Discovering Self

As I continue on the path of discovery, I have found an opening to the discovery of self and the amazing thing is that this in itself is by far the most fascinating discovery I've made so far. As I continue the search for harmony and fulfillment it becomes clearer by the day that unless and until you look in the right places, all your efforts will be futile. As one writer puts it..."We sometimes travel for miles to find what was always right where you started from"....It's an enlightening thought and those who finally understand the true meaning of that statement will rise to a higher level of peace and understanding.

It is fascinating though not all together surprising to learn that who we often think we are is really not the true reflection of ourselves but a person created in our own shallow thinking. Complicated? maybe but certainly worth understanding. When we start to remove the blinders from our eyes and learn how to look inward then we'll see that it is really not that complicated. What is difficult is the acceptance of this state that we have created and wrapped ourselves in. Like an actor in a drama sketch, we act the part, we take on the persona of the character but alas, the play comes to an end and the lights come on and we have to step out of character and accept the applause or boos from the audience. And so we go through life, day after day pretending to be the character we have created but seldom finding peace or fulfillment because in fact, we are not who we pretend to be. We behave in different ways or hang on to one vice or another to help us get through the day. A few glasses of wine, a shot of this or that, excessive eating, gambling and of course the ever present lure of sex. We become slaves to these habits as we feel incomplete without them...but then the night is over and we have to go our separate ways and it is during that period when we examine our lives we realize that despite  all the liquor and carousing we are still empty and so tomorrow we slavishly repeat those very actions and the beat goes on.

I know of colleagues and friends who seem to have every earthly thing that one could desire and yet, when you listen to them you immediately realize that these are men with deep seated internal worries. Their days are spent desperately trying to get more of what they already have too much of...the discussions are almost always about women, sex or money. They all live in stately homes but they spend very little time in their homes...it is just a place where they go when there is no place else to go. Some are married and some are not but the behaviour is not really different...the married ones speak braggingly of their concubines and the unmarried ones speak of the many sweethearts. Others drop names and speak of a meeting with Mr. So and So which I suppose will gauge his level of importance...and on and on it goes. 

At first I would become annoyed at all the frivolous chatter about these things but as I learned more about myself, I have become more understanding of their folly. I must, since I was kind of like that once, not at that same level but the drinking and carousing was a big part of my daily routine until it dawned on me that I was slavishly chasing after this false sense of belonging and took remedial steps to curtail or halt my actions. I now know that they are being that way because of their spiritual blindness and if a man was born blind he will never truly know what it is like to have sight. If by chance however, he becomes sighted and for the first time his eyes are opened to the wondrous sights and scenes of God's creation, he is sure to stop and take notice. I have certainly done so...and its an amazing feeling not to be driven but instead to just float along almost effortlessly.

As I turn the spotlight inward and pause to take a good look at self, I have found that those things that troubled me so much are now greatly minimized and I no longer get jittery every time something goes contrary to what I first believed or hoped for. I still sit and have a drink with my friends occasionally but unlike times gone by, I feel no anxiety when I'm absent from the drinking and carousing...and I find a lot more time to meditate,  read and listen to music.

Here is a simple test...you have to be truthful but then you must because it is impossible to lie to yourself...Ask yourself if you are truly happy...assuming you are not mistaking excitement for happiness, you will soon see that your entire life is being spent chasing one dream after the other and if you are not careful, you will sprint through life chasing rainbows without ever stopping to admire the colours thereof...Ask yourself...Who Am I and What Is My Purpose In Life? Don't rush the answers but if you allow your true self to answer, the right answer will come...."Man is in a peculiar psychic sleep, which he fails to recognize...he therefore brushes it aside as if it has nothing to do with his life"  Many  great books including the Bible have numerous references to our living slumber...Awake from your slumber...but be ignore and continue through life bumping into one obstacle after another, living with misery and pain...Awakening starts when you recognize that you are sleeping...The Mystic Path To Cosmic Power by Vernon Howard.

Fifty Years...Are We Moving Forward or Sideways?

Jamaica land we love...what a lovely thought but let's reflect on that love affair and examine whether its really a love affair or childish infactuation. I was born pre-independence and although I was not old enough to understand the significance of it...it was a time of great joy and anticipation. Jamaicans waxed proudly about being able to chart our own course and build a better Jamaica...remember that song..."We are out to build a new Jamaica" ? What a wonderful thought...what a great sentiment...what the hell happened ? As a boy growing up in the country and going to school in the sixties, I remember being full of hope and some of us couldn't wait to get out of school...there were jobs galore and while there can be no denying that there was discrimination, we were still able to get jobs...I remember my oldest brother working at Kaiser's Spur Tree Office as a Draftsman, another worked at Alcan in Kirkvine, my two older sisters had already left for England. Other siblings worked at different jobs...one was a Salesman for the Machado Tobacco Company, one built roads and so on...there was work if you wanted it.

Were there problems? Of course there were many problems...can anyone tell me at which point since civilization there were not problems...social problems have dogged every society since we started recognising societies. There is the ever present haves ansd have nots...the colour, the class, the gays, the straights, Muslims and Jews, Catholics and Protestants...and I could go on. The thing is, as we develop and understand each other better, those problems ought to be minimized...the catch however is this, whenever you solve one problem, there is always another waiting in the wings to confront you. This is so here there and everywhere...Today in America with their first Black President, many in the Black communities across America are crying foul...they are complaining that Obama is not doing enough to address their problems. The challenge for Obama is simply this, he is the President of the United States who happens to be a man of colour. He is being mistakenly looked at by many Blacks in America as the Black People's President...it just ain't so.

Lets get back to Jamaica where we have serious problems of our own. One of the revolving questions that seem to resurface ever so often is how and when to get rid of the Monarchy as our head of state...albeit a symbolic title. We need our own queen was one of the catch phrases used by the now Prime Minister...by the way, why can't the Prime Minister be referred to as The Hon...what is this Most Honourable title about. Is Most Honourable degrees above Honourable? Since when is it not good enough to be Honourable...Sure, lets get rid of London but don't touch our titles...give me a break! Anyway, back to the mainpoint of this blog, what have we done with our fifty years of independence...? Are we better off...well, in some instances yes but in many others, hell no! In the mid to latter part of the sixties, Jamaica saw unprecedented growth and although there were many dissenting voices, there were gradual changes taking place. Again, like the blacks in America, we couldn't wait, we wanted dramatic changes over night. Unfortunately, the world just doesn't work that way, everything takes time and whenever you short circuit a process the result is usually swift and disastrous...Enter the politics...Having taken us to our Independence, the then villified and ridiculed Alexander Bustamante handed power over to a most affable gentleman .In February,  1967 The Hon Donald Sangster was sworn in as Prime Minister ....unfortunately he died of a mysterious illness shortly thereafter. Street talk in Jamaica still has it that he was somehow rubbed out although there is not one shred of evidence to support it after more than four decades it is still circulating. The post of Prime Minister was subsequently handed over to The Hon. Hugh Shearer who eventually lost power to the fire brand Michael Manley in 1972. Donald Sangster, Bustamante or Hugh Shearer aside, there was a brilliant Politician in no other than a man named Robert (Bob) Lightbourne. The then Minister of Industry, he spearheaded the industrial development in Jamaica with a zeal that was enviable. Indeed, after that most productive period we were visited by no other than the now famous Lee Quan Yew of Singapore. In fact the visit came in 1975 and by then Jamaica had seen significant changes to its social structure...but I will deal with that later.

During the haydays of the sixties Jamaica went through the sort of industrial revolution that if it were allowed to continue, we would still be the envy of the region today. Instead we are fast becoming the wart of the region...crime, poverty, boorishness and lack of opportunities are the order of the day.  I am not sure what came first but we are now at an unenviable place and we can't seem to find our way out. I remember visiting the mining operation at Alpart as a youngster in Primary School and to a child that was like flying to the Space Station...fascinating it was to see those huge machines moving mountains of earth to be processed for alumina. In fact during that period I think there were more Kingstonians working in the Industry that those who were not. If you will recall there were operations spreading from Clarendon to St. Ann and back to Manchester, St. Elizabeth and St. Catherine...The salaries were better than most other industry and our young men were doing just fine. The roads admittedly were smaller but there were cars galore...Mandeville was a major point of interest and a sort of hub for all of the activities. There were parties and fetes every weekend and Sundays were no exception...and by the way...almost all of those parties were free...no cover, no cash bar, just good behaviour and good fun...those were the good old days...What the hell happened...?

After the boom of the sixties there were still many left behind, some are still there and will always be there. The complaints grew louder and in a somewhat repressive late sixties when the Black Power movement was at it peak in the US we caught the fever here and started to scream for more, more, more. The trouble is that we never did say more of what and waiting in the wings was a tall, charming and eloquent brown man with a name to boot. He saw an opportunity and boy, did he ever grab it with both hands. In a classic display of divide and rule, the new episode started in 1972 after the Shearer led Jamaica Labour Party lost badly to the PNP headed by none other than Michael Manley. There was jubiliation in the land and the people loved him, ah yes! The Messiah has finally arrived...He called himself Joshua and armed himself with a piece of carved wood which I am told was a gift. He called it The Rod of Correction...and we loved it. Little did we know that the rod was to put hardship on our own backsides...Many say and some still believe that he meant well but the truth be told, he was just a misguided opportunist. It is rumoured that his father the well respected Barrister and pre-independence Premier refused to cast the deciding vote to have Michael take over the reings of the PNP which he was instrumental in forming. It is further said that he warned that if his son got his hands on the country, the bitterness will remain in the people's mouths for a hundred years...I was not there but the source of that bit is almost 90 years old and ought to know.

Anyway, Michael was and probably still is the most loved Prime Minister and by extension he had the people at a place where he could have taken Jamaica anywhere but he chose to look ninety miles north and the people didn't want to go there. Oh Ooh! I think we have a problem here...the poster boy is not looking so good and by the mid seventies things had taken a turn for the worse...there was disquiet all over the land. The darling was fast becoming the villian and it didn't look good. The rhetoric spewed unabated and so the war begun. Media in Jamaica is said to be way more sympathetic to the PNP than the JLP but the powerhouse at North Street was having none of the foolishness and the war of words started. There is more...much more but you have to catch the next blog...I promise to continue where I leave now...God Bless and Good reading...





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Sir Donald Sangster





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The Hon Hugh Shearer





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The Hon Michael Manley



General Elections and Christmas...A Clash of Interests?: GOD'S HANDS...The Healing Power of Plants

GOD'S HANDS...The Healing Power of Plants: THE ALOE VERA PLANT GOD'S HANDS The Healing Power of Plants… If you or anyone you know has ever lost a love one to disease then thi...

GOD'S HANDS...The Healing Powers of Plants

GOD'S HANDS...The Healing Power of Plants

THE ALOE VERA PLANT

 GOD'S HANDS

The Healing Power of Plants…

If you or anyone you know has ever lost a love one to disease then this publication is dedicated to you…We are all cognizant of our mortality and some may even argue that when your time comes, nothing can stop it. I tend to agree with that notion however, the real challenge is to decide when indeed that time has come. There are case loads of people who were given up on by their doctors and went on to live for years and even decades after. One of the major misconceptions about doctors is that they are believed to have all the answers, know everything, in other words, some people mistakenly believe their doctors are gods and anything they say must therefore be true. This is where I have a challenge…doctors are mortals just like anyone else and while we must respect the profession and the time and dedication it takes to become a doctor, it is foolhardy to believe that your doctor has all the answers.

As information become more and more accessible, we are learning everyday of cases where the doctor having tried all conventional methods of healing on the patient without much success, simply tells the patient to go home and wait for death. In many if not most cases, this is exactly what happens as the patient is more likely to die from the stress and depression than the disease itself. In some instances though, the patient simply refuses to believe this and usually in desperation seek out other options. There are cases where the patient is so far gone that even the best effort cannot help but alas…ever so often you hear or read of a case where having tried everything else, the patient reaches for some form of unconventional or natural medicine and the results are amazingly positive. I have been a subscriber to Health Science International (HSI) for many years and I have read and continue to read many other journals as well as books expounding the merits of natural healing. In fact it was upon reading a book loaned to me by the wife of a very good friend Mrs. Yola Gray-Baker that I decided to publish a weekly Journal dedicated to Natural Healing. So profound and far reaching were the contents of this book that I have since decided to ask to have it reprinted for distribution via my online store. Additionally, I will be making the source of these wonder cures available to my readers on a regular basis. By the way, the title of the book that has so inspired me is “Miracle Food Cures from the Bible”.

Like everything else, there are all sorts of misinformation swirling out there about what works and what doesn’t. The truth is that not everything will work for everybody as we are all made up with our own peculiarities. Notwithstanding this, several people have seen miraculous turn around in their heath with the introduction of natural medicines. To be brutally frank, it is my opinion that many of the ailments and even major diseases are caused by bad habits, ignorance and our scant regard for our health. This is manifested in our lifestyles which include our diet. There is a saying in the circle that our spoons and forks are symbolic of instruments used for digging our own graves…in other words, we are eating and drinking ourselves to death. This Journal will never be supported by the fast-food, liquor, tobacco or beverage industries since we will be relentless in pointing out the negatives of these products and the effect they have on our health. Of course as adults in a free society, we cannot be forced to do what is right for ourselves but at least, if the truth is known and understood, then we have no one to blame but ourselves for the state of our health.

I have had a great interest in this topic for almost twenty years after losing my mother to a stroke while she was recuperating from surgery for cancer. She had not survived for more than a few weeks although the doctor had given her six months without the surgery. She was never in a lot of pain and might have lived longer without the surgery. In a conversation with a doctor several years later he said and I quote “you never know how these things will turn out for sure”. I immediately thought; if he is the doctor and he doesn’t know for sure then why should I put so much faith in doctors? There are obviously many good doctors who will tell you the whole story but invariably if you don’t ask they don’t tell.

Since the emergence of the internet and as more and more people get access to the information highway, we are now getting different perspectives to the once highly secretive world of treatment and cures for various ailments from the simple to life threatening diseases. Of course as in all things one has to be careful of the snake oil salesmen who often appear with the one pill cure all miracle. The others to be very wary of are those pyramid scams that offer the opportunity to make millions off products that are at best dubious in their ability to cure anything. I attended one such meeting where I really wanted to hear about this miracle mushroom and while I still believe that there may be some merit to the product, I think the way it has been marketed is almost vulgar. I took my seat in this meeting with much anticipation about the testimonials and stories about the people who were cured or saw great improvement in their health after using the product but this was not to be. After a few vague claims and a few more minutes spent on the origin of the product, the focus was shifted totally to the commercial benefits to be derived from signing up now and have others do the same. I walked out within twenty minutes of the presentation and never went back although I was invited several times. As a marketer, I have always believed that the product should be able to attract buyers by the result or benefits derived from it. If you have to sign up and become part of some pyramid scam, you are probably wasting your money or worse, deceiving people who are desperately in need of solutions to their health issues.

Now let’s look at some plants that have been used for centuries to heal various ailments. Many of these same plants have been incorporated in drugs that are sold by our pharmacies by prescription and even over the counter. It is surely not in the interest of the drug companies and distributors of these drugs to make the information known to the public. After all, how would they continue to rake in the millions and even billions of dollars year after year while more and more patients are getting sicker and dying. Has it not occurred at some point to the discerning public that this is what happens daily? Doctors are simply failing to cure their patients; instead you are asked to take this and take that and return in a few days or weeks to be given more of the same or additional drugs that dig deeper and deeper into your pockets. So you think its helping but in a few weeks you are right back at the goodly doctor and the process sometime slightly altered is repeated…you never get well but the doctor is driving a brand new luxury vehicle and so is the owner of the pharmacy not to mention the drug distributors…everybody wins except the patient. We were always told that the body can heal itself given the right conditions. The challenge is getting to that condition that will assist the body in self healing. Most doctors will give you some of that information but generally, you better make the effort and find out just what those conditions are. After all, it’s your body, your life and you only get one of each. Here are a list of plants and herbs to pay attention to. They all have beneficial ingredients that if taken properly can improve and even cure, yes cure many of the things that ail us. Each will be given a full and thorough exposure in subsequent publications so continue reading and take care of your health…nothing is more important. There are also products that are available commercially that will be discussed and exposed.

Disclaimer: The information in this publication and any subsequent publication is not meant to be a substitute for the identification, diagnosis or treatment of your medical problems. You should consult your doctor who is licensed to practice medicine before taking any medication. Your doctor will also be able to tell you if you are allergic to any specific plant or herb or if anything you take could interact or become harmful if taken with other medicines prescribed.

 If you have questions please write to us at plantshealingpower@gmail.com

Miracle Plants, Herbs & Spices

Aloe Vera –Found in Egypt more than 4000 years ago and introduced to the New World in the 16^th Century. The plant grows easily in almost all conditions and can be found throughout the Americas. Used for: abscess, arthritis, bursitis, cataracts, burning in the urinal tract, diabetes, genital herpes, gangrene, stomach pain, cramps, intestinal disorders, yeast infection just to name a few.

Apple-

Blackcurrants

Cabbage

Cashew

Celery-

Chicory-

Dates-

Dandelion

Garlic-

Ginger-

Guinea hen weed

Grapes

Lettuce

Parsley

Papaya

Rhubarb

Raspberries

Peppermint

Sour-sop

Strawberries

Walnuts-Black-walnuts; contain among other vital ingredients contains ellagic acid which is effective in the treatment of high blood pressure, skin cancer and muscular paralysis…

 Watercress-Used as a remedy for tuberculosis, Chlamydia (an STD),

Escape to Luxury - Social - Jamaica Gleaner - Friday | December 30, 2011

Escape to Luxury - Social - Jamaica Gleaner - Friday | December 30, 2011