Everyone loves a bit of sun and heaven knows we deserve it after the winter we have had in Ireland recently and the release of lockdown. Beach? Yes please!

Sunshine and the skin is great for helping the body produce Vitamin D which in recent years has seen a raft of research showing its benefits. Recently healthy levels of vitamin D in your blood have also been shown to fight COVID-19.

Where Irish and Brits are situated on the planet we don't get enough sun to produce Vitamin D within our bodies so supplementation is something to consider for your wellbeing.

However too much sun can damage the skin.

A WHO report attributes 90% of ageing to sun exposure. Ultraviolet (UV)
rays both A & B create radiation which basically creates all the ageing of your skin: pigmentation, sun spots and wrinkles.

Ultraviolet A rays UVA do a lot of damage without generating a tan and ultraviolet B UVB rays help Vitamin B production and produce
skin cells that give you a darker complexion and causes sunburn. Both rays create free radicals that damage the skin creating
wrinkles and potentially changes to cellular DNA.  

Too much sun can also expose you to skin cancer but 95% of skin cancers
are treatable if diagnosed early. So if you have an itch or an itchy mole all of a sudden head to your GP to get it checked.

UV rays when they hit the skin also attack elastin a protein which causes the skin to sag eventually.

What is the best sun safety advice ?

An umbrella for the beach!

This simple solution lets you enjoy your holiday at the beach but avoids sun damage. The coverage helps you to build up the melanin in your skin and helps you not get sunburnt whilst enjoying the holiday.

Do not expose your skin to the sun at noon when the UV rays are most damaging.

A wide rimmed hat is also excellent to protect your face. Try and get sunglasses that state the lens are UV protecting. The ones that are will have a sticker stating this.

Sun protection cosmetics with Sun Protection Factor (SPF) are a must. A quick rule of thumb is 15 SPF gives you 15 minutes protection and 30 SPF 30 minutes protection and so on. You need to use a different cream for you face than your body. Lots of the general SPF creams sting the eyes with the ingredients they are made of. 

So get a nice SPF cream for your face that does not sting your eyes but affords you protection. Ask the pharmacist and yes it might cost 20 Euros or more but your face is your fortune and you do not want your eyes stinging on holidays. You work all year so you deserve a nice treat.

Especially cover for kids with SPF creams who do not understand the dangers of the sun yet?

You definitely need to be using a sun cream with SPF which protects you from the harmful UVB rays that burn your skin.

If your skin would start to burn after 5 minutes in the sun an SPF 10 will give you ten times more protection allowing you stay in the sun for 50 minutes – 10 times longer than normal. Without applying a cream of SPF you are allowing
100% photons of UVB through to your skin but when you apply sun lotion with SPF 50 you block out up to 98% of them.

If you do happen to burn your skin two good natural remedies are Aloe Vera gel as pure as you can get and natural yogurt both of which sooth the skin.

Homeopathic Cantharis is also good to ease the pain of sunburn.  

Happy ‘sunburn free’ holidays.

This weeks slogan is where the meditation masters are directing us to a fine goal of meditation - awareness. Question is why have they, at such an early stage, begun to direct our minds and mediation practice in this way.

What is interesting to note is why the meditation masters of old put this slogan in this tradition of awakening so soon. The thinking mind needs time to slow down. Stop hopping all over the place. But yet they have put this profound truth as number three in the system of awakening?

At some point in your meditation practice you are going to start seeing that as your thinking mind slows down the flow of thoughts will too. This can be a huge psychological shock to people who self-identify only as 'thinking beings'. Meditation, successful meditation process is quite frankly the antithesis to their self-concept.

Now don't get me wrong or get frightened but there is a lot more to our mind than just thinking. You will learn the more you delve into regular deep meditation practice that thoughts actually come from our mind. That it is mind that we need to get an understanding of not our thoughts so much. They eventually subside. Not to  the point you become a zombie but you chose when to think and not your thinking mind being in complete control of you.

As Ram Dass says, 'the intellect is a great friend but a lousy master.'

Too much thinking is a way of people dissociating. Disconnecting and is the major basis for 'dualisitic fixation' in other words 'self and other'

Why do the mediation masters instruct us to examine the nature of unborn awareness? And why do they specify 'unborn'? What do they mean?

Mediation is a journey to become more sane. Psychologically anyways. The masters are directing our focus inwards and to search and find this elephant in the forest.  Meditation is not just about chillin' out. Its deeper. Much deeper.

We are to search for the fundamental mind the awareness mind. This is not a concept but an experience and don't worry it eventually comes. As the thinking slows down and when the last thought goes and before the next thought arises there is a ...GAP!!!!

Mind the gap and the gap will mind you.

This gap is free and unbounded awareness and we need a training to get to this level of meditation, more training to stay in it and more training again to start to value and identify with this experientially speaking.

Once we get to the gap, which will take a few weeks of daily meditation of over 30 minutes minimum, how do we deal with awareness? The lojong masters tell us to examine it.   And examine its 'unborn' aspect.

This is because awareness has never died and therefore is never born and is unborn. We need to stabilise this practice and this understanding.

When we do we find the stable aspect of our minds. We arrive on the shores of peace - shanti.

Lady Gaga advises look after your career as your career won't leave you. The same can be said for awareness. Invest in it as it will never ever leave you.

 You will always be with your own spirit so you better love it and better have a good relationship with your own spirit-mind.

We cannot give what we don't have.

Enjoy examining the nature of unborn awareness. 

A fine jewel indeed.

Discover Your Beautiful Mind.

Firstly, if you are a nurse, doctor, pharmacist, health care assistant or hospital cleaner reading this, based on the recommendations of the medical homeopathic associations listed below, you should be taking one dose of homeopathic Gelsemium 30c as a prophylactic. Immediately.

This will not interact with any medication that you are currently taking and is safe to use. The remedy is to help your system combat COVID-19 and make you less susceptible to contracting the virus.

‘Homeopathic medicines have been used extensively for flu-like symptoms and in epidemics around the world. If you decide to take a homeopathic medicine, this should be in addition to the various measures outlined above and should not be your only approach. Selection of the most appropriate homeopathic medicine is based on an individual’s unique symptoms. However, Gelsemium 30c and Bryonia 30c are commonly used for flu-like symptoms and have a long-established, traditional usage over many years.’ This is the recent statement from the 4th of March 2020 from:
Alliance of Registered Homeopaths
British Association of Homeopathic Manufacturers
British Homeopathic Association
Faculty of Homeopathy
Friends of the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine
Homeopathy Research Institute
Society of Homeopaths
 
The remedy can be ordered from these homeopathic pharmacies.

If you order one bottle, then you can take one dose which is one tablet and share the other 29 from the bottle with colleagues if they want to try and protect themselves.

There is no connection financially between me and the pharmacies. So from the outset there is no conflict of interest. There is just a motivation to get some proper information about the power of homeopathy out there that could save lives.
 
I am going to try and argue my case for the immediate use of homeopathy in all hospitals worldwide especially in Ireland and the UK. The medicines are also relatively easy to manufacture whilst people are waiting for PPE, a vaccine that may or may not work, and a combination of anti-malarial drugs and antibiotics the latter of which won’t work on a virus anyways. 

So here we go…..

Last year sales of homeopathic medicines in Europe topped £3 billion and out of 500 million European citizens over 100 million, a fifth of the EU, has used homeopathic medicine in the last year. Many medical doctors on the continent are also trained in homeopathic medicine. The pharmaceutical industry has been hell-bent with its heavily funded PR machine to spread lies and misinformation about the medicine that has been safely used for over 300 years to successfully treat patients. They do so as homeopathy poses a massive threat to shareholder dividends if European citizens keep using the medicine which has been working for hundreds of years for them and safely.

Clinical studies are showing that these medicines outperform their pharmaceutical cousins. Patients in the EU are voting with their feet and money in their droves. In fact, the first path of treatment for most Europeans is to a homeopath and 20% of Scottish GP's, for example, have received training in this medicine. If so, why not in Ireland too?

Homeopathic sales figures show that 70% of the sales were in Europe and 30% in North America. France is the leading market for homeopathy in Europe with sales of over 210 million Euros per annum and with 40% of the population having been treated homoeopathically in a medical setting.

With the oncoming pandemic about to hit and thousands about to lose their lives, a knowledge – even a basic one – about homeopathy it is being argued here, could save lots of lives potentially. Especially for those on the medical frontlines.
 
So what is Homeopathy?
Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician (1755-1843), founded homeopathy as a safer alternative to bloodletting, purging with mercury compounds, and other perilous medical practices of his day. We can now add to this list chemotherapy carpet bombing. He based his new approach on what he called the "law of similars." According to the theory, a pharmacologically active substance administered to a person in good health triggers a series of symptoms. When these same symptoms appear in a sick person, they can be cured by administering the same substance in a homeopathic (chemical free) form. With little or no side effects.

The homeopathic version by working in the persons vital force, cancels out or antidotes the symptoms. Most homeopathic medicines are imparted on a lactose pill which is milk sugar in a pill form.

 Homeopathy is inexpensive to make too which should be of interest to health ministries.

Healthychild.com writes, 'A report to the American Institute of Homeopathy in 1921 documented the dramatic success of homeopathy in the worst flu pandemic in history. The death rate of 24,000 flu cases under conventional medical care in that study was 28.2 percent, whilst the death rate of 26,000 cases treated with homeopathy was a nearly miraculous 1.05 percent.'

So why are we not immediately treating patients with homeopathy?

The statistics are reported in Randall Neustaedter's excellent book Flu:  Alternative Treatments and Prevention.

When a similar strain of bird flu, misleadingly termed Spanish Flu, spread around the world in 1918, it had catastrophic consequences. Over 50 million people died.  However, American hospital statistics from the time show that homeopathic treatment gave a far better chance of survival than conventional treatment did at that time.

For at least the past 150 years homeopathic practitioners have used the medicine Influenzinum as a flu preventive. Influenzinum is a homeopathic medicine made from flu viruses. A proprietary preparation is produced by Dolisos pharmacy each year using the flu virus strains recommended by the World Health Organization for the year’s vaccine production (Dolivaxil – containing Influenzinum 9C). The typical dosage is once per week for four weeks beginning in October or later, followed by another dose three weeks later to prevent yourself getting the flu.

Before anyone says hey COVID-19 is not the flu!!!???  I know I know…. but I have to make my case on the evidence that homeopathy has worked to help entire societies avoid viral infections. Added to this, reduces the symptoms of the infection and manages the disease to a state of being cured for MILLIONS OF PEOPLE!!!? OVER DECADES!!! WHAT COULD BE SAFER???

Oscillococcinum - Bestselling Homeopathic Remedy
The bestselling alternative medicine for flu in the US is a homeopathic preparation of the liver and heart of a Barbary duck (trade name Oscillococcinum). This medicine was first formulated in 1925. The name arose from the belief that the blood of flu victims in the 1918 pandemic contained bacteria composed of balls (cocci) that vibrated or oscillated. Joseph Roy, a French physician at the time identified this supposed pathogen and found it in many animal species. He chose as the source of his homeopathic preparation a duck, possibly an extremely fortuitous accident because of the association between human flu epidemics and bird viruses.

This remedy recently toped Drugstore.com sales list sales in the US alone are in the region of £20 million. A course of Oscillococcinum costs £6, which is used regularly by 5 million French for the prevention and treatment of colds and flu’s. If you know anything about the French, if this did not work and they did not feel the effects, there would be riots all over Paris. But they do work in so many medical conditions. Cancer too. Imagine?
 
Oscillococcinum was first studied in France during the 1987 flu epidemic caused by an H1N1 virus similar to the bird flu of today. This multi-centre study examined the effect of Oscillococcinum (200C) on the early symptoms of flu. Results were published in the peer-reviewed British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. More patients in the treatment group recovered completely in the first 48 hours than the control group (17 percent of patients with active treatment compared to 10 percent of controls). More patients in the treatment group also judged the treatment as favourable compared to the placebo, 61 % vs 49 % (Ferley, 1989).

 MidwiferyToday.com report that, 'In 1990 German scientists replicated the French study of Oscillococcinum. They used the same criteria as the previous study and enrolled 372 patients. After 48 hours of treatment with Oscillococcinum the treatment group had significantly milder symptoms than the control group, and the number of patients with no symptoms from day two onward was significantly greater in the treatment group (17.4 percent) compared to the control group (6.6 percent) (Papp, 1998).'
 
Both of these studies show a significant curative effect of a homeopathic medicine in the treatment of flu in carefully conducted, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials. Conventional antiviral drugs reduce the duration of flu by about one day if taken within the first 48 hours of illness (Cooper, 2003). These studies show that homeopathy carries the potential to make a dramatic difference in any flu epidemic without the risk of drug side effects.

If homeopathy can help in a pandemic and epidemic why not with COVID-19?

If anyone says there are no studies especially clinical and scientific ones to support homeopathic medicine as an effective medicine they are talking utter horseshit.

Just click here to see some of the many studies that have taken place and that are peer reviewed.

One has to wonder if orthodox medical ideologues will actually listen to or even read the factual evidence?

From experience I find that when their patients ask is it ok to take homeopathy with their allopathic prescription, rather than Dr's saying I have no idea and have no education on the subject and am therefore totally and utterly ignorant of the subject, which to be fair is vast and complex but deeply effective, they say things like, ‘oh, I don’t believe in that.’ And some of these doctor’s call homeopathy superstition. If only it was……

The ignorance of complimentary medicines in Irish medical schools is both breath-taking, indeed anti-intellectual, lacking in compassion and a failure to uphold The Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. If homeopathy works for the patient, alleviates the symptoms with no nasty side effects tantamount to the pharmaceutical industry why is it not available to Irish citizens and especially in the COVID-19 pandemic?

Why has the Irish government not promoted it more as a cost effective way to run our healthcare system which before this crisis was costing millions with people as sick as ever and with more and more flu’s?

Why not put the savings into funding the National Children’s Hospital?

Why are we not doing this?? …Hmmmm....Leadership void? No common sense? Ignorance? Ineptitude? Incompetence? Take your pick….

If in Ireland, we have only 500 respirators for 4 million people and only 5000 for 60 million in the UK, then doctors are going to be forced into the terrible situation of deciding who gets a ventilator and who does not.

In other words, who will live and who will not!?

This is an extraordinary traumatic psychological pressure to put on staff both in the HSE and NHS who in the last seven years of austerity have not been funded correctly, have been exposed to working conditions that have generated burnout of which they are currently at a huge risk of, moral distress and compassion fatigue which we have tried to raise an awareness of over the past five years through our training in 10 Irish HSE hospitals.

This is why I am calling now on the Irish government to make homeopathic medicines available to people who will not be able to be given a respirator.

This is surely the most compassionate thing to do. Not everyone may benefit but it is worth doing so some could possibly live. This could reduce the trauma for healthcare professionals and families alike.

What else is there when there is no respirator available for a patient (A PERSON - A HUMAN BEING) suffering from pneumonia who could die?

Over ten years ago I wrote in the Scottish press asking the question - is anyone planning to stockpile homeopathic medicines proven to effectively treat the flu for over one hundred years? Clearly not.

One of the aspects of the COVID-19 is that after infection it attacks the lungs creating pneumonia which many patients are dying of. Homeopathy has a number of remedies that are used in treating pneumonia. They are listed at this link but you can find similar lists in materia medica books on line.

 The main remedy it seems for the pneumonia that comes with COVID-19 may be · 
·  Antimonium tartaricum

• Indicated in pneumonia and pleuro-pneumonia at the stage of resolution.
• Fine moist coughing is heard all over the portion of the lungs infected.
• Great difficulty breathing, worse towards morning, must sit up to breath.
• Sharp, stitching pains and high fever.
• Person feels sure that the next cough will raise the mucus, but it does not.
• Deficient expectoration with old and very young children
  
  

Russell Malcolm MB ChB FFHom has been practising homeopathy for 20 years and he was Director of Education at the RLHH for six years. He has seen improvement of pneumonia symptoms within 30 mins of a homeopathic remedy being administered.

Homeopathy in some case could even free up respirators and save more lives as the remedy may allow patients to breath better and fight the virus and its effects through support of our immune system.
 

To shut up all the naysayers I think the best living advertisement for homeopathy is the British Monarch HRH Queen Elizabeth II.

For many years now Queen Elizabeth has a personal physician who is also a medical homeopath.
 
Perhaps Queen Elizabeth’s longevity is down to homeopathy?
 
Anyways folks get yourself some remedies in and perhaps invest now in a homeopathy first aid kit. 

My ire is not just for successive governments trying to undermine homeopathy as a relevant medicine in our age or the pharmaceutical industry but also the homeopathic organisations across the EU who have failed to challenge the fake news condemning homeopathy. Two false rumours do not make a fact. To counter some of the false news with fact would be easy but they never employ a PR consultant to do so. This could eventually lead to homeopathy being made illegal. A number of legislative attempts have been made over the last decade concerning complimentary medicine. But who is complementing who?

Remember a few weeks ago they were saying face masks were not relevant and now 'they' are saying they are. Use your head. Don't let the PR machine of MamaPharma dissuade you with their 'astroturfing' online campaigns to convince you or dissuade you from something. Especially something that could be beneficial to our society.

The factual information is there, the clinical studies too but only if you look.

This slogan is this processes first attempt to get us to reflect and see that our minds, without mindfulness training, can end up being too 'tight' and closed minded.

Meditation and these slogans are about opening those minds up quite like how a can opener works.

We end up perceiving everything as too real with regards our personal and conditioned perception. We need at times to lighten up and this slogan repeated to ourselves helps us do just that.

Al our experiences are fleeting.......so lets stop with all the pressure.

Reality and what it is, is such a huge topic in Western philosophy never mind Eastern. One commonly spoken maxim is that 'there is perception and there is reality'. Are people speaking about how they perceive a situation or reality. So many women, as TV star Gok Wan repeatedly shows, perceive themselves as bigger in size than what they actually are.

In reality they are 25% less in size than what they perceive.

Sometimes our maps of the world are not the world. All experiences are fleeting. Once they happen they are over. But we have an amazing capacity to replay them over and over in our minds dousing ourselves with stress biochemicals such as adrenaline and cortisol which cause us to age faster.

Bad enough an argument happens once but do we really need to replay it in the YouTube of our minds seven times over?

Our untrained minds are like glue! They just keep sticking to things. Starting in meditation we constantly have to keep trying to detach our minds from all the things it has become attached to.

Dharma  is a  Sanskrit word for phenomena. So therefore we should regard all phenomena - both good and bad as being dreamlike.

In other words we could be slightly detached from our attached way of perceiving things that can be quite rigid. This can lead at times to 'my way or the highway' type attitude.

What you think might be good for you may not be for someone else. By this I am not speaking of 'idiot insight' like enabling an alcoholic and therefore not applying this slogan correctly or indeed any slogan.

What this slogan is trying to do is introduce again and again to your mind is - openness.

To keep us out of our ego hedgehog curling by rolling up in a ball and keeping the world out and sometimes even a better way of doing things.

Discovering a sense of openness, a natural quality of your mind, is such a landmark moment in mindfulness training and practice. We don't have to take everything so seriously. Or be so reactive we can have some space....

This slogan will also help those with the Lifetrap of 'Unrelenting Standards'. 

Our choice if we are stressed is between continuing with being attached to things or start to detach and let go and trust and get some space and serenity.

The more attached to things we are we will have little peace.

We still have to operate but this slogan is speaking of operating with an openness of mind.

An open mind can accommodate more for it is - when you examine it and not take my word for it - vast like space but with one defining quality which you have to discover through your own meditation practice.

The key thing here is to reflect on the experience of the dreams that we have.

One thing to note is that we WATCH the dream - mostly. We even WATCH ourselves in the dream in a few cases. Who is that? What part of the mind is doing that? Is it thought? What is it?

We observe from a distance which is natural detachment. So if we can be detached naturally from it all in a dream then we can do the same in the waking life as if it is all a dream.

The more and more you investigate this slogan and reflect on it the better. You will see how much of what we experience is dreamlike.

The Aboriginal wisdom culture of Australia has an understanding similar to this in terms of what they call dreamtime. They understand this state of mind as more real than the waking life and they have spiritual reasons for saying so that you will discover the more that you study and practice. Here is an example of their art depicting what they see and perhaps where they go in their dreams.

This slogan of Regard All Dharmas As Dreams is so relevant to the current pandemic crisis. Thousands are losing their lives. This leaves us with more ethical responsibility to live our lives to the fullest in their memory and not waste it worrying about things that don't matter and to now, while will still have the chance, to deepen our practice which will give rise to wisdom and compassion which will enhance our lives and those around us.

The current COVID-19 pandemic will give many who have learned to meditate time to practice and even have a retreat. Take stock of their lives, prioritise what matters and wake up from the DREAM of all the human doing and return to be a human being and to.....

Discover Their Beautiful Mind....

With coronavirus spreading at a rapid rate we thought we could offer some help by developing an aromatherapy spray that would be helpful in the fight against the epidemic. Antibiotics do not work against coronavirus or any viruses. They only work against bacterial infections. There is currently no vaccine.
 
The novel coronavirus detected in China is genetically closely related to the SARS-CoV-1 virus. SARS emerged at the end of 2002 in China, and it caused more than 8 000 cases in 33 countries over a period of eight months. Around one in ten of the people who developed SARS died.

As you can see from the sneeze above - thousands of droplets are discharged into the air from an infected person. This is why we have developed the spray so as to kill the virus in 10 minutes living in those airborne droplets. This is our idea based on medical research that has shown in clinical trials the essential oils killing the virus and inhibiting its life cycle. 

Aromatherapy essential oils have been shown in a number of clinical studies to be strong in the fight against bacteria and in fact when sprayed in the air kill airborne flu virus types within 10 minutes. You may also be interested to know they successfully combat MRSA which at present has no known antibiotic treatment as it has grown resistant to them all.
 
Just to let you know I am speaking and writing with an honours degree in Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering. In other words I could whip you up a vaccine with the right kit. I ain’t joking. I know my stuff.I was educated by the best many of whom went to Cambridge and Oxford.
 
Lots of misinformation is being spread about the use of aromatherapy in the fight against Covid19 by health journalists and bloggers at the moment who are basically copying and pasting the news feed. Saying that aromatherapy cannot play a role at the moment with this virus is – fake news. THEY ABSOLUTELY CAN HELP and scientific studies have proven this with other influenza type viruses. Plus years of safe and effective use.
 
Jackwood et al in 2010 studied essential oils with regards SARS and in the paper he and his colleagues wrote about the study they said that, ‘The data are important because these types of compounds might also be useful to control other coronaviruses like the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) as well as other enveloped viruses like avian influenza virus and Newcastle disease virus.’ He must have known that something was
coming down the line possibly.
 
Loizzo et al found when they studied the use of essential oils with SARS that ,’ Our results demonstrated how L. nobilisberries oil exhibited an IC50 value of 120mg/ml against SARS-CoV with a selectivity index (SI;TC50/IC50) of 4.2.’
 
Here are some of the many of the research results with aromatherapy essential oils to treat a number of conditions. Only ignorant incompetent scientists, medics and technologists would ignore the data.

Of course MamaPharma has a big interest (billions $$) in suppressing information about the efficacy of medicinal plants. They also cannot patent them.

Just consider for a moment the medicine for the SARS flu which is called Tamiflu?

Tamiflu is made from a chemical compound from Star Anise called shikimic acid. No star anise no tamiflu so we need to be more understanding about the power of medicinal plants.
 
Being ignorant about the power of aromatherapy essential oils at the moment could be very detrimental during this COVID19 outbreak.
 
So with this in mind we have created our Aromatherapy Flu ROOM Spray based on scientific research where certain essentials oils were proven to be potent antivirals particularly flu, HSV and SARS antivirals.

Of course this is not intended to treat a person or a disease but rather work as prevention.

The essential oils are aimed at the virus in the droplets in the air which is how Covid19 is rapidly spreading. So if it is killed in the air from our spray within 10 minutes then it could protect people from catching it.

Even though we don't have studies with Covid19 we have many studies with SARS which is half of the current virus that is currently causing havoc and other viruses.

We have known about the virucidal effects of aromatherapy essential oils for quite some time. So why don't we use them in our fight against the current virus Covid19?

The product can be sprayed in the air or 10ml of it can be put into a diffuser as shown.

This product of ours should now be now used in hospitals, care homes for the elderly, pharmacies, healthstores, offices and hotel receptions everywhere in Ireland right now. Even gyms especially steam rooms and saunas.
 
As they say prevention is better than cure.

We would even argue it should be diffused in all hospital corridors and departments.
 
So how does it work? Well here is the peer reviewed evidence based research and for those of you who have no science background, it’s the only research worth talking about, or to be used to make a case for why we are doing what we are.
 
Well, Wu et al in 2010 saw with essential oils of  Wild Orange Peel, Clove Bud, Cinnamon Leaf, Cinnamon Bark, Eucalyptus Leaf,
and Rosemary Leaf/Flower essential oils. that ,’ Influenza virus infectivity was suppressed by essential oil treatment in a dose-dependent manner; the number of nascent viral particles released from MDCK cells was reduced by 90% and by 40% when virus was treated with 1:4,000 and 1:6,000 dilutions of the oil, respectively. Oil treatment of the virus also decreased direct infection of the cells as the number of infected MDCK cells decreased by 90% and 45%
when virus was treated with 1:2,000 and 1:3,000 dilutions of the oil, respectively.’
 
Vimalanathan et al in The University of British Columbia in 2014 saw that, ‘we evaluated several EOs and some of their major constituents for their possible anti-influenza virus properties in both liquid and vapor phases. In vapor phase Citrus bergamia, Eucalyptus globulus,and the isolated compounds citronellol and eugenol were very active against influenza virus following exposures of only 10 minutes. Pelargonium graveolens, Cinnamomumzeylanicum, Cymbopogonflexuosuswere also very active with 30 minutes exposure.’

These are just two examples but there are many more. I just wanted to give you a flavour of the research that is out there already validating the effects of the essential oils that we have used in the product.

1. Bergamot oil is effective against flu viruses as a vapor after just 10 minutes of exposure.
2. Eucalyptus oil shows anti-viral activity as a vapor.
3. Red thyme oil is effective against flu viruses as a liquid phase.
4. Cinnamon leaf oil also shows antiviral activity as a liquid.
5. Tea tree oil is effective against the flu virus within 5 to 10 minutes of exposure, as found in another study.
6. Lemon balm is also shown to prevent the avian influenza (bird flu) virus from reproducing.

Even in the academic Journal of Aerosol Science and Technology Pyankov et al state, ‘Over the initial 15 min of the experimental run,
the viral inactivation in the ambient air reached 40% with following decrease of the number of live virions over the remaining 45 min
of the experiment. The final inactivation of viral particles was around 95% over the entire experimental time.’

They only used tea tree and also eucalyptus.
 
In the Mindful Beauty Aromatherapy Flu Room Spray we have used essential oils of :
Eucalyptus
Tea Tree  
Lemongrass
Thyme
Clove
 
This synergistic formula we understand from the research above and elsewhere could very well affect Covid19 virus in the same way due to the results they had had on similar viruses.
 
People who have a real scientific education will also connect the dots here and in a time when there are very few weapons against this virus apart from quarantine the really intelligent ones will look at the evidence and say - yes, lets use this and fast. It certainly won't harm and could also help in the fight against the virus becoming resistant!

Aromatherapy essential oils have also been shown to attack the virus at a number of stages of its life cycle which make it even more relevant. As you can see here from the following image from Samji 2008 essential oils can also interfere with the life cycle of the disease. 1

This information above is very important whilst MamaPharma is developing a vaccine which is going to take time. Or a drug like Tamiflu.
 
The smell of the spray leaves a very clean smell, is not overpowering, is natural and energising. Only natural extracts are used.
 
Buy yours now.
 
 


References
1.0 Samji, Tasleem. “Influenza A: Understanding the Viral Life Cycle.” Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, vol. 82, 2009, pp. 153-159.

As I have finished my dissertation on 'AI, Transhumanism, Consciousness and Buddhist Ethics' for my MA I am now returning to my blog. So for the next 60 weeks or thereabouts I will be posting a special blog on what I am calling Mindfulness Slogans for Mind Training. These slogans have been used for centuries in India and also Tibet by most of the great meditation masters.  All the great masters both practiced and trained in these mindfulness slogans. 

I have used the image of crystals above as that is how I hope that you will view these slogans as you train your 'monkey mind'. Crystals to stabilise the mind.

There is also another important reason. Even though you have completed the Learning to Exhale training in Mindfulness or MBSR, the MBSR movement is a secularised form of meditation we must not forget that originated from Therevadan Buddhism. Stripping out the rituals and religious imagery I am not too bothered about as it is a means to and ends. However there are two sides to meditation in the East - shamatha and vipassanā.  MBSR as a system is more shamatha based but there is a deep and desperate need for vipassanā practice and reflection which is why I am writing these blog entries. 

MBSR is not all there is to meditation. How could eight weeks practice ever be? Especially when you consider some people in Tibetan Buddhism enter three year meditation retreats.

Another reason is that those who have completed the eight week MBSR training or our the Learning to Exhale mindfulness training are seeking out retreats where they can deepen their practice. Sadly secular ones do not really exist. People generally head to Buddhist ones whilst not being Buddhist which is cool. At these retreats inevitably vipassanā arises.  So what is it?

This is the next stage of meditation training for people who have become meditators. This is where you start to enquire how and why you might feel dissatisfied by life and examine what are the patterns that cause that suffering and why you repeat them. This is where the hold the intellect has on you starts to loosen and the awareness starts to come to the fore more in your practice.  You also start to question the seperation between yourself and others. This 'dualistic fixation' is gradually broken down generating real felt compassion not just conceptual. 

In the market of 'spiritual materialism' the word 'ego' is bounded about. People of low self-esteem refer to those who live with healthy levels as having a big ego. An Irish mystic I know referred to it recently as 'edging God out'. Or rather - edging the divine out if the 'G' word irks as for many it now does due to years of hypocrisy in organised religions.  In its most extreme form it refers at times to a narcissist someone so vain and self-absorbed they can't see anyone else. Sometimes people are labelled wrongly as this so others can control them.  Anyways the ego is a big subject and nowhere bigger or more used as in 'mind body spirit' circles.

Added to ego is the discussion on 'self' or 'no self'. This can be confusing for westerners in a secular setting. We are told in the West to integrate the self and connect to the 'true self' but in the East it can be misunderstood that the self should be 'deconstructed' when in fact they are referring to the persona, or mask a person wears or the belief the mask is the self when really they are hoping that the false self is dis-guarded in favour of the true self of awareness.
 
If you attended week five of the course you would have heard me say 'the personality is what you do on the street and what you do in the home is character'. As the old age goes 'street angle house devil' and so true.

So this is the reason that we need the slogans to keep us practicing, guide us, police us and put us in the right direction to evolve our practice and give us insight personally rather than reading or hearing about everyone elses experience.

If you were on the course I illustrate the mind and its potential transformation using the metaphor of a kaleidoscope. Slogans enrich the mind like each turn of hand has on the beautiful designs in the scope it brings into being.

I am writing two books now the first is Learning to Exhale - Mindfulness which is a book with each chapter summarising what we we covered in the Learning to Exhale eight week course in mindfulness whose curriculum that I devised and evolved MBSR which is 30 years old now.
 
If you would like to be involved sign up for the newsletter option to be included each week.  

So what are these slogans? See after the picture of our Sweet Dreams Box

Well there are 59 mindfulness slogans in total so there is going to be 59 blogs one for each slogan. Each week I will be explaining each one and how to integrate it into your daily mindfulness practice. They were devised by a number of Mediation masters but the best form is by a meditation genius called Atisha who lived in both India and Tibet.

The best way is to take one slogan a week as I am suggesting and reflect on it for a week. Slogans are also easy to remember and easy to apply. 

As you can see the slogans are split up into seven sections which are traditionally referred to as 'The Seven Points of MInd Training'

Here are all the mindfulness slogans that we will be covering together over the next 60 weeks. Please forward to friends and get them to sign up with their emails. So we can automatically send them a blog link each week. 

This is also a way for you, 2,500 of you that we have trained, to connect back to your practice and awareness that you discovered through the training. 

The Preliminaries

1. First, Train in the Preliminaries

 Training in Absolute Bodhichitta

1. Regard all Dharmas as Dreams
2. Examine the Nature of Unborn Awareness
3. Self-Liberate Even the Antidote
4. Rest in the Nature of Alaya, the Essence
5. In Post-Meditation, be a Child of Illusion

 Training in Relative Bodhichitta

1. Sending and Taking Should be Practiced Alternately — These Two Should Ride the Breath
2. Three Objects, Three Poisons, and Three Seeds of Virtue
3. In All Activities, Train with Slogans
4. Begin the Sequence of Giving and Taking with Yourself

Transforming Negative Circumstances into the Path of Enlightenment

1. When the World is Filled with Evil, Transform all Mishaps into the Path of Bodhi
2. Drive All Blame into Oneself
3. Be Grateful to Everyone
4. Seeing Confusion as the Four Kayas is Unsurpassable Shunyata Protection
5. The Four Practices are the Best Methods
6. Whatever You Meet with Unexpectedly, Join with Meditation

 Utilizing the Practice in One's Life

1. Practice the Five Strengths
2. The Mahayana Instructions for the Ejection of Consciousness at Death is the Five Strengths: How You Conduct Yourself is Important

 Evaluating Progress in Mind Training

1. All Dharmas Agree at One Point
   
2. Of the Two Witnesses, Hold the Principal One
3. Always Maintain Only a Joyful Mind
4. If You Can Practice Even When Distracted, You are Well-Trained

 The Disciplines of Mind Training

1. Always Abide by the Three Basic Principles
2. Change Your Attitude, but Remain Natural
3. Don't Talk About Injured Limbs
4. Don't Ponder Others
5. Work with the Greatest Defilement's First
   
6. Abandon any Hope of Fruition
7. Abandon Poisonous Food
8. Don't be so Predictable
9. Don't Malign Others
10. Don't Wait in Ambush
11. Don't Bring Things to a Painful Point
12. Don't Transfer the Ox's Load to the Cow
13. Don't Try to be the Fastest
14. Don't Act with a Twist
15. Don't Make Gods into Demons
16. Don't Seek Others' Pain as the Limbs to Your Own Happiness

 Guidelines for Training the Mind

1. All Activities Should be Done with One Intention
2. Correct All Wrongs with One Intention
3. Two Activities: One in the Beginning and One in the End
4. Whichever of the Two Occurs, be Patient
5. Observe These Two Even at the Risk of Your Life
6. Train in the Three Difficulties
7. Take on the Three Principal Causes
8. Pay Heed That the Three Never Wane
9. Keep the Three Inseparable
10. Train Without Bias in All Areas
11. Always Meditate on Whatever Provokes Resentment
12. Don't be Swayed by External Circumstances
13. This Time, Practice the Three Points
14. Don't Misinterpret
15. Don't Vacillate
16. Train Whole-Heartedly
17. Liberate Yourself by Examining and Analysing
    
18. Don't Wallow in Self-Pity
19. Don't be Jealous
    
20. Don't be Frivolous
21. Don't Expect Applause

I am really looking forward to this journey with you all and what the positive effects will be and also am hoping that you will be commenting below on how you are applying the slogans as we go along. 

A lot of what is contained here will be included in the new book Mindfulness Slogans by Ralph Quinlan Forde.

Finally more good news in that my first book The Book of Tibetan Medicine will be available as an ebook in the coming weeks on our site to download.

Discover Your Beautiful Mind  

We now have our own Eau de Cologne and we have made it with just aromatherapy essential oils like Guerlain used to do in Paris before they were bought a few years ago. Until then their perfume house was over 400 years old with amazing history.

 So with this in mind I set to work developing this Eau De Cologne which is great for our brand with Eau de Toilet and Eau du Parfum coming online soon.
 
In 1708, Giovanni Farina wrote to his brother Jean Baptiste: "I have found a fragrance that reminds me of an Italian spring morning, of mountain daffodils and orange blossoms after the rain". He named his fragrance Eau de Cologne, in honour of his new hometown in Germany as he was missing Italy. The Mindful Beauty Eau du Cologne is to bring the aroma of just that - an Italian citrus floral spring morning. Crisp, fresh and awakening. In glass 50ml bottles and box and retails at 24.99 Euros available from stores now.

 
When we tested it out with consumers in Vitality Expo 90% loved it and wanted to buy it there and then. They also commented that it did not give them a headache more than 60% said that.

Our Eau du Cologne is made with 100% pure essential oils from herbs & spices. We developed this unisex Cologne with spring in mind & wanted to return to the use of high quality natural ingredients which is what our brand is known for. Many perfume houses in France only used essential oils to create  colognes & perfume up to the 1930’s.

Like any work of art our Cologne formula is secret but nourishes the body, mind & soul. With top notes of Bergamot, Lemon, Grapefruit & Orange; heart notes of Ylang ylang, Neroli & French Lavender & with base notes of Cedarwood, Vetivert & Frankincense.

An important point here is that synthetic fragrance is quite loaded with hormone disruptors, believe it or not, chemically speaking. As ours does not contain those, and also is made up of plant extracts we feel that it will be great for the consumer wellbeing and also the brand.

One person commented how cleansing it is spiritually. This is probably down to the quality ingredients.

We aim to do Eau du Toilet and Eau du Parfum in the near future.  The formula is based on a traditional Italian recipe that we found and some extras.

Get yours now. Headache free too!

Did you know that your vitamins could go up by 23% when VAT is added in Ireland in the coming months?

Not only vitamins but a lot of food supplements.

Not only is this proposed addition on VAT not great for a consumer who has less and less money to be able to afford vitamins but also not good for the health store industry in Ireland. We have over 250 health stores up and down the country that also give fabulous dietary and health advice in their domain - natural health - to the seeking public.

This government is not seeing that prevention is better than cure by their actions.

The Irish government is planning to add VAT very, very soon unless you start to speak out and also write to your local T.D.

In a theocracy when you speak out you get shamed but in a democracy you are exercising your right as a citizen to defend your rights and influence the way society should be structured around you rather than be imposed. Additionally for people and quangos not to act with impunity.

Speaking out is an essential act as its how governments are shown policies are not popular to "we the people" and then they can adapt or drop t hem completely.

For example, we have 60, 000 pregnancies each year in Ireland and all these Mum's will need vitamin B6 if they are to prevent against defects in the brain of the baby they are carrying. The vitamin also helps with morning sickness. So that will be 16 million Euros extra these new mothers will be paying over one year for this supplement. This in addition to antidepressants for 10,000 of the new mothers that each year develop post natal depression.

The irony here is that people can have metaformin for free from this government but have to pay extra for supplements like chromium (glucose tolerance factor) that could help reduce the effects of onset diabetes.

Dr Eva has said publicly that "type 2 diabetes lives in the belly fat" so if you have type 2 then you need to reduce your belly fat and change the diet to help the same.

The result? You reverse type 2 and don't need diabetes drugs which will cost the tax payer millions. Your government incentivises you with Dr Eva as their ambassador to reverse this condition in the nation. This would be kind. Dr Eva is very compassionate with her 'tough love' of reversing this. Has anyone considered how tough the side effects of insulin dependence are which result from not reversing type 2 or early onset diabetes. 

Plus consider the pressure this is going to put on our public health system ?

Our cousins in the USA are already saying they have a pre-diabetes epidemic with syndrome X or what is sometimes called 'metabolic syndrome'.

The fact of the matter is that we do need supplements like vitamin D which at our latitude at the equator makes it essential for some people to take. We really need more sun.

Additionally our foods from conventional farming which is full of pesticides no longer have mineral content.

Plants take minerals from living top-soil which no longer exists in conventional agriculture.

And yet every disease can be linked to some mineral deficiency: chromium to diabetes, selenium to cancer and zinc to immunity. These are just some of the connections. 

The government needs to not be making it harder for patients to get these supplements but easier. We are just about  to be hit by another flu crisis which supplements like zinc and herbs like echinacea could help prevent in the first place freeing up our hospitals.

St John's Worth which was banned a number of years ago is also a potent antiviral.

Disease is the effect and not the cause.

The Asian psyche by contrast, even governmentally, is prevention before cure. When the avian flu virus broke out some years ago government officials in China were buying traditional Chinese herbal medicine formulas to prevent contracting the disease.

We have over 250 health stores in Ireland and many of them are Irish. Younger pharmacists are frequently going on to do post graduate training in herbal medicine, homeopathy, nutrition and to become naturopaths like our German medical cousins. They understand the critical connection with certain supplements and the prevention of disease.

Recently James the CEO of Molly's pharmacy chain in Mayo had a man who he had helped with supplementation go on Midwest radio with him after he had surgery for his prostrate. Normally a person is in hospital for weeks after this and in nappies for six weeks. James had the man out of nappies post surgery with supplementation within three days. This is not the only story of how the natural health store movement and pharmacies can support people in the community. Also reducing the need for people to be in acute hospitals any longer than they need to be.

Personally I feel that health stores in Ireland should not be faced with a VAT increase on products. Instead I think they should have a reduced rate of tax for the benefit they are giving to the public and the effort they are making toward disease prevention and should be given special rates and grants. Even more tax breaks if they have things like traditional bakeries attached making organic food and treatments rooms offering help from a range of qualified practitioners that, dare I say it, included qualified Dr's who may have gone on to train in healing modalities like acupuncture.

If you don't want to be paying more for essential nutrients and herbs please sign this petition generated by the Irish Association of Health Stores to stop the hike. Share it to friends. The government needs to know how many people oppose this.

This will also protect over 250 health stores in Ireland many of whom are indigenous and who offer great health advice to the public and are the backbone of the alternative routes to healing possibly curing some diseases.

Even more so as the info gate to disease prevention.

Here the link for the petition https://www.change.org/p/do-not-tax-health-food-supplements

So its Xmas again and you need a gift for 'himself'. No not 'himself' from Sophie White and Recipes for a Nervous Breakdown and her weekly column.

Your own 'himself'.

From our in-house marketing team we have discovered that your 'himself' likes to have smells such as lavender and vetivert which is why we have put our Chillax Bath Oil containing both and some more into our Christmas Box for Men, i.e. 'himself'.

'Himselves' also like  to have lovely after shave lotions. So we made ours with 80% organic ingredients. Yes organic. No pesticides or hormone disruptors.

German 'himselves' would swap their frankfurter for a bottle any day.  Ms Merkyl announced to the Bundestag only last week the recent availability of our mail order to the Rhinelands.  

This smooth lotion for shave skin smells gorg too. 'Himselves' love the smell as its super clean with Lemon and Eucalyptus.

Take a look and only 19.99 Euros a box. Buy six and we will give you the sixth box free. Made in Ireland too.

More than one 'himself'? Aren't you the lucky lady?

We were thinking about throwing in our AfroDizzy sensual massage oil as well. Its made with sensual essential oils and Horny Goats Weed. The herb has wonderful benefits. Just ask goats.....

So here is the campaign. If we get 5000 orders for the men box before the 1st of Dec for Irish ladies wanting to impress their 'himself' we will throw in our AfroDizzy massage oil for FREE. So order ASAP.

So here is Vic & The Wonderstuff with  the AphroDizzy anthem....I'm so dizzy....

So order ASAP by clicking on any of the photos above.

Lets break twitter together and set fireworks off for the New Year 2019!