The human body needs but cannot make two forms of “essential fatty acid” called omega-3 and omega-6. The modern American diet generally provides enough omega-6 but is quite lacking in omega-3. Omega-3 is only synthesized by certain plants (eg. flax, walnuts and certain forms of algae). Historically humans got their omega-3 by directly eating those plants or by eating fish or game animals which ate them. In modern times, however, farmed fish and animals have been fed diets based on corn and grains rather than grasses or algae and therefore have much lower levels of omega-3.

The omega-3 fatty acids are critical for proper membrane functioning and are especially important for the neuronal membranes in the brain. Studies have shown connections to autism, memory loss in old age, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and learning disorders. It has also been shown to have a significant impact on immune function and arthritis. Other studies show impact on cancer, heart disease, and cholesterol:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-3_fatty_acid

The most recent study shows “a relatively large effect” in protecting against diabetes:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070925/hl_nm/diabetes_omega3_dc_2

There are a variety of omega-3 supplements and they are usually based on fish oil or flax seed oil. Unfortunately, in oil form omega-3 is extremely sensitive to both heat and light. The oils go rancid very easily and quickly and the breakdown products are bad for you. Conditions must be carefully controlled during manufacturing, shipping, and retail sale. Stores like Whole Foods have refrigerated cases for selling these oils and they are packaged in dark bottles. A brand I’ve been using and am happy with is “Udo’s oil”:

http://udoerasmus.com/products/oil_blend_en.htm

It has a somewhat nutty flavor which takes a bit of getting used to. Since starting to take it daily, I noticed an immediate effect on both my skin and immune system. His book is a worthwhile read as well:

Udo Erasmus, “Fats that Heal, Fats That Kill”

Copyright 2007 Stephen M. Omohundro

I recently heard a story about a famous research scientist
who had made several very important medical breakthroughs.
He was being interviewed by a newspaper reporter who asked him
why he thought he was able to be so much more creative than the average person.
What set him so far apart from others?

He responded that, in his opinion, it all came from an experience with his mother
which occurred when he was about two years old.
He had been trying to remove a bottle of milk from the refrigerator,
when he lost his grip on the slippery bottle and it fell,
spilling its contents all over the kitchen floor, a veritable sea of milk!

When his mother came into the kitchen,
instead of yelling at him, giving him a lecture, or punishing him, she said,
“Robert, what a great and wonderful mess you have made!
I have rarely seen such a huge puddle of milk.
Well, the damage has already been done.
Would you like to get down and play in the milk for a few minutes
before we clean it up?”

Indeed, he did. After a few minutes his mother said,
“You know, Robert, whenever you make a mess like this,
eventually you have to clean it up, and restore everything to its proper order.
So, how would you like to do that?
We could use a sponge, a towel or a mop. What do you prefer?”
He chose the sponge and together they cleaned up the spilled milk.

His mother then said,
“You know what we have here is a failed experiment
in how to effectively carry a big milk bottle with two tiny hands.
Let’s go out in the back yard and fill the bottle with water and see if you can discover
a way to carry it without dropping it.”
The little boy learned that
if he grasped the bottle at the top near the lip with both hands,
he could carry it without dropping it.
What a wonderful lesson!

This renowned scientist then remarked that
it was at that moment that he knew that
he didn’t need to be afraid to make mistakes.
Instead he learned that mistakes were just opportunities for learning something new,
which is, after all, what scientific experiments are all about.
They are simply that - just experiments to see what happens.
Even if the experiment doesn’t work, we usually learn something valuable from it.

from Remember You Are Raising Children, Not Flowers! by Jack Canfield

Flow, however, doesn’t have shortcuts.
When I was an undergraduate one of my teachers, Julian Jaynes, …
was given a South American lizard as a laboratory pet,
and the problem about the lizard was that
no one could figure out what it ate,
so the lizard was dying.

Julian killed flies, and the lizard wouldn’t eat them;
blended mangos and papayas, the lizard wouldn’t eat them;
Chinese take-out, the lizard had no interest.
One day Julian came in and the lizard was in torpor,
lying in the corner.
He offered the lizard his lunch,
but the lizard had no interest in ham on rye.

He read the New York Times and he put the first section down
on top of the ham on rye.
The lizard took one look at this configuration,
got up on its hind legs, stalked across the room,
leapt up on the table, shredded the New York Times,
and ate the ham sandwich.

The moral is that lizards don’t copulate and don’t eat
unless they go through the lizardly strengths and virtues first.
They have to hunt, kill, shred, and stalk.
And while we’re a lot more complex than lizards,
we have to as well.
There are no shortcuts for us to reach flow.
We have to indulge in our highest strengths in
order to get eudaemonia.

from “Eudaemonia, The Good Life” by Martin Seligman

Tell me,

what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver from The Summer Day

In the heaven of the great god Indra

is said to be a vast and shimmering net,
finer than a spider’s web,
stretching to the outermost reaches of space.
Strung at each intersection of its diaphanous threads
is a reflecting pearl.
In the glistening surface of each pearl
are reflected all the other pearls,
even those in the furthest corners of the heavens.
In each reflection,
again are reflected all the infinitely many other pearls,
so that by this process,
reflections of reflections continue without end.

from Indra’s Pearls by David Mumford, et. al.

Sometimes I go about pitying myself,
and all along
my soul is being blown by great winds across the sky.

Ojibway saying

Begin doing what you want to do now.
We are not living in eternity.
We have only this moment
sparkling like a star in our hand
and melting like a snowflake.

Marie Beynon Ray

By leaning just beyond your fear,
you challenge your limits compassionately,
without trying to escape the feeling of fear itself.
You step beyond the solid ground of security with an open heart.
You stand in the space of unknowingness, raw and awake.
Here, the gravity of deep being will attend you
to the only place where fear is obsolete:
the eternal free fall of home.
Where you always are.

Own your fear,
and lean just beyond it.
In every aspect of your life.
Starting now.

David Deida in The Way of the Superior Man

What is true is already so.
Owning up to it doesn’t make it worse.
Not being open about it doesn’t make it go away.
And because it’s true, it is what is there to be interacted with.
Anything untrue isn’t there to be lived.
People can stand what is true,
for they are already enduring it.

Eugene Gendlin

What is split off, not felt, remains the same.
When it is felt, it changes.
Most people don’t know this!
They think that by not permitting
the feeling of their negative ways
they make themselves good.
On the contrary, that keeps these negatives static,
the same from year to year.
A few moments of feeling it in your body
allows it to change.
If there is in you something bad or sick or unsound,
let it inwardly be and breathe.
That’s the only way it can evolve and change
into the form it needs.

Eugene Gendlin

A path is only a path,
and there is no affront, to oneself or to others,
in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you.
Look at every path closely and deliberately.
Try it as many times as you think necessary.
Then ask yourself, and yourself alone,
one question - Does this path have a heart?
If it does, the path is good;
if it doesn’t it is of no use.

Carlos Castaneda in The Teachings of Don Juan

Though we may never see precisely how
the protean dancing stuff of
everything endlessly becomes itself,
we have no choice,
being human and full of desire,
but to go on perpetually seeking clarity of vision.
The ultimate form within forms,
the final shape of change may elude us.
The pursuit of the idea of form -
even the form of force,
of endlessly interacting process -
is man’s inevitable, crucial need.

John Unterecker

When you are inspired by some great purpose,
some extraordinary project,
all of your thoughts break their bonds.
Your mind transcends limitations.
Your consciousness expands in every direction.
You find yourself in a new and great and wonderful world.
Dormant forces, faculties, and talents come alive,
and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far
than you ever dreamed yourself to be.

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, 200 B.C.E.

To this day, I remain convinced of this basic philosophy:
no matter what quandaries we face -
business problems, health issues, relationship difficulties,
as well as the great scientific, social, and cultural challenges of our time -
there is an idea that can enable us to prevail.
Furthermore, we can find that idea.
And when we find it, we need to implement it.
My life has been shaped by this imperative.
The power of an idea - this is itself an idea.

from The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil

This is the true joy in life,
the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one;
the being a force of nature
instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances
complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community
and as long as I live,
it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die,
for the harder I work, the more I live.
I rejoice in life for its own sake.
Life is no brief candle to me.
It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment,
and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible
before handing it on to future generations.

from Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening,
that is translated through you into action,
and because there is only one of you in all of time,
this expression is unique.
And if you block it,
it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost.
The world will not have it.

It is not your business to determine how good it is,
nor how valuable,
nor how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly,
to keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.
You have to keep open and aware directly
to the urges that motivate you.

Keep the channel open.

from Dance to the Piper and Promenade Home quoting Martha Graham

I can’t make every minute holy.

I don’t want to stand before you

like a thing, shrewd, secretive.

I want my own will, and I want

simply to be with my will,

as it goes toward action.

And in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times,

when something is coming near,

I want to be with those who know

secret things or else alone.

I want to unfold.

I don’t want to be folded anywhere,

because where I am folded,

there I am a lie.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Willing to experience aloneness,

I discover connection everywhere;

Turning to face my fear,

I meet the warrior who lives within;

Opening to my loss,

I gain the embrace of the universe;

Surrendering into emptiness,

I find fullness without end.

Jennifer Welwood

We have come to be danced

Not the pretty dance

Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance

But the claw our way back into the belly

Of the sacred, sensual animal dance

The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance

The holding the precious moment in the palms

Of our hands and feet dance.

We have come to be danced

Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance

But the wring the sadness from our skin dance

The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.

The slap the apology from our posture dance.

We have come to be danced

Not the monkey see, monkey do dance

One two dance like you

One two three, dance like me dance

but the grave robber, tomb stalker

Tearing scabs and scars open dance

The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.

We have come to be danced

Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle

But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama

Shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance

The strip us from our casings, return our wings

Sharpen our claws and tongues dance

The shed dead cells and slip into

The luminous skin of love dance.

We have come to be danced

Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance

But the meeting of the trinity, the body breath and beat dance

The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance

The mother may I?

Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance

The olly olly oxen free free free dance

The everyone can come to our heaven dance.

We have come to be danced

Where the kingdom’s collide

In the cathedral of flesh

To burn back into the light

To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray

To root in skin sanctuary

We have come to be danced

We have come.

by Jewel Mathieson

I’ve burned my own house down,
the torch is in my hand.
Now I’ll burn down the house of anyone
who wants to follow me.

Kabir