Maui Holistic Health Services

Dr. Mercola debunks the Agave myth

Shit, and I thought I was doing so well transitioning to a “low-glycemic index” sweetener. Little did I know that Agave actually contains almost TWICE as much sugar per gram as High Fructose Corn Syrup!!

Mercola goes onto explain in good detail — please ignore his soapbox style of delivering quality facts — why sugar consumption is such a key issue with our current American obesity epidemic. He also details, quite interestingly, the differences between fructose, glucose, and sucrose; and how they are each absorbed and processed by our bodies.

Man, do we need a nutrition primer in our schools! There is so much to learn and know, just so we can walk down a grocery aisle and make a halfway decent attempt at eating healthy!

Please checkout Dr. Joseph Mercola’s blog here: The Huffington Post: “This sweetener is far worse than High Fructose Corn Syrup.”

Exploring full self-expression through the ZEGG Forum

I attended an interesting experiment in community living, personal growth, and full self-expression last night. Calling itself the ZEGG Forum, this is a group of advocates for a completely transparent community. Weekly, they participate in a performance ritual that allows each person to express themselves authentically and in a safe space.

I was quite taken by the real, palpable, and honest full self-expression and safety of the group. I noticed that witnessing each person’s genuine presentation of their individual situation was at once extraordinary and frightening. The feeling of true and real expression was life affirming and beautiful to behold. While, knowing in this space there was no place for me to hide. Any inauthentic way of being or subtle separation I build was easily seen through. That for me was truly uncomfortable. My one true desire is to be witnessed for all that I am; light and dark. And to know there is a place available for that is absolutely unnerving for my ego.

I highly recommend going to an Open ZEGG Forum and witnessing the process and experiencing how you feel and are in that environment. You may be uncomfortable or even fearful … but I invite you to look past your initial reaction. I found that the reason I felt this way is because I am so used to hiding certain parts of myself. This allows me to feel safe in the world as I go about my every day. Here, though, those masks and veils fall away and real human being is laid bare. It is exhilarating to feel so alive, even in the face of my own ego fears.

Here on the island of Maui, there are regular meeting locations in Makawao, Kihei, and Kula. To see if there is an “Open Forum” opportunity near you on Maui, contact the New Culture Center and ask how you can learn more about the ZEGG community on Maui.

ZEGG is not just the Forum, but also an experiment in community living

Here is a presentation on how ZEGG Communities are organized in an attempt to answer the questions:

• How is living together possible without fear and violence?
• How does life unfold itself when cooperation replaces competition and key questions of humankind for contact and trust become the central focus?

Find out more at the international ZEGG website. I find their principles inspiring:

• Consciousness in love
• Responsibility for the Earth

See also Global EcoVillage Network to learn more about alternative communities seeking to establish “concrete utopias” which provide alternatives to the consumption oriented culture and strategies for communication and reconciliation.

NRDC Action Fund: Mobilizing America for a Sustainable Future

Recently I came across this video advocating for comprehensive climate and energy legislation that is currently before the Senate. This bill is called “The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act” and I think this is a slam-dunk no-brainer. Why not combine the two most pressing needs in America today: jobs and a “clean-energy” economy?

Check out the video below to be introduced to what the NRDC Action Fund is up to:

If you think this political action is worth advocating for, the website NRDC Action Fund at “This is Our Moment” will provide you an opportunity to email your state senator and encourage them to take action now. If you saw the “State of the Union” address from President Barack Obama, than you are aware that job creation will be his focus for the upcoming year.

Help the US government know that we don’t want just jobs for the sake of jobs, but a whole new industry of jobs and financial resources directed towards helping the United States become a world leader in clean/alternative energy industry.

Included in my appeal to the Hawaii State Senator, I included the following special note:

“I also want to share just one point of personal, heartfelt awareness. It simply would be smart to combine the two most pressing needs of the present moment: jobs and environmental sustainability. For many decades we have been taught in school about America’s manufacturing and innovation prowess, especially since WWII.

However, as I’ve become a young man, I watched as those jobs have moved overseas and America increasingly lose her world stature and respect because she has been unwilling to stand for something other than military-industrial/oil interests. Let’s make a stand now and show that America is ready and willing to be a world leader — not only to benefit the masses outside our borders by innovation, leadership, and utilization of our amazing ability to get products out to the world — but also by generating, nurturing and keeping the jobs that will save the environment of our planet here at home.

We can do this and I trust you will see beyond any immediate lobbying efforts that want to maintain the status quo, and instead, take into account the generations beyond this moment that will benefit from a powerful step forward through energy and climate legislation. Get the money out to businesses, research institutions, schools, and individuals who not only want to succeed in the “business model,” but who also recognize their contribution is not only to their bottom line, but to the world itself.”
Please take action now. Whether or not you agree with the direction Obama has taken the United States. Whether or not you agree that a “change” has come to Washington [D.C.]. Whether or not you like current Health Care legislation (for the record, I’m quite disappointed). All that doesn’t matter now. This is all about America’s future and frankly the future of the world’s natural environment. Let’s at least get the money government spends to “help the economy create jobs” focused in the “right” direction.

Please take a stand: Consider whether this stands for your interests and would be worth spending a few moments emailing and advocating for.

Our government (and Obama) needs to hear from us.

William Faulkner Believes in Us; Perhaps I Can Too

This quote was taken from William Faulkner’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature in December 1950:

“I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”

Start supporting your local Community Bank. Move Your Money Compaign

Check out this video to learn more about how to move your money safely out of the big banks — that aren’t lending your tax dollars, paying big bonuses to their executives, and have a stranglehold on your credit and mortgages.

Get educated and switch today.

The Obama Organic Family Garden: Swimming in Sludge?

Below are my comments in response to this article: Read: The Obama Organic Family Garden: Swimming in Sludge? at HuffingtonPost

I don’t believe “sludge” is all bad…and frankly, needs to be dealt with, not avoided simply because its human feces.

Here on Maui we have a very interesting composting company, EKO Compost, that mixes biosolids from local wastewater treatment plants, with the amazing amount of green waste produced on the island. During the composting process, the mulched green waste is cooked with the “sludge” at high temperature for weeks on end to produce tremendously high quality, safe (the compost is tested daily throughout production), and amazingly fertile compost. In a show of true sustainability, from the biosolids and green waste (that all would either end up in the landfill or ocean), we get awesome compost that is reused to plant gardens and landscapes all over the island.

Obviously, biosolids need to be made safe for human use, but we need to start thinking beyond the easy conclusion that because its toxic, we should just avoid having to deal with it. Our biosolids and other forms of waste (from green, to food, to garbage of all kinds, to metals, electronics, more) all need to be brought into the equation to meet the earth’s need for human sustainability. Perhaps EKO-Compost’s example is one that can be brought to other parts of the US and world!

Here is my response to a question posed in the comment section:

HeevenSteven I’m a fan of this user permalink

How much lead do vegetables absorb from the soil?? That would be useful to know. Do some vegetables absorb more than others? Are there any that don’t absorb it?

Great question. Most “root” vegetables (i.e. potato, onion, garlic, taro, beet) are going to be the main absorbers of heavy metals and other toxins (in addition to nutrients). Fruit-bearing vegetables are going to be less effective at moving metals from the soil up into the fruit, of course depending on a toxin’s mobility and the type of fruit/nut produced. Peanut trees for example are particularly adept at moving toxins out of the soil and are often planted in order to “clean-up’ soils. Keep that in mind the next time you order Jiffy.

Alternative Health is Getting Mainstream Attention

Recently several articles have come out beginning to point out and draw attention to the benefits of alternative medicine. As the Obama Administration begins to tentatively approach the topic of reforming our healthcare system, keep on eye on these discussions as they will become more heated and vocal.

Personally I believe any healthcare reform MUST include advocacy and inclusion of alternative, complementary, herbal, “asian-healing”, and other forms of health treatment that fall under the general heading of “alternative.” This medical approach to healing must include the human, touch, emotional, mind-body, and patient history for treatments to become relevant, effective, and ultimately worthwhile. I trust we’re moving slowly in that direction.

Here are several articles that I’ve reviewed recently that I think are worth checking out:

The horrors of modern medicine, insurance, and costs of doing business:
Health System from Hell, by Kate Michelman.

Fantastic article by Deepak Chopra giving an overview of the situation:
Mainstream Medicine & the Oprah Factor, on Intent.com.

Recent Associated Press article on Alternative Medicine and its impact on hospitals:
Alternative Medicine Goes Mainstream.

Here are some other links that will bring you some awareness of other education centers, non-profits, and more doing work in this arena:

University of Minnesota, Center for Spirituality & Healing: One of a kind, educational center working with its medical and nursing programs to better understand the interplay of healing and spirituality!

Guaranteed Healthcare.org: Grass-roots organization advocating universal healthcare coverage.

North Hawaii Community Hospital: Hospital utilizing complementary and holistic healing approaches.

Are you thinking about Change?

The healing experience will no doubt be the subject for multiple blog entries (for years to come), but what I know truly is that change only lasts once it has arrived and been “ingrained” in the physical body (literally has become a part of our cells). I believe health is a “top down” access. This follows a step down of integration that starts with a our spiritual health, progresses to the mental map that orients our experience of the egoic self, passes through our emotional expression, and finally ends up as the building blocks of the specific body we develop (and yes we continue to physically develop from “in utero” to the point of death).

I will leave the “spirit” conversation for now as that may not afford you the tangible reality that the healing process is a true representation of. For most Americans, healing starts first in the mind.

The desire to change can be motivated for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the pain is too much, the body ache is overwhelming, the tiredness is simply not motivating, or the experience of who you are in the world is not a true representation of who you want to be or how you want to be known. These mismatches in our mental understanding of self point to the need for change. The trouble is actually a motivating force for action; and a “negative” emotion, actually is “energy-in-motion” causing us to feel the real impact of our incomplete self. This is not a bad thing … otherwise, how will anything change?

After a time, most everyone comes to realize that the communications they are receiving, whether from their body (strongest motivating force: pain), from their mind (strongest motivating force: frustration or displeasure with how life is, the thought, that something is not right here), from their relationships (I don’t have the love, trust, or friendships that I want), from their work (unfulfilled, angry, disconnected from who they are and what they do), from … well, pick your situation. The motivating force for change is different for each individual and must be personally addressed, realized, and (if warranted) translated into action.

Some people are more action oriented than others. Some recognize the value in needing to do something about their situation, others just don’t know that they can do something about it. Perhaps blame is placed on another, on work, on money, on life, on God, what have you… In my opinion any comparison to another (look at John, he’s so much more motivated than I am) or judgment of self/other (I’m not good enough) is simply a waste of time and energy.

Although I must add, even though I know this through and through in my being, it doesn’t change the fact that at times these simple judgments and comparisons happen to me too. Just because your mind wants a “pity-party” doesn’t mean you are a bad person. It’s best to find someone willing to listen to your thoughts and not feed them. The sooner you find a compassionate and loving listener who can see through the B.S. to the light in you, the better!

To support any change, no matter how difficult, the first and most empowering stance to take, regardless of the situation, is to look to see how am I responsible for its presence in my life? (See Ho’oponopono blog post for a Hawaiian healing practice that works with this basic premise.) Most people understand the old adage: that the definition of crazy is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. Ideally, you will understand (when the time is right or you are simply sick of the results) that it is time to get into action.

Our mind is the most powerful motivating force on the planet (and on the flipside, it can also be the most powerful delaying, procrastinating, arguing, and discounting force) … so be aware of what you think and pay special attention to what is motivating your change in perspective. Where do your thoughts go? What do you feel as they arrive? Which ones repeat, argue with you, or wake you up at night?

Here is where that compassionate and loving individual can support you in overcoming the seemingly insurmountable hurdle of our own ingrained mental habits and attitudes. Be it a family member, friend, or most empowering a holistic health coach (therapist, mentor, teacher, spiritual guru), i.e. a loving individual that sees all you are and holds powerfully your capability of changing whatever you want … simply because it is your life!

Bottom line, if you are thinking about change, don’t keep it to yourself. Seek out support. Get a listening ear and share what you want. Take action by translating thoughts into words and you will feel what the best next step is for you. And if it isn’t clear, a proper support system will help to offer suggestions and guidance that empowers forward momentum so you can have all that you desire.

A Reason, A Season, or A Lifetime

The shared reality, or mind (or world) that is created in relationship with another person is mutually arrived at, dynamically changing (perhaps a sign of a healthy relationship), and is constantly being (re)created by the mutual understanding of who and what each person is together.

Of course, if one or both are “in fear” and not showing up entirely as they are … or if one or the other begins disapproving, passing judgment or boxing the partner in some way… than the world created between each is essentially inauthentic and lacking in love. Love, I believe, means a total acceptance of the other exactly as they are (and are not).

Total acceptance is NOT an easy task for either individual … and certainly a daily challenge as a human being walking around interacting on planet Earth … and all the more difficult when love, intimacy, vulnerability, and our hearts are on the line.

What about the idea of having one Mr./Ms. Right? Is there only one person, our better half, soul mate, “true love,” for us, somewhere, out there?

I believe there are many Mr. & Ms. Rights. Between the two people, there definitely needs to be that special spark, attraction, “gel”, love, connection, desire, whatever term fits best. So even a seemingly perfect match, without the “heat” will be a no-go. And sometimes the timing is not right. Karma is operating. Whatever…

What about Soul Mates? I believe, soul mates are perhaps a particularly attractive match that has had many opportunities (lifetimes of a variety of different relationship contexts, husband/wife, brother/sister, enemies, friends, what have you) to be in relationship together.

And sometimes, is just … Mr/Ms Right Now.

Regardless, what comes to mind on this topic of relationship is a wonderful quotation that I will offer at length, and I think is fitting whether you are in love or friendship:

A Reason, A Season, or A Lifetime?

People always come into your life for a reason, a season and a lifetime.

When you figure out which it is, you know exactly what to do.

When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly.

They have come to assist you through a difficulty, or to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or even spiritually.

They may seem like a godsend to you, and they are. They are there for a reason, you need them to be.

Then, without any wrong doing on your part, or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.

Sometimes they die. Sometimes they just walk away. Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand.

What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on.

When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn.

They may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done.

They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real! But, only for a season. And like Spring turns to Summer and Summer to Fall, the season eventually ends.

LIFETIME, relationships teach you a lifetime of lessons; those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.

Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person/people (anyway), and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas in your life.

It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.
Thank you for being part of my life…..

Copyright 2000 – Brian A. “Drew” Chalker

Breaking up is Hard to Do

Recently a friend wrote me sharing about the difficulty he was having during a break-up. I responded with the note below and I felt it valuable enough to post for all. May it serve you:

“I know how difficult a break-up can be, not to say I have any clue how difficult it may be feeling for you right now. I just remember my own upsets and remember clearly the feeling of wanting a person back, even when at the time of break-up, the voices (and feelings?) were a clear no-go for continuing the relationship.

It is often true about the old adage, hindsight is 20-20, can creep in during a breakup. Suddenly the problems, shadows, feelings, words, and incompatibilities are dimmed or forgotten; and the pain and loss of touch speak louder than the past.

Recently I read, in The Tipping Point, a point that Malcolm Gladwell made that between a couple (in my opinion, especially between a pair who have lived together), a “shared mind” is created. This is a mutually created understanding of the world, where each partner holds different facets of the shared reality. The strengths and foibles of each partner latches onto parts of the sharing; and thus becomes master of that/those domain(s).

When a breakup occurs, the shared reality is shattered. Parts of our experience are no longer held by the partner, forcing us to shine the light of conscious back into areas of ourselves that were formerly held by the partner. This isn’t fun. It is a deep stress to the body-mind politic. That which we entrusted to another is no longer handled. The points of security (watch-towers they built in the relationship) are no longer occupied. We are open to attack, vulnerable, and in my experience, questioning of our “Selves”.

This is perhaps the hardest part: piecing back together all the parts that were lost (and voluntarily) given away during the construction of a shared relationship. It’s a bit like amnesia. You’re waking up my friend. Parts of your experience have been deeply asleep…

And it may well be that this breakup was “forced” by those parts of yourself that were given away/suppressed for the benefit of the relationship. Be vigilant with your thoughts, feelings, desires, and visions. These are the parts of yourself waking up. This is the gold you have an opportunity to profit from with this change.”