If we think that there is an idea of Absolute Health and try to hold on it. What is the inevitable result? Sickness. This is the modern way. If you like to be a loyal, patriotic American, you work hard everyday, taking medications to keep away symptoms and problems. You push yourself so that you are at your peak day by day, until one day you have a heart attack or cancer or something else.

If you look around you, you can see that this is the pattern everyone goes through. And this is the pattern we create, thinking there is separation where there is none. Thinking that health and sickness are separate. If we realize that one contains the other, we realize that within health we have sickness, and that sickness expresses itself as minor problems like aches and pains, colds and fever or not feeling or acting well. These are signals to tell us to adjust our direction, to adjust where we are going.

Real health always has some problems we have to take care of. But if the direction is right, then we have the ability to overcome, to pass through those problems. This is the idea of health in macrobiotics. With everything, we have to start to see a more dynamic movement and a dynamic relationship between these two. We have to see that one changes into the other and one completes the other and they are not separate. We can never take one away from the other. We can’t take day away from night. We can’t take life away from death. Everyone is clear about that, but when it comes to sickness, not everyone is clear.

Practicing the Seven Steps of Strengthening Health Macrobiotics helps us create a good direction in our lives and health. When we sit down to eat at meal time, eat a grain and separate vegetable dish at each meal and walk outside or do the body rub, we open ourselves up to receive this approach to health. A more flexible and dynamic understanding of health can only benefit ourselves, families, communities and planet in the short and long run.

There is nothing in this world that is one sided. Everything contains its opposite. We have come to think that health is good and sickness is bad. The approach is, “If you are healthy, fine, if you are sick get rid of it. Let’s take the sickness away.” However, if we think about this, it looks different. Before you decide if health is good and sickness is bad, let’s consider day and night. What if we thought “the day is good and the night is bad. Let’s get rid of the night. Let’s just keep the day. The day is warm, the sun comes out, the shops are open, people are out, you can do things. At night it is cold, dark, the shops are closed, strange people come out, strange insects come out. The night is no good, we can’t do things, let’s get rid of the night.”

That is very strange even to think about! But is it any stranger than thinking “health is good and sickness is bad”? or “Let’s just get rid of sickness”? This may require some thought, especially if a health concern is present.

Everything is moving. Everything is in a state of change. A more realistic situation is that we move towards sickness or we move toward health, day by day. If we practice the seven steps of Strengthening Health Macrobiotics, we are automatically moving toward health, and we won’t have to worry about ideas like keeping day and losing night.

If you really want to go green, the conventional thinking goes, buy a hybrid. Practically speaking though, there is a faster and cheaper option: shift to a low-carbon diet. Read article

A little less earnest, a little more flavorful and luxurious — L.A.’s macrobiotic restaurants are going mainstream. Read article.

Tai Ji Quan (Tai Chi)

A Five Week Workshop In May Led By Loretta Lombardi and Mujaa

Five Sundays: May 3, 10, 17, 24, 31
Early registration Price is $125 by April 18th
Cost after April 18th is $145
Individual Classes are $35 each
—Please register by April 26 to insure that we meet the minimum number for the class—
Call Garrett to Register @ 215-238-9212
The Strengthening Health Institute
1149 N. 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19123

Look Forward to Reap the Benefits of Tai Chi and Creative Visualization Exercises led by Loretta Lombardi and Mujaa. This Five-Week Workshop Will Help you Improve Your Balance, Posture, Flexibility, and Stamina. Learn New Ways to Clear your Mind and Become Open To New Ideas and Possibilities