The Empowered Lifestyle

Okay, so you know that I have all these handwritten recipes that I've been collecting over the last twenty years from medicine women and shamans and masters and...and....and....

So, because of my own foray into the world of infertility, I have more than a few ways to cook up a pregnancy and, well, considering the woman all over the news who just gave birth to an even eight bitty blessings, it made me think of this salsa recipe that I was made privy to while in New Mexico visiting a healing hot springs there.

It promises to exponentially raise the sperm count. And it's delicious too.

Let me also share that the main ingredient for this dip is tomatoes. They carry their own bit of mystical magic. For instance one of the first food "cures" I learned was that you should put a large red tomato on the mantle to bring money into the home. It should be replaced every three days. And, if you've ever traveled to the Southwest than this next piece of advice won't surprise. Put tomatoes in the windowsill in the kitchen ot next to any other entrance to keep and negative influences from entering. Lastly, the tomato is also sometimes referred to as a "love apple" since it is believed to inspire love when eaten inside any recipe cooked with same.

So, while you are stirring up this salsa, send some love to it too and then maybe SUPER Bowl Sunday will have other more sizzling connotations than just the ones associated with a spicy salsa.

Magically Delicious Friday....Super Bowl Salsa

Ingredients:

2 1/4 poundsof fresh tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon all spice
1/2 teaspoon cloves (hey, I said "spicy" salsa!)
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 cup sugar
1 cup and two tablespoons white vinegar
4 red chiles, deseeded and chopped
2 green apples, peeled, cored and chopped
2 red onions finely chopped
2 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons chili sauce
2 tablespoons tomato paste

Put the tomatoes in a (super) bowl and sprinkle with salt. Let sit for two hours while the fruit sweats. Combine the spices, the mustard, teh sugar and the vinegar in a heavy saucepan and cook over medium heat. Stir until the sugar completely dissolves. Bring the mix to a boil and add all remaining ingredients, still stirring regularly. Simmer uncovered over a low heat for an hour. Cool and refrigerate until cold. This is by far the best salsa I have ever made and ever, ever tasted. Especially right before I was trying to make an oh, baby, baby!

Really?

The government just passed a bail out that is more than $100 BILLION DOLLARS (!!!!!) over the last proposed rescue remedy and the top news story of the day is that Jessica Simpson is now a size 8????

Really????

That's where our cultural consciousness is? We deserve to be in the crapper then.

Almost every single media outlet worth their ad rates has had someone making some unkind comment about Jessica Simpson's "weight gain" inside the last 48 hours. Her sister, Ashley, came publicly to her resuce yesterday releasing a scathing statement regards the message this sort of body conscious scrutiny sends to impressionable young girls around the world. You know, the ones who are creating the highest obesity rates EVER. Anyway, didn't we just hear this whole schmole before with Love Hewitt?

Remember?

She and her then fiancee Ross McColl were on a beach in Hawaii and she was snapped in a skimpy suit looking a little less than the x-ray she's supposed to celebrity be? Then she became outwardly indignant and inwardly anorexic? I mean, alledgedly anorexic?

Hewitt, like Simpson's sister, little Simpson Wentz, decried the public pundit who were calling her then size 4 body "fat" and invoked that same sort of "what about all the young girls" argument when defending de feeding.

I even blogged about how great I thought she was facing down the story starved media.

Then, I had to eat my own words. And God knows, I shouldn't be snacking at ALL!

But, there she was large as life, well, actually half that size, standing tall on the WHOLE cover of US magazine; Love Hewitt sharing secrets from the diet that took her from a fat four to a teensy tiny two. Hey? Whaaaaa??? What about the girls? What about the women with curves? What about your bullshit rant?

Mark my words (the one's I can't afford to eat this time), Jessica Simpson will go on some crazy fasting nonsensical, non nuttional fast weight loss plan and, well, since she apparently doesn't have much work at present (c'mon..performing at a chili cook off in Pembroke Pines, Florida??? WHAT HAPPENED TO HER CAREER? That my friends, SHOULD be the emphasis of the Simpson story)she'll start training like a maniac with guru like Harley Pasternak and she'll be back commanding BIG coin on some magazine cover in no time at all.

Fuck the young girls and the curvy women.

In any case, if she does want to shed some lbs in a more healthy way she can do an exercize called, appropriately, The Breath of Life. Coutesy P.K. Ivanov:

Stand outside and stretch your head upwards as if you are looking at the sky.

Open your mouth and slowly, slowly inhale through the nose. ONLY TAKE BREATH IN THROUGH THE NOSE. As you do this, visualize that the air you breathe is pure and clean and coming directly from the skies above.

As you naturally exhale (don't hold this breath), instead of actually exhaling, swallow the air instead all the while now visualizing the Chi or prana or life energy of this inhaled air spreading all throughout and oxygenating your entire body.

THEN, exhale through your nose and repeat again from the top.

Never do this more than three times in a row.

Ivanov believed that if you practiced this exercize before each meal eventually the elliptical would become obsolete.

OR, maybe it's okay to be a size 8. I wouldn't know. I don't remember that far back.

As promised, what to do to activate the Auspicious Wealth Star! But first, what the heck is the Auspicious Wealth Star? (Truly, if you are new to these posts, you might want to go for a little scroll and read some of the previous posts about Chinese New Year and how we are all right now learning about how best to use Flying Star(s) Feng Shui to make 2009 the BEST YEAR EVAH!)

The Auspicious Wealth Star is the most super duper super stellar of all the Flying Stars since it promises a broad spectrum of opportunities to achieve the Three Great Blessings in Feng Shui; HEALTH, HAPPINESS and PROSPERITY! This year this star is shining in the Southeast of your space bringing with it assured success in almost everything you put your heart and soul into while also promising peace, harmony, abundance and joy! YEEHAW!

To activate the energies associated with this Superstar, we are literally advised to place a 9 level water feature or what's called a wealth spinner into this same Southeastern space. Now, even I don't know what a wealth spinner is and certainly don't have a 9 level water feature just lying around, so, once again, I'm going to put my own spin on this and say that you can use ANY sort of water feature in this area and still get big bonus and benefits. Of course, if you are really REALLY in need of some Health or Happiness or Prosperity and want to do the real thing, you can always go to any of the Feng Shui stores attached to legit sites (WOFS.com or FengShuiBestBuy.com) and see if they sell this stuff. But, for my money (and yours) I think it MORE than perfectly okay to put a small fountain or any other water feature in this place and then sit back and get ready to rock. Because that's how WE roll!

And, just so you're completely sure that you came to the right post today....Those real housewives in the OC are like the proverbial train wreck, they're intolerable and yet I can't stop watching! What's the matter with me? Those Keogh boys would last twenty seconds in my house. What a pair of assholes. And their mother just makes excuse after excuse for their abusive and brutish and mysoginistic behavior. Even the old housewife who moved to Chi-Town grabbed her little boy at the community dinner table and started holding him on her lap. I know this was some sort of maternal instinct she had so I wonder where ANY of Jeanna's are. You know, when people compliment me on my own son's manners or polite behavior, I always answer, "You're very welcome future wife" knowing that I'm raising a MAN who will have respect and who will honor that woman as the light she is. Jeanna, you are a disgrace as a mother. Period. And you can be sure that I'll be back next week to make sure you stay that way. OHHHHHHH what's the matter with me??? Better go work on the apparent judgement issues I have. See ya!

So yesterday, Chinese New Year, we chatted about some of the great energies activated by certain Flying Stars (again, just trust me here, the explanation of this school of Feng Shui is voluminous..), and, then, I promised to take a look at some of the none too hospitable energies that could conceivably influence 2009.

REMEMBER...we can (oh yes Barack, we can!) and we will be enacting these adjustments and cures over the entirety of the New Year period which lasts a full two weeks and only began yesterday. So, don't panic if you've not been able to download or find some of these symbols or images or haven't had a moment to put them into place. You have time! Plenty of it too!

Okay, back to the Flying Monkeys caused by certain disgruntled Flying Stars:

Something called The 5 Yellow Misfortune Star will be sitting in the North this year. Bringing seriously bad juju (accidents, illness, misfortune and injury) this star's a stinker. The remedy calls for an image of or the actual piece itself of what's called the Five Element Pagoda and/or the Five Element Bell. I think it will be easier just to access some sort of site that sells Feng Shui cures and just download the image of these two things and then place them somewhere in the North of your living space. Promises to prevent alot of your energies from going South!

Then there is the Violent Star, which, well, pretty much says it all. Scccccarrrry! This star is sitting int he Eastern sector of your space this year and can be assuaged if not completely ameliorated by putting and elephant with his trunk up in this same space. Put this symbol in that space and avoid a stampede of shaky luck! And, well, just to be prescient, another cure that manages these malign energies is to put a blue rhinoceros in this same place as well. I know, I know, but it works. In this case, having an elephant in the room is actually a good thing! And, speaking of good things...tomorrow...the auspicious Wealth Star and what to do to bring BIG WEALTH, SUCCESS AND HAPPINESS home for the rest of 2009! Oh, can't even wait...............

What a day today is! Chinese New Year. New Moon Eclipse. Extra creamy good energies all around. The PERFECT day to put your intentions out there. Write one wish, with clarity, and put it in a red envelope and burn it. IT WILL COME TRUE!

Go back over the New Year's posts that I've been offering of late and see if there's anything else you want to do today to make this your most magical year ever! Briefly wanted to share that I did the Red Egg Rebirth yesterday and the oddest (well, c'mon, it IS me) thing happened. As I walked outside to eat a bit of the egg and scatter the rest to the four direction, a GIANT (like Hitchcock'ian size) seagull glided down and landed on the lawn a few feet from where I was standing. I just kept doing what I was doing and then threw the pieces to the separate directions. As soon as I chucked the first piece of egg, he sauntered over and ate it, as if he were one of my kids waiting to be served. Then, he let out this piercing scream and within a few seconds a flock of gulls at least fifty strong were flying all over my lawn. Okay, so not to be odd feather out, a TON of other birds came floating and flying all around the space above my house. I took it as a good omen. But I did think it auspicious that my hair wasn't pulled into a tight chignon, I wasn't wearing a full fur and wasn't standing in a telephone booth being accosted by one eyed blood soaked men smoking cigarettes in gas stations. Movie reference. Sorry.

Today, I am beginning a few days of sharing some "secret" Flying Star Feng Shui. And, although I am not a Flying Star practitioner (let's not even go there, just trust me on this or we'll all be here past the mid morning snack if I have to explain all the different schools of Feng Shui...) However, Flying Star does say that there are certain images that need to be put in certain places during certain years in order to gain the greatest reward from that specific cycle. Now, I may not practice Flying Star Feng Shui but I certainly avail myself of every opportunity to use whatever methods I see fit to make sure that the fortune and the luck are my invited guests for however long they'd like to stay!

Towards that end:

There is something called The Lucky Multiplying Star that indicates or influences future opportunities to garner abundance and prosperity. It also has an impact on upward mobility for and to those who tap it's shiny New Year luck! Known as or also called The Future Wealth Star (sensing a theme here??) this stellar symbol gets activated by placing either nine dragons or nine phoenixes in gold somewhere in the center arena of your living area. Middle of the house, heart of the home, nine dragons or golden phoenixes.

While we're at it, the Favorable Heaven Star (I think these names make my job soooo much easier...self explanatory energies are so much more my speed!) is also called The Favorable White Star and sits in the SW of the home. Placing an image of the 8 Immortals (google images kids) here brings unexpected and excellent ohh la la surprises. Brings authority to the asker and power to the person putting it in their SW of their space.

Tomorrow, more of the lucky little flying twinklers and one of two pieces of advice about what to do with the troublemakers of 2009!

GUNG HOY FAT CHOY my friends!