlights discussed; I gave the pen to Merrie Kung – while she gave me a fantastic numerology reading she sketched out dates and numbers and the pen recorded everything, and finally I made notes of part of a teleseminar with Dr Jean Houston (speaking on the series organised by Women from the Edge of Evolution) recording some of her pearls of wisdom.

Once you have finished the notes you upload to your computer via USB (also serves as a charger) then you can choose to upload to the Livescribe webspace and share with others. If you want to try this out and hear part of Jean Houston’s call while reading my notes, click here. I have made this particular file public but Livescribe might as you to join the community to access the file (?).  Anyone else using the Smartpen?

Now the Kindle is on my gadgets-to-buy list. Anyone using one and recommend it?

I just saw this posted on a closed ning circle (The Universal Lounge). Apparently, it is as told by the Wintu Tribal Elders of California. I thought it was really beautiful and an amazing story about nature. I am just off out now for a walk and will have to resist the temptation to gather sticks!

HOW THE FEMALE EAGLE CHOOSES HER MATE

“When it comes time for the female Eagle to choose her mate, she prepares herself for many suitors. And many come before her. She looks them over quite well and then picks one to fly with for awhile. If she likes the way he flies she finds a small stick, picks it up and flies high with it. At some point she will drop the stick to see if the male can catch it. If he does, then she finds a larger stick and flies with it much higher this time. Each time the male catches the sticks, she continues to pick up larger and larger sticks. When she finds the largest, heaviest stick that she herself can carry, the stick is at this point almost the size of a small log! But she can still fly very high with this large stick.

At any time in this process, if the male fails to catch the stick, she flies away from him as her signal that the test is now over. She begins her search all over again. And when she again finds a male she is interested in, she starts testing him in the exact same way. And she will continue this “testing” until she finds the male Eagle who can catch all the sticks. And when she does, she chooses him, and will mate with him for life.

One of the reasons for this test is that at some point they will build a nest together high up and will then have their eaglettes. When the babies begin to learn to fly, they sometimes fall instead. It is then that the male must catch his young. And he does! The female Eagle and their Eaglettes have depended on him to be strong for them”.

I had the most amazing experience on Friday.  It took just four minutes to release me from 18 days of pain!

I went to interview Dr Ali, famous for quite a few things: being Prince Charles’ doctor, having many celebrity & royal clients, writing a health column in the Mail on Sunday, and finally being the father of integrated medicine. It was this last context that interested me and was the reason for my interview.  Over the whole of the summer I have needed to take several months off in order to manage my health. For the first time in YEARS I have actually been to a doctor. Long story short, I have had the opportunity to witness at first hand some of the workings of the national health service, private medicine and the tussle between alternative treatments versus pharmaceutical drugs. (One doctor rolling her eyes when I talked about my endeavours with special nutrition and homeopathy while another was excited that the ‘alternative’ stuff was working!)  It’s all been a very interesting journey, and rather debilitating. An additional side effect of me being out of action and laid up for so long is that my back became very weak, and I damaged it while trying to get fit doing hula hoop on my wii Fit machine (don’t say ANYthing!).  See earlier posting about wii.

Anyway, by the time I got into Dr Ali’s private inner sanctum for a chat with my video camera last week, I was wincing and carefully arranging myself so I could sit comfortably on camera. When we finished the interview he said “So what have you done to your back?”.  Seconds later I was on the couch. He pressed a few points at the base of spine (ouch! ouch! but you won’t hear this as the camera had thankfully been switched off by then), then he got me to do some stretches and, as if by magic, I stood up without any difficulty and was able to move my whole back without pain. I think I said the word Hallelujah several times which is a bit embarrassing but he must hear that a lot.

What’s interesting about Dr Ali is is that he is a scientifically trained doctor who immediately set out to investigate other healing modalities training in China and India in acupuncture and ayurvedic techniques. His whole career has been about blending different healing systems and studying nutrition to provide the best solutions to modern health problems. On the video he explains that in the early days of doing this he had to come up with a name to cover this unique approach and that is where the phrase integrated medicine came in for the first time in the 1980s. It was this multi-disciplinary approach so expertly presented which appealed to Prince Charles who is well-known for being an advocate.  The best of both worlds is definitely the way forward, not just for treating the problems but for keeping us all out of trouble in the first place.  Dr Ali is passionate about prevention (I have now bought his ground-breaking book on back care and am studying closely it!) and that is the key driver, I believe, for health in the future. Our health is in our own hands but we need professional, quality help in sorting out which modality is best.

I asked him for his key health tips for busy business people and he offered some really great recommendations that don’t all involve major lifestyle changes. They are on the video. When I danced out of the office, I left Dr Ali looking at my Healthy Home book expressing his agreement that healthy environments play an important role too. (I have talked about quality sleep for years so it was good to hear it was high on his list too). Watch the video interview.

Dr Ali’s passion is training other doctors in his integrated techniques. He hasn’t made time to give public talks so far, and his list is mostly closed to new clients (!), so if you want to connect with this extraordinarily-gifted and inspiring health pioneer you might be interested in an intimate Breakfast Briefing he is doing on Wednesday Sept 23rd in London where he has agreed to share some of his secrets.

The event is being presented by my colleague Mynoo Blackbyrn. She was totally inspired by Dr Ali when she took a family member to see him after a stroke.  They shuffled in to the office on a Zimmer frame and walked out without it.  Dr Ali showed Mynoo simple things that she could do to accelerate their recovery and they are virtually back to normal now!
(PS if you know a stroke victim, check out Dr Ali’s website for info on the research he has done about strokes).

Date: Wednesday September 23rd, 8 – 10am
Venue: The Club at One Alfred Place, WC1, Central London
Book here:

Visit Dr Ali’s website

Slide from the presentation: slums conveniently next to the luxury condos. A very short walk to work for slum dwellers.

Brilliant talk by a long-standing pioneer in ecology and environmentalism, Stewart Brand, who  also founded the Whole earth catalog.
Cities will continue as the main living environment, the world will be 80% urban by mid-century. The developing world now has all the biggest cities (except Tokyo) with their populations developing three times faster than developed countries, and are nine times bigger. The distribution of urban power is similar to what it was 1,000 years ago! The rise of the west that happened since then is now over.

Every week 1.3 million people come into town from the countryside.  This has been happening decade after decade. The villages of the world are emptying out. Subsistence farming is drying up – literally.
Towns are bustling with life, intensely creative, vibrant cash economies full of opportunity with plenty going on.
One billion squatters are building some kind of shelter in the urban world. The new world is being created here, one family at a time.

This distresses many people yet Stewart Brand says that working slums actually help create prosperity. Half of Mumbai is made of slums and one sixth of the GDP of India comes from slums.  Slum dwellers are extremely valuable as a group.  Instead of being crushed by poverty these people are busy working to get out of poverty as fast as they can and helping each other along the way.  Although this informal economy is not supposed to be there, it is – and it is huge.

He talked about an interesting shift in demographics: how in the north the cities are older, they are filled with older people (low birth rates) and run on older ways and ideas. While in the south, brand new cities are emerging with more younger people inventing newer ways of living and thriving.

Do watch the video: about 6 minutes in there is a short video of how a slum community adapts to its location on a railway line. It’s quite the most gob-smacking scene you’ll ever see. Talk about human ingenuity and adaptability!  Inspiring and amazing.

screen page of my book on sale online with Oxfam

I was thrilled this week when I chanced upon a copy of my own Feng Shui book for sale via Oxfam’s used book website. I don’t feel the smallest shred of rejection that someone has let go of my precious beautiful book. It’s heartening to know that they have taken my advice (in the book in the chapter on clutter) and seen fit to divest themselves of something they no longer need. Good for them. I could do with taking some of my own medicine myself as well!  I too am drowning in STUFF – and it’s no longer physical clutter, although I have my fair share of business magazines etc …, it’s more the old ideas and the old ways of doing things.  Right now I feel like what I did before, what I believed is either no longer relevant or true. Are you finding that your whole life is up for re-invention?  I am.

How are you all coping out there?

In common with millions of others, I have been enjoying Michael’s back catalogue of amazing music today. I have particularly enjoyed the Earth Song and I can’t believe such an iconic song and well-produced video has not been used more widely in recent post Al Gore times. The images of indigenous people falling to their knees on their scorched earth as trees are felled around them while, what look like Bosnian families, similarly drop to their knees in despair on their war-ravaged lands.  I hope we see more of this. It is a powerful, artistic and complelling reminder that we are in trouble here on planet earth.  Incidentally, the video ranks number 31 on wikipedia’s top 40 most expensive videos.

I also love the song Heal the World:  “There’s a place in your heart and I know that is love …….We want to make the world a better place for our children …..for you and for me and the entire human race. “

from BBC News website

Men have got hang-ups about following through on symptoms and going to the doctors’ meaning they are now 70% more likely to die of cancer than women.  And because they aren’t as informed about health as women (men’s reading material does not routinely include health information in the way women’s magazines do) they are 60% more likely to get cancer in the first place.  Their lack of knowledge mean they are widening this gender gap with their lifestyle choices – great photo on the left isn’t!  Apart from being life-threatening it’s also grosslly unattractive. How come their wives let them get away with figures like this?  See the full report on the BBC website.

Here’s how to get started.

News story on BBC 24

Interesting news item yesterday on BBC.   Apparently, research tracking ten years of UK data shows that women are vastly out-performing men at university, in all social groups and ethnicities.  Less of them are dropping out and more of them are getting higher grades across the board in the majority of subjects including professions like medicine and law, but with the exception of just engineering.  A few young people were interviewed with their views as to why this is. Some girls thought that they really are capable of knuckling down and getting on with their study and homework instead of falling prey to peer pressure and going down the pub like the boys tend to. One young man said he noticed that he usually scraped in with his essays at the last minute while the girls consistently seemed to have done theirs with time to spare.

What if we don’t just out-perform men at degree level but this trend continued and we started to out-perform men in leading corporations, enterprise, boardrooms …… ?   something to think about.  Why do you think women are getting ahead?

This weekend, Caroline Flint MP, resigned from the cabinet angry at Prime Minister Gordon Brown for treating her and other women leaders as “window dressing“. In her official response (BBC News interview outside 10 Downing Street) Harriet Harman, deputy leader, said ” I can understand the frustation of any woman in politics   … it’s true to say we’ve got further to go” then she went on to say that Gordon Brown did take women in politics seriously.  She had to say that really, in her position.  Think about:  if this trend continues it will be harder to keep women’s influence at arm’s length and we WILL start to make a real impact. I can feel Caroline’s frustration. Sadly we don’t live in a world where people speak their truth and share honestly what’s going on for them so it will be a while before we hear what is really going on.