will you still need me
will you still feed me
when I'm.....81?
Still operative into week 2 out of rehab.
This picture from
Alaskan daughter Laurie
of baby birds
the sort we're all familiar with
The wide open mouths shooting for
better catching of bugs dropped
over their sibling's ditto gapings
every creature imploring -
ME, feed ME!
Widened hoop's diameters
for game-winning buckets
before a final buzzer
Or archery targets with
double-size bullseyes
it comes down to a cry
borne by all:
FEED ME
^,^
Another picture this week
came over the wire from daughter Laurie
she who makes unusual suggestions at times.
She urged me to go out on the flower bedded veranda
at Linden Grove Mukwonago
and take off my moccasins and stand
barefooted on the earth.
Below she is standing thus on the grasses, moss and clover
outside her home in Wasilla.
When recently in Wisconsin where she grew up
she told recuperatng me, wheel-chaired,
to conduct myself accordingly.
I said could I wait until I get home
on South St.? I could go to the nearest bed of grass
outside our courtyard and stand amidst the
cigarette butts and dog waste
of our rented earth.
Laurie saw probably that this was another
example of her dad being not with it.
Laurie Dix Kari grounding in AK
Note variety of greenery upon which she stands
Wanting to know more
I went to Google and checked earthing out.
I found this website
https://heartmdinstitute.com/alternative-medicine/grounding-healthy-heart/
(2010)
I also checked my old health guru
Dr. Andrew Weil on the web
and found this:
(2010)
I also checked my old health guru
Dr. Andrew Weil on the web
and found this:
Is There Anything to "Earthing"?
I recently read about the practice of “earthing” – the idea that walking barefoot outside will “ground” us and make us healthier. Is there any scientific basis for these claims?
– JANUARY 8, 2013
“Earthing” also called “grounding” stems from the idea that in modern city life we no longer have direct physical contact with the Earth, and therefore are losing out on purported health benefits of exchanging electrons with the surface of our planet. A handful of small studies have found that grounding appears to provide some general health benefits, such as better sleep, less pain, reduced stress and tension, and better immune function compared to study participants who weren’t grounded. One study suggested that earthing eliminates the potentially harmful effects of the electromagnetic fields given off by all the electronic devices that surround us.
According to earthing proponents, you can ground yourself by walking outside barefoot, sitting on the ground or being connected to the Earth via grounding devices that transfer electrons from the earth to your body. There are even special shoes that feature copper contacts the soles, linking the body to the earth.
Supposedly, electrons drawn into the body from the earth neutralize damaging free radicals and by extension reduce disease-related chronic or acute inflammation. In one investigation, participants slept on a special mat that had a connection to a grounding device outside the house. When compared to the ungrounded participants in the same study, the grounded ones showed significant changes in key biomarkers including serum sodium, potassium, magnesium, iron, total protein and others.
Earthing enthusiasts claim that throughout history, our ancestors walked barefoot or wore shoes made from animal skins, which gave them direct contact with the Earth. Of course, for the most part those ancestors, grounded or not, lived short, hard lives for a variety of reasons, so it is difficult to draw conclusions about the effect of grounding, if any, on their overall health.
We’ll need additional studies of better design and with more participants before we can know whether it is really possible to derive health benefits from earthing. While the studies done so far are intriguing, some of the hype for earthing is over-the-top. I don’t buy the extravagant claim by one proponent that, “You can literally feel the pain draining from your body as soon as you touch the earth.” Is that something you’ve noticed whenever you’ve stood barefoot in your backyard or kicked off your sandals at the beach?
Be aware that there’s a substantial commercial aspect to earthing. One website that I visited sells a range of equipment, including earthing beds said to do what “no other mattress on the planet can…(reconnect) you to the Earth’s gentle, natural healing energy while you sleep.”
I’m all for going barefoot whenever possible, outdoors or in. It simulates the feet and can be very relaxing. Those who practice reflexology often recommend walking barefoot on round stones to help stimulate pressure points on the feet, and I’ve written on this site about the relatively new enthusiasm for barefoot running, which (when you get used to it) is supposed to be less jarring and less likely to lead to injuries. As for earthing, let’s wait see if future research confirms and expands on the very little we know now.
Andrew Weil, M.D.
Was the slaughter on South St. today
an accident?
One of the beautiful
gingko trees we've heralded so often
in the Raccoon was knocked over sometime today.
And not by a night vandal.
And not by a night vandal.
Did it happen because one of the heavy machines
doing the renovation work on the being-reborn street
in historic downtown Waukesha
carelessly drove over it?
There must be witnesses to this event.
We only know that there is a sorry broken tree
lying in a green clump on the
rotunda parking area.
This tree had much going for it.
Joy and grace for passers-by.
It will not join its brother and sister Gingko trees
running the length of of our South street section.
Downtown business owners and their customers who went past it
on their way to famed Dady-Oh's restaurant
traversing the short jaunt from the parking ramp
to their destination will not have that tree anymore.
What of the Berg management folk who would have walked
beneath the cruelly-stopped branches?
We took a sprig of leaves from the reposing corpse
to bring into our home in the South St. 1882 Putney bldg.
Ironically the stem had to be beaten in a briefly violent way
like the trunk was broken in full. This was done to increase the leaves
recovery in our Mason jar vase.
For more on the South St. Gingkos:
^,^
Fly by night
Rev. Tom Bentz, Ret'd, Delaware by the sea
A fleeting squadron of tiny flying things
(Fly, gnat, moth, mosquito, something with fast
fluttering translucent wings)
That are drawn to the torch of my unscreened
porch laplight
Land and scan or cross the lines of this poem
as it comes from me to the screen.
We meet here only in passing.
They appear to have nothing in mind but light
and heat on a simmering summer night.
Though the heirs of millennia, they now barely
matter to me
As they flutter in and by for a day or night or
few,
While I, fitting survivor and victor of
evolution,
Have in mind, if not in sight,
Infinity and eternity,
Epic poetry,
Or at least a few lines
That might fly
In that direction
Toward the light
Not in
But beyond
Our sight.
