Cats Bits 10-14/10-20 What is Normal?

Cat's Bits for the Week of Oct 14 - Oct 20

Upcoming Events & Holidays

Oct 15: New Moon at 8:02 am EDT

Oct 22: Sun Enters Scorpio 8:14 pm EDT

Oct 28: Celtic Tree Month of Reed begins

Oct 29: Full Blood Moon at 3:49 pm EDT

Oct 31: Samhain / Halloween

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Pagan Birthdays for October

Isaac Bonewits (10-1), Timothy Roderick-author(10-2), Aleister Crowley (10-12), Selena Fox (10-20)

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Thought of the Week:

The best way to save face is keep the bottom half shut.
- Anonymous
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Article for the Week:

What is Normal?
posted by Deepak Chopra

The construction workers on skyscrapers used to include a large proportion of Mohawk Indians, who were raised without a fear of heights. The same courage can be gradually built into oneself by practice - for example, by walking a tightrope.
Such flexibility is not limited to psychological states. Nutritionists have abundant scientific evidence to show that the body must be given certain vitamins and minerals every day in order not to fall prey to deficiency diseases - the classis instance is scurvy, which afflicted the British navy when sailors were fed solely on hardtack biscuits and grog and deprived of the vitamin C in fruits and vegetables.

Nonetheless, native cultures around the world have existed for centuries without rigorous daily vitamin requirements and have adapted perfectly well. The Tarahumara Indians of northern Sonora in Mexico have become famous in physiological circles because they can run twenty-five to fifty miles a day in high altitudes without discomfort. Whole tribes run these marathons every week; when the winner of one race was tested two minutes after crossing the finish line, an American physiologist discovered that his heart rate was slower than when he began.

What amplifies this inexplicable feat is the Tarahumara typically live on two hundred pounds of corn a year for the average family, half of which is made into corn beer. Other sources of nutrition, such as root vegetables, become available in small quantities during the limited growing season.

By being able to thrive on an absurdly substandard diet, these people show the nearly infinite flexibility of the mind-body system. Ironically, their adaptation is so perfect that when place in a "balanced" diet fortified with vitamins and minerals, many native people develop heart disease, hypertension, skin disorders, and rotten teeth, none of which they had before, in epidemic proportions.

Obviously, these examples throw down a challenge to our whole conception of what is normal. We have ample evidence in our own culture that what is normal about us is our ability to create our own reality.

Adapted from Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine, by Deepak Chopra (Bantam Books, 1990).

courtesy of Lisa Day rec'd 7-22-2010
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Permission to share freely as long as footer is included.

Brightest blessings for a magical week!

Cat

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