Hello Everybody!
We're returning to doing a plain text newsletter again. Takes up less space in our email inboxes and people who have trouble getting email with pictures and fancy text will still be able to read the mail they get from us. But we do so love those pretty pictures so if you'd like to keep seeing Paul's great photography and the occasional artwork from Sheryl please read our newsletter online! It's at http://www.healingcommunicationnews.blogspot.com/. Older archived newsletters can be found there as well.
Paul wrote a nice article this month but first we have a few announcements:
First, we have a gift to offer those of you who would like to do ongoing spiritual counseling and healing work with us over time. We've lowered the bottom of our sliding scale to work with both us back down to $100 / hour. Don't hesitate to drop lower on the scale than you have been paying us if it makes ongoing work more accessible to you.
Also, there are a couple of new videos online at Sheryl's Mama Love Perfume site. Last month she did a talk called "Flower Essences as a Tool for Personal and Spiritual Growth" at Way of Life in Capitola. Paul brought the video camera and, even though we ran out of batteries twice and Sheryl didn't look at the camera once, it's still a great introduction to flower essence therapy. You can watch her talk about Dr. Bach and some theories about the scientific basis of this work at http://www.healingcommunication.com/mamaloveproducts/FESciencevideo.html . She talks about spiritual archetypes found in the natural world and how ancient people determined what herbs to use for various complaints at http://www.healingcommunication.com/mamaloveproducts/archetypecorrelationsvideo.html .
Sheryl has been hard at work making new perfumes, just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas. She also has added 3-Perfume Gift sets and Reiki Bears. She'll tell you all about them later in the newsletter but, if you can't wait, take a look at http://www.healingcommunication.com/mamaloveproducts/mamaproducts.html . We also have new items at our Cafepress site (http://www.cafepress.com/paulnsheryl). Paul, in particular, has been uploading new photos like crazy (including a wild bobcat we ran into just yesterday on a hike at Wilder Ranch).
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WORLD TURNING
by Paul Hood
November, the time of year in Santa Cruz when it might rain, or you might want to spend a day at the beach getting a tan. Nonetheless it is Fall and Sheryl and I are trying to get our heads wrapped around that. Halloween is a secular holiday which seems to largely revolve around eating candy, especially if you’re a kid. Sheryl and I are kids.
Why do kids run around in costumes, usually “scary” costumes and all that? Without getting too deep into it, it’s a seasonal holiday that has to do with Winter being on the way. Winter being the scary season (historically) if you’re from a cold climate because you’re going to need enough food, fuel, warm clothing, a secure shelter and all that to make it through. Halloween is the harvest season, basically it’s the last harvest of the year. So generally we’re supposed to rejoice in the abundance of that harvest and “Laugh in the face of death.” That’s one interpretation. Other cultures have the “Day of the Dead”, and the Celts had Samhain (pronounced “Sowen”) which our Neo-Pagan friends have adopted along with other seasonal wheel of the year celebrations.
Most of our holidays have roots in seasonal change, Sheryl wrote a whole book about that called “The Solstice Evergreen” (http://www.healingcommunication.com/myproducts/solstice.html), all about the origins of the Christmas tree. We humans relate changes of the season metaphorically to changes that we go through personally. We adopt rituals in order to help ourselves through those changes. When the earth shakes, the leaves turn and the wind starts to blow cold we’re reminded that we’re more like the leaves than the wind.
A couple months from now and we’ll be in the middle of another “secular holiday”, or a deeply religious one depending on your point of view. There’s more than one holiday occurring in mid winter around the world. On the longest night we rejoice the coming of the sun. Seasonal holidays mark those transitions in our lives; honoring where we’ve been, where we are at right now, and where we may be going in the future. They may honor turning points in human evolution, too, if only by contrast to the past: Halloween is meaningless now, but we still like it because it appeals to a deep memory. Oh yeah, I forgot Thanksgiving. That’s all about eating a giant bird, football, and trying to stay awake until your relatives leave. In a techno-industrial society with mechanized food production, I generally look up the meaning of various Holidays on the internet, trying to get back to some sort of roots with some kind of meaning.
What needs to change then, in your life? What’s died but you haven’t buried the body yet? What's hung around this year like many other years, but now you know it’s time for it to go. . . anything? When you say goodbye do you do so with respect and thankfulness? How about forgiveness? At the same time we must allow for all things to come and go in their own time. Autumn leaves turn and fall when they’re ready. We don’t go ripping them off the trees for convenience sake. Those beautiful colors are the rainbow of change, and the loveliness of death.
Happy Halloween Everyone! Eat some pumpkin pie and get cozy with the reaper.
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And speaking of the dark time of the year, Sheryl has three new perfumes and they're all just perfect for the changing of the season:
The first one is called "Comfort and Joy" and, while it's named for a line in an old Christmas carol, it really invokes the kind of warmth we might like to have starting right now. It smells of cedarwood, citrus (bergamot) and cinnamon -- kind of like sipping hot cider by a blazing fire. And it has flower essences specially selected to help you lighten up, relax, and enjoy this special time of year.
The second one is especially designed for Christmas but it sure would be nice if we thought of it the whole year through. It's called "Peace and Goodwill" and it has Holly flower essence for a greater ability to give and receive love, Pine flower essence for self-forgiveness, and essential oils of Sandalwood, Frankincense and Myrrh for promoting feelings of safety and peace, revitalizing the spirit, and increased capacity for spiritual focus, meditation and prayer.
The third one really could be considered a formula for year-round use. It's a good antidote for depression and it's called "Renewed Faith and Optimism." It smells mostly of Rose, Bergamot and Cinnamon and contains flower essences selected to help one have the faith to carry on when things take longer than we expect. The darker emotions are like that. In the middle of the darkest night it's easy to forget that the sun always returns and new life is just around the bend.
You can find them all at http://www.healingcommunication.com/mamaloveproducts/mamaproducts.html .
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Would you like to join our effort to provide brand new Reiki Healing Bears to the Homeless Family Shelter in Santa Cruz?
The Homeless shelter has "New Toys" on their Wish List and Sheryl just got two huge cartons of teddy bears to infuse with Reiki. She plans to give away several of them and make the rest available for people to buy as gifts. You can buy one and have it delivered to the Shelter with a gift tag in your name or get one for yourself and send it wherever you like. Find out more at http://www.healingcommunication.com/mamaloveproducts/mamaproducts.html at the bottom of the page.
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Interested in a session? Send us an email or give us a call at (831) 325-4076.
