In our last edition of Kindred Spirit we featured a piece on canola oil called What is Canola Oil? It then came to our attention that some of the assertions made in the piece were false, especially with regards to the fragile area of genetic modification. We’d like to clarify those points so that your information about canola oil is as up to date and correct as possible. The article mentions that all canola is derived from genetically modified rape seed plants. However, this is not the case. Canola oil comes from a hybrid plant developed from using traditional pedigree hybrid propagation techniques (this is not genetic modification) involving black mustard, leaf mustard, and turnip rapeseed. The original rapeseed plant was high in erucic acid, which is an unpalatable fatty acid having negative health effects in high concentrations. Canola oil has been created from specially bred plants to have low concentrations of erucic acid and contains less than one percent.
With that said, much of the canola now coming from North America has been genetically modified. GM Canola has all kinds of ethical, economic and health issues separate to conventional canola due to the fact that it is GM, not because it is canola. GM canola is also about to be given the go ahead to be planted in Australia, and there is a fierce campaign operating to try and prevent this from happening.
We’d also like to point out that the article implies canola oil is used as a poison to get rid of insects (such as aphids), even though the author mentions that she drowns them using the oil. Other oils can do the same, not by poisoning insects, but by suffocating them. It's a kind of factual sleight-of-hand that undermines true research behind the subject.
We at Kindred would apply the Precautionary Principle when considering canola oil for topical or internal use. Given that a there remains wide debate about its safety, and that there are other healthier alternatives, it would be wise to exclude it from one’s lifestyle. While it is important to keep the issue of canola free of fear-mongering and fact-twisting, consumers do have a reason to use caution. With thanks to Jane Thompson
Is it me, or has life become busier and busier? My friend and localisation expert, Helena Norberg Hodge, says it's not me, it's globalisation. She says we're forced to work harder for less, and the collective struggle to make ends meet is felt by everyone, and the by-product is rush, haste and stress. So if she's right - and I think she is - then there's not a whole lot I can do to remedy the external frenzy that seems to be creeping, or rather rushing, into my daily life.
So I've decided to work at it from another angle - from inside. In response to the external speed that attempts to have its way with me and my family, a curious invitation has arisen. I call it 'curious' because it could have arisen any time, any where. But it has arisen now. Now, when it seems that many others are being met with the same invitation, in response to similar external challenges. That invitation is a summons to come home. To turn within and navigate my life from Stillness, rather than mind-driven haste. As the gathering clouds of peak oil, climate change and diminishing democracy threaten on the horizon for all of us, perhaps we are all being called - on a collective level - to create internal lifeboats to see us through.
Living from Stillness is not a new concept to me. I've spent precious time with teachers, mentors, friends-of-good-company, and sages around the world since my twenties - Sri Poonjaji, Byron Katie, Wayne Muller, Alan Clements, Steve and Ondrea Levin, Andrew Harvey to name a few. This includes many other deeply profound friends and colleagues, people that remain anonymously folded into every day life without much fanfare, but whose wisdom continues to humble and inspire me. So with so many years hanging out in the awakening scene, what is new about this 'invitation'?
If I were to define the difference, I would put it this way - though words prove highly inaccurate when trying to speak of such things. It would seem that before now, awakening was a bit of a lifestyle choice. It was an 'option' and it was also, of sorts, a love affair - a love affair with something sublime and real. But now it is more pervading than that, more near, more insistent. Now, it seems, it is an imperative. Even more, it is what is true, and therefore the only thing worth aligning with. My guess is that the seemingly dark times ahead are pushing all of us in this direction - deeper, deeper inward.
As a result of this invitation, life continues to speed by, but I have become more still. Not to become anything; not to become 'enlightened', or 'more awake', or more or less of anything. But just because it is what is true. That's all.
So on that note, to aid us in our little lifeboat building, I've posted a couple of my favourites. This first video is of a sage in India named Poonjaji (Papaji as his is affectionately known) with whom I spent many years:
And this one of Byron Katie, who developed what she calls The Work - simply a series of questions that you ask yourself in the face of your ideas, thoughts, troubles. When these questions are asked sincerely, and with a true desire to end one's suffering, the impact is profound.
Don Tolman is an author, public speaker, trainer, educator, entertainer and experimental nutritional-eating researcher. He has written multiple books on a variety of skill-specific mental functions and self-improvement topics.
On his recent Australian tour, Kindred editor, Kali Wendorf interviewed Don Tolman...
This is a trailer for the documentary feature film - The Vanishing of the Bees... For more information or to help support the making of this film visit www.vanishingbees.com
The Business of Being Born is now available from the Kindred shop.
On Thursday, December 13th, Kindred magazine hosted the sneak preview screening of The Business of Being Born, produced by Ricki Lake and directed by Abby Epstein. Below is an excerpt of my introduction to the film on the night:
This film is a very raw, but accurate account of the journey women make when embarking on birth today. Now the first thing I want to say to you about this film is, even though the film is US based, don’t make the mistake of interpreting the challenges and issues faced by the women in this film as purely a US issue. Our soaring cesarean rates – topping out over 30% - means the birthing climate here in Australia is even more critical than in the US – who’s rates are more around the 25% mark. The World Health Organisation recommends a rate of no more than 15%. So Australia is more than double the WHO recommendation. This outrageous cesarean rate is a symptom of a medical system out of control, which has grave consequences to mothers, their children and society as a whole.
Through the medical system of maternity care, modern women are now subjected to a plethora of unnecessary routine interventions. Interventions that more often than not, put the optimal wellbeing of mother and baby at risk. You’ll see on the film, consistent reference to ‘pit’ short for ‘Pitosin’, in Australia it is called ‘Syntocin’ – this is the synthetic hormone used to induce labour, and one of the many interventions labouring women are subjected to. Here in Australia, natural, intervention-free birth is severely under threat. A recent study in Melbourne of first-time mums, found that only 9 out 242 women gave birth without any medical interventions. Keep in mind that these high rates are not because so many women necessarily NEED these interventions, and we are being SAVED by them, but because we are giving birth within a system that is economically driven.
So what’s the big deal about intervention-free birth? Get the baby out any way you can, right? Well...no.
The experiences of birth and the first few hours after birth play a crucial role in a baby’s psychological, social and neurological development. We as human beings are neurologically hardwired to connect, to love. We are born expecting to continue the connection we experienced in the womb, not only with our mother but to the whole. As our connections to others increase—through touch, smell, skin to skin contact, rocking, hearing the mother's heartbeat, eye contact through breastfeeding—our brain’s neural synapses increase in number, making more connections—the internal mirroring the external. In this way—through this connection—love, peace, compassion, sympathy are hardwired into the brain.
When connection is not forthcoming, there are interferences in the connection such as interventions....that is, the baby is not allowed to breastfeed, or he's separated from the mother for some reason, or he's experiencing the drugs during childbirth—the synapses decrease, leading to sadness, separation, mistrust and fearfulness. Does this sound like a society you know? The point is, we are not hardwired to fear, to hate, to be violent. Such tendencies only happen when something goes wrong with the hardwiring - if our hardwiring is interfered with.
Indeed, the first few years of our life is the time we either step into our sense of ‘belonging’ to the whole, or conclude we do not belong. This is not some theory - this is fact.
A baby who is blessed with sensitivity, calm, connection, attunement and responsiveness to their early needs is a baby who emerges as a healthy and happy adult. We at Kindred believe that every person deserves such a start.
Interventions, pure and simple, interfere in this fragile and critical process of connection – both for mother and baby. So the right to an intervention-free birth becomes a human rights issue. It's a women’s rights issue. We deserve to KNOW what is at stake when we put ourselves unquestioningly in the hands of the medical system. What is at stake is no less than humanity's ability to know itself as love.
In these uncertain times we are taking a good hard look at ourselves. The issues of our times are immense: terrorism, the endless war in Iraq, Peak Oil, our ability to destroy the environment irrevocably, domestic violence, depression. And pundits to academics are looking for ways to end the hell - to create a society that is compassionate, loving and sustainable. However the connection between children’s unmet early needs and our society’s present ills is largely overlooked. You simply cannot look at these so-called adult issues without looking at what forges adulthood, and that is childhood.
There is thankfully another option to the medical model of care: the midwifery model of care – also called the woman-centred model of care. This model ensures that intervention be minimal if not non-existent. Midwifery model of care ensures you will have the same carer before the birth, during the birth and afterwards for a mother’s postnatal care. It works alongside the medical system when an emergency arises. And in those cases, thank goodness we DO have modern medicine. Homebirth midwives are highly skilled professionals whose positive outcomes exceed that of the medical system.
How many of you think that homebirth is more risky than hospital birth? Research shows that babies are safer born at home. Extensive statistical analysis, accepted by UK Government policy makers, concludes that birth at home or in small GP units is safer than birth in obstetric hospitals for mothers and babies in all categories of risk.
But in spite of the research, there is a midwife drought, brought on by suspicions, mythology, fears, propoganda, and of course the public liability crisis…Now that you know the importance of protecting the connection between mother and baby, you know we need our midwives, and they need your help. Going around tonight during the Q and A is a petition asking for publicly funded home birth through case load models of care attached to hospitals (this means women are allocated a midwife to care for them from the beginning of pregnancy through to postnatal period) and medicare provider numbers for midwives in private practice...offering women more birthing choices Please sign it. As well visit the Northern Rivers Maternity Action Group table and sign up to help them out.
So, enjoy the film, breathe and above all, celebrate our capacity as women – to literally, viscerally and physically experience our co-creative participation with the universe. You’ll feel it to your bone marrow when you watch this film.
Daily we are told that mums would all be back at work if only they had childcare. This raises a few issues - yes, mums want to rejoin the world post childbirth, and for many mums career is very important, and mostly it is the mum who faces the choice of home or work. (Perhaps it is the dad who stays at home...) OK, that is fine, but there are a few assumptions that need to be tested. What is the point of having kids if you are going to get someone else to raise them? Can someone with no 'bond' to your child other than financial provide the necessary care to the half dozen or so little kids in their care? What is the financial cost? For a mum/dad on $50k/y the financial advantages of working and putting their kids in child care, mostly, are negligible, except the child gets to be raised by a stranger and the parent is exhausted and stressed from the relentlessness of commuting, working, home upkeep .... Some people pay $7-800/week for childcare, and when govt subsidies are considered, the cost can blow out to $1200/w. In that situation if a mum was paid a minimum of $200, tax free, to stay at home till the kids are of school age, then it is a net financial saving as well as the additional gain from kids being raised by their mum. Business and govt want women to work because it helps the GDP, regardless of it is makes any economic sense or is good for anyone. It is cheaper to pay a parent to stay at home if there is one child below school age, and this becomes radically cheaper when there are 2-3 kids under school age, esp when after school care is considered. It is also a no-brainer that kids are mostly better off with a caring parent at home. no doubt some parents have major issues with being at home
It's the holiday season, and my credit card is flipping in and out of my wallet so fast, it's about to melt from the friction. As a timely reminder I just stumbled upon a great little 20 minute film called The Story of Stuff.
The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns, with a special focus on the United States. All the stuff in our lives, beginning from the extraction of the resources to make it, through its production, sale, use and disposal, affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues and calls for all of us to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something. It'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.
Written by Leonard, the film was produced by Free Range Studios the makers of other socially-minded, web-based films such as “The Meatrix” and “Grocery Store Wars.” Funding for the project came from The Sustainability Funders and Tides Foundation.
In our last edition of Kindred Spirit we featured a piece on canola oil called What is Canola Oil? It then came to our attention that some of the assertions made in the piece were false, especially with regards to the fragile area of genetic modification. We’d like to clarify those points so that your information about canola oil is as up to date and correct as possible.
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