Religion in the crib: how spirituality shapes children

My whole life I thought I wanted to have kids of my own. Childbirth is disgusting to me (to each their own, right?) and regardless I think it's kiiiinda selfish to have children of your own when there are so many kids out there without parents. To be honest I don't think the proper channels exist, and adoption is hella expensive. But still, if you're willing to fork out over 13 000 a year for at least 18 years just because you want a kid that looks like you, or because you want to have a baby and then a child (like how older dogs or cats tend to be adopted after puppies or kittens) or you want the legacy of your genes to move on (I truly don't understand, because I'm guessing those aren't the only two reasons for which people try to make their own babies.) Aaanyways, regardless of my perception on having children of my own, I am still heavily invested in the state of the world's children in terms of education and equality they desperately need.

I think religious, or, moral education, is important for the purposes of learning the inspirational stories. They will help discipline them and guide them through life as honest, compassionate, considerate and aware contributors to society.

Different than most North American pious (those who actually walk the walk and not just talk the talk) Christians though, I would want to incorporate a lot of what I have learned through my spiritual journey. This would mean having them baptized as an infant, and then somehow within the next 10 years of its life, teaching them about other spiritual faiths and belief systems. (I wrote this a while ago, and don't know if I still agree with baptism, but definitely exposure to various world systems of belief).

I know that kids want to act like kids, but I really think having this insight for possibilities of faith would help them understand themselves and the world around them. The false consciousness taught by our mothers and fathers (The "you are so special" feed and usually getting what you want) could be replaced with an immovable faith and hope for humankind, and in themselves to have a positive impact on the world.

Instead, what's currently happening is that the way were are raising our kids is starting to hurt them. Some parents shove blind faith down the throats of their children, in hopes that they will accept the religious beliefs as truth. But how are these beliefs actually truths? They might be truths of the parent because of their spiritual experiences, but I think we need to help our children start their well-rounded spiritual journey so they can make their own judgments on themselves and drive their own spiritual experience.

Religion teaches us to take ownership of our faults, do our best to fix them, and introduces a realistic concept of control that one has over his own life.

We need to teach each other to go along our own path of spiritual discovery! For example, I don't even try to have the 'does G-d exist' conversation with certain people, because G-d has not been revealed to them- yet.

Out of all the atheists I've spoken to on this topic, there seems to be two different ideas of control. The more popular being that since there is no God, everything is random and we have no control over our lives. This is what I like to call narcissism.

The second, which is vivid among people who are atheists but generally positive towards their lives, is the idea that nothing is pre-destined but not pre-determined, and therefore every decision a person makes to act or not act, or to speak or not speak, dictates their life in one way or another. Or as a friend said the other day, "we are all in charge of our own destiny."

As a believer, I sort of combine these two theories for what I believe: I don't have control over everything, but I can do what I can make the best for myself and for others. And, decisions ADD UP.

So, in my opinion, although life is planned by our creator, (look at the beauty of the things around us, natural as well as man made. Someone definitely planned for this stuff to be here, and the way that it is) daily decisions still affect the outcome of life. In Judaism, a person has two destinies: a lower destiny & a higher destiny (bear with me on my understanding of this as it was explained to me by two awesome orthodox Jewish teenagers on a VIA Rail train one holiday season, and I was extremely tired). The basic idea is that even if you have a low destiny to have a horrible life, you could have a high destiny of learning from your mistakes and one day being great. I love this idea, because it teaches we do my have full control, but it's WHAT WE MAKE OF IT that dictates how it affects us. G-d judges us, yes, but G-d loves us regardless of our decisions. It is us that are hard on ourselves (consciously or unconsciously) and the true, pure being of light that we are judges our actions here on earth. So to put it shortly, IT'S UP TO US.

There is a song by April March called Laisse Tomber Les Filles. It just repeats over and over 'let the girls fall, one day it's you we will leave behind.' Just a heads up to those of you who believe that education should only be for those who can afford it, and are willing to pay close to hundreds of thousands for your child... But few others.

Thanks for coming along on my thought path, and I wish you an awakening journey of your own.

Soul Trade? (Not soul train.)

If you could get anything for the price of your soul:    (1) would you sell it, and;

   (2) what would that anything have to be?

For me, answering this hypothetical question is easy, and you can scroll to the bottom to see my answer if you're too lazy or ignorant or close-minded to read what's in between. That's right, I said it.

Although I encourage and appreciate the asking of these types of questions to engage one's imagination, I don't really believe in seriously answering hypothetical questions. It's similar to being asked 'If you were in a lifeboat with 9 people, but the boat only fits 8 people or it will capsize and everyone will likely drown, how do you decide who gets thrown off the boat?'

There are a few factors I personally would consider in this lifeboat scenario that are not mentioned in the question. First, am I the leader of this group? Is the decision completely up to me, or is it a democracy? Secondly, who are these people? Details about whether or not some of the people on the lifeboat are children, military folk, paramedics, racists, rapists, etc. would be quite useful, that is, if the decision was being made based on potential and worldly contributions after survival.

But here's my main question: what about the blatant fact that psychological shock and physiological adrenaline would play a huge role if this scenario were to ever happen? Regardless of how well we know or think we know ourselves, I don't think we can TRULY predict our own reactions to something of such great scale.

However, my answer to this question is still easy as well. I think that people such as myself who may, at some times, have a 'suppressed ego' (not at all related to low self-esteem) would decide to throw themselves out of the boat. It's crazy, especially if the person who does that is the leader and then, once gone, there is no one to lead the group to safety... But sometimes sacrifices have to be made. (Maybe I would work it out so that the people on the boat would have a way to get to safety after I was gone, if I was the leader, hypothetically.)

So anyways, back to the original question.  If I could sell my soul (to a good person, like a good witch or something and not the Devil) for the happiness, peace and health of every single person in the world, I would do it in a heartbeat. Ok, ok, that's cheating, I guess that answer contains three things. In one word then, I guess it would be the well-being of every person in the world. I've had thoughts similar to this throughout my life and that this would be the epitome of not dying in vain, also in the lifeboat scenario. I just keep seeing my new and old friends who have had injustice, hurtfulness and sadness cast upon them for so long, and in so many ways. Day in and day out. "It's not fair," they say. Yes life isn't fair, but knowing that doesn't help.

In the lifeboat scenario (and all of life.. getting deep here; mind the pun) I guess the best I can hope for is that selflessness is an innate quality that triumphs over shock, adrenaline and anxiety. I made myself aware at young age that making my first instinct selflessness in everything I do is my life purpose, and I need to continue improving my pursuit of this purpose and defining a path to fulfill it. I just want everyone to be truly happy, loved, safe, and fed. No false consciousness crap I see every day in 'the big city'. Pretty sure I'm allowed to be an utter idealist, and there is more to come on my idealism later.

Crushed cranberry lemonade decoction

I was delivered a package of fresh cranberries around thanksgiving, and was finally able to use them... All of them!

First, I washed the cranberries in cold water, then put them in the blender for about 15 seconds just to crush them. Then I added 3 parts water, a whole lemon, brown rice syrup and sugar to the cranberries, and boiled them for about 10 minutes. Then I strained the juice to get the cranberry skin bits out, although my partner loves the pulp! This process basically makes a concentrate to which I added sparkling mineral water to make it fizzy and.. mineral-y (haha). So yummy! I'll be glad when I find highbush cranberry (awesome for cramps and headaches) and will make the same thing!

Willow tree Headache wipe-away!

So I had a throbbing headache for about 36 hours a couple of days ago, and it was horrible.

I had to leave work early because of it, but now I'm feeling fine and heading to work headache-free! I met up with my friend Emma and we scoured downtown Toronto for a willow tree of the Salix genus, as this contains salicin which metabolizes in the human body as salicylic acid, a natural form of aspirin. It was clearly a success!

First, I have to say that I tried real Advil for my headache, and it did nothing. Then Tuesday night I made a willow bark and bergamot tea, and here's how I did it! The following is for one or two people.

1. COLLECT 5-10 willow leaves, 3-6 pieces of willow bark (inner bark is best) and 5-10 bergamot leaves. Leaves can be fresh or dried.

2. WASH the willow leaves and bark, and bergamot leaves in cold water.

3. BREW 1.5-3 cups of water with the plants (let boil for 5-7 minutes) , let stand and steep for about 10 minutes.

4. FLAVOUR and COOL with sugar and soy/ almond milk.

Willow bark- noted as one ingredient of which I must have a constant collection. Not only did this tea vanquish my headache, the bergamot calmed me down to have a good night's sleep. LOVE IT.

'Confections' of a Botanist Pt.1

Today I was inspired. I had an amazing day at work after having a terrible one the day before. I decided to do some baking after my lovely made a salad and lasagna. The salad dressing he made was simple; he put so many pieces of tomato, onion, cucumber and lettuce in, and it was so good. I knew he had a gift with food, I think he just needs to explore it more.

Anyways, obviously without him, I made 3 things tonight. I did some vegan baking The first was a carob-banana bread that came out looking SO fine. The second; fruit & fibre bran muffins with all this classy dried fruit, coconut and oats. The last was really fun: autumn olive marmalade. I FINALLY got some agar to use as the jeller (agar is seaweed gelatin, so vegan) and the strained sugared jelly is chilling in the fridge overnight. Awesome tip for making your own jelly: some types of berries, when boiled with sugar and agar in my experience, actually shed their pulp to fully expose the seed for straining! I found this particularly helpful, as Autumn Olive fruit are tiny and were really hard to mash. So I took my chances, and it worked out just great. Pictures to come tomorrow.

The best test for great baked goods is if they taste as good the second day they've been 'alive' as they did when they were first made. Very few treats can pass this test consistently. I will post pictures tomorrow of my fabulous, super-healthy creations!

c

Diary of a Future Ethnobotanist Pt. 2: Child transference: the best of its kind

So I'm starting to get a feel (and taste, smell, and eye) for which plants look like what and what ailments they can help. My great long-term memory and innate intuition come in handy, especially when there are thousands upon thousands of species of plants, and I only know just over 200 of them!

I want to share a story; dedicated to my instructor Dave Jolly. When we first spoke we were discussing how my newfound plant knowledge would come with the responsibility of sharing it with others. Already I feel as though I've already made a difference with one of the children I nanny.

There's a bright, fun, and totally loveable child for whom I care for at times when her father asks. She's one of the most unique persons I know (and I know a lot of people!) and last week when we hung out, we went for a long walk and collected some samples of plants for her own plant identification sample book.

Yesterday we went on another outing, and among other things, we found an edible plant; one that we had found almost two weeks earlier. When I offered her a part of the plant stem, she actually referred to the plant by name (wood sorrel, which tastes sweet and lemony) and I got so proud I started shrieking "Oh my goodness! Oh my gosh! Great work, I can't believe you remembered that!!"

It was a moment that I will remember forever. It's the same feeling I get when I am explaining something of great depth to someone, and they finally understand. I imagine that for anyone who has ever tried to teach or impart knowledge to someone else, it's the same feeling.

All I know is that I've been given permission from the girl's father to teach her what I can about edible and medicinal plants, and I want to take advantage of it. If I knew about medicinal plants as a kid, I might have been a much healthier individual, which is my hope for my child friend and any others I am privileged to teach along the way.

Finito, pero hay mas a saber.

So my course is finished, and I now hold a certificate of a Field Botany Trainee in Medicinal Plants. I have to give props to my instructor, as he was so inspiring and thorough. I can only hope and pray that my knowledge of field botany will be half as detailed as his as I explore the wetlands, uplands, and disturbed areas of Toronto over the next few years.

Yesterday was the last class day. I have to say I was a bit sad that I won't be exploring new regions and counties each weekend with my knowledgeable instructor, but as I go off on my own more often, my knowledge base should grow. He already said that I picked up on a lot of the things that would make me a great natural healer.

We made a de-stress syrup with Carrion flower berries. The berries generally have no taste, but with some sugar it's easily yummy. My course's end was unique for myself as well as for my instructor; we made a foraged/ medicinal plant meal for my family who had tagged along with me to Norfolk County this weekend. The meal was lettuce and tomato salad, a coconut rice mélange with leaves from plants such as St. John's Wort, Redroot Pigweed (amaranth), and Common Yellow Wood Sorrel. For dessert, we had watermelon and carrion syrupy bread. It was fantastic.

The carrion flower syrup & coconut oil on toast (similar to honey toast) before driving home from the campsite worked its magic. Driving is never stressful for me, but there were some wacko wreckless drivers out there. The carrion flower syrup bread kept me pretty calm. Only thing is, it was so yummy I used it all up!

I also sent a tincture (alcohol-based soak of herbal ingredients) to my father as he was having neck/ arm pain. I figure my first 'patient' should be someone who knows me and trusts my judgement of what to put in a tincture. I'm also starting to develop an assessment method for how I will conduct natural medicine. So for now I will be determining imbalances in the body (which can also pertain to the mind and spirit), what has triggered these imbalances, and the best way to remedy them. Using myself as my first guinea pig merely two weeks ago, I may have found a combination of herbs that would allow me to phase out my pharmaceutical medication. Now the issue is where to find them in this great big city of Toronto.

So an imbalance test, personal profile, and a personalized one-pager for solutions will be given to my medicinal plant guinea pigs. I already have a few individuals in mind who I believe would try anything since nothing has worked for them before. If anyone is in Toronto and having problems finding medicine that works, or if you have a condition for which you do not want to take prescription drugs, check out some medicinal plant properties and see if they would work for you. Of course you can also contact me if you want a bit of help figuring out which is the best herbal remedy for you, or anything else pertaining to medicinal plants or field botany.