Isn’t it great to see the vitality of trees in spring—pushing out new leaves, bursting with blossoms—you can practically feel the sap moving through their branches.

Do you have a favorite tree? Maybe one you look at or walk by daily? One you feel connected to? If not, keep your eyes open for one which speaks to you.

Trees love interconnection with other species.

They depend upon mycelia (fungus in the soil) to help them take food in from the ground and convert it so they can use it.

They also enjoy relationship with birds, squirrels, other trees, and on an energetic level, with people.

Why not experience that tree connection yourself?

Choose the tree you are drawn to. Stand where you can see it. Gaze at it with love, and imagine a heart connection opening between your heart center and the tree.

(The heart center/chakra is the place of connection between physical and nonphysical.)

As you gaze at the tree, exhale your stress out toward it, and inhale its vitality into you.

The tree will be fine with this exchange. Your stress is only stressful to you; the tree will welcome it as new energy. (Remember, trees benefit from our waste product of carbon dioxide.) And the tree has more than enough vitality to share with you.

(Of course, you’ve chosen a vibrant tree to do this with, right? Not a dying, unhappy one.)

Spend a few minutes exchanging breaths with the tree. Be open to any words or images or feelings that arise in your communication. And enjoy the peaceful sensation of gently breathing with this magnificent being.

Spring is a time for adventure—all that new sprouting energy encourages us to move out into the world.

A few springs ago, my husband and I took an adventure to Guatemala. We spent a couple of days in the Peten—the Mayan region in the northern section of the country.

While there in the heart of the rainforest, we visited the Mayan ruins at Tikal.

Now you might think that with my sensitivity to energy, hanging out on the land where tens of thousands of people mysteriously died/were slaughtered was a traumatic experience.

And I’m sure it would have been, if I’d chosen to be open to those vibrations.

I often work with fellow sensitives who go through life being battered by the energies of the places and people around them.

“It does not have to be this way,” I tell them as I show them how to ground and center themselves, and seal their auras against unwanted energies.

Of course, some people get addicted to the drama of feeling many energies. And others feel the need to serve by running these energies through their bodies to cleanse them. I suggest that neither of these approaches is ideal.

Instead, at Tikal, I chose to embrace and enjoy the energies of the rainforest—the huge trees growing among and overtaking the pyramids, the ortolans weaving their spherical nests in the trees in the grand courtyard, the toucans and parrots flashing in the trees.

I marveled at the buildings the humans had made, practiced walking like a high priestess up the steep stairs to the great pyramid, and listened raptly to the stories our guide Manuel told us about visiting the temples decades before when it was evem more overgrown, before the government started cleaning it out as a tourist destination.

Often in a new spot I will tune in and ask if there’s any work I can do to serve that piece of earth. At Tikal, my job was to spread the energy of awe and wonder at the human and natural world, at the resilience and diversity of life. I did not need to get caught up in the dramas of long-lost people.

If you are planning to visit an ancient site, and want to know how to prepare yourself for a good experience, give me a call.

As we move into the last days of summer, it’s time to practice the skill of sitting and being. For one thing, it’s too hot to do much else. Plus I think in our crazy hectic world, we need to remember how to just sit and watch the world go by.
I encourage you over the next couple of weeks to find a comfortable spot outside and sit down. Look at what is around you. Don’t add things to your to-do list. (“That needs weeding,” or “I should paint that shed” are not part of being.) Don’t think of the past (“I wish I had…”—not helpful). Instead just be with what is. See the deadheads on the flowers and admire their beauty. Look at the colors of the plants and the sky. Look at the shapes of the buildings. And appreciate it all exactly as it is.
As humans we get caught up in feeling responsible for those around us, and in the idea that we have to continually improve ourselves and others and our environment. While it is true that we influence the world around us with our thoughts, words and actions, we are not responsible for everything that goes on.
Watching the light change from afternoon to evening can cure us of the fanciful illusion that we are important and in control and that everything would fall apart without us. The earth spins, the moon rises, the sun sets, the stars and planets pass through the sky. The possums, raccoons, palm rats and moths go about their way. None of them pay attention to us.
Sitting quietly helps us remember that a large part of our job is to sit still and be with what is.
How often do we remember to do this?
Larry and I spend treasured summer evenings sitting on lawnchairs and watching the sky get dark and the stars come out. The shapes of the bushes and trees in the gloaming is always a treat. The moon moves in the sky. Orion goes from lying down to standing up. Mars is now showing up (although not as red as I expect—maybe it’s not Mars).
We have a portable radio with a bent antenna that we tune to Vin Scully and the Dodgers, or to Prairie Home Companion. We sit in the dark, listening to the radio, and feeling the air cool off after the heat of the day.
We chat, we unwind. We enjoy our yard. We be with each other. We be with nature. Sometimes I think this is the most precious gift there is.
I encourage you to sit outside this evening. Sit alone and enjoy your little piece of the planet. Or sit with a companion or two who can enjoy it with you.
The quiet moments seemingly full of nothing are actually full of everything.

Earth Day 1990 was a big turning point in the environmental movement. It got a lot of media coverage, people started thinking about what they could do to save the planet, and producers of earth-friendly products started to go mainstream. It was a bittersweet moment for me, because I had just shut down an environmental magazine I had been producing in Montreal—I ran out of money and energy in Nov. 1989, months before the Earth Day boom.
One of the reasons I ran out of energy was that I was experiencing Multiple Chemical Sensitivities—the same chemicals poisoning the air, water and soil of our planet were poisoning me. (They’re poisoning you too, your body just handles it better than mine in the short term.)
That year I clearly saw the connection between my health and man-made chemicals. To get stronger I started eating only organic food, used baking soda and white vinegar to clean the house, and switched to all-natural body products.
Twenty years later, I feel everyone must be doing these things too. Yet my husband tells me they’re not. And I’ve noticed if I go to a mainstream supermarket the aisles of cleaners instantly make me cranky and headachy. The cleaners are still toxic.
I am glad to be celebrating Earth Day 2010 feeling better than I was in 1990. To keep the toxins out of my body, I still use earth-friendly cleaners and body-care products, and still eat organic food (see my blog in the banner)—all of which is easier than it was twenty years ago.
There are many earth-friendly products out there—I select the ones I use based on local availability and lack of fragrance. You might be using different but equally safe products. If, however, you are using harmful ones, consider trying something new next time you’re shopping. Anything you touch or inhale affects your body. Make sure it’s safe.
I shop at Granny’s Pantry near my office (Arroyo at California in Pasadena). Most of these products will be available at your local independent health food store. If not, check out your local hardware store and department store. Earth-friendly products are creeping in all over. Just remember: if it doesn’t list the ingredients, you can’t be assured it’s earth-friendly, no matter what the marketing claims.
Most of the cleaners are coconut based not petroleum-based. (Did you know your detergents are made from petroleum? Switching to coconut-based will reduce the need for oil production.)
Dishwashing liquid: Planet Ultra Dishwashing Liquid—coconut based Dishwasher tablets: Ecover
Scouring powder: Bon Ami (although sometimes I just use baking soda)
Spray cleaner: Earth Friendly Products Orange Plus—orange oil and plant surfactants—good in the kitchen and bathroom
Laundry detergent: Planet Ultra Liquid Laundry Detergent—coconut oil based, certified biodegradable
Toilet bowl cleaner: Ecover—ecological toilet bowl cleaner (cleans, decalcifies, freshens and sanitizes)
Window and Mirror Cleaner: a yellow cloth by Vileda that needs no cleaner, just water (I forget where I found this, I’ve had it for years)
Floor Cleaner: wood floors—Mystic Mop dust mop with no water or cleaner; bathroom and kitchen—Mystic Mop floor mop with water.
Wood furniture: dust with old t-shirt and Wood Care Polish from Cost Plus (contains no wax or silicon)
For occasional heavy cleaning I use a steam cleaner.
I especially avoid applying chemicals to my skin, because they are directly absorbed into my body.
These are the bodycare products currently in my home:
Soap: Dr. Bronner’s bar soap
Shampoo: Aubrey Organics (vegan, no animal testing, no sodium lauryl sulfate, petrochemicals, no gmo, biodegradable)
Conditioner: Aubrey Organics, Desert Essence
Toothpaste: Tom’s of Maine fluoride-free (although it does have sodium lauryl sulfate)
Deodorant: Kiss My Face Obsessively Natural Active Enzyme Deodorant (no parabens or aluminum)
Skin care: I make my own—that’s a long story for another day
Cotton balls: Organic Essentials quilted cotton rounds (made in Canada from organic cotton)
Q-tips: Organic Essentials biodegradable organic cotton swabs
Pads: NatraCare natural ultra-pads with organic cotton cover (chlorine and perfume free—they also make organic cotton tampons)
Sun Block: Alba Botanica chemical-free sunscreen
It’s not hard to be kind to your body and the planet. Don’t listen to the advertising, just read the ingredients. And shop at your local health food store. Your planet will thank you. And so will your body.

I drove to work today along the Arroyo, window down, smelling the sage brush in the damp morning air. The sense of smell is so evocative, and natural aromas can be so fleeting. As I turned away from the Arroyo into Old Pasadena, I left the aroma of the west behind and rolled up my window, refreshed by that morning snatch of nature.

We have become so used to controlling the aroma of our environment with perfumes and candles and fabric softeners that I fear we are losing touch with the scents of nature.

I don’t care what the ads say, no fabric softener recreates the smell of spring or of line-fresh laundry.

No matter how much scientists try with their chemicals to recreate the natural scent of the world around us, they cannot succeed.

Because of my sensitivity to chemicals, I am very conscious of smells in my environment. Most scents in my urban world are artificial and chemical-based, and therefore they weaken my immune system. (They probably weaken yours too, but the effects aren’t as instantly noticeable.) The off-gassing of plastics and furniture, the air freshener in the bathroom of my office building, the smell of fabric softeners, laundry detergents, hair products, body lotions—all are made of chemicals, and all, to me, smell far less appealing than that wonderful sage smell this morning.

As much as possible, I live in a world without artificial scents. I don’t use air fresheners or scented laundry products. In fact I am leery of smell—I use this sense to tell me when something is safe for me (generally unscented) or not (generally scented). If I smell something strong, chances are it’s made of chemicals that my body does not tolerate well. Which is why you generally don’t smell anything while you’re in my office.

In traditional Chinese medicine, the doctors use the aroma of their clients in their diagnosis—you might smell sweet or sour or musky and this will help them determine their course of treatment. You women have probably noticed that your own body smells different at different times in your hormonal cycle. Everyone’s body smells different as they age—from the scent of a newborn to that of an elderly person. None of this is bad—it’s just different.

Yet we live in a society where everyone wants to be uniform—to smell the same or act the same or dress the same. There is currently a hair care product on the market with a smell that clings to hair for many hours. I don’t know what it is, but I have smelled it on a client, and on a young girl in front of me at the Griffith Park Observatory, and on a hiker at Arches National Park. All three times I’ve had to move away and clear the air before the headaches and nausea that are signs of toxicity set in. And yet it seems to be a best seller. Why people would want to smell like that, I don’t know.v

While I eschew the chemical aromas of the man-made world, I love the scents in my garden. From the heavy almost overpowering odors of the gardenias and tuberoses and orange blossom to the light citrus scents of the four o’clocks and the moon flowers, to the lavender that smells warm in the midday sun, and the muskiness of the lantana, I love them all. I love sitting on my back stoop in the early evening, smelling the grass and the flowers and the trees—it’s a very subtle scent, but it makes me feel at one with nature.

Probably most people would not be aware of that subtle fragrance in my backyard at twilight. I fear that with all the stronger artificial aromas around us, we will lose touch with the fleeting wisps of scents in nature. How many people drive along the Arroyo smelling the air freshener in their car instead of the sage brush? How many people smell the fabric softener on their clothes instead of the flowers in their garden? (I know that some evenings I smell the neighbors’ laundry detergent instead of my garden. They probably think it smells great.)

Why should we care about our sense of smell? First, because to smell something, we have to inhale it. Tiny molecules of it, to be sure, but that’s what you’re doing when you are smelling a chemical or natural aroma—you’re absorbing it into your body. I would rather absorb the fragrances created by plants than the chemicals created by humans in a laboratory. Just as I would rather eat the food created by plants than the chemical “foods” created by humans in a laboratory.

There is also the appreciation of subtlety that comes with the sense of smell. A waft of an aroma on a breeze is tantalizing. It makes you wonder—where did that come from? What was that? You’ve probably stood in an elevator with someone who bathed in their aftershave—there’s nothing tantalizing about that. Let’s allow ourselves to stop being bombarded by smell, and instead be intrigued by it—let it catch us unawares.

I urge you to reconnect with nature through your sense of smell. I encourage you to let go of your attachment to artificial scents, and instead embrace the aromas of what is really there.

The first step is to spend a week or so without the artificial scents in your air.

Use an unscented coconut-based laundry detergent such as those from Planet, Ecover and Seventh Generation. You’ll find them at the health food store. These companies have scented detergents, so make sure to get the unscented ones. Fabric softener too.

Wash your dishes with unscented dish soap (same sources as above).

Unplug your air fresheners and instead open your windows to make your house smell better. Let the fresh air in. (Unless you live next to a particularly noxious factory, in which case get an air purifier.) I live in a city neighborhood with lots of cars. The outside air doesn’t always smell great, but it still freshens my house. Get a cross breeze going to clear out the mustiness plus all the chemical odors from off-gassing plastic (t.v.s, computers etc., etc.) and furniture (formaldehyde from fireproofing, all kinds of chemicals from particle board, etc., etc.).

Change to unscented hair and body products, or at least products with natural fragrances such as essential oils. We’re aiming for a scent-free environment to let you smell what is really there in nature, but at least the natural fragrances wear off faster than the chemical ones. If your hair still smells like your shampoo hours after washing, that’s distracting you from the world around you. Your hair should smell like hair, not like a rainforest or a coconut.

Sniff the air. What do you smell?

Now go outside and sniff. What do you notice? Smell the trees and the flowers. Try this in the morning with the dew, then later in the heat of the day, then again in the evening. Notice that the sense of smell can tell you more than you realized. Try sniffing with your eyes closed to enhance the experience.

Notice also how the sense of smell evokes memories and feelings. When you smell fresh-mown grass, what do you think of? For me it’s sitting in a seventh grade classroom while the lawn is mowed on a warm May day.

And smelling the sage brush as I drive up the Arroyo connects me to the present—to my life here in southern California, in a city that contains wildness. It jolts me into the present and wakes me up to the now.

What can you smell right now?

The Art of Be-ing has always eluded me. I would hear people talk about how important it is to just sit and be, and I would try it, but I always needed to be doing something or planning something or reading something. I found any method I could to avoid just being in the moment.

Recently, however, I have done a lot of work around my base chakra and my support in life, and I have found that being is coming much more easily.

The base, or root, chakra, is located in front of the base of the spine, between the legs. It roots us to the earth, our foundation. It is where we nurture the quality of being, because the base chakra lives in the present moment, in the timeless now.

Think of the giant boulders at Stonehenge and how they sit there through the centuries, watching people rush around in their dramas. The boulders sit and be. We can learn a lot from them.

I learned a lot about be-ing from my friend the bunny who came to live in our garden one winter. He ate in the neighbor’s garden next door where she put out food for the rooster, and then he came into my garden to eat flowers for dessert. Afterwards he would sit on our back patio, sometimes in the sun and sometimes in the shade. Occasionally he’d sleep, but often he would just be. I would sit next to him and give him bunny massage and ear reflexology, (after which he’d clean his ears thoroughly), and then we’d just sit together. Nothing was needed from each other. We were just be-ing.

My friend the bunny has gone off to live elsewhere, and my garden is much happier for it, but I value the lesson he taught me of being-ness. I now go and sit outside and look. I just be. I see my garden. Instead of seeing all the work that needs doing, I see all the flowers blooming and the plants growing and the birds fluttering. I feel the energy of all that living going on in the garden and I be with it. I go with the flow. That urgency to do is being replaced with a willingness to be.

Not always of course. There needs to be a balance between doing and being. I mainly do. But now I also be.

If you are looking for ways to add being to your life (and I heartily recommend that you do), I have a few suggestions for you. First, know that just because you’re sitting doesn’t mean that you are being. Watching TV, reading, driving and eating do not count as being.

Being is just sitting. Maybe looking out the window. Maybe gazing at a candle or a favorite picture. Maybe listening to favorite music. The mind drifts—there is no planning or dialogue going on in the head—just an awareness of the moment, and of being in the moment. Often a feeling of gratitude will steal over you as you realize how good it feels to be just sitting and being in the moment.

In our busy lives, the best gift we can give ourselves is the gift of being truly present in the moment and appreciating it. It nourishes our souls and our base chakras, it gives us a firmer connection with ourselves and with our lives.

Blessed be.